Ufahamu

Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies^[1] is a graduate-student run journal at the University of California, Los Angeles. This journal functions as is an interdisciplinary journal of African Studies. The journal was founded by UCLA's African Activist Association in 1970 and named after the Swahili word for comprehension, understanding or being.^[1] The journal publishes views about social issues, addressing both the general reader and the scholar. It publishes material supportive of African revolutions and socially significant works on history, politics, economics, sociology, anthropology, law, planning and development, literature and other topics about the African continent and the African Diaspora.

The journal has continuously published the work of a wide variety of scholars with a particular emphasis on voices from Africa and others marginalized by the mainstream academic presses. Featured original works include a wide variety of seminal intellectuals including Walter Rodney, Sondra Hale, Mahmood Mamdani, Richard Sklar, Benedicto Wokomaatani Malunga and Ali Mazrui.^[2]

The journal has played an important role in scholarship. One scholar said that it was among the first two journals to ever publish research on "modern African art."^[3]

Background

The Ufahamu journal also served as a platform for providing space for scholars across the diaspora and also research related to the diaspora to have scholarly merit. In doing so, the journal introduced readers to sophisticated researchers like Lawrence E. Amadi, whose “scholarly interests include the history of education and the cultural history of the Igbos in Nigeria”.^[4] The concept for the Ufahamu Journal of the African Activist Association took root in 1969 when a group of graduate students at the University of California, Los Angeles who were active in the African Activist Association and the African Studies Center first thought of it. Their original intention for the journal was to provide “a forum for new perspectives on Africa, to provide a base for re-evaluating old perspectives, and to provide sharp discussion of both”.^[5] In this manner, the Ufahamu journal was founded with an “activist orientation” and a commitment to grappling with some of the most significant issues of that time as it continues to do today. The founders declare that they “are committed to giving voice to Africans and Afro-Americans, to students, and to non-academics as well as academics; and to recognition of the close association of Black peoples all over the world”.^[5] Over time the Ufahamu journal has garnered great fame and support on an international level. The journal is published three times each year and it welcomes submissions from anyone whose interests focus in on African scholarship and literature.^[5] Some of the most prominent works featured in the journal include: Sondra Hale’s "Arts in a Changing Society: Northern Sudan," Edward Hower’s "Post-independence Literature of Kenya and Uganda," and Fritz Pointer’s "An Appeal to African Writers to be African”.^[5]

Genre

The articles featured in this journal cover a wide array of topics that are applicable to peoples across the African Diaspora. Although the title is derived from the Swahili language, it is written and edited in English, making it accessible to a wider audience base.^[6] The journal takes the freedom of engaging in scholarly work around difficult subjects such as the term "coloured" which is used prominently “in the South African context…[and] is widely viewed as derogatory or as a White government-imposed system of classifying and dividing the disenfranchised”.^[6] Unlike many academic journals, “it could indeed be said with a degree of unequivocacy that no other serious scholarly organ has opened its pages to insider contemplation of modern African art” like the American journal Ufahamu, save for Transition/Ch’Indaba, the African journal edited by Wole Soyinka in the 1970s.^[6]

In simplest terms, the Ufahamu journal publishes material supportive of the African revolution and socially significant works of African history, politics, economics, sociology, anthropology, law, planning and development, literature and other topics about the continent and the African Diaspora, allowing for it to take an interdisciplinary approach to the study of Africa.^[7]

Audience

For some scholars, the Ufahamu journal has served to connect them to wider audience, even in period of exile. One such scholar was Es’kia Mphahlele who used this journal of the African Activist Association and other mediums to critically engage “with the African world and its relation to other continents…[which] remains unsurpassed by and of the writers who followed in his footsteps”.^[8] In this way, Mphahlele is not only a scholar, but also a pioneer of African radical thought that some scholars believe is unmatched up until this point.^[9]

The Ufahamu journal along with other journals stemming from the University of California at Los Angeles have joined forces and become members of an alliance called InterActions in order to make use of the University of California’s site called eScholarship.org. This web page provides “a free, open access, searchable platform for journals to publish and archive their materials online”.^[10] In addition, all authors and editors have the ability to maintain agency over all of their work, including, but not limited to, the content and the appearance. All of this allows writers and scholars who focus on Africa easier access to publishing and publicity. It also gives students and researchers an easier platform for addressing topics related to Africa on an accessible format. Moreover, because of the digital format, contributors now have a new format for expanding their audience members and modernizing their advertisements as society itself is modernizing. The Ufahamu journal is described b some as being “committed to views about social issues, addressing both the general reader and the scholar” while also continually and consistently committing itself “to challeng[ing] and correct[ing] misconceptions about Africa, thereby creating relevant criteria for African Studies”.^[10]

References