Editing Eurocentrism (section)

==Africa==
===Colonial historiography===
{{Main article|African historiography#Colonial historiography}}{{Blockquote|text=[Africa] is no historical part of the World, it has no movement or development to exhibit. Historical movements in it- that is in the northern part- belong to the Atlantic or European World. Carthage displayed there an important transitionary phase of civilization; but, as a Phoenician colony, it belongs to Asia. Egypt will be considered in reference to the passage of the human mind from its Eastern to its Western phase, but it does not belong to the African Spirit. What we properly understand by Africa, is the Unhistorical, Underdeveloped spirit, still involved in the conditions of mere nature, and which have to be presented here only as on the threshold of the World’s History.|author=[[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel]]|title=''Lectures in the Philosophy of World History'' (1837)|source=<ref>{{cite book |chapter=Africa in the World: History and Historiography |title=Oxford Research Encyclopedias: African History |last=Brizuela-Garcia |first=Esperanza |year=2018 |doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.296 |isbn=978-0-19-027773-4 |url=https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-296}}</ref>}}
Since most African societies used [[oral tradition]] to record their [[History of Africa|history]], there was little [[Recorded history|written history]] of the continent prior to the colonial period. Colonial histories focussed on the exploits of soldiers, colonial administrators, and "colonial figures", using limited sources and written from an entirely European perspective, ignoring the viewpoint of the colonised under the pretence of [[white supremacism]]. Colonial historians considered Africans [[Racism|racially inferior]], [[Civilising mission|uncivilised]], [[Exoticism|exotic]], and historically static, viewing their colonial conquest as proof of Europe's claims to superiority.<ref name=":18">{{Cite book |last=Fage |first=John |url=https://archive.org/details/unesco_general_history_africa_i |title=General History of Africa: Volume 1 |date=1981 |publisher=UNESCO Publishing |chapter=The development of African historiography}}</ref>{{Rp|page=36}} The most widespread genre of colonial narrative involved the [[Hamitic hypothesis]], which claimed the inherent superiority of light-skinned people over dark-skinned people. Colonisers considered only "[[Hamites|Hamitic]] Africans" to be "civilisation", and by extension all major advances and innovations in Africa were thought to derive from them. Oral sources were deprecated and dismissed by most historians, who claimed that Africa had no history other than that of Europeans in Africa.<ref name=":02">{{cite encyclopedia |title=Historiography of Africa |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of African History |publisher=[[Fitzroy Dearborn]] |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=umyHqvAErOAC&pg=PA626 |date=2005 |editor-last1=Shillington |editor-first1=Kevin |pages=626–633 |isbn=1-57958-245-1 |last1=Afolayan |first1=Funso}}</ref>{{Rp|page=627}} Some colonisers took interest in the other viewpoint and attempted to produce a more detailed history of Africa using oral sources and archaeology,  however they received little recognition at the time.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Colonial History and Historiography |encyclopedia=The Oxford Encyclopedia of African Historiography: Methods and Sources |publisher=Oxford University Press |url=https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-303 |access-date=2025-03-31 |last=Suremain |first=Marie-Albane de SuremainMarie-Albane de |date=2019-04-18 |language=en |doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.303 |isbn=978-0-19-069870-6}}</ref>

[[African historiography]] became organised at the academic level in the mid 20th century. Despite a movement towards utilising oral sources in a multidisciplinary approach and their growing legitimacy in historiography, [[:Category:Historians of Africa|contemporary historians]] are still tasked with decolonising African historiography, building the institutional frameworks incorporating [[African epistemology|African epistemologies]], and representing an African perspective.<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal|last=Tignor|first=Robert L.|date=1966|title=African History: The Contribution of the Social Sciences|journal=[[Journal of Modern African Studies]]|volume=4|issue=3|pages=349–357|issn=0022-278X|jstor=159205|doi=10.1017/S0022278X00013525|s2cid=143559797 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Clapham |first=Christopher |year=2020 |title=Decolonising African Studies? |journal=[[Journal of Modern African Studies]]|volume=58 |issue=1 |pages=137–153 |doi=10.1017/S0022278X19000612 |issn=0022-278X|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Falola |first=Toyin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9dgBEQAAQBAJ |title=Decolonizing African History |date=2024-04-05 |publisher=African Books Collective |isbn=978-3-906927-51-0 |language=en}}</ref>