Democratizing the Disciplines

Abstract

The debate over whether Black Studies is a field or discipline obscures the role that politics and ideology played in the establishment of traditional disciplines. Such disciplines as history, economics, political science, and sociology have focused almost entirely on the West as an area worthy of study. When African history was taught, for example, it typically began with the onset of colonization. Moreover, the mainstream scholarship in these traditional disciplines generally supported the existing power structures with methodologies that claimed objectivity. Black Studies challenged both the Eurocentrism and objectivity of traditional scholarship. However, it has not been entirely free of mainstream thinking in its search for “great men” and “great nations.”