(Re)examination of the Aspects of African Cultural Production through Different Epochs

This paper sought to examine how African Culture has undergone the processes of production, development and change through four different epochs, namely: pre-colonial period, colonial period, independent period and post-independent period. The study applies the post-colonial theory, which broadly deals with the study of the effects of colonialism on cultures and societies, to interrogate the (un)changing perceptions of Africans across different epochs. Post-colonial theory is often said to commence with the work of Edward Said, Stuart Hall and Homi K. Bhabha. The approach looks at literature and society from two broad angles: how the writer, artist, cultural worker, and his or her context imitates a colonial past, and how they survive and carve out a new way of creating and understanding the world. It is anxious with both how European nations conquered and controlled “Third world” cultures and how these groups have since responded to and resisted those encroachments. The study is qualitative, employing discourse data obtained from a close reading of the text.  The paper contributes knowledge on how various factors such as slavery, colonialism; migration, technology and globalization have contributed to cultural production, development and change.