Temporal disobedience, the colonization of time, Mbiti, and a literature review of 'African time'

In this video, I explore alternate temporalities from the western linear model of time characterized as mechanical and extractive. Instead, I explore traditional African worldviews. The idea of African concepts of time is something African philosophers have been debating, critiquing, expanding, and questioning for decades, and I give an attempt at a shallow literature review. Something I forgot to mention in the video: When Mbiti said he focused on African society before the influence of modernity, he was likely marking a boundary between what he saw as “traditional Africa”, rooted in indigenous religion, community, and a cyclical understanding of time, and the “modern” world which to him as a theologian he probably saw as shaped by colonial contact and Christian missionization. However, as we know, African scholars have critiqued this framing (and so do I) because it constructs a myth of a pure, untouched “traditional Africa,” arguing instead that African life and thought were never static, and that modernity itself was co-produced with Africa. Connect with me: Instagram:   / mumbipoetry   Tiktok:   / mumbipoetry   Twitter: https://x.com/mumbipoetry 00:00 - 00:17 Introduction 00:18 - 01:34 African time and the colonization of time 01:34 - 04:08 Mbiti's notion and dimensions of African time 04:09 - 06:04 Literature review: criticisms and support of Mbiti 06:05 - 06:43 where does that leave us? there are other ways of telling time 06:44 - 07:08 outro