V. Y. Mudimbe
The Africa the world knows was invented by Western explorers, missionaries and scholars – Africans must reclaim the power to define themselves.
Placement
Congolese philosopher and novelist: in “The Invention of Africa” he traced how a Western “colonial library” constructed Africa as an object of knowledge.
Key ideas
- The colonial library
- Gnosis
- Archaeology of African discourse
Influence
Influenced by 4
Claude Lévi-Strauss
influenced by
Mudimbe credited Lévi-Strauss’s structuralism with breaking evolutionist anthropology and opening a new reading of African systems of thought (The Invention of Africa, 1988). V. Y. Mudimbe, The Invention of Africa (1988); L’Odeur du père (1982)
Evidence: AI draft
Claude Lévi-Strauss › 1908–2009
Michel Foucault
influenced by
Mudimbe used Foucault’s archaeology of knowledge to ask how Africa became an object of Western discourse, its ‘colonial library’ (The Invention of Africa, 1988). V. Y. Mudimbe, The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge (1988); M. Foucault, L’Archéologie du savoir (1969)
Evidence: AI draft
Michel Foucault › 1926–1984
Fabien Eboussi Boulaga
influenced by
Mudimbe discussed Eboussi Boulaga’s critique of ethnophilosophy and of missionary Christianity in The Invention of Africa (1988) and commented on the reissue of Christianity without Fetishes (2002). V. Y. Mudimbe, The Invention of Africa (1988); F. Eboussi Boulaga, “Le Bantou problématique”, Présence Africaine 66 (1968); Christianity without Fetishes (1981; repr. 2002)
Evidence: AI draft
Fabien Eboussi Boulaga › 1934–2018
Paulin Hountondji
influenced by
Mudimbe discussed Hountondji’s critique of ethnophilosophy but held that this debate, too, remained within the Western order of knowledge (The Invention of Africa, 1988). V. Y. Mudimbe, The Invention of Africa (1988); P. J. Hountondji, Sur la « philosophie africaine » (1976)
Evidence: AI draft
Paulin Hountondji › 1942–2024
Influenced 1
Walter Mignolo
influenced
Mignolo’s “border gnosis” in Local Histories/Global Designs (2000) borrows the term gnosis from Mudimbe’s The Invention of Africa (1988), for knowledge produced from the colonial difference rather than within the Western order of knowledge. W. D. Mignolo, Local Histories/Global Designs (2000); V. Y. Mudimbe, The Invention of Africa (1988)
Evidence: AI draft
Walter Mignolo › b. 1941
Criticism
Criticizes 2
Placide Tempels
criticised
Mudimbe placed Tempels’ Bantu Philosophy in the ‘colonial library’, as part of a missionary project of conversion that describes Africans in Europe’s categories (The Invention of Africa, 1988). V. Y. Mudimbe, The Invention of Africa (1988)
Evidence: AI draft
Placide Tempels › 1906–1977
Cheikh Anta Diop
criticised
Mudimbe counted Diop’s work among the most extreme examples of an ideological process set in motion by African scholars against the colonial library (The Invention of Africa, 1988). V. Y. Mudimbe, The Invention of Africa (1988); C. A. Diop, Nations nègres et culture (1954)
Evidence: AI draft
Cheikh Anta Diop › 1923–1986
Works
An archaeology of the discourses – anthropology, missionary writing, African philosophy – through which Africa was made an object of knowledge.
Position
In “The Invention of Africa” Mudimbe used Foucault’s archaeology of knowledge to ask how Africa became an object of knowledge. Travellers, anthropologists and missionaries produced a “colonial library” of discourses in which Africa appeared as the primitive other of Europe. Tempels’ Bantu philosophy belonged to this conversion project, and even the debate about ethnophilosophy, Hountondji’s critique included, remained within Western categories. Against a narrow concept of philosophy he spoke of African gnosis: the many forms of knowledge in which Africans think. His question – how can Africans speak of themselves in concepts not made by Western discourse? – shaped postcolonial studies and later debates on African philosophy.
Life & context
Valentin-Yves Mudimbe was born in 1941 in Jadotville (today Likasi) in the Belgian Congo. He spent time as a novice in a Benedictine monastery, then studied at Lovanium University and earned a doctorate in Louvain in 1970. After teaching in Zaire he went into exile around 1980 and taught in the United States, at Haverford, Stanford and Duke. He also wrote novels and poetry. He died in 2025.
Further main works
- Between the Waters (Entre les eaux, 1973)
- The Smell of the Father (L’Odeur du père, 1982)
- The Idea of Africa (1994)
Appears in
- Journey ‘Who Decides What Counts as Knowledge?’ · Stop 7 of 9
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