This is a research paper for my graduate African History class. The topic is “time-awareness/time-perception” in African culture. This topic needs to be written and contextualized within capitalist transformation. The paper needs to push beyond the understanding that Africans were “late” to an understanding of exactly what types of temporal awareness they had and when. The paper should begin with the 19th century. Look at missionary accounts about Africans and time perception. What did Africans think about time? What were their ideas about time? How did they spend their time? Leisure time? Work time? How did they measure time? Explore the relationship between nature and time (stars, moon, sun, seasons, bells, etc.) Africans were not naturally obsessed with time until influenced by Europeans. So how did missionaries teach time to Africans? Explore slavery”s impact on African”s sense of time. How did colonial authorities impose time on Africans? How did colonialism impact on African ideas about time? How did African perceptions of time conflict with European perceptions about time? How was time used in racial discourse? Did Europeans say that because Africans had a different sense of time then they were inferior? lazy? idle? backward? etc. What is the relationship between making the most of time and production say about a certain civilization? How did Africans transition from traditional modes of time to industrial time? What is the legacy of this history? What does all this mean now?
The paper should have a clear, concise introduction, the minimum number of quotations should be about 2-3 per page, there should be parenthetical citations, footers, etc. There should also be a bibliography. I would also like to incorporate some interesting historical narrative(s) to tell the story and making this paper interesting and colorful. I”d like the story to grab the reader and make them interested in this topic so if it could be colorful throughout that would be great. Most history papers are pretty boring. I don”t want this to be one of them.
