Handbook of African Philosophy of Difference

Dr. Elvis Imafidon teaches in the Department of Philosophy, Ambrose Alli University, Nigeria. He is a 2017 Writing Fellow of the Johannesburg Institute of Advanced Study (JIAS), University of Johannesburg, South Africa. His research centers on African ontology and ethics. Dr. Elvis is concerned with the extent to which African concepts of reality affect the African idea of the good and the implications of African ontology for concepts such as corruption, otherness, disability, difference, personhood, and gender. In the past few years, he has been specifically concerned with the implications of African ontology for albinism as an other in Africa, focusing on inherent ontological, epistemological, and moral theories. This has resulted in the publication of the book titled African Philosophy and the Otherness of Albinism: White Skin, Black Race (Routledge 2018). He is the editor of Ontologized Ethics: New Essays in African Meta-ethics (Lexington Books, 2013) and The Ethics of Subjectivity: Perspectives Since the Dawn of Modernity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) and the author of The Question of the Rationality of African Traditional Thought: An Introduction (CreateSpace 2013).

• Acknowledgements.- Introduction.- PART 1: Conceptualising Difference in African Philosophical Thought.- Chapter 1. Exploring African Philosophy of Difference (Elvis Imafidon).- Chapter 2. Does the African Value of Communion Occlude Difference? (Thaddeus Metz).- Chapter 3. Against Tolerance: The African Attitude Toward the Other as Recognition and Acceptance (Polycarp Ikuenobe). - PART 2: Questions of Race and Western Othering of Africa.- Chapter 4. The Burden of Being a Black Philosopher in a White World: How to Respond to Anti- Black Racism (Joseph Osei).- Chapter 5. Desuperiorization of Thought: Rethinking the Violent Othering of African Philosophy by Western Philosophy (Bjόrn Freter).- Chapter 6. Hegel and African Alterity (Rafael Winkler).- Chapter 7. Critical Comments on Mmudimbe’s Archaeological Reading of Africa’s Difference (Asma Agzenay).- Chapter 8. Toward a Postcolonial Social Ontology: Notes on the Thoughts of Achille Mbembe (Josias Tembo and Schalk Gerber).- PART3: Epistemological, Ethical, Linguistic and Aestethic Issues.- Chapter 9. Enriching the Knowledge of the Other through an Epistemology of Intercourse (Isaac E. Ukpokolo).- Chapter 10. African Arts and Difference: Aesthetic Signs and Symbols and the Separation of the Self from the Other (Matthew A. Izibili).- Chapter 11. Why must my Worth be Earned? Intrinsic versus Earned Value in African Conception of Personhood (Elvis Imafidon).- Chapter 12. Justice and the Othered Minority: Lessons from African Communalism (Jimoh Anselm). – Chapter 13. To Be is not to Be Alone: A Critique of Exclusivism from an African Context (Victor C.A. Nweke and L. Uchenna Ugbonnaya).- Chapter 14. Suffering and the Encounter with the Other in African Spaces (Austin E. Iyare).- Chapter 15. Language and Difference in African Traditions (Jacob Aleonote Aigbodioh and Kenneth U. Abudu).- PART 4: Disability, Gender and Non-Human Othering.- Chapter 16. The Animal Other in African Ethics (Filip Maj).- Chapter 17. Personhood and Moral Status: Implication for the Uniqueness of Women (Mpho Tshivhase).- Chapter 18. The Othering of Disabled Persons in Africa: Ontological and Ethical Issues (Elvis Imafidon).- Chapter 19. The Othering of Persons with Severe Cognitive Disability in Alexis Kagame Conceptualisation of Personhood (Nompumelelo Zimhle Manzini).- PART 5: Conceptualising Othering in Specific African Spaces.- Chapter 20. Othering, Re-othering and Dis-othering: Interrogating the Rich-Poor Dichotomy in Africa’s Urban Centres (Jonathan O. Chimakonam).- Chapter 21. ‘Mother, Can’t you see I’m Burning?’: A Psychoanalysis of the Violent, Emotional Othering in Today’s South Africa (Benda Hofmeyr).- Chapter 22. Linguistic Cultural Capital Class, Xenophobia and Xenophilia in South Africa’s Diverse Cultural Time Zones (Melissa Tandiwe Myambo).- Chapter 23. The Other in South Africa: Enemy or Ally (Lindsay Kelland).- Chapter 24. Moral Good, the Self and the M/Other: A Conversation with a Zulu Man (Rob Baum).-Chapter 25. Creating the Other through the Zimbabwean Fast Track Land Distribution: The Paradox of Decolonisation and Common Good (Erasmus Masitera).- Conclusion.- Selected Bibliography.- Index.