Editorial note: Identity and Establishing the Meaning of Life.

The aim of this article is to offer a critique of Kwame Anthony Appiah's article, 'New literature, new theory' (2000), and Achille Mbembe's On the Postcolony (2001). These two critical voices have become widely accepted in European and African academia. However, little scholarly work has been carried out to scrutinize the theoretical assumptions on which these works are based. In this paper we examine Appiah's critique of nativism and argue that his insights on the contradictions of the discourse of nativism offered by some of Africa's cultural nationalist cannot be ignored. However, we take issue with his general thrust that appears to minimize the overall contribution of the politics of nativism in the struggle for liberation in Africa. We then link Appiah's critique of nativism to Achille Mbembe's convictions in On the postcolony that African leaders and those over whom they rule are cought up in an unbreakable cycle of violence. We argue that Mbembe's grasp of the theoretical issues relating to evolving African identities is notoriously essentialized and that this prevents him from experiencing other sites where African agency can be felt. We advance the claim that the kind of metacriticism that we carry out here, through the work of Appiah and Mbembe, is necessary to undermine attempts at canonizing theoretical texts such as those produced by these two influential scholars, and we go on to show how a multiplicity of interpretations on Africa from different perspectives can benefit Africa in its attempt to understand the different paths to development that the continent has taken.