Liberating African heritage from modernity through a radical decolonial path

Abstract

What is modernity and why do Africans aspire to arrive at it? Do African cultures embrace the values of modernity and do the existing conceptualisations of modernity cover African axiologies? If modern heritage is a manifestation of modernity, are modern heritage sites in Africa necessarily rooted in coloniality? Can African modern heritage be conceptualised in a way that makes it more than a subcategory of (Western) modern heritage? This conceptual paper addresses the above questions from the perspective of decoloniality. It analyses the precepts of modernity in order to reclaim the place of African heritage of the 20th century and liberate it from modernity's Western/Eurocentric legacy and associated values. It questions the rhetoric of alternative modernities, seeking alternatives to modernity instead. Guided by the 'border thinking' of the decolonial school of thought, it proposes defining post/colonial heritage of Africa through 'exteriority' and transmodernity, in recognising the existence of a counter-narrative to the Western modern movement/modernism. It proposes a new transversal heritage category, rooted in decoloniality movements, as a way of decentring modernist histories and cultural heritages of Africa.