Acknowledging Knowledge: Dissemination and Reception of Expertise in Colonial Africa

At every level, the functioning of African colonial societies depended on the availability and mediation of useful information and knowledge. The majority of the existing literature on “colonial knowledge” focuses on one area of this broad field: the various forms of knowledge about their subjects on which colonial states depended. Most of our attempts to understand such knowledge have tended to analyze colonial knowledge as a system: we have tried to identify which were the sets of shared basic assumptions and rules that governed the creation and presentation of knowledge. In analyzing the processes through which colonial knowledge was produced, we have looked at the role of “Orientalism” and other forms of “Othering.” We have examined various investigative modalities. Finally, we have seen how such knowledge may be compared to a pidgin language that allows for communication between colonizers and representatives of the colonized. We have also examined the opportunities for Africans to manipulate the outcomes of colonial knowledge creation, as well as such basic but essential factors as the realities of government support and funding.