Associate Professor Stig Jensen and former CAS student Rune Larsen publishes article

Stig Jensen, associate professor at CAS, and Rune Larsen, PhD-student at Institute for Anthropological Research in Africa, KU Leuven, and former student at CAS, have published an article in videnskab.dk. In this commentary, Stig Jensen and Rune Larsen analyse the different ways in which the West constructs simplified perceptions of Africa that obstructs and hinders a deeper understanding of the possibilities and challenges of the continent. Moreover, as Jensen and Larsen shows, these "fantasies" are directly related to the colonial past, and they are the foundation for the detrimental actions and behaviours that keep the African continent in simplified imagined conceptions of being for example "wild" "dangerous" "corrupt" or "absurd". 

The article provides great examples of these perceptions, and outlines in what ways they are detrimental to the African continent and allow for a continuation of the power dynamic between "The West" and "Africa". 

The article is in Danish and can be accessed by clicking here