CRITICAL AFROISM (CA): A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Abstract

Critical Afroism (CA) is a conceptual framework that centers on African and Afro-diasporic identities, histories, and worldviews through a critical and decolonial lens. As a new analytical tool of study, it adopts Afrocentric epistemologies, diaspora studies, Black feminist thought, and postcolonial critique to interrogate colonial legacies, cultural misrepresentation, and systemic inequities within literature, media, and broader sociocultural discourses. CA emphasizes the need for a grounded, historically aware, and critically engaged Afrocentricity that affirms Black agency and reclaims narrative authority. It further criticizes Afropolitanism or Afro-pessimism as a conflicting paradigm with misrepresentation of African or Afrodiasporic realities. This paper highlights the significant postulation, theoretical influences and praxis of Critical Afroism. This theory is conceptualized as a dynamic and transformative approach for interrogating African realities as well as Black diasporic productions. It contributes to the politics of knowledge production in African and diasporic scholarship.