Racial identity, Nationality and Post-colonial unrest in Africa

Africäs colonial history alongside the discursive ¿othering¿ of Africa makes postcolonial approaches relevant to African studies. However, the use of these postcolonial approaches can also produce contradictions and the tendency to over- romanticize pre-colonial structures and identities. What this article has shown is the importance of moving away from European-dominant frameworks and the need to value and affirm African histories, identities, and epistemologies. Despite these moves to deconstruct the orientalist discourses about Africa, Africa remains ¿entangled and trapped within the snares of the colonial matrix of power,¿ because colonial hegemony persists210This is evidenced especially by the adaptation of the neoliberal Africa rising rhetoric by various levels of African governments. This Africa rising, while it embraces the possibilities of a brighter future for Africa subscribe to the Western epistemological notion of progress. Yet, most attempts to operate outside the ¿episteme constructed by the West¿ 211are accused of essentialism and reproducing colonial binaries. It remains unclear whether these forms of essentialisms and binaries are always negative.