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The Idle and the Industrious – European Ideas about the African Work Ethic in Precolonial West Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2014

Klas Rönnbäck
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Abstract

There is a growing interest in the historical attitudes to work globally. This paper studies the stereotype of the “lazy African” in European travel accounts from precolonial West Africa. This was one of the central aspects in the European construction of an African “other” during this period, and came to be used as a justification for much European oppression in Africa in both precolonial and colonial times. It is argued in the paper that the stereotype has existed for much longer than suggested in previous literature in the field. Previous studies have also made over-simplified statements about the stereotype, since it overlooks a most significant trend among European writers, who described not only idleness, but also industriousness, among the Africans they wrote about. By the late eighteenth century, finally, the development of an anti-slavery ideology was followed by a challenge to the whole stereotype.

Résumé

L’évolution des attitudes vers le travail suscite un intérêt croissant à travers le monde. Le présent article étudie le stéréotype de l’“Africain paresseux” véhiculé par les récits de voyages d’Européens en Afrique de l’Ouest précoloniale. Aspect central de l’élaboration de l’image d’un Africain “différent” au cours de cette période, ce stéréotype a été utilisé, en grande partie, pour justifier l’oppression européenne en Afrique à l’époque tant précoloniale que coloniale. Ce stéréotype serait bien plus ancien que ne le laisseraient entendre les précédentes études dans ce domaine, qui le présentent, de surcroit, de manière simpliste car elles omettent une tendance fondamentale chez les auteurs européens, qui décrivaient non seulement l’oisiveté, mais aussi le zèle des Africains. Finalement, à la fin du XVIIe siècle l’émergence d’une idéologie anti-esclavagiste a été suivie d’une remise en question globale de ce stéréotype.

Type
Critical Historiography
Information
History in Africa , Volume 41 , June 2014 , pp. 117 - 145
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2014 

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