Decolonial Visions in Mid-Twentieth-Century African Rhetoric: Perspectives from Kwame Nkrumah’s Consciencism

This chapter examines Kwame Nkrumah’s Consciencism so as to highlight twentieth-century African rhetoric and how it might enrich the theoretical substance of contemporary discourses on decoloniality. The analysis emphasizes four decolonial rhetorical moves in Consciencism: that is, a critique of the universalist outlook of Western epistemology, emphasis on the significance of an ideology that connects philosophy with morality in the African decolonial project, argument for socialism as the best ideology for Africa as well as suggestions that socialism is indigenous to traditional African societies, and finally, argument for a pluriversal African society that emphasizes the harmonization of the three significant components of contemporary African societies. The analysis concludes with calls for a reinterpretation of the archive of African liberation rhetoric and its transnational connectivities.