Expressions of Indigenous and Local Knowledge in Africa and its Diaspora

Book excerpt: Expressions of Indigenous and Local Knowledge in Africa and its Diaspora provides critical discourses on Africa and the various configurations of its reflections in folklore, literature, music, languages, and philosophy. The collection, through its selected works, focuses on the African continent in terms of preserving the unique identity of African Indigenous and Local Knowledge. In reality, this preservation effort is confronted by a number of challenges within today’s increasingly globalized and westernized world. This book documents ongoing scholarly discussion on the paradoxical dynamics of preserving this identity and consequently enhancing the relevance of African Indigenous and Local Knowledge. This volume articulates the representation of knowledge and values lodged in the diverse knowledge systems in Africa and its diaspora, and which are constantly expressed in local and global spaces. It highlights the prejudicial assessment of African Indigenous knowledge systems that has ensured that Western epistemological systems are internationally recognized and supported while African epistemological systems are denigrated, discouraged or simply ignored, even on the African continent. Given that the term expressions entails making something known or manifest, this edited collection is assembled to make known some of the elements of indigenous and local knowledge, as well as the practices that these elements necessitate both historically and contemporarily in the African situation.