Epistemologies of African Conflicts: Violence, Evolutionism, and the War in Sierra Leone by Zubairu Wai (review)

In Epistemologies of African Conflicts: Violence, Evolutionism, and the War in Sierra Leone, Zubairu Wai seeks to answer a perplexing question: does the way in which Africa is studied affect how it is understood and represented, and how does it influence conflict resolution mechanisms on the continent? This study challenges the scientific analyses and methodology used to study Africa, with particular reference to the war in Sierra Leone. Wai brings in historical and contemporary examples that illuminate how Africa has been represented as "the other," "greedy," "lawless," "violent," "primitive," "a place without history," "tribal," "different," "victim," and a place where emotion prevails over logic. Furthermore, argues Wai, Western government policies have been consistently shaped by these representations of Africa, which all Africanists, even the most well-meaning, have made. Wai notes that three perspectives have been used to represent the war in Sierra Leone. These are "the coming anarchy" or "new barbarism and ethnic hatred" (p. 3); "patrimonialism, political disorder, warlord politics, and state failure" (p. 4); and "greed and grievance" (p. 4). Wai explains his main purpose and rationale in writing this book as follows:

I want to raise anew questions about epistemology (i.e., the formal character of Africanist knowledge and the structures within which it is produced) and power (i.e., how power works to produce African subjectivities, define African realities, structure the frames within which they are interpreted, and shape attitudes toward the continent). I want to deal with questions that are typically ignored by the dominant and dominating perspectives on African conflicts and phenomena.

(p. 7)

The publication is divided into five chapters. In chapter one, Wai traces the development of the Africanist project and how it continues to influence the representation and study of Africa. Chapter two focuses specifically on the creation of the country we know as Sierra Leone, the violence that informed its foundation, the way the inhabitants were believed to be "destitute cannibals," and how from the beginning the indigenous people were treated as "the other" and "less than [human]." In chapter three, Wai introduces the reader to the war in Sierra Leone. In painstaking detail, the reader successively learns about the mistakes the government committed; the belief of some rebel groups that they have magic powers; the human-rights abuses; the political regimes that emerged as a result of the war; and the economic, political, and moral costs of the war. According to Wai, both Western and African experts and scholars depend on Western epistemological order to examine conflicts in Africa. Wai wonders what this interpretation means for African scholars, especially for those who have lived through the conflicts. His study is based on V. Y. Mudimbe's work interrogating the colonial library. His goal is to expand this questioning to the conflict in Sierra Leone. He begins by examining the evolution of the Africanist project. While accepting Mudimbe's definition of Africanism as "the power-knowledge regimes concerning Africa" (p. 9), Wai suggests that

Africanism presents a predicament: the communion between a will to truth and will to power that makes Africanism and its object of study possible is at the same time that which makes the knowing of Africa impossible within the disciplinary frames of Africanism, because Africanist knowledge is already implicated in the politics within which Africa is fashioned or reproduced.

(p. 13)

Wai does an excellent job of weaving together popular media presentations of Africa which highlight celebrity activities as they relate to the continent with scholarly sources. In so doing, he demonstrates how this representation continues to influence how Africa is studied and understood. He highlights the ideological influence that various sources have on rebel leaders. The reader is introduced to the everyday language that is used to mobilize supporters, as well as to the impact of music and media images on these rebels. Wai brings the conflict to life; he identifies the issues at...