African history teaching in contemporary German textbooks: From biased knowledge to duty of remembrance 1
Year: 2013
Type: article
Abstract: In early colonial times, European scientists explained and justified the aggressive \nand devastating expansion of Europe into nearly every corner of the world. \nAfricans, for example, had been dehumanized, infantilized and bereft of history. \nThe legacy of this manipulative enterprise can still be observed in various discourses \nof Africa in Western media and education. Induced into the Western cannon by \nHegel, the notion of unhistorical Africa persists to the present day. Which role does \ncontemporary education play in the manifestation of this ignorance? This paper \nanalyses the role Africa occupies in German history textbook narratives. In only \none of four textbook series, the existence of African history before the European \n“discovery” (the term is literally used by the books) is merely acknowledged. Others \nwould not even explicitly (by text or maps) place Ancient Egypt in Africa, in \naccordance with Hegel. Pre-colonial Africa is absent from text, it can be sometimes \nfound on the maps as a passive receiver of conquest or trade. The post-colonial \nhistory is largely reduced to the explanations of why Africa is “poor”. African sources \nand history archives are rarely used, priority is given to German or other Western \nsources. We argue that this persistent marginalization of Africa and Africans \nthroughout the history curriculum in Germany needs to be urgently addressed by \nhistory educators and policy makers.
Authors: Elina Marmer, Papa Sow
Institutions: Universität Hamburg, University of Bonn
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2100351577