W poszukiwaniu „autentycznego” Afrykanina

Searching for the “Authentic” AfricanThe concept of the “true”, authentic African, as a person fundamentally differentfrom Western people, had been long present in European academic discourse(especially in anthropology), as well as popular culture. Its antithesis emerged asa concept of the detribalised African, largely deprived of the traits of the authenticAfrican culture and adopting European cultural patterns.The concept of an “authentic” African as a static “specimen” sourced from oldAfrica, resistant to cultural change, was rejected by the new, educated Africanelites. In postcolonial Africa, one of their responses was the idea of Afrocentrism.The article is an essay, not aimed at an exhaustive analysis of the subject. It israther intended to indicate selected areas of discourse, as well as to show how theconcept of an “authentic” African functioned within the academic discourse, aswell as how, depending on the context and colonial doctrines, the phenomenon ofthe interpenetration of cultures and the empowerment of Africans evolved.