African studies is the study of Africa, especially the continent's cultures and societies (as opposed to its geology, geography, zoology, etc.). The field includes the study of Africa's history (pre-colonial, colonial, post-colonial), demography (ethnic groups), culture, politics, economy, languages, and religion (Islam, Christianity, traditional religions). A specialist in African studies is often referred to as an "africanist". A key focus of the discipline is to interrogate epistemological approaches, theories and methods in traditional disciplines using a critical lens that inserts African-centred “ways of knowing” and references. Africanists argue that there is a need to "deexoticize" Africa and banalise it, rather than understand Africa as exceptionalized and exoticized. African scholars, in recent times, have focused on decolonizing African studies, and reconfiguring it to reflect the African experience through an African lens. History The early anthropological foundations for much of the knowledge about Africa in modern academic fields, including African studies, are the European exploration of Africa and the Atlantic slave trade by explorers and missionaries as well as the colonial Scramble for Africa by European imperialists. With the start of decolonization of Africa, the Cold War, international development agendas, and Area Studies, which had increasing policy relevance in this emerging environment, this resulted in the mass development of African Studies organizations (e.g., centers, institutes) throughout continental Africa after 1945. Following African independence, many colonial staff in Europe and Africa became the staff of the emergent African Studies organizations. Following African independence and the end of World War II, colonial methods of producing knowledge underwent challenges and changes. Due to World War II occurring and Africa not being directly partaking in it, the African world was viewed by many Africans as a distinct option apart from the Eastern world and Western world, and African leaders (e.g., Nnamdi Azikiwe, Kwame Nkrumah, Leopold Senghor) refused to accept the presumptions of European imperialism and advocated for Africans to have a knowledge of themselves due to this being essential to the political and economic wellness of their citizenry. Consequently, the dialectics of African independence made way for European scholars, such as Basil Davidson and Thomas Hodgkin, to contest colonial ideas and standards (e.g., requirements of documentary evidence like what was used for the history of Europe) that resulted in the history of Africa being dismissed. The inherent dynamics of Africa and the value and use of African orature as a form of evidence was underscored by