John Ayotunde (Tunde) Isola Bewaji

This essay is in four parts. The first will explain, using the issue of epistemicide, how Africana intellectual history, knowledge systems and heritage have suffered deliberate, concerted, and continuous destruction in the hands of Euro-American and Arabian gnosis, adventurism, racism and religious traducing. The second examines the concept of identity to show how the truncated Africana present emerged from an identity that was not a conscious choice and shows how the contemporary Africana predicament issues from how Africana societies accept a choice that was not natural as a tool for negotiating an existence. The third enunciates the nature of Africana/black identity crises as predictable consequence of the trajectories of the invention of Africa and the historio-genesis of the construction of blackness. The final provides alternative pathways for Africana humanity.

This book presents to students, researchers and policy makers in the areas of media and communications, especially journalism, film and regulatory bodies, up to date material for the professional. It discusses in detail the theoretical and practical foundations and tools required for success, and it brings to light ethical challenges which the world of media, communications and policy formulation face at various points. This is an invaluable resource material for readers and researchers in this field.

Identity Re-creation in Global African Encounters explores race, racial politics, and racial transformation in the context of Africa’s encounters with non-African communities through various perspectives including oppression, racialization of ethnic difference, and identity deconstruction. While the contributors recognize that ethnicity has long been a staple analytical category of engagements between African and non-African communities, they present a holistic view of the continent and its diaspora through race outside of both colonial and neocolonial binaries, allowing for a more nuanced study of Africa and its diaspora.

What follows is a discussion, in three parts, of the African concept of ubuntu and related issues. In the first part of the discussion J.A.I. Bewaji assesses an essay by W.M.J. van Binsbergen on Ubuntu and the Globalisation of Southern African Thought and Society (2001). In the second part Bewaji reviews M.B. Ramose's African Philosophy through Ubuntu (2002). And in the third part Ramose responds to both Bewaji and Van Binsbergen. Although Ramose disagrees with some of Bewaji's comments and interpretations – especially with regard to the thesis on which ubuntu is, according to the former, founded (i.e. “that ontology proper is a rheology”) – both Bewaji and Ramose agree that Van Binsbergen's critique of ubuntu philosophy, and specifically of Ramose's explication thereof, is untenable. S. Afr. J. Philos. Vol.22(4) 2003: 378-414.

This essay examines the concept of "truth" from empiricist and pragmatist perspectives. This not without reference to other theories. The concern is to see how the ascendancy of pragmatism has affected humanity and may continue to affect humanity, the so-called objectivity in the practice of science and philosophy and the relationships between the diverse peoples of the world. An analysis of the pragmatist's preference for usefulness, rather than truth, it is argued, accounts for the deleterious consequences of pragmatism for humankind in its almost irrational substitution of usefulness for truth.

Narratives of Struggle: The Philosophy and Politics of Development is made up of a series of critical and reflective essays aimed at facilitating the understanding and appreciation of the causative, sustaining and perpetuating factors responsible for the continuing underdevelopment of Africa. In this book, the author attempts to present a narrative of the struggles which African and African Diaspora societies have encountered in the process of emergence from colonialism and plantation society toward statehood, with all the challenges that assail the efforts they have to make toward social, economic, political and cultural development. This book adopts a unique perspective on the issues associated with development, incorporating philosophical, reflective, hermeneutic, even phenomenological interpretation and discussion of diverse data and literature, to enunciate a critically reflective interpretation, analysis and handling of issue and problems. A few of the questions Narratives of Struggle raises are: What constitutes development? Does quality of life improve or suffer with increased access to material resources? This book is part of the African World Series, edited by Toyin Falola, Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities, University of Texas at Austin.