Afrocentric interpretation of ideas in western european and american intellectual history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: The concept of Molefi Kete Asante

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17721/1728-2640.2026.162.13

Abstract

Background. In the context of the intensification of Ukraine’s foreign policy, humanitarian, and academic engagement with African states, there is a growing need for an in-depth study of various aspects of the history and culture of the peoples of the African continent. Among these needs is the systematic examination and reinterpretation of the intellectual history of African and African American communities. Of particular importance is the analysis of concepts that emerged outside the Western intellectual canon and that offer alternative approaches to interpreting Western history, culture, and ideas. One such concept is Afrocentricity, developed by the American philosopher Molefi Kete Asante, which occupies a significant place in the intellectual history of the second half of the twentieth century

The aim of this article is to analyze the Afrocentric interpretation of ideas from Western European and American intellectual history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as articulated in the works of Molefi Kete Asante. To achieve this aim, the study pursues the following objectives: to assess the degree to which this problem has been developed in scholarship; to define the concept of “intellectual history”; to clarify the meaning of “Afrocentricity” as understood by Asante; to analyze the interpretation of European ideas from an Afrocentric perspective; and to propose directions for further research on this topic.

Methods and Theory. The methodological and theoretical framework of the study is based on approaches drawn from intellectual history and the history of ideas. The research employs historiographical analysis, conceptual analysis, a comparative approach, as well as elements of contextual and critical analysis of philosophical and socio-political ideas.

Results. The study demonstrates that Afrocentricity, as conceptualized by Molefi Kete Asante, constitutes a coherent intellectual paradigm aimed at the deconstruction of Eurocentric models of knowledge. The Afrocentric interpretation of Western intellectual traditions reveals their deep rootedness in European historical experience and the limitations of their claims to universality. Dialectical materialism, structuralism, modernism, and postmodernism are interpreted by Asante as conceptual frameworks that reproduce hierarchical conceptions of culture and history and that are incapable of adequately accounting for African experience.

Conclusions. The Afrocentric interpretation of Western European and American intellectual history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries proposed by Molefi Kete Asante emerges as a systematic critique of dominant Western intellectual regimes, including dialectical materialism, structuralism, modernism, and postmodernism. Despite significant differences among these approaches, Afrocentricity identifies a shared limitation: their rootedness in European historical experience and their universalist pretensions. This, in effect, leads to the marginalization or exclusion of non-European civilizations - above all Africa - from full participation in historical and intellectual discourse. Molefi Kete Asante’s concept possesses considerable heuristic potential for the development of historical research in the fields of African studies, intellectual history, and identity studies.