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Thomas Kuhn's 1962 groundbreaking work, The Scientific Revolution, established the process for creating, and the components of, a disciplinary paradigm. This "scientific revolution" has evolved to become the standard for determining a field's claim to disciplinary status. In 2001 and 2003, Ama Mazama, used Kuhn's model to establish the disciplinary status of Africology, through the categorical structuring of the Afrocentric Paradigm. Though her work conclusively made the claim that Africology is a legitimate academic discipline, still more work remained in effort to meet other criterion set forth by Kuhn. Through the use of content analysis, this work extends Mazama's work by addressing four additional areas of paradigm development that was established by Kuhn: (1) the scientific revolutionary moment for the discipline; (2) the nature of consensus among the scholars of the discipline; (3) the intellectual identity of the discipline's scholars; and (4) the distinct intellectual behavior of the discipline's scholars as seen through their evolved epistemic and methodological tradition. This work also reconfirms Africology's fidelity to the roots of the original Black Studies Movement, identifies independent intellectual tools for Black Studies scholars, identifies Afrocentric excellence and rigor, and provides an instructive tool for burgeoning Afrocentric Scholars. / African American Studies

The purpose of this study is to examine how members of the community, educators, legislators, and members of the academy organized and mobilized to bring Florida Statute 1003.42(h) into being. This Afrocentric case study policy analysis centers African people, educators, and policymakers as agents, actors, and subjects with agency who determined that such legislation was needed and necessary for the education of African American students and all students. Data, in the form of document analysis, websites in the states of New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and South Carolina with similar laws, and Florida’s Commissioner’s Task Force on African American History, newspaper accounts, and interviews with key people involved in the creation of the Florida legislation, were analyzed using an Africological methodology. Findings include several major themes that emerged about educational curriculum content, intent, needs, and analysis relative to why this legislation was sponsored and passed including: (a) inaccuracy and omission, (b) correction and inclusion, (c) consciousness and competence, (d) policy and priority, (e) power and precedence. The final product includes a theory of Selective Memory Manipulation and a Paradigm for Afrocentric Educational Policy Production and Analysis.

Esta tese tem por objetivo contribuir para uma melhor compreensão do papel do eurocentrismo no pensamento educacional brasileiro. Para tanto orientado pela filosofia afrocêntrica de Abdias do Nascimento, Molefi Kete Asante, Marimba Ani e pelos trabalhos de Cheikh Anta Diop, Asa Hilliard, Carter G. Woodson e Wade Nobles realizamos uma crítica afrocentrada do pensamento educacional de Rui Barbosa, José Veríssimo, Fernando de Azevedo, Anísio Teixeira, Paulo Freire e Darcy Ribeiro bem como dos modelos educacionais defendidos e implementados por estes importantes pensadores da educação do país. Para reforçar esta crítica, este trabalho avalia a maneira pela qual a intelectualidade afro-brasileira compreendeu e reagiu aos sistemas de educação desenvolvidos por aqueles intelectuais. Nossa análise também mostrou que o modelo eurocêntrico de educação implantado no país tem como um de seus principais objetivos manter o poder e a hegemonia branca europeia. Em uma sociedade orientada e organizada pela ideologia da supremacia branca os não brancos descendentes de africanos e indígenas não têm poder, e desse modo, como conclusão deste trabalho, argumentamos que somente um modelo educacional quilombista (afrocentrado) é capaz de oferecer uma educação que atenda de modo satisfatório às necessidades dos afro-brasileiros. / This thesis aims to contribute to a better understanding of the role of Eurocentrism in the Brazilian educational thinking. For both guided by afrocentric philosophy of Abdias do Nascimento, Molefi Kete Asante, Marimba Ani and by the works of Cheikh Anta Diop, Asa Hilliard, Carter G. Woodson and Wade Nobles we performed an afrocentric review of the educational thought of Rui Barbosa, José Veríssimo, Fernando de Azevedo, Anísio Teixeira, Darcy Ribeiro and Paulo Freire and the educational models advocated and implemented by these important thinkers of education in the country. To reinforce this criticism, this work assesses the manner in which Afro-Brazilian intellectuals understood and reacted to education systems developed by those thinkers. Our analysis also showed that the Eurocentric model of education implemented in the country has as one of its main objectives to maintain the power and white European hegemony. In a society oriented and organized by ideology of white supremacy non-whites descendants of Africans and Indians have no power, and thereby, at the conclusion of this study, argue that only the quilombista educational model (afrocentric) is able to offer an education that meets satisfactorily the needs of Afro-Brazilians.

Esta tese tem por objetivo contribuir para uma melhor compreensão do papel do eurocentrismo no pensamento educacional brasileiro. Para tanto orientado pela filosofia afrocêntrica de Abdias do Nascimento, Molefi Kete Asante, Marimba Ani e pelos trabalhos de Cheikh Anta Diop, Asa Hilliard, Carter G. Woodson e Wade Nobles realizamos uma crítica afrocentrada do pensamento educacional de Rui Barbosa, José Veríssimo, Fernando de Azevedo, Anísio Teixeira, Paulo Freire e Darcy Ribeiro bem como dos modelos educacionais defendidos e implementados por estes importantes pensadores da educação do país. Para reforçar esta crítica, este trabalho avalia a maneira pela qual a intelectualidade afro-brasileira compreendeu e reagiu aos sistemas de educação desenvolvidos por aqueles intelectuais. Nossa análise também mostrou que o modelo eurocêntrico de educação implantado no país tem como um de seus principais objetivos manter o poder e a hegemonia branca europeia. Em uma sociedade orientada e organizada pela ideologia da supremacia branca os não brancos descendentes de africanos e indígenas não têm poder, e desse modo, como conclusão deste trabalho, argumentamos que somente um modelo educacional quilombista (afrocentrado) é capaz de oferecer uma educação que atenda de modo satisfatório às necessidades dos afro-brasileiros. / This thesis aims to contribute to a better understanding of the role of Eurocentrism in the Brazilian educational thinking. For both guided by afrocentric philosophy of Abdias do Nascimento, Molefi Kete Asante, Marimba Ani and by the works of Cheikh Anta Diop, Asa Hilliard, Carter G. Woodson and Wade Nobles we performed an afrocentric review of the educational thought of Rui Barbosa, José Veríssimo, Fernando de Azevedo, Anísio Teixeira, Darcy Ribeiro and Paulo Freire and the educational models advocated and implemented by these important thinkers of education in the country. To reinforce this criticism, this work assesses the manner in which Afro-Brazilian intellectuals understood and reacted to education systems developed by those thinkers. Our analysis also showed that the Eurocentric model of education implemented in the country has as one of its main objectives to maintain the power and white European hegemony. In a society oriented and organized by ideology of white supremacy non-whites descendants of Africans and Indians have no power, and thereby, at the conclusion of this study, argue that only the quilombista educational model (afrocentric) is able to offer an education that meets satisfactorily the needs of Afro-Brazilians.

Indigenous dance music in Ghana serves peculiar roles in the lives of its practitioners from birth to death. This dissertation explores the role of the Kete dance of the Asante people as an Afrocentric agency of meaning-making. As a dance-music form, Kete is one of the most popular dances in Ghana and a major cultural attraction in the diaspora. Apart from ethnomusicological explorations of its music, not much has been done with regard to its movement element. I theorize Kete as a social construction that promotes and sustains culture through gestures. A performance of Kete at a particular context like a funeral can expose indigenous gender disparities, socio-cultural class structure, and embodied agencies for indigenous knowledge propagation. Through a qualitative research methodology including first-person methods of autoethnography and practical experiences, I examine my own experience and understanding of Kete as a practitioner since childhood and the experiences of selected participants in Ghana and the United States. The research also has an advocacy purpose through its affiliation with Afrocentricity. As a reflection of intelligent social structuring where dancers communicate through gestures, I explore the transition of Kete from the Manhyia palace in Kumasi (Traditional Category) to the Ghana Dance Ensemble (Academic and then Professional Category) in the University of Ghana from 1963 and explore the impact of neo-traditional structures on its proliferation today. Specifically, I explore the agency of the Kete dancer as centered within Kumasi and Accra, to ascertain to what extent this embodied knowledge can be explored through first-person methods to understand the structures of its proliferation and anticipated future developments. / Dance

The history of European hegemony in the Western hemisphere has been marked by “objectivity” or a collective subjectivity in which European historians and scholars believe that their viewpoints and perspectives about the world are dominant, causing them to push their ideologies as universal. This objectivity is problematic because it leads to the deliberate omission and falsification of the histories and cultures of other groups of people. This is especially true for Africans who have been relegated to the margins in most European narratives about world history. The most apparent display of this marginalization occurs in the educational sector, specifically at U.S. public schools, where African children are indoctrinated to believe that they lack both a history and culture and therefore, must assimilate to European ideals in order to fare well in society. This narrative is detrimental because it aids in agency reduction. In order to restore African agency in the classroom and to correct the miseducation that African children receive in Eurocentrically grounded school systems, Black scholars and educators began creating Afrocentric schools, a branch of Independent Black Institutions (IBIs) that prioritize the history and culture of Africans across the diaspora, in the late 1960s. Although many of these schools have and continue to combat this successfully, many have collapsed and closed over time thus presenting a significant and alarming issue since they are still relatively new institutions and play a crucial role in unlocking the African genius. The purpose of this study then, is to Afrocentrically examine the history and effectiveness of Afrocentric schools in order to further advocate for their presence in the U.S. in light of these closures. This will be done by discussing the characteristics of Afrocentric schools as well as the ways that they have and continue to impact African people, by analyzing the criticisms that they receive from Eurocentrically aligned Africans and Europeans, by assessing literature from Afrocentric scholars who have explored the closing of some Afrocentric schools, and most importantly, by comparing Eurocentric and Afrocentric curricula to highlight the importance of agency restoration and cultural reclamation for Black children in centered learning. This study will also proffer suggestions for African community members, educators, and activists to promote Afrocentric education beyond institutional settings. This study is framed by several research questions, specifically: (1) What is an Afrocentric school and why are they important for African people? (2) What are the components of Afrocentric Education? and (3) What corrective measures can Afrocentric educators, scholars, activists, community members, and institution builders take to maintain the status and stability of Afrocentric schools and more importantly, promote Afrocentric education beyond institutional settings? / African American Studies

The purpose of this study is to provide an Afrocentric analysis of the ways in which Du Bois approaches African history in his text The World and Africa. The study contextualizes the experiences that shaped Du Bois’ thinking about Africa. This includes commentary on his college years as well as the experiences that continued to shape his opinions near the end of his life. Highlighted in this study is Du Bois’ Eurocentric approaches to history in regard to African people. The significance of focusing on the ideologies of Du Bois through this text is the fact that Du Bois is considered perhaps the most influential African American intellectual of the twentieth century. Thus, my aim is to provide an analysis of The World and Africa that is useful in illustrating the Eurocentric entrapments in regard to Africa and African people that have plagued even our most brilliant intellectuals. Secondly, Du Bois’ analysis of African history is limited by his concept of race or ethnicity being narrowed to general phenotypes. As such, Du Bois, though perhaps more nuanced in his approach to what defines a race than many in his day, often makes superficial and sometimes erroneous claims about what constitutes African people. African culture, though considerably discussed in the text, becomes however ancillary to the basis of Du Bois’ contentions about the past greatness of African people. My analysis centers the Afrocentric approach to African cultural cosmology and ontology as basis of my critique of Du Bois’ text. Further, as an example of how Du Bois could have strengthened his arguments for Pan-African unity using culture as a basis, I have created and utilized a methodology entitled African World Antecedent Methodology and provided within this study some minor examples of the overlapping cultural patterns of African Americans within the African cultural-historical matrix. / African American Studies

Marginalizing indigenous experts was common practice during the colonial period in Uganda, and it has continued to some extent today. This study was an attempt to reclaim the indigenous history unmentioned by many Western scholars who were quick to glean a vast amount of indigenous knowledge, yet failed to recognize or credit the intellectual expertise and contributions of indigenous experts. The purpose of this study was to investigate the marginalization of an indigenous master-musician teacher as seen through the life experiences and career of Evalisto Muyinda (1916-1993). With a musical career that spanned over fifty years, Mr. Muyinda served as a leading teacher and performer of indigenous Ganda music in various institutions. Muyinda's contributions to the field of indigenous (Ganda) music teaching are many, yet his expertise and contributions to music education have not been fully explored. He served as a court musician in Kabaka Muteesa II’s palace from 1939 to 1966; he was chief musician at the Uganda Museum from 1948 to 1984; and he was a lead musician and innovator in Uganda's national cultural troupe (the Heart Beat of Africa) from 1963 to 1981. Mr. Muyinda's legacy continues to exist through the scholarly work of various music educators, ethnomusicologists and indigenous performers of Ganda music, who all credit their learning to this expert musician. World music scholars such as Klaus Wachsmann, Lois Anderson, Gerhard Kubik, and Peter Cooke all studied and researched indigenous Ganda music under Muyinda’s guidance and tutelage. In this study I examined Muyinda’s contributions to music education as a teacher and performer of indigenous (Ganda) music in twentieth century Uganda (1939-1993). Mr. Muyinda was a well-known resource for hundreds of indigenous Ganda folksongs that he used in teaching the akadinda and amadinda (xylophone) traditions to both local and foreign students. As a master musician-teacher, Muyinda also performed and taught indigenous music in several places in and outside Uganda. During Muyinda’s career and travels his music was recorded and archived in British and Viennese archival libraries, making these materials a useful resource for music educators and ethnomusicologists. The methodology employed in gathering data for this study included personal interviews with people who interacted with Evalisto Muyinda during his life time. Archived printed materials were carefully examined and used to construct a sequence of significant events as they unfolded in Muyinda's life experiences and career. Although Muyinda was not an expert musician in the Western formal sense, his expertise in indigenous music enabled him to serve as an accomplished teacher and research associate to the many Western scholars who worked with him. Since the marginalization of an indigenous master-musician teacher is the central focus of this study, Afrocentricity was used as the most suitable theoretical framework to discuss an African subject and the historical discourse involved. The current study would be of interest to music practitioners, researchers and historians with an interest in the indigenous music and music education of Uganda and other countries with a similar history.

Utilizing Afrocentric thought, this dissertation examines digital Pan-Africanism as a new theory that demonstrates the liberatory potential of digital technology including internet-based writing and businesses. Focusing on the burgeoning Black travel industry, it specifically considers contemporary travel narratives written by African Americans visiting Egypt and includes a thematic analysis of travel blog posts. It highlights the role technology plays in making international travel more accessible to African Americans and the potential that diasporic travel has in creating and strengthening inter-cultural bonds between African people throughout the diaspora. To this end, this dissertation advocates utilizing digital platforms as a tool for increased diasporic travel and Pan-African activism. It conceptualizes this new theory, discusses its implications within and outside of the travel industry, and offers a model to demonstrate its effectiveness and applicability. / African American Studies