This article takes stock of the state of African Studies and argues that (1) research on Africa is strongly dominated by outside, non-African, mostly Western views; (2) there is a tendency towards undifferentiated views on “Africa,” which usually concentrate on negative aspects, overlooking progress in many areas; (3) methodologies that focus on causal identification are rarely used; and (4) the field focuses on micro-perspectives while few works examine the big picture and the longue durée. The article then argues that Comparative African Studies, which builds upon the concept of Comparative Area Studies, can address some of these challenges. A pronouncedly comparative perspective would help to systematically combine and contrast “outside” and “inside” perspectives in order to better identify causal relationships and general trends both within Africa and between Africa and other regions. Consequently, African Studies requires more resources and should more effectively engage in multi-disciplinary and mixed-methods research.

中文翻译：

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重新思考非洲研究：四个挑战和比较非洲研究的案例

本文评估了非洲研究的现状，并认为 (1) 对非洲的研究强烈地被外部的、非非洲的、主要是西方的观点所主导；(2) 对“非洲”的看法趋于千篇一律，往往集中在消极方面，忽视许多领域的进展；（3）很少使用注重因果关系识别的方法论；(4) 该领域侧重于微观视角，而很少有作品审视大局和长期持续时间。然后，文章认为，建立在比较区域研究概念之上的比较非洲研究可以解决其中的一些挑战。明显的比较视角将有助于系统地结合和对比“外部”和“内部”视角，以便更好地确定非洲内部以及非洲与其他区域之间的因果关系和总体趋势。因此，非洲研究需要更多资源，应该更有效地参与多学科和混合方法的研究。