CONTEMPORARY CONVERGENCE IN SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES THE RELEVANCE OF THE AFRICAN THOUGHT SYSTEM IN THEORY FORMATION

Abstract

Of all the challenges facing scholars in the 3rd world today none is as serious as the need to harness their knowledge and skills for the task of nation‐building. There is a demand on the scholars to make their teaching and research activities relevant to the problems of their societies. For the social scientists the pressure is even greater since they claim as their domain the study of man in society. In meeting this challenge, many of these scholars have come up against formidable odds created by the historical background of their discipline; the dominant intellectual orientation that informed their training; and academic colonisalism that urges them to conform to walls of the “ivory towers”. Ironically, this situation is not helped by an awareness among an increasing number that knowledge is socially determined and that in every human community men strive to make sense of their social reality. This awareness only created different camps divided on what form the contribution of the sociologists should take in the development of theories needed in understanding their society. This article attempts to discuss these issues in the context of the debate on universalism and indigenisation in social theory. The debate is on the extent to which theories developed within a particular social context might be expected to hold in all others. This debate is fundamental as it not only touches on the popular identity of sociology as a science it also bears on the role of the non‐Western sociologist in studying his own society. To give focus to the theoretical and methodological issues involved in the debate‐which is discussed in the first part of this article, the second part highlights the developments one major area of sociological interest and shows in concrete terms (1) how the dominant trend has hindered our understanding of social issues and (2) how the sociological enterprise can benefit from an approach which is flexible enough to integrate a people's thought system into an explanation of their social reality.