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Memory, innocence and nostalgia: other versions of African childhood in two African texts
Abstract
There are a number of memoirs/autobiographies and biographies by African writers on their childhoods in Africa. However, many of these texts tend to focus mostly on the child protagonist�s experiences of colonialism, slavery, war, death and deprivation. This article moves away from these narratives of deprivation and trauma, focusing on other versions of African childhoods where the child lives a carefree life devoid of danger and scarcity of resources. Using Camara Laye�s The Dark Child and Wole Soyinka�s Ak�: The Years of Childhood and doing a textual analysis of the content, themes and characters, this article argues that these texts can be read as recollections of nostalgia and memories of a carefree time in the life of two African children, a time that the narrators reminisce upon through the act of retelling in order to revisit the joys and innocence of those days.
Recent education reforms in Africa demand that teachers reconsider their position as the overall authorities and repositories of all knowledge in the classroom to develop the critical thinking skills of learners. While such a position demands a critical pedagogical approach to teaching, it is argued in this paper that the
sociocultural values and social expectations of a typical African society like Ghana may have a significant impact on teachers’ development of children’s critical thinking skills. Thus, drawing on some selected Ghanaian proverbs, it is argued that how childhood is culturally constructed in the Ghanaian sociocultural setting could militate against the possibilities of developing children’s critical thinking skills in education. The arguments raised were grounded in critical discourse analysis.
Much attention on childhoods and children�s lives in sub�Saharan Africa has focused on marginalised childhoods or children living in difficult circumstances. While the focus of these studies is valid, they have arguably contributed to portraying African childhoods in a rather negative and pessimistic light. Such an overwhelming focus on the challenges that much of the continent and its peoples face is problematic not least because it becomes the focus of many of the publications that are produced about the continent which are, then, in turn, consumed not only by academic colleagues, but also by students and other members of the public. The resulting outcome, then, is that the knowledge that is produced and then consumed about childhoods in sub�Saharan Africa by those living elsewhere is one which is characterised by lacks. Therefore, this special issue on African childhoods seeks to counter such dominant narratives that exist relating to childhoods and children�s lives in sub�Saharan Africa and instead, foreground the mundane and everyday existence of a range of children�s lives. By adopting such an approach this special issue contributes to illustrating the multiplicity of childhoods that exist on the continent. It is our hope that this will, in turn, highlight the pluralities of contemporary African childhoods and facilitate the process of moving beyond a one-dimensional understanding of childhoods and children�s lives in the region.
The scarification in Aké is invested with major significance apropos Soyinka’s ideas on African subjectivity. Scarification among the Yoruba is one of the rites of passage associated with personal development. Scarification literally and metaphorically “opens” the person up socially and cosmically. Personal formation and self-realization are enabled by the Yoruba social code brought into being by its mythology. The meaning of the scarification incident in Aké is profoundly different. Determined by the form of autobiography which creates a self-constituting subject, the enabling Yoruba socio-cultural context is elided. The story of Soyinka’s personal development is allegorical of the story of the development of the modern African subject. For Soyinka, the African subject is a rational subject whose constitution precludes the splitting of the scientific and spiritual which is a consequence of the Cartesian rupture. The African subject should be open to other subjects and the object world. Subjectivity constituted by the autobiographical mode closes off the opening up symbolically signalled by scarification.
Nostalgia fulfills pivotal functions for individuals, but lacks an empirically derived and comprehensive definition. We examined lay conceptions of nostalgia using a prototype approach. In Study 1, participants generated open-ended features of nostalgia, which were coded into categories. In Study 2, participants rated the centrality of these categories, which were subsequently classified as central (e.g., memories, relationships, happiness) or peripheral (e.g., daydreaming, regret, loneliness). Central (as compared with peripheral) features were more often recalled and falsely recognized (Study 3), were classified more quickly (Study 4), were judged to reflect more nostalgia in a vignette (Study 5), better characterized participants' own nostalgic (vs. ordinary) experiences (Study 6), and prompted higher levels of actual nostalgia and its intrapersonal benefits when used to trigger a personal memory, regardless of age (Study 7). These findings highlight that lay people view nostalgia as a self-relevant and social blended emotional and cognitive state, featuring a mixture of happiness and loss. The findings also aid understanding of nostalgia's functions and identify new methods for future research.
About this Guide The questions and discussion topics that follow are designed to enhance your reading of Ishmael Beah's A Long Way Gone. We hope they will enrich your experience as you explore his inspiring, infinitely valuable story.
This essay analyzes and provides an alternative reading of Camara Laye's L'enfant noir and Wole Soyinka's Aké: The Years of Childhood. It examines how the two texts defy codifications and ideological expectations of childhood autobiographical narratives, and explores their intricate autobiographical determinations and motives. It demonstrates that, when it comes to narratives situated in the colonial period, Camara Laye and Wole Soyinka have provided alternative engagements with colonialism, adding nuance to the literary representations and accounts of childhood in African letters.
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