The Scent of the Father: Essay on the Limits of Life and Science in Sub-Saharan Africa - Valentin-Yves Mudimbe
Translated by Jonathan Adjemian
Original French edition published in 1982 as L'Odeur du pèr by Présence Africaine
English translation published in 2023 by Polity Press, Cambridge, UK and Hoboken, NJ
200 pages
ISBN: 978-1-5095-5139-2
When it comes to the disciplines of postcolonialism and African studies, few scholars have had as much of a prodigious influence on the field as Congolese philosopher Valentin-Yves Mudimbe. Most famous for his highly influential 1988 work The Invention of Africa, Mudimbe has also produced a wide array of literature, including poems, novels, essays, and academic treatises. His influence on philosophy, linguistics, anthropology, and sociology has been wide-reaching, especially among the Francophone African countries.
Introducing one of Mudimbe’s earliest sets of essays in English, Polity Press published a newly translated edition of Mudimbe’s 1982 essay, L'Odeur du pèr. In this 2022 translation by Jonathan Adjemian, titled The Scent of the Father: Essay on the Limits of Life and Science in Sub-Saharan Africa, Mudimbe’s early set of essays on African postcolonialism, religion, and social theory finds a new breath of life to English-speaking audiences.
Overview:
Foreshadowing the themes that would define Mudime’s most famous work The Invention of Africa, The Scent of the Father shows Mudimbe wrestling with how the West has defined the ideological landscape of philosophy and sociology, and how an African modality can open up new opportunities for thought and ways of living. Commenting on fields such as psychoanalysis, ethnology, sociology, religious studies, critical theory, and decolonial thought, Mudimbe illustrates how the social sciences of the West have historically been entrenched in the logic of colonialism and racial violence. He is careful to point out that certain recourses against the West have been largely shaped by Western thinkers, which ultimately reinforces Western economic interests and categories of thought.
While many African nations gained formal independence from Western imperial powers during the twentieth century, the structural and ideological traces of these colonial forces still linger. In essence, Mudimbe’s central question is this: how can one overcome this “persistent smell of the father while avoiding the pitfall of challenging his discourse with words inspired by him” (xii)? In order to think against this Western hegemony, Mudimbe offers a decolonial epistemic alternative that reevaluates the importance of myths and other forms of knowledge that have been occluded and excluded. The point is not to reconstruct a mythic past, but rather to reconsider epistemes that have been traditionally marginalized and excluded from the canon of thought to build a way forward.
For example, the first essay evaluates the state of ethnology and psychoanalysis as he argues the necessity for these fields to intersect and inform one another, especially concerning non-Western contexts. Another essay concerns the history and purpose of Christian missionaries on the African continent as a form of cultural change, while another assesses the impact of African literature, especially the Négritude movement of the mid-twentieth century. The final essays in the collection consist of Mudimbe’s response to other writers and scholars such as Jean-Claude Willame, J.L. Vincke, Benoît Verhagen, and Geneviéve Calame-Griaule as he struggles to reconceptualize their philosophical concepts and free them from the binds of the Western tradition. Along the way, Mudimbe utilizes the work of Sartre, Foucault, Certeau, and other European philosophers to challenge the dominant modes of Western thought.
Commendations:
There are many noteworthy aspects to The Scent of the Father. First of all, Mudimbe’s collection of essays serves as an immensely insightful examination of the models and limitations of Western thought in conceptualizing and thinking about Africa. Mudimbe is a prodigious figure in the field of African studies, and these essays reveal many themes that Mudimbe would be wrestling with throughout the rest of his career. As such, this newly translated work is essential for scholars and laypeople alike who want to get a snapshot of Mudimbe’s early thought.
Additionally, since it is a collection of short essays, this volume is a relatively quick read. Jonathan Adjemian has done a phenomenal job in translating this text into English and strikes a nice balance between staying faithful to the original French while maintaining readability for the average English reader. As such, while Mudimbe dives into the weeds of philosophical and ethnological discourse at times, it remains fairly accessible to the average reader.
The Scent of the Father offers keen insight into the philosophical and sociological debates about the role of Africa during the turbulent decades of the 1960s and ‘70s. As a scholar of religion, I find his chapters on the relationship between religion and magic to be incredibly valuable. Furthermore, he recognizes and contends with the fluid nature of religion and the syncretic nature of cultural exchange, especially in the essay “Sorcery: A Language and a Theory.” He also addresses the Western models of education in Africa, as well as how to “fully liberate creativity. Rediscover the right to difference, [and] become able to to take up madness” (63). He also contemplates the thorny complexities regarding the violence of intercultural exchange and attempts at cooperation, which I found simultaneously provocative and stimulating. The varied nature of these essays makes this a consistently fascinating and insightful read for those interested in the limits of Western discourses around Africa.
Critique:
On the other hand, The Scent of the Father can be rather dense for the average reader. Mudimbe relies heavily on the work of Foucault, Certeau, Althusser, Lacan, Sartre, and many more theorists, which makes some of the contours of the essays a bit dizzying for the layperson. Despite the relatively accessible translation, it would help the reader to have at least a passing knowledge of critical theory and anthropology in the ‘60s and the debates within these discourses, especially structuralism, phenomenology, and social theory.
Accordingly, the question arises of Mudimbe’s positionality in relation to writing theory. Colonization affected the African geography, as the rich resources of the continent were extracted to enrich the colonizing nations. African bodies were exploited for labor and violently ripped from their native land. Likewise, for Mudimbe and other postcolonial thinkers, the African mind was also colonized by Western thought, as European ideas and concepts were infused into previously existing African ontological and epistemological modalities.
As such, if Western thought has come to dominate how we think about Africa and its place in the world, how much can Mudimbe be said to stand apart from this hegemonic grip? While he has the situated knowledge of being an African man writing about Africa, much of his analysis and references rely upon European frames of reference. While he engages with other writers toward the end of the book, they are often almost exclusively European.
Likewise, Mudimbe freely quotes the works of Foucault, Sartre, and Certeau with little critical examination while neglecting the works of other African authors, scholars, and activists. While he writes of the importance of studying African literature, he rarely does so himself. When he does engage with specific Afro-diasporic writers, it is often from a critical stance. He writes almost exclusively deridingly of the Negritude writers such as Senghor, Césaire, Damas, and Rabemananjara, whom Mudumbe accuses of relying on Western (particularly French) bourgeoise framework. Yet, Mudimbe also uncritically praises Sartre’s assessment of the movement in his work Black Orpheus, which turns the particularity of the black experience into a sign of the universal.
As such, despite Mudimbe’s position as an African man writing about Africa, the language and epistemological framework that Mudimbe works within in these essays seems to still be Eurocentric. A mark of his academic training in the Western intellectual tradition, Mudimbe’s vocabulary and style within these essays are deeply imbued with Euro-centric concepts. His heavy reliance on Foucalt in particular struck me as odd, and it often seemed like he was utilizing Western theories in order to gain acceptance and credence within the dominant institution of the European academy. While it can be argued whether or not we can fully escape the epistemological frameworks we’ve been given, these texts seemed to be an attempt, contra Lourde, to dismantle the master’s house with the master’s tools. In the end, it didn’t always end up successful, and Mudimbe’s work would have benefitted immensely from directly engaging with a wider array of scholars, especially from the African diaspora. By engaging with thinkers, writers, and activists such as Walter Rodney, Frantz Fanon, and C.L.R. James, Mudimbe’s work could have taken a more Afro-centric approach, rather than remaining within a Eurocentric paradigm.
Conclusion:
Overall, The Scent of the Father is an incredibly insightful and essential work from one of the leading figures in the field of African studies. While some of the essays are outdated and remain stubbornly within a Eurocentric epistemological paradigm, Mudimbe’s work still serves as a vital resource for historians of African philosophy and social theory. As a collection of early essays from Mudimbe, this volume serves as an illuminating window into the early thought of a prodigious mind in the field of African studies. For anyone interested in the intellectual legacy of Western colonialism on the African continent and the debates surrounding decolonial discourses during the decades of African emancipation, this excellently translated volume is an essential resource.
Thank you to Polity for sending a free copy for me to read and review.