Enframing and Transformation

Abstract The phenomenological method, with its various approaches to studying the seminal structures of lived experience, has been a cornerstone in the thought of various African philosophers. However, their specific contributions to phenomenology are often neglected in the larger discursive terrain of African philosophy, post-colonialism and decolonization, and the global phenomenology movement. This chapter sets out to explore Serequeberhan’s special contribution to what one can call an African hermeneutic phenomenology. This chapter’s focus is on his critical adoption of Heidegger’s works in his books The Hermeneutics of African Philosophy: Horizon and Discourse (1994) and Existence and Heritage (2015). More specifically, the chapter explores Serequeberhan’s elaboration on the problem of what Heidegger calls ‘enframing’ (Ge-stell)—the ensnarement of phenomena through their reduction to entities for industrial use within the framework of technocratic modernism. I venture to show that Serequeberhan uses the concept enframing to characterize the organization of ‘lived existence’ in the post-colonial context. Enframing manifests in the hierarchical structures of neo-colonial global capitalism used to organize social, political, and economic life within but also beyond the post-colonial African context. Enframing warrants transformation. Thus, ultimately, this chapter explores Serequeberhan’s call for ‘a transformed abode of man in the world’.