Afterword: Letter to VY Mudimbe: On the Euromorphic Practice of Critique

This afterword concludes the book. Written in an epistolary form as a ‘Letter to V.Y. Mudimbe,’ it draws on the author’s intimate understanding of the work of Mudimbe and the conversations they have had over the years to propose a robust response to his critics around four intersecting registers—que faire, or the instrumental question; the requirement of fieldwork as methodological requirement for truth claims in African studies; manners of inscriptions in disciplinary spaces; and what the author characterises as Euromorphism in Mudimbe’s work. This afterword not only highlights the profound inability of critics to come to terms with the complexities of Mudimbe’s ideas, but also clarifies his complex positions against often limiting criticisms directed at his work.