“African Potential” and overcoming the difficulties of modern world: Comprehensive area studies that will provide a new perspective for the future of humanity

This project was implemented from 2016 to 2021 through a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (Basic Research (S)). The leader of the project was Professor Motoji Matsuda of the Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University.

Modern African society confronts a battery of hardships and problems. Most efforts to grapple with these issues today are based on approaches and arrangements fashioned in Europe and North America. Yet concepts and systems for solving the problems of African society are constantly being reworked in the context of colonialism, cold-war structures and today’s globalization, making contact with different concepts and systems in a process of collision, negotiation, blending and unification.

Though the name of our project was “African Potentials,” its purpose was to elucidate one prescription for solving the problems not of modern African society alone but of human society in general. The spirit of the project was to discover the potential of Africa, not as Africa that needs assistance from the world but as Africa that can save the world.