African culture and the interrogation of the eurocentric conception and perception of african time an afrocentric perspective

Abstract

The paper problematizes the issue of African time. It interrogates the validity of the different ideological implications which are made of the concept of African time. It thus defines African time, its western and African perceptions. It has permitted us to specify that Westerners define and perceive African time from a cyclic and ideological manner. That is, African time becomes synonymous with underdevelopment, laziness, tardiness and being at the mercy of nature. In addition, the paper has enabled to demonstrate that African time does neither antagonize with the respect of time nor with development. It reveals that punctuality in African time is perceived in two ways: the first consists of coming earlier before the fixed time for meetings, events and not the contrary. The second consists of just coinciding with the meetings, events and not minutes or hours after. Hence, African time, as conceived and perceived by the West, is not culturally founded, for it encourages work, punctuality, development and advocates the sense of anticipation and prevision.