Fear of ethnophilosophy has led some African philosophers to self-betrayal.

Evidence

It is precisely this attitude which has driven some African philosophers to hover above concrete cultural realities, preventing them from engaging fully in the philosophical exploration of the living traditions of their culture for fear of “ethnophilosophical contamination.” Elsewhere this unfortunate tendency has been characterised as self-betrayal (Mungwini 2019b, p. 74). The effort to develop a comprehensive history of African philosophy will remain problematic until we are able to lift the intellectual curfew imposed on the African mind in the form of the inherited understanding and definition of philosophy. — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 381

Categorization

• QUESTION: The ‘intellectual curfew imposed on the African mind’ is a striking formulation worth tracing to its source theorist — likely echoing Thiong’o’s language about the ‘colonization of the mind’.
• DEFINE: Introduces the loaded term ‘ethnophilosophical contamination’ — the accusation that drove African philosophers away from their own cultural traditions.