Challenging Intellectual Colonialism: The Rarely Noticed Question of Methodological Tribalism in Language Research

Abstract

The purpose of this concluding chapter is twofold. The first is to distil the cross-cutting themes explored in the preceding chapters. The second is to provide a critique of what we call methodological tribalism (ethnicism). The western term 'tribalism' is largely a derogative description and evaluation, from without, of the dynamics of ethnic processes, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. In the second half of the nineteenth century, under the influence of social Darwinism, 'modern' (i.e., western) societies construed as 'nations' and encased in their own nation-states were opposed to 'premodern' and 'non-modern' (i.e., colonial, non-western) societies labelled disparagingly as 'tribes'. The former were proposed to be 'more civilized' and thus generally 'better' than the latter as 'primitive'.