89
JOURNAL OF YOUTH RESEARCHES
Africa’s Reductive Images,
Contesting the Sources, and New
Generations as Passive Victims: A
Reflection on Historical and Global
Representational Practices*
Copyright © 2017
Republic of Turkey Ministry of Youth and Sports
/
Journal of Youth Researches • July 2017 • 5(12) • 89-114
ISSN 2147-8473
Received
| 14 May 2017
Accepted
| 07 July 2017
* This article is taken from the author’s PhD dissertation on ‘The Construction of African Cultural Image’
** PhD candidate, Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University, School of Foreign Languages, Ankara,
.
Abdulaziz Dino Gidreta
**
Abstract
The impacts of African ‘reductive images’ on the new African generation has become a growing concern.
Though the entire Africa cannot be condensed into a homogenous feature, there has been a classic subject
matter commonly discoursed as ‘African image’. This subject is worrisome for its undesirable impact on
contemporary African generations as bearers of negative images and ‘passive victims’. There is a growing
risk of pushing these generations into reduced ‘self-conception’ and ‘role-perception’ in the international
spheres of dynamics where reputation matters a lot. In other words, such anxieties and acts of passiveness
would lead Africa and Africans to be sidelined in global socio-economic shares. While this subject inscribes
several arguable themes including ‘reality versus image’ and ‘criticism versus misrepresentation’, it sounds
vital to discover and challenge its historical and global basis. In this regard, the hi/story of African ‘reductive
images’ goes as far back as the start of slavery and colonialism. Since then, perhaps no image of a geo-cul-
tural region has been as simply degraded as African one. This article attempts to make a reflective review
on historical and global representational practices that, directly or indirectly, contribute to the reductive
images of African continent. It mainly considers the practices of colonial exhibitions, missionary collections,
Oriental and Eurocentric narratives, world information and communication dis/order, world mapping and
spatial imagery, as well as developmental and humanitarian interventions. The article comes to confront
these mis/representational practices and phenomena for their collectively injurious effects on the pace of
African development. Essentially, there is urgent need for counter-strategies aiming at image restoration
and promotion.
Keywords:
Africa’s Images, Colonial Exhibitions, Oriental And Eurocentric Narratives, World Information
and Communication Dis/Order, Developmental and Humanitarian Interventions, Young Generations
ANALYS I S / RESEARCH
