Development of African economic thought

The proposed panel seeks address the following topical questions: Is there an African economic thought? Who are the thinkers from the African continent from the remote past to the present who formulated economic ideas? And what are these ideas? We underscore that most historians of economic thought, let alone economists not specialised in the history of their discipline, will be hard pressed to answer these questions. Fewer institutions now expose students to histories of economic thought and those that do rarely expose or even acknowledge alternative economic thought outside the global north. For a long time European economic thought has been presented as mainstream economic thinking without alternatives. For a long time, European thought has been presented as the only historic source of economic ideas, later complemented by the European settler colonies, with no place for the rest of the world. This has been challenged in recent years mainly by students of medieval Islamic thought, highlighting not only the indispensable link scholars of the Muslim world represented between Ancient Greek and modern European thought, but also the original ideas of these thinkers, sometimes forerunners of ideas for which European scholars centuries later became famous. The economic thought of Ancient Indian and Chinese thinkers has also received some attention (although
knowledge of these ideas remains sparse outside these regions). The ideas of African thinkers pertaining to economic matters, however, remain largely unknown.
Discussions may include, but are not limited to the following:

1. The economic thought of African scholars from all epochs, from Sextus Africanus and Saint Augustine to Ibn Khaldun to Zera Yacob to such modern-day thinkers as Cheikh Anta Diop, Es’kia Mphahlele and Chinua Achebe.
2. The economic ideas contained in African humanist concepts and socio-political philosophies like Ubuntu, Ujamaa, African Socialism, Pan-Africanism, and the doctrines of African statesmen such as Julius Nyerere or Kwame Nkruma.
3. Studies on the historic exchange of economic ideas between Africa and other regions, the cross-influence between different African thinkers or between
   African and non-African scholars on economic matters and comparative studies of their theories.

Candidates are asked to send an abstract (300 words) by 31 April 2020, a short motivation for attending the conference (100 words) and a completed paper by 31 August 2020 to [email protected] or [email protected]. Please indicate in your application if you would want to be considered for travel and accommodation funding.