Post-Colonialism, Memory and the Remaking of African Identity

Abstract

Recent post-colonial discourses are replete with controversies over the nature of African identity. This paper argues that, though identity is an endangered concept, the particularity of African identity can still be salvaged. The paper further discusses some conceptual approaches to the nature of African identity and discovers that the nature of African identity can be discerned in the terse but profound statement: Inmemor(Iam) i.e., in memory, I am. The paper contends that identity transcends the realm of the thinking to the realm of recollection where what enables each person to share in a general identity with others is their collective memory. The paper concludes that the constituent of memory is a potentiality, i.e., is still evolving, not an actuality. To comprehend the idea of memory in the construction and reconstruction of African identity is to see the relations that exist between that which supposedly occurred in the past and what is happening now.

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Notes on contributors

Idowu William

Department of Philosophy, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.