This article examines the veracity of Robert Bates’s claims (amongst others in: Africa Today, vol. 44, no. 2 (1997)) about the paucity of methodological and theoretical advancement and the dearth of intra and interdisciplinary conversation in area studies, especially African studies. The present author argues that methodological and epistemological development in Africanist/African social science has suffered from the negative changes felt in Africa since the mid-1970s. The problem for African studies is not that Western methods of social science are not readily applicable to African conditions. The problem lies rather in the logistical impediments of research in Africa. Although the importance of Bates’s call for theoretical and methodological advancement in Africanist – and by extension African – social sciences cannot be overemphasized, Bates’s technique of ‘analytic narratives’ based on game theory alone is not sufficient. Disciplinary soul-searching should include efforts to outline and assess the methodologies used in research and to expose the methodological strengths and weaknesses of data. Notes, ref.
