Africana philosophy is an emerging term in the field of philosophy representing the works of professional philosophers who are of African descent as well as others whose works deal with the subject matter of the African diaspora.
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Africana philosophy is an umbrella term which includes the philosophical ideas, arguments and theories that focus on questions of particular concern to people of African descent. Some of the topics which Africana philosophy explores includes pre-Socratic African philosophy and the modern day debates discussing the early history of Western philosophy, post-colonial writing in Africa and the Americas, black resistance to oppression, philosophy of existence in the United States, and the meaning of "blackness" in the modern world.
Lucius Outlaw writes
"Africana philosophy" is very much a heuristic notion - that is, one that suggests orientations for philosophical endeavors by professional philosophers and other intellectuals devoted to matters pertinent to African and African-descended persons and peoples.
Africana philosophy is currently being explored by professional philosophers in the areas of ethics, social philosophy, political philosophy, philosophy of biology, semantics, critical race theory and postcolonialism. The American Philosophical Association has 10,000 members in North America. It is estimated that only 100 of its members in North America are of African descent.[1]
Lewis Gordon writes
Africana philosophy is a species of Africana thought, which involves the theoretical questions raised by critical engagements with ideas in Africana cultures and their hybrid, mixed, or creolized forms worldwide. Since there was no reason for the people of the African continent to have considered themselves African until that identity was imposed upon them through conquest and colonization in the modern era... this area of thought also refers to the unique set of questions raised by the emergence of "Africans" and their diaspora here designated by the term "Africana"...Africana philosophy refers to the philosophical dimensions of this area of thought.
Branches include African philosophy, black existentialism, black liberation theology and womanism.