IN SEARCH OF AN AFROCENTRATED DIALOGUE ON AFRICAN COSMOLOGIES

Abstract

In the present essay, I propose a double reflexive movement. Initially, I mapped out a part of attempts to disqualify and subaltern religious worldviews or African cosmologies against the Western formulas of thinking the sacred. That would explain the silence or the simplistic and peripheral approaches granted to African religions in scientific production until the last decades of the twentieth century. In the second part of the text, I discuss with a diverse group of thinkers - such as Valentin Mudimbe, Achille Mbembe, Elungu P.E.A., Ariane Djossou, Kwame Appiah, John Mbiti and Benjamin Ray, among others - conceptual paths on the idea of African cosmology. The objective is to share another, less Eurocentric, interpretation of these African experiences, and more specifically about Yoruba cosmology in West Africa.