History graduate student Anjuli Webster recently published an article titled ‘South African Social Science and the Azanian Philosophical Tradition‘ in the journal Theoria. Webster is a student in African history with research interests in legal history, empire, sovereignty, and borderlands in Southern Africa, especially. Read the abstract from Webster’s piece below, along with the full article: “South African Social Science and the Azanian Philosophical Tradition.”

This article discusses the contemporary history of South Afri-can social science in relation to the Azanian Philosophical Tradition. It is addressed directly to white scholars, urging introspection with regard to the ethical question of epistemic justice in relation to the evolution of the social sciences in conqueror South Africa. I consider the establishment of the professional social sciences at South African universities in the early twentieth century as a central part of the epistemic project of conqueror South Africa. In contrast, the Azanian Philosophical Tradition is rooted in African philosophy and articulated in resistance against the injustice of conquest and colonialism in southern Africa since the seventeenth century. It understands conquest as the fundamental historical antagonism shaping the philosophical, political, and material problem of ‘South Africa’. The tradition is silenced by and exceeds the political and epistemic strictures of the settler colonial nation state and social science.