Abstract
The "ethnological" works of Archie Mafeje constitute the bedrock of the present article. According to our author, anthropology has been ill equipped to deal with social formations that defy dovetailed taxonomization and dualistic approaches. Its knowledge production through established methodological tools and its conservative theoretical reading have often lead to increasing segregation of those subjected to social analysis. Mafeje unveils the links between the concept of alterity as a fundamental divide that states the Other as an object of feasible scrutiny, due to "its" supposedly self-contained world or culture. The misdeeds and misreadings of former historiographical and anthropological work on Africa have paved the way to ideas and ideals of nation based on immobility and the incarceration of the population to the boundaries of a colonially created territory. The confinement to a single European-based model of society has established therefore the necessary conditions for xenophobia, intolerance and land grabbing - in and outside academia. Mafeje recognizes that in order to enhancing an authentic interlocution, we need to consciously abandon colonial imbibed notions of alterity, of otherness towards what he calls a combative ontology. For him, that would be the path to a non-colonial and simplistic social science that still incarcerates the world in narrow and claustrophobic slots of classification and understanding. In his tackle with Anthropology, Mafeje invites us to a post-anthropological project of scientific production.
Keywords:
Archie Mafeje; alterity; combative ontology; authentic interlocution; ethnography