Exclusivity and African Science

Abstract

Just how exclusive, peculiar, or particular can an “African” science – or, for that matter, any other “ethnoscience” – be? The peculiarities of African science are often emphasized in comparison with the “absolutist”, “colonizing” or “imperialistic” perceptions of “Western outsiders.” However, it is argued that a fervent demarcation of African science, meritorious as it might be, can also be self-defeating. That is, the peculiarities of African science, rightly cherished by decolonizers, can also be overstated. Such overstatement is explained and criticized as “ethnorelativism.”