L’historiographie africaine en contexte post-colonial : enjeux méthodologiques et débats critiques au prisme des perspectives de Mamadou Diouf et Paul Ricœur

Authors

  • Amélie Aristelle Ekassi École normale supérieure de Yaoundé

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/errs.2026.731

Keywords:

Chronocentrism, Fragments, Historiography, Nationalism, Objectivity, Post-Colonialism

Abstract

To recount the past in order to build the present and the future; such was the ambition of historians in the post-colonial nation-states of sub-Saharan Africa. This claim, fueled by the desire to restore a trampled dignity, has put to the test the bond of truth between the African historian and their reader. The reconquest of a broken self and the reconstitution of the great African personality have politically oriented the quest to recompose the traces of the African past. At the time when we are witnessing the cracks or destruction of the national master-fiction, it is necessary to re-examine the challenges and epistemological orientations involved in the work of the historian. The historian’s truth is not knowledge for contemplation, but for action. Therefore, according to the analyses of Mamadou Diouf and Paul Ricœur, it is essential to uproot the various ideological or partisan affiliations that may, explicitly or tacitly, manipulate, falsify, or hinder the diverse historical conjectures recalling the human life in Africa.

Published

2026-07-30