Africa Development, Vol. XXXIII, No. 1, 2008, pp. 25–39
© Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, 2008
(ISSN 0850-3907)
*   Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER), University of
Identity and Knowledge Production
in the Fourth Generation
Nana Akua Anyidoho*
Abstract
This paper examines the linked themes of identity and knowledge production
embedded within the concept of insider scholarship. Insider scholarship may be
described as the production of knowledge by a scholar about a group with
which s/he identifies as a member. We are immediately compelled to complicate
this definition by asking how any such group is delineated and how member-
ship therein shapes knowledge production. The idea of insider scholarship thus
evokes a series of queries about who produces what knowledge, about whom
and for whom. The paper makes the argument that the discussion on insider
scholarship has gained renewed relevance. In an effort to reclaim representa-
tions of Africa and Africans, earlier generations of African scholars might some-
times have based scholarly legitimacy on idealisations of race, culture and terri-
tory. From that historical point, we appear to be in a moment when notions of
‘cosmopolitanism’ and ‘universalism’ make nonsense of any attempt to ground
scholarship in complex and shifting identities. As the fourth generation of scholars
comes into its own, one of its defining tasks will be to negotiate this contested
terrain. This paper represents such an attempt. It argues that the concept of
insider scholarship cannot simply be discarded as irrelevant. To do so would
constitute an ill-advised neglect or woeful ignorance of the politics of represen-
tation about Africa, and of the power differentials in different spaces within the
field of African Studies. However, there are multiple grounds for claiming
‘insiderness’, and defining it by narrow parameters is unhelpful, if not damaging
to any sense of common purpose. In light of this, I present ‘shared struggle’ as
a strategic basis for reconstituting the theoretical value and the viable practice
of insider scholarship. I conclude the paper by examining the implication of this
conceptual shift.
Résumé
Cet article examine les thèmes liés de l’identité et de la production de
connaissances ancrés dans le concept de savoir d’initié. Le savoir d’initié peut
être décrit comme la production de connaissances par un chercheur sur un
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26 Africa Development, Vol. XXXIII, No. 1, 2008
groupe auquel il/elle s’identifie comme membre. Nous sommes immédiatement
obligés de rendre complexe cette définition en nous demandant comment un tel
groupe est déterminé et comment l’adhésion à ce groupe influence la production
de connaissances. L’idée de savoir d’initié évoque ainsi une série de questions
sur celui qui produit quel type de connaissance, sur qui et pour qui. L’article
soutient que le débat sur le savoir d’initié a gagné une pertinence renouvelée. Les
premières générations de chercheurs africains, dans un effort de reprise des
représentations de l’Afrique et des Africains, auraient parfois fondée la légitimité
intellectuelle sur des idéalisations de race, de culture et de territoire. De ce point
historique, nous semblons vivre une période où les notions de «cosmopolitisme»
et d’«universalisme » rendent absurde toute tentative de fonder le savoir sur des
identités complexes et changeantes. Pendant que la quatrième génération de
chercheurs se dessine, une des tâches visant à la définir sera de négocier ce
terrain contesté. Cet article est une tentative dans cette perspective. Il soutient
que la notion de savoir d’initié ne peut pas simplement être considérée comme
impertinente. Le faire constituerait une négligence inconsidérée ou une ignorance
déplorable des politiques de représentation de l’Afrique, ainsi que des rapports
de pouvoir qui régissent les différents espaces des Etudes africaines. Toutefois,
il existe plusieurs raisons de demander une «initiation», et définir celle-ci par des
paramètres étroits est inutile, voire préjudiciable à toute notion de but commun.
Par conséquent, je présente la «lutte partagée» comme une base stratégique pour
la reconstitution de la valeur théorique et la pratique viable du savoir d’initié. Je
conclus cet article en examinant les implications de ce changement conceptuel.
Introduction
This paper asks the question, ‘What is African in African Studies’ or, phrased
differently, ‘where is the African in the study of Africa?’ What is the link—
or should there be a link? Between location and scholarship, between be-
longing and knowledge production, between identity and representation? This
question, long a subject, sometimes a subtext, of debate, is not one we can
afford to dismiss as we look back over the state of knowledge production
about Africa, in order that we may chart new courses.
Why are identity and knowledge production issues for a new generation
of African scholars? It is not because they are novel concerns, but precisely
because they are perpetual challenges that require every generation to offer
responses peculiar to its circumstances. Let me refer to an incident at a
CODESRIA Symposium on Canonical Works and Continuing Innovation in
the African Arts and Humanities held in Accra in 2003 to make the point. A
paper had just been presented on the politics of representation of Africa in
US academia. Another participant quickly stood up to question the relevance
of what goes on in the US to scholarship produced on and about the conti-
nent, suggesting clearly that this was a preoccupation that we (as African
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27Anyidoho: Identity and Knowledge Production in the Fourth Generation
scholars) could well do without. Without placing too much of a burden of
proof on this incident, it did serve as a powerful reminder of the generational
standpoints that Mkandawire (1995) refers to in his typology of African
scholar(ship).
The author of the paper whose relevance was called into question was a
younger scholar working in the US. For him, these issues of representation
in US academia arguably had personal and immediate resonance. The ques-
tioner was an older colleague based on the continent. The latter had the
profile of a member of the third generation whom Mkandawire describes as
primarily homegrown, and who lack the impulse of the immediate predeces-
sors generation to ‘speak back’, or to defend its scholarship to non-African
arbiters. It may be that the older scholar’s comment was an expression of a
generational orientation. In the same way, the paper presenter may have
been attempting to map out the terrain for the scholarship of his generation.
The concerns raised by his paper, while of varying personal interest to his
audience, do reflect the general truth that scholarly work about Africa is
impacted, as well, by factors ‘extraneous’ to the continent, and even more
so in an increasingly globalized era. The intimate nature of today’s society
demands attention to events on one end of the world that may have a ripple
effect on the other end. The events of the past few years alone have proven
that we cannot afford to think of ‘the global village’ as merely a cliché.
Again, as bilateral and multilateral agencies move away from obviously coer-
cive modes of Structural Adjustment to more subtle, but perhaps even more
effective control strategies, the local becomes integrated perforce into the
global. Alongside these trends are theoretical perspectives that laud the fu-
sion of ideas and cultures. It is imperative that we maintain an awareness of
the confluence of political, social, economic and ideological forces that in-
fluences our scholarship.
How, then, do we take account of and draw on the ‘global’ to re-envision
an African Studies that is firmly situated in Africa? The importance of this
question is highlighted by my very use of the term ‘African Studies’. This
paper gives it the commonsense meaning of the gamut of intellectual pro-
duction about Africa. However, the label has taken on a peculiar slant, denot-
ing an area of knowledge in Western educational institutions removed from
the ‘mainstream’, and housed in specific programmes (see Murunga in this
volume). By contrast, there are few programmes or research centres on the
continent that bear the nomenclature ‘African Studies’, except perhaps in
South Africa and a few selected countries. In fact, one could argue that
much of the knowledge produced in African academic institutions falls into
African Studies by virtue of content and standpoint. Yet it appears power is
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28 Africa Development, Vol. XXXIII, No. 1, 2008
located elsewhere and determines the nature of available knowledge about
the continent. This ultimately influences the way that Africa is engaged by
the global community.1 It is in the context of this reality that I introduce the
idea of insider scholarship as a way of balancing locations of power in Afri-
can Studies.
From Where Do We Speak? Questions of Location
and Positionality
Insider research can be understood as the practice of research within a
group with which one self-identifies as a member. This definition, however,
belies the many meanings that are brought to bear on the term, and the
contestations around who belongs to what group.
The idea of identity at the heart of this article references the related con-
cepts of location and positionality. Positionality refers to the identities of the
researcher in relation to the ‘researched’ (Wolf 1996). In other words,
positionality indicates contextualised and relational locations such as nation-
ality, ethnicity, race, class, education, religion, family affiliation, ideological
leanings, epistemological perspectives and philosophical orientations.
Positionality is contextual because it takes account of the circumstances in
which knowledge is produced, and relational because it concerns both the
subjectivity of the researcher and the subjectivities of others.2
Positionality is an important concept because it has implications for the
nature of knowledge produced, and how that knowledge is received. This is
a truth that has been painfully self-evident in writing about Africa. Position-
ing themselves as missionaries or administrators, non-Africans made repre-
sentations about Africans from self-declared locations of authority. Those
representations were validated by non-African audiences (and even by Afri-
can readers privy to these works) because they came supposedly from ‘en-
lightened’ sources speaking on behalf of those incapable of speaking for
themselves. One reaction of African scholars to this untenable state of af-
fairs was to claim that we could produce similarly ‘worthwhile’ scholarship
despite the fact that we were Africans. A second response was the attempt
to reclaim representations of ourselves by asserting that our scholarship was
legitimate precisely because we were African. It is this second rationale that
has buttressed the practice of insider scholarship.
Unpacking ‘Insider Scholarship’
Insider scholarship has been around for a long time under many names:
indigenous ethnography, auto-ethnography, insider research, native research,
endogenous research, research competence by blood, introspective research,
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29Anyidoho: Identity and Knowledge Production in the Fourth Generation
etc., (cf. Messerschmidt 1981; Reed-Danahay 1997). It is noteworthy that
many of these designations come from the field of anthropology, which has
been in the eye of the conceptual storm around insider scholarship. Anthro-
pology has been marked conventionally by its study of ‘Other’ cultures.
What happens then when the anthropological gaze is turned inwards, when
the other becomes the researcher or, in Kenyatta’s words, when a rabbit
turns poacher? (Kenyatta 1992 [1938]: xviii). The blurring of the lines be-
tween researcher and subject has led to much angst in anthropology, and has
resulted in wider interdisciplinary discussions. The field of African Studies
has been powerfully impacted by this debate because of the importance of
anthropology as a foundational discipline in African Studies programmes.
Insider scholarship is not a new practice, therefore. What has changed
are the terms of the debate. When, in 1981, the anthropologist John Aguilar
made his well-cited contribution to a book on the subject of insider research,
he acknowledged the near-crisis point to which the increased incidence of
insider research had brought his discipline. Aguilar attempted to take stock
of this trend, presenting a painstaking tally of the relative merits and demerits
of ‘outsider’ and ‘insider’ research. The essential criterion was how each
‘method’ could help or hinder objective, unbiased, scientific research. Aguilar
concluded his lengthy examination with a few paragraphs querying the no-
tion of an absolute insider or outsider. By contrast, there is now increased
emphasis on the epistemological and political dimensions of insider research,
rather than on methods and technique. To illustrate, a relatively more recent
set of essays on auto-ethnography (Reed-Danahay 1997) speaks extensively
regarding the difficulty of defining national, ethnic, racial or geographic
memberships, and thoughtfully explores the impact of complex and dynamic
identities on scholarly activity.
A major catalyst for insider scholarship is the general disaffection with
positivism. A corresponding embrace of subjectivity opens up representation
to interrogation. The point has been increasingly brought home that, to an
extent, all representations are interpretations. We can no longer assume that
one person, using ‘scientific’ methods, can get at the ‘Truth’. What we
have, rather, are versions of truths told from different viewpoints or posi-
tions.
The theoretical development that problematises representations as a func-
tion of identity is powerful because it immediately creates space for multiple
representations. Feminists and post-colonialists, for instance, can juxtapose
old representations with new ones from the margins (Gandhi 1998). In this
way, insider scholarship can be used strategically as a tool to counter colo-
nising representations of non-Western subjects (Narayan 1997), which are
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30 Africa Development, Vol. XXXIII, No. 1, 2008
often the basis for political and economic exploitation. Research by ‘na-
tives’, ‘indigenes’ and former ‘Others’ is thus situated within the larger socio-
political project of decolonisation and self-determination.
The contours of the theoretical and political move towards self-represen-
tation were traced out in the years when African nations were celebrating or
anticipating their release from the moorings of direct colonial domination;
the opportunity for self-definition—for a deliberate construction and dis-
semination of self-representations—was a giddy prospect. Identity became
an oft-visited site of analysis. The goal was to either fashion new identities,
or to reclaim pre-existing ones, to counteract the hegemonic presence of the
‘European’ image. One example, perhaps overused because of its salience,
is that of Negritude. While Negritude can be described in a number of ways,
fundamentally, it sought to affirm a distinctive African way of being that was
set up in opposition to the (perception) of the Europeans’. In other words,
the proponents of Negritude aimed to present a set of representations about
Africans created from an ‘authentic’ location.
For those who engage in this admittedly political project of self-represen-
tation, the aim is not to collect varied representations, but to replace ‘harm-
ful’ representations with more realistic, more ‘authentic’ accounts from the
‘inside’. And yet the very paradigm that makes room for different represen-
tations is at the same time an obstacle to this political end: If representation is
mere interpretation, as some would contend, then can one be more ‘right’,
more ‘true’ than another? And if there are no fixed identities, can one make
claim to an inviolable insider status as validation for one’s representations?
Critiques of Insider Scholarship
Over time, other orientations have emerged that proclaim that there is no
best location to produce knowledge; that rather there exist multiple, equally
viable locations. Ideological perspectives such as universalism,
cosmopolitanism and Créolité have been proposed as more useful and ac-
cessible metaphors for identity, and more encompassing of the contradic-
tions of contemporary life. These approaches do not attempt to tie Self to
race, ethnicity, language, or culture. Rather than opposing tradition to mo-
dernity, the urban to the rural, and the African to the European, ‘identity is
destabilised and de-essentialised and rendered heterogeneous, plural and un-
certain’ (Lewis 1998).3
From these and similar perspectives, the first objection to the idea of
insider scholarship is that it promotes a totalising conception of identity. A
related critique is that scholarship based on race, geography, nationality, eth-
nicity, gender, etc., is essentialist and essentialising. Thirdly, insider scholar-
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31Anyidoho: Identity and Knowledge Production in the Fourth Generation
ship is opposed on the grounds that it gives credence to the very Self-Other
distinctions that it tries to question. I will respond to these objections briefly
here, and then more fully in the next section where I argue for a rethinking
of insider scholarship.
The first point to be made is that there is a growing realisation that people
constantly negotiate various identities in the ordinary business of living. Con-
sequently the insider-outsider dichotomy is necessarily de-emphasised in
favour of an understanding that every researcher is simultaneously an in-
sider and an outsider in any research situation (Zavella 1996). The claim to
insider status must, therefore, be indexed for context to prevent it from
becoming totalising. It should be used as a marker of one’s location in a
carefully delineated research situation.
The second critique suggests that the very idea of formulating an insider
identity with respect to a societal, national, cultural or other grouping runs
the risk of essentialising that group. However, this is not necessarily prob-
lematic if we realise that all social categories we appeal to are essentialist in
that they are social and historical constructions (Fuss 1989). The real ques-
tion is not the nature of these categories but the ends to which they are put.
Fabien Eboussi Boulaga states that ‘race is not a logical or scientific prob-
lem, but a political problem in search of an absolute, metaphysical justifica-
tion’ (quoted in Mafeje 2000). We can add that geography, nationality, gen-
der, and ethnicity are similarly political, and can be selectively retained for
their political utility.
Finally, the charge that insider scholarship reinforces homogeneous stere-
otypes of the native, the indigene and the Other/Object (Lal 1996) is perhaps
the most damning for African scholars who would want to envisage their
work as a way of deconstructing colonial images of their people. A quick
dismissal of insider research on these grounds alone is either a facile denial
of differences in location, or a wilful ignorance of the politics of the produc-
tion and use of knowledge. If subscribing to an insider status is reminiscent
of colonial notions of Self and Other, it is because those distinctions do exist,
have been perpetuated, and would continue to operate even if African re-
searchers chose to ignore them. A more practical response to this political
reality is to strategically occupy those locations in order to reconstitute them.
It is important to point out that this debate about the value of insider
scholarship is not mere abstraction, or simply an opportunity to score aca-
demic points. It is fundamentally a political question, as Narayan (1997)
implies when she observes that discussions about identity and representation
can be wielded strategically either to empower or disempower scholarship.
Insider scholarship is most commonly associated with Western-dominated
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32 Africa Development, Vol. XXXIII, No. 1, 2008
academic spaces, into which the insider is allowed so that she may represent
her people to Western audiences. Such a strong link is assumed between the
scholar and ‘her’ grouping that she is seen as speaking for others, in which
case a specific national/cultural/ethnic/gendered identity may be highlighted
to give the greatest credence to her representations.4 In such an instance, the
question is not how good her representations are, but how good a repre-
sentative she is judged to be by her audience (Narayan 1997).
In a paradoxical manner, the insider is at one and the same time privileged
as the voice of many others and marginalised by having her scholarship
constrained to the local and the specific. Some African scholars may revel in
the status of the resident Insider, while others resist the label, repudiating all
ties to any one group so they may speak more ‘universal’ truths. Under these
circumstances, the critiques of insider scholarship appear to have merit:
Insider scholarship does indeed become totalising, essentialist and stereotypical
in assuming a unitary location for the scholar, and in encouraging uni-dimen-
sional representations of a people. It is my argument that the theory and
practice of insider scholarship can be redeemed from such unfavourable
associations.
Re-centring Insider Scholarship
The common charges levelled against insider scholarship are based on as-
sumptions about audience, about the purpose of scholarship, and about lo-
cations of power. I propose a redefinition of insider scholarship that takes
into account these elements of audience, purpose and power.
Insider scholarship has often been preoccupied with re-representing ‘in-
siders’ to ‘outsiders’. One definition of insider scholarship has it as:
a text in which people undertake to describe themselves in ways that engage
with representations others have made of them ... [T]hey involve a selective
collaboration with and appropriation of idioms of the metropolis or con-
queror. These are merged or infiltrated to varying degrees with indigenous
idioms to create self-representations intended to intervene in metropolitan
modes of understanding (Pratt 1994: 28, quoted in Reed-Danahay 1997: 7-8,
emphasis mine).
The political aspect of insider scholarship is clearly acknowledged in the
above statement. However, the single-minded goal Pratt advocates of ‘infil-
trating’ or injecting our ideas into the ‘metropolis’ only endorses the domi-
nance of that which it seeks to topple. I find such scholarship inconsistent
with the political end of self-representation. I am advocating an adjustment
in perspective so that insider scholarship is not used principally to indicate
one’s relationship to supposedly more powerful Western audiences.
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33Anyidoho: Identity and Knowledge Production in the Fourth Generation
In the task of orienting itself to better negotiate a new era, the fourth
generation has to balance the respective outward and inward orientations of
the second and third generations (Mkandawire 1995). Our ambition cannot
be merely to speak (back) to an outside audience. Insider scholarship should
be local scholarship in terms of its reference points. The local should be the
focus of our scholarship—as its audience, its primary beneficiaries, and its
agenda setters. In this way, we gradually move power back to the centre.
On the other hand, centring African Studies on Africa and Africans does not
mean a neglect of the global currents of ideas, or of the imbalance of power.
The move to the centre is a crucial starting point [see also Mwangola’s
emphasis on moving from the periphery to the centre in this volume]. A
necessary and complementary move is from the centre outward.
‘Shared Struggle’ as a Basis for Insider Scholarship
I offer the idea of shared struggle as a means of realising the potential of
insider scholarship while avoiding its pitfalls. ‘Situated knowledge’ is a use-
ful foundational concept, in that it acknowledges differentiated locations,
and affirms these locations as starting points for the production of knowl-
edge. From the foregoing, the question of where you stand is important,
because every research project, and indeed all scholarship, has its basis in
the personal.5 Locations are, however, mobile because each person inhabits
multiple locations within and across time. To avoid an identity trap, the ques-
tion of what you stand for should be as important as where you stand. In
this way, a discursive space can be created for ‘an imagined community of
... intellectuals that rise above national, racial, and gendered boundaries in
the articulation of politically responsible representations’ (Lal 1996: 200).
Mohanty similarly appeals to the notion of imagined communities of resist-
ance, proposing that
it is not colour or sex which constructs the grounds for these struggles.
Rather it is the way we think about race, class and gender—the political links
we choose to make among and between struggles. Thus, potentially, [schol-
ars] of all colours ... can align themselves with and participate in these imag-
ined communities. However, clearly our relation and centrality in particu-
lar struggles depend on our different ... locations and histories [Mohanty
1991: 4, emphasis mine].
The last sentence, without prejudice to what precedes it, does imply that the
ability to be engaged in a particular struggle—and even our understanding of
what the struggle is about—is influenced by experiences of gender, class,
geography, class, race, etc. As Mkandawire advises, while one would want
to encourage mutual respect and a sense of ‘a community of scholars work-
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34 Africa Development, Vol. XXXIII, No. 1, 2008
ing on Africa’, the power relations underlying knowledge production about
Africa continue to keep African scholarship and African scholars outside of
the centre. Mkandawire proposes that by ‘sheer numbers, existential interest
and proximity to the reality, African scholars will play an important role in
the generation of knowledge about Africa’ (1997: 35). I suggest that an
‘existential’ interest connotes lived experience which, while not synonymous
with ‘biology or physical location’ (Asante 1997), frequently correlates with
such demographic characteristics. It is difficult for someone with an exis-
tential interest in the continent to give up on African Studies (and, I suppose,
on Africans) as one Africanist scholar famously declared he has done.6 Exis-
tential interest, or lived reality, is likely to inform a commitment to a certain
kind of scholarship: ‘Because we are all, researchers and subjects, the prod-
ucts of our history and culture, an experience of social and political exclu-
sion is likely to shape more critical thinking and writing about such experi-
ences in the collective, structural domain’ (Motzafi-Haller 1997: 217).
In sum, while a particular background may make certain types of schol-
arship more likely, there is a level of choice. It is not the mere fact of ‘native’
birth that is important, but rather the connection we make between our ex-
periences and our research. In other words, the idea of shared struggle
respects nationality, geography, race, gender, etc., but does not make these
labels the sole basis on which scholarship is evaluated.
How Does all this Relate to the Practice of Scholarship?
To leave this discussion at a rhetorical level, without having it inform the
way we conduct our work as scholars, would be unhelpful. What I present
here are ideas that bear reflecting on, not as a one-time exercise, but as an
integral part of our scholarship over time. I call for greater self-reflexivity.
Collins (2002) maintains the need for the scholar—especially one who is
in a position of marginality—to map a personal epistemology for her work.
At various points in our careers, and for specific research ventures, we
should ask ourselves: ‘On what basis do I claim insider status?’ In my own
case, if I call myself an insider as I conduct research on low-income, rural
Ghanaian women, I am saying that my positionality within that defined con-
text, at that particular time, is that of someone who by lived experience and
by shared interests is a member of a delimited group. I am ‘claiming a genea-
logical, cultural and political set of experiences’ (Smith 1999: 12) that I con-
sider to be the basis of my research. But again, we have to allow that others
in the research context also define our positionality. Personally, I have to
recognise the ways in which I may be considered an outsider by the women
I do my research among; the ways in which they would highlight aspects of
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35Anyidoho: Identity and Knowledge Production in the Fourth Generation
my identity (such as education, urban residence, socioeconomic status) which
I choose to make secondary to my ‘genealogical, cultural and political’ loca-
tions. In other research contexts, there might be a differential emphasis placed
on each of these identities. It is the context that defines what being an insider
is, rather than some prior label, and it is important that we be attentive to
how the constant shift of positionality (that is, of identity in relation to loca-
tion) impacts our scholarship.
Again, scholarship based on shared struggle implies that research is po-
litical both in intent because it is value-driven, and in effect because repre-
sentations have consequences. It has often been said of African scholars
that we do not have the luxury of doing ‘mere’ academic research. I dare
say this is not a condition of African scholarship alone. It may be more
accurate to say that perhaps Africans, for the reasons discussed in this arti-
cle, need be more self-conscious about the fact that research is a political
exercise.
Finally, the idea of insider scholarship as shared struggle means that re-
search should be inclusive. It cannot be an imposition of one’s agenda on
others. The struggle itself, as I have stated, has to be a process of negotia-
tion.7 It is recognising that the presuppositions, the ideas, interests and val-
ues that we invariably enter into research with, may not be those of the
people with whom we do research. I am mindful of this in my own work
because of my presumption to speak on behalf of ‘my’ research partici-
pants. My research agenda is motivated by dissatisfaction with development
paradigms that are applied, sometimes indiscriminately, by our governments
and by international development agencies. I am wary of the harm they
cause when they do not take into account the context of people’s lives. My
research project is being carried out in the obvious hope that it will influence
policy making. Therein lies the danger. If the targets of these programmes
do not share my critical perspective, do I put down their non-participation in
my struggle as evidence of false-consciousness? Can I come out of the
research experience having taken on their struggle—even if their struggle
involves strengthening the very programmes I critique in my research? Since
insider research attempts to represent both the struggle and those involved in
it, it is representation both in the sense of speaking about and speaking for.
Alcoff cautions that ‘the practice of speaking for others is often born of a
desire for mastery, to privilege oneself as the one who more correctly under-
stands the truth about another’s situation’ (1991: 29). This is an indictment
we should avoid if we intend to engage in scholarship that affirms African
peoples as centres of power and knowledge. Self-reflexivity is always key.
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36 Africa Development, Vol. XXXIII, No. 1, 2008
Conclusion
I conclude this paper by reiterating the value of insider scholarship for a new
generation of scholars. The locations to which insiders lay claim do not
make them better scholars (Anyidoho 1983) or necessarily lead them to
present their conditions and those of others in a more reliable manner. A
badge of ‘insiderness’ cannot replace critical analysis or be a cloak of immu-
nity to having one’s representations challenged (Narayan 1997). However,
with self-reflexivity and with intentionality, insider scholarship can be an
important basis of knowledge production.
Acknowledgment
An earlier version of article appears as a chapter in Intellectuals and African
Development: Pretension and Resistance in African Politics (Zed Books,
2006). I am indebted to Mshai Mwangola, Ato Kwamena Onoma, David
Donkor, and Godwin Murunga for their investment in this article, through
challenge and encouragement.
Notes
1.  For a useful analysis of power dynamics in globalised academia, see David
Slater’s, ‘Challenging Western Visions of the Global: The Geo-Politics of Theory
and North-South Relations’, European Journal of Development Research,
Vol. 7,  no. 2, 1995, pp. 366-388.
2.   It is important to note that the identity of the scholar is informed not only by
her own self-identification but also by the identities imposed on her by the
circumstances of, and the people involved in, the process of knowledge
production. While acknowledging that one’s identities are not wholly self-
determined, for the purposes of this particular discussion I foreground that
aspect of positionality that is somewhat within the conscious decision-making
of the scholar.
3.   Lewis was speaking in specific reference to Créolité but the statement holds
true for similar orientations to the question of identity, that oppose what they
would perceive as the essentialisation of identity and, by extension, the
production of knowledge on such grounds.
4.  Alternatively, aspects of a researcher’s identity may be used to devalue her
work, as may happen when she is charged with not being an ‘authentic’
representative of ‘her’ people. De-authentication is equated with
‘westernisation’, which is evidenced by formal schooling, high socioeconomic
status, residence outside of one’s home country, etc. As Linda Smith (1999)
points out, this is a disingenuous practice by which our scholars are accused
of being disenfranchised and therefore incapable of relevant representations,
while the ‘indigenous’ people are dismissed for lacking the conversance with
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37Anyidoho: Identity and Knowledge Production in the Fourth Generation
the discourse of academia to speak for themselves. Who then can speak?
Smith asks.
5.  Much of what we identify as our research agendas derive from questions that
we have a personal interest in finding answers to, phenomena that fascinate
us, and points we want to prove. There is no such thing as disinterested
research.
6.   I received the text of Gavin Kitching’s ‘Why I gave up African Studies’ through
African Studies related listservs, where it was widely circulated. I understand
that he presented a version of the paper at the African Studies Conference in
Adelaide, Australia in 2000. As much controversy as this declaration stirred, it
should not have shocked those who have read Paul Tiyambe Zeleza brilliant
satire of an uncannily similar scenario in Manufacturing African Studies and
Crises. For further debate on Kitching’s papers, see African Studies Quarterly,
Vol. 7, no. 2 & 3, Fall 2003 at http://web.africa.ufl.edu/asq/index.htm
7.   I credit David Donkor with this insight.
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