What is "Afrocentricity" and is it the same as "Afrocentrism"?

Answer 1

meaning wise they are almost the same

Answer 2

Afrocentricity is an academic approach to data that places Africa and the experiences of diasporic peoples of African ancestry in the center of academic inquiry.Adherents of Afrocentricity argue that scholarship dealing with diasporal peoples should be properly centered in order to reflect the agency of diasporal peoples, in order to situate those peoples within a specific space and time, and in order to better reflect the truth. The concept of centering refers to the dual process of placing Black diasporan life in the center of academic inquiry as a research topic, and acknowledging the central influence of African processes on that topic. It should be differentiated from Afrocentrism in that the latter refers to an ideology-philosophy that has its basis in scholarship but is not itself driven by scholarship. (A similar distinction exists between Postmodernity and Postmodernism.)


Afrocentrism is an academic, historical approach to the study of world history. Afrocentrism holds that Eurocentrism has led to the neglect or denial of the contributions of Africa's original peoples and focused instead on a generally European-centered model of world civilization and history. Therefore, Afrocentrism aims to shift the focus from a European-centered history to an Africa-centered history. More broadly, Afrocentrism is concerned with distinguishing the influence of European and Oriental peoples from indigenous African achievements.

Answer 3

Both terms would imply making Africa the center of the universe. In practical use, it would mean looking at history, culture & c from the African perspective. This is, of course, rather vague. The culture and history of North Africa is considerably different from that of Central and Southern Africa.