The Social Science Area Studies Controversy from the Continental African Standpoint

From the point of view of African social scientists working in Africa, one-fourth of whom are probably based in Nigeria, the raging controversy over whether to integrate Area Studies into wider International Studies programs, under an overarching paradigm, is not a priority. Times in the African academe are hard. With the exception of South Africa and a few states around it, such as Namibia, Botswana, and Lesotho, real wages were consistently falling before and after economic liberalization policies were introduced in the late 1980s. Academics have ingeniously responded to falling personal incomes by running taxis, taking on second jobs, farming (sometimes on campus), and undertaking consultancy research for local and international organizations. Others have migrated or changed careers. Strikes by students and faculty have led to the periodic closures of campuses and to police intervention in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Niger, and Zimbabwe. Worse, some African academics have changed sides and now openly support the state and the police in undertaking draconian actions against their erstwhile colleagues. At the opposite extreme from the hope now evident in southern Africa, universities in Liberia (Cottington University), Somalia (the National University), and Sierra Leone (the Njala campus) have been gutted and looted in the heat of civil war. Yet as the older, state-established campuses wither, locally initiated new ones have begun to blossom in East Kasai (Zaire), and churches have founded a string of new colleges in Kenya, Zimbabwe, and elsewhere. Therefore, institutional structures of higher learning and social science research in Africa, like those in the political