Marimba Ani (born Dona Richards) is an
anthropologist and
African Studies
African studies is the study of Africa, especially the continent's cultures and societies (as opposed to its geology, geography, zoology, etc.). The field includes the study of Africa's history (pre-colonial, colonial, post-colonial), demography ...
scholar best known for her work ''Yurugu'', a comprehensive critique of European thought and culture, and her coining of the term "
Maafa" for the
African holocaust
The ''Maafa'', the African Holocaust, the Holocaust of Enslavement, or the Black Holocaust are political neologisms which have been popularized since 1988Barndt, Joseph. ''Understanding and Dismantling Racism: The Twenty-First Century''. 2007 ...
.
Life and work
Marimba Ani completed her
BA degree
Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...
at the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...
, and holds
MA and
Ph.D.
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...
degrees in anthropology from the Graduate Faculty of the
New School University
The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...
.
In 1964, during
Freedom Summer, she served as an
SNCC
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, often pronounced ) was the principal channel of student commitment in the United States to the civil rights movement during the 1960s. Emerging in 1960 from the student-led sit-ins at segreg ...
field secretary, and married civil-rights activist
Bob Moses; they divorced in 1966.
She has taught as a Professor of African Studies in the Department of Black and Puerto Rican Studies at
Hunter College in New York City,
and is credited with introducing the term
Maafa to describe the African holocaust.
''Yurugu''
Ani's 1994 work, ''Yurugu: An Afrikan-Centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behavior'', examined the influence of European culture on the formation of modern institutional frameworks, through
colonialism
Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colony, colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose the ...
and
imperialism, from an African perspective.
Described by the author as an "intentionally aggressive polemic", the book derives its title from a
Dogon
Dogon may refer to:
*Dogon people, an ethnic group living in the central plateau region of Mali, in West Africa
*Dogon languages, a small, close-knit language family spoken by the Dogon people of Mali
*'' Dogon A.D.'', an album by saxophonist Juliu ...
legend of an incomplete and destructive being rejected by its creator.
Examining the causes of global
white supremacy
White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White s ...
, Ani argued that European thought implicitly believes in its own superiority, stating: "European culture is unique in the assertion of political interest".
In ''Yurugu'', Ani proposed a tripartite conceptualization of culture, based on the concepts of
#''Asili'', the central seed or "germinating matrix" of a culture,
#''Utamawazo'', "culturally structured thought" or worldview, "the way in which the thought of members of a culture must be patterned if the ''asili'' is to be fulfilled", and
#''Utamaroho'', a culture's "vital force" or "energy source", which "gives it its emotional tone and motivates the collective behavior of its members".
The terms Ani uses in this framework are based on
Swahili. ''Asili'' is a common Swahili word meaning "origin" or "essence"; ''utamawazo'' and ''utamaroho'' are neologisms created by Ani, based on the Swahili words ''utamaduni'' ("civilisation"), ''wazo'' ("thought") and ''roho'' ("spirit life").
The ''utamawazo'' and ''utamaroho'' are not viewed as separate from the ''asili'', but as its manifestations, which are "born out of the ''asili'' and, in turn, affirm it."
Ani characterised the ''asili'' of European culture as dominated by the concepts of separation and control, with separation establishing dichotomies like "man" and "nature", "the European" and "the other", "thought" and "emotion" – separations that in effect end up negating the existence of "the other", who or which becomes subservient to the needs of (European) man.
Control is disguised in universalism as in reality "the use of abstract 'universal' formulations in the European experience has been to control people, to impress them, and to intimidate them."
According to Ani's model, the ''utamawazo'' of European culture "is structured by ideology and bio-cultural experience", and its ''utamaroho'' or vital force is domination, reflected in all European-based structures and the imposition of Western values and civilisation on peoples around the world, destroying cultures and languages in the name of progress.
The book also addresses the use of the term
Maafa, based on a Swahili word meaning "great disaster", to describe
slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
.
African-centered thinkers have subsequently popularized and expanded on Ani's conceptualization.
Citing both the centuries-long history of slavery and more recent examples like the
Tuskegee study
The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male (informally referred to as the Tuskegee Experiment or Tuskegee Syphilis Study) was a study conducted between 1932 and 1972 by the United States Public Health Service (PHS) and the Cente ...
, Ani argued that Europeans and white ''Americans'' have an "enormous capacity for the perpetration of physical violence against other cultures" that had resulted in "antihuman, genocidal" treatment of blacks.
Critical reception
Philip Higgs, in ''African Voices in Education'', describes ''Yurugu'' as an "excellent delineation of the ethics of harmonious coexistence between human beings", but cites the book's "overlooking of structures of social inequality and conflict that one finds in all societies, including indigenous ones," as a weakness.
Molefi Kete Asante
Molefi Kete Asante ( ; born Arthur Lee Smith Jr.; August 14, 1942) is an American professor and philosopher. He is a leading figure in the fields of African-American studies, African studies, and communication studies. He is currently professo ...
describes ''Yurugu'' as an "elegant work".
Molefi Kete Asante
Molefi Kete Asante ( ; born Arthur Lee Smith Jr.; August 14, 1942) is an American professor and philosopher. He is a leading figure in the fields of African-American studies, African studies, and communication studies. He is currently professo ...
,
Afrocentricity, Race, and Reason
, in Manning Marable
William Manning Marable (May 13, 1950 – April 1, 2011) was an American professor of public affairs, history and African-American Studies at Columbia University.Grimes, William"Manning Marable, Historian and Social Critic, Dies at 60" ''The Ne ...
, ed., ''Dispatches from the Ebony Tower: intellectuals confront the African American experience'' (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2000), , page=198. Accessed: July 4, 2011. Stephen Howe accuses Ani of having little interest in actual Africa (beyond romance) and challenges her critique of "Eurocentric" logic since she invests heavily in its usage in the book.
Publications
* "The Ideology of European Dominance," ''The Western Journal of Black Studies''. Vol. 3, No. 4, Winter, 1979, and ''Présence Africaine'', No. 111, 3rd Quarterly, 1979.
* "European Mythology: The Ideology of Progress," in M. Asante and A. Vandi (eds), ''Contemporary Black Thought'', Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1980 (59-79).
* ''Let The Circle Be Unbroken: The Implications of African Spirituality in the Diaspora''. New York: Nkonimfo Publications, 1988 (orig. 1980).
* "Let The Circle Be Unbroken: The Implications of African-American Spirituality," ''Présence Africaine''. No. 117-118, 1981.
* "The Nyama of the Blacksmith: The Metaphysical Significance of Metallurgy in Africa," ''Journal of Black Studies''. Vol. 12, No. 2, December 1981.
* "The African 'Aesthetic' and National Consciousness," in Kariamu Welsh-Asante (ed.), ''The African Aesthetic'', Westport, Ct.: Greenwood Press, 1993 (63-82)
* ''Yurugu: An Afrikan-centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behavior''. Trenton: Africa World Press, 1994.
* "The African Asili," in ''Selected Papers from the Proceedings of the Conference on Ethics, Higher Education and Social Responsibility'', Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1996.
* "To Heal a People", in Erriel Kofi Addae (ed.), ''To Heal a People: Afrikan Scholars Defining a New Reality'', Columbia, MD.: Kujichagulia Press, 1996 (91-125).
* "Writing as a means of enabling Afrikan Self-determination," in Elizabeth Nuñez and Brenda M. Greene (eds), ''Defining Ourselves; Black Writers in the 90's'', New York: Peter Lang, 1999 (209–211).
See also
*
Afrocentrism
Afrocentrism is an approach to the study of world history that focuses on the history of people of recent African descent. It is in some respects a response to Eurocentric attitudes about African people and their historical contributions. It ...
*
Cheikh Anta Diop
Cheikh Anta Diop (29 December 1923 – 7 February 1986) was a Senegalese historian, anthropologist, physicist, and politician who studied the human race's origins and pre-colonial African culture. Diop's work is considered foundational to the th ...
*
John Henrik Clarke
John Henrik Clarke (born John Henry Clark; January 1, 1915 - July 16, 1998) was an African-American historian, professor, and pioneer in the creation of Pan-African and Africana studies and professional institutions in academia starting in the ...
*
Leonard Jeffries
Leonard Jeffries Jr. (born January 19, 1937) is former departmental chair of Black Studies at the City College of New York, part of the City University of New York (CUNY). Jeffries is a political scientist, historian, educator, master-teacher/adm ...
*
Molefi Kete Asante
Molefi Kete Asante ( ; born Arthur Lee Smith Jr.; August 14, 1942) is an American professor and philosopher. He is a leading figure in the fields of African-American studies, African studies, and communication studies. He is currently professo ...
References
External links
A Look At Professor Marimba Ani, Women of the African Diaspora
Marimba Ani afrocentricite.com
Drs. Frances Cress-Welsing And Marimba Ani / The Meeting I Mix What I Like
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ani, Marimba
Year of birth missing (living people)
Place of birth missing (living people)
20th-century births
Living people
African-American women writers
African-American writers
African-American social scientists
Black studies scholars
Activists for African-American civil rights
Afrocentrists
American women political scientists
American political scientists
American political writers
American social sciences writers
The New School alumni
University of Chicago alumni
Women social scientists
American women non-fiction writers
21st-century African-American people
21st-century African-American women
20th-century African-American people
20th-century African-American women