International Relations in Africa: not without Indigenous knowledge systems

Abstract

The field of International Relations (IR) has come under increasing and sustained criticism for producing and disseminating a particular reading of European history, one rooted in violence, as if it were universal knowledge. Generations of students, academics, practitioners, and policymakers have been taught and socialized into accepting this violent historical experience as the norm and, implicitly, as a reflection of human nature. As a result, the dominant accounts of IR tend to foreground competitive, conflictual, domineering, power-seeking, and exploitative behaviours as defining features of international life. This understanding of IR marginalizes and often ignores Indigenous ways of knowing that emphasize relationality, solidarity, mutual care, and cooperative forms of social organization. In this article, we argue that centring Afrocentric Indigenous Knowledge Systems (AIKS), particularly their conceptualizations of persons in IR scholarship, has the potential to move the field beyond its bleak and violent roots towards a more humane and relational epistemology. The AIKS-centred approach to IR is better suited to capturing the nuances of contemporary global life while speaking to the lived experiences of Africans and potentially other Indigenous peoples around the world.