Marimba Ani (bornDona Richards) is ananthropologist andAfrican Studies scholar best known for her workYurugu, a comprehensive critique of European thought and culture, and her coining of the term "Maafa" for theAfrican holocaust.

Marimba Ani completed herBA degree at theUniversity of Chicago, and holdsMA andPh.D. degrees in anthropology from the Graduate Faculty of theNew School University.^[1] In 1964, duringFreedom Summer, she served as anSNCC field secretary, and married civil-rights activistBob Moses; they divorced in 1966.^[2][3] She has taught as a Professor of African Studies in the Department of Black and Puerto Rican Studies atHunter College in New York City,^[1][3] and is credited with introducing the termMaafa to describe the African holocaust.^[4][5]

Ani's 1994 work,Yurugu: An Afrikan-Centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behavior, examined the influence of European culture on the formation of modern institutional frameworks, throughcolonialism andimperialism, from an African perspective.^[6][7][8] Described by the author as an "intentionally aggressive polemic", the book derives its title from aDogon legend of an incomplete and destructive being rejected by its creator.^[9][10]

External audio
"Marimba Ani speaks" – Yurugu and the Europeanasili

Examining the causes of globalwhite supremacy, Ani argued that European thought implicitly believes in its own superiority, stating: "European culture is unique in the assertion of political interest".^[6]

InYurugu, Ani proposed a tripartite conceptualization of culture, based on the concepts of

1. Asili, the central seed or "germinating matrix" of a culture,
2. Utamawazo, "culturally structured thought" or worldview, "the way in which the thought of members of a culture must be patterned if theasili is to be fulfilled", and
3. Utamaroho, a culture's "vital force" or "energy source", which "gives it its emotional tone and motivates the collective behavior of its members".^[8][9][11]

The terms Ani uses in this framework are based onSwahili.Asili is a common Swahili word meaning "origin" or "essence";utamawazo andutamaroho are neologisms created by Ani, based on the Swahili wordsutamaduni ("civilisation"),wazo ("thought") androho ("spirit life").^[9][12][13] Theutamawazo andutamaroho are not viewed as separate from theasili, but as its manifestations, which are "born out of theasili and, in turn, affirm it."^[11]

Ani characterised theasili of European culture as dominated by the concepts of separation and control, with separation establishing dichotomies like "man" and "nature", "the European" and "the other", "thought" and "emotion" – separations that in effect end up negating the existence of "the other", who or which becomes subservient to the needs of (European) man.^[8] Control is disguised in universalism as in reality "the use of abstract 'universal' formulations in the European experience has been to control people, to impress them, and to intimidate them."^[14]

According to Ani's model, theutamawazo of European culture "is structured by ideology and bio-cultural experience", and itsutamaroho or vital force is domination, reflected in all European-based structures and the imposition of Western values and civilisation on peoples around the world, destroying cultures and languages in the name of progress.^[8][15]

The book also addresses the use of the termMaafa, based on a Swahili word meaning "great disaster", to describeslavery.African-centered thinkers have subsequently popularized and expanded on Ani's conceptualization.^[16] Citing both the centuries-long history of slavery and more recent examples like theTuskegee study, Ani argued that Europeans and whiteAmericans have an "enormous capacity for the perpetration of physical violence against other cultures" that had resulted in "antihuman, genocidal" treatment of blacks.^[16][17]

Philip Higgs, inAfrican Voices in Education, describesYurugu as an "excellent delineation of the ethics of harmonious coexistence between human beings", but cites the book's "overlooking of structures of social inequality and conflict that one finds in all societies, including indigenous ones," as a weakness.^[15]: 175Molefi Kete Asante describesYurugu as an "elegant work".^[18] Stephen Howe accuses Ani of having little interest in actual Africa (beyond romance) and challenges her critique of "Eurocentric" logic since she invests heavily in its usage in the book.^[9]

• "The Ideology of European Dominance,"The Western Journal of Black Studies. Vol. 3, No. 4, Winter, 1979, andPrésence Africaine, No. 111, 3rd Quarterly, 1979.
• "European Mythology: The Ideology of Progress," in M. Asante and A. Vandi (eds),Contemporary Black Thought, Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1980 (59-79).
• Let The Circle Be Unbroken: The Implications of African Spirituality in the Diaspora. New York: Nkonimfo Publications, 1988 (orig. 1980).
• "Let The Circle Be Unbroken: The Implications of African-American Spirituality,"Présence Africaine. No. 117-118, 1981.
• "The Nyama of the Blacksmith: The Metaphysical Significance of Metallurgy in Africa,"Journal of Black Studies. Vol. 12, No. 2, December 1981.
• "The African 'Aesthetic' and National Consciousness," in Kariamu Welsh-Asante (ed.),The African Aesthetic, Westport, Ct.: Greenwood Press, 1993 (63-82)
• Yurugu: An Afrikan-centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behavior. Trenton: Africa World Press, 1994.
• "The African Asili," inSelected Papers from the Proceedings of the Conference on Ethics, Higher Education and Social Responsibility, Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1996.
• "To Heal a People", in Erriel Kofi Addae (ed.),To Heal a People: Afrikan Scholars Defining a New Reality, Columbia, MD.: Kujichagulia Press, 1996 (91-125).
• "Writing as a means of enabling Afrikan Self-determination," in Elizabeth Nuñez and Brenda M. Greene (eds),Defining Ourselves; Black Writers in the 90's, New York: Peter Lang, 1999 (209–211).

• Afrocentrism
• Cheikh Anta Diop
• John Henrik Clarke
• Leonard Jeffries
• Molefi Kete Asante

• A Look At Professor Marimba AniArchived 2014-10-15 at theWayback Machine, Women of the African Diaspora
• Marimba Ani, afrocentricite.com
• Drs. Frances Cress-Welsing And Marimba Ani / The Meeting, I Mix What I Like

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