The "Single Story" of "Africa"

A very good sociology blog, Sociological Images, has posted this TED lecture by novelist, Chimamanda Adichie, about the western construction of Africa. As the blog introduces:

'In this 20 minute video, novelist Chimamanda Adichie describes, with insight and grace, the problem of the “single story.” She says, “Show a people as one thing, and only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become.” Focusing on her experience as an “African” in the U.S. (she is from Nigeria), she also describes her own experiences with realizing that she has heard only a single story, whether of rural Nigerians or Mexicans.'

The blog Stuff White People Like also has a post on this (rather humorous).

Also see this video on YouTube, How Not to Speak of Africa.

All people are capable of reducing people to a "single story". But always, those with Power (white, male, mostly) are able to control, tell, and shape these narratives and stereotypes. Which as Adichie says, are not necessarily untrue, but are rather 'incomplete'. They tell half a story, or reduces, simplifies and emphasizes what certain attributes and cultures a people have. And often for people from the African continent, this means reducing the countries and people of Africa into one single people, narrative and experience.