Using Sociology and Anthropology to Explain the Perpetual Underdevelopment of Africa and the Caribbean

Abstract

The epistemological and ontological variants of the Age of Enlightenment set in motion a new way of thinking among European people. Rationalization became the watch word among Europeans. Since rationalization is a deliberate, matter-of-fact calculation of the most efficient means to accomplish a particular goal, the enslavement of Africans and colonization of the Caribbean can therefore be interpreted as the most efficient means for the Europeans to accomplish the goals of mercantile and industrial capitalism. These goals are persistent today due to the permanent existence of the ethnocentric core-periphery dichotomy between the Western world and Third World countries. The objective of this study is to argue that the Age of Enlightenment by its very nature was part of the cultural metamorphosis which took place in Europe in the eighteenth century where it only benefitted Europeans’ intellectual, scientific, and economic development. The methodology is based on a discursive methodological approach in which anthropology, sociology and historiography have been utilized. The finding of this research is exploratory, but it can be used to stimulate the minds of young African and Caribbean scholars so that they can build the relevant episteme that incorporate their worldview.