The Image of Africa
- LAST REVIEWED: 25 October 2012
- LAST MODIFIED: 25 October 2012
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199846733-0026
- LAST REVIEWED: 25 October 2012
- LAST MODIFIED: 25 October 2012
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199846733-0026
Introduction
Since World War II, Westerners have become increasingly self-critical regarding their images of the world. Factors such as the Holocaust, the independence of countries in Africa and Asia, the American civil rights movement, the rise of modern anthropology, and new understandings of evolution and human biology have prompted examinations of how the West imagined other countries to be. For Africa, from ancient times on, Western images of Africa have reflected more the cultures of the West than those of Africa. Thus, for example, as the West became more interested in exploiting Africa through the slave trade and colonialism, Africa’s image in the West deteriorated. Moreover, as the West shifted from biblical to scientific understandings of the world, the West’s images of Africa also shifted, with increasingly biological and evolutionary (and thus racist) explanations for an African difference. Critical studies of the history of images of Africa continue to find new examples of ways images of Africa have shaped and justified Western self-perceptions. An increasing number of studies have also investigated the images of Africa that have emerged in popular culture in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Many such images overemphasize what are considered to be African problems and are thus defined as culturalist, because they focus on cultural differences and attempt to explain those differences in terms of Africa’s supposedly less-evolved cultures. By contrast, the images that have emerged in modern Afrocentrism, a movement among African Americans, tend to overemphasize and romanticize the achievements of Africa’s societies and their cultural contributions.
General Overviews
Overviews often emphasize images of Africa in specific periods rather than in the whole of Western history; thus, studies in this section are divided chronologically into four broad periods: Antiquity, Antiquity to the Enlightenment, the Enlightenment, and the 19th and 20th Centuries. In general, Western images of Africa were similar throughout Europe and North America after African colonization. However, individual Western countries developed unique interpretations of Africa especially during the 18th century and since. Sources that focus on four individual countries—Great Britain, France, Germany, and the United States—are listed under the section Country-Specific Studies.
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login.
How to Subscribe
Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here.
Article
- Achebe, Chinua
- Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi
- Africa in the Cold War
- African Masculinities
- African Political Parties
- African Refugees
- African Socialism
- Africans in the Atlantic World
- Agricultural History
- Aid and Economic Development
- Alcohol
- Algeria
- Angola
- Arab Spring
- Arabic Language and Literature
- Archaeology and the Study of Africa
- Archaeology of Central Africa
- Archaeology of Eastern Africa
- Archaeology of Southern Africa
- Archaeology of West Africa
- Architecture
- Art, Art History, and the Study of Africa
- Arts of Central Africa
- Arts of Western Africa
- Asante and the Akan and Mossi States
- Bantu Expansion
- Benin (Dahomey)
- Boer War
- Botswana (Bechuanaland)
- Brink, André
- British Colonial Rule in Sub-Saharan Africa
- Burkina Faso (Upper Volta)
- Burundi
- Business History
- Cameroon
- Cape Verde
- Central African Republic
- Children and Childhood
- China in Africa
- Christianity, African
- Cinema and Television
- Citizenship
- Cocoa
- Coetzee, J.M.
- Colonial Rule, Belgian
- Colonial Rule, French
- Colonial Rule, German
- Colonial Rule, Italian
- Colonial Rule, Portuguese
- Communism, Marxist-Leninism, and Socialism in Africa
- Comoro Islands
- Conflict in the Sahel
- Conflict Management and Resolution
- Congo, Republic of (Congo Brazzaville)
- Congo River Basin States
- Congo Wars
- Conservation and Wildlife
- Coups in Africa
- Crime and the Law in Colonial Africa
- Democratic Republic of Congo (Zaire)
- Development of Early Farming and Pastoralism
- Diaspora, Kongo Atlantic
- Disease and African Society
- Djibouti
- Dyula
- Early States And State Formation In Africa
- Early States of the Western Sudan
- Eastern Africa and the South Asian Diaspora
- Economic Anthropology
- Economic History
- Economy, Informal
- Education
- Education and the Study of Africa
- Egypt
- Egypt, Ancient
- Electricity
- Environment
- Environmental History
- Equatorial Guinea
- Eritrea
- Ethiopia
- Ethnicity and Politics
- Europe and Africa, Medieval
- Family Planning
- Famine
- Farah, Nuruddin
- Feminism
- Food and Food Production
- Fugard, Athol
- Fulani
- Gabon
- Gambia
- Genocide in Rwanda
- Geography and the Study of Africa
- Ghana
- Gikuyu (Kikuyu) People of Kenya
- Globalization
- Gordimer, Nadine
- Great Lakes States of Eastern Africa, The
- Guinea
- Guinea-Bissau
- Hausa
- Hausa Language and Literature
- Health, Medicine, and the Study of Africa
- Historiography and Methods of African History
- History and the Study of Africa
- Horn of Africa and South Asia
- Igbo
- Ijo/Niger Delta
- Image of Africa, The
- Indian Ocean and Middle Eastern Slave Trades
- Indian Ocean Trade
- Invention of Tradition
- Iron Working and the Iron Age in Africa
- Islam in Africa
- Islamic Politics
- Kenya
- Kongo and the Coastal States of West Central Africa
- Language and the Study of Africa
- Law and the Study of Sub-Saharan Africa
- Law, Islamic
- Lesotho
- LGBTI Minorities and Queer Politics in Eastern and Souther...
- Liberia
- Libya
- Literature and the Study of Africa
- Lord's Resistance Army
- Maasai and Maa-Speaking Peoples of East Africa, The
- Madagascar
- Malawi
- Mali
- Mande
- Mau Mau
- Mauritania
- Media and Journalism
- Military History
- Mining
- Modern African Literature in European Languages
- Morocco
- Mozambique
- Music, Dance, and the Study of Africa
- Music, Traditional
- Nairobi
- Namibia
- Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
- Niger
- Nigeria
- Nollywood
- North Africa from 600 to 1800
- North Africa to 600
- Northeastern African States, c. 1000 BCE-1800 CE
- Obama and Kenya
- Oman, the Gulf, and East Africa
- Oral and Written Traditions, African
- Oromo
- Ousmane Sembène
- Pastoralism
- Police and Policing
- Political Science and the Study of Africa
- Political Systems, Precolonial
- Popular Culture and the Study of Africa
- Popular Music
- Population and Demography
- Postcolonial Sub-Saharan African Politics
- Religion and Politics in Contemporary Africa
- Rwanda
- Senegal
- Sexualities in Africa
- Seychelles, The
- Siwa Oasis
- Slave Trade, Atlantic
- Slavery in Africa
- São Tomé and Príncipe
- Social and Cultural Anthropology and the Study of Africa
- Somalia
- South Africa Post c. 1850
- Southern Africa to c. 1850
- Soyinka, Wole
- Spanish Colonial Rule
- Sport
- States of the Zimbabwe Plateau and Zambezi Valley
- Sudan and South Sudan
- Swahili City-States of the East African Coast
- Swahili Language and Literature
- Tanzania (Tanganyika and Zanzibar)
- Togo
- Tourism
- Trade
- Trade Unions
- Traditional Authorities
- Traditional Religion, African
- Transportation
- Trans-Saharan Trade
- Tunisia
- Uganda
- Urbanism and Urbanization
- Wars and Warlords
- Western Sahara
- White Settlers in East Africa
- Women and African History
- Women and Colonialism
- Women and Politics
- Women and Slavery
- Women and the Economy
- Women, Gender and the Study of Africa
- Women in 19th-Century West Africa
- Yoruba Diaspora
- Yoruba Language and Literature
- Yoruba States, Benin, and Dahomey
- Youth
- Zambia