Undisciplining Methodologies: Or, Recalling African Subjects from the Shadows of African Cinema Archives

Writing on African subjects who do not enjoy significant research attention presents methodological problems when there are few or no archival resources from which to draw. This deficit of archive makes them appear to be devoid of epistemic value and illegible within conventional protocols of citation, theory building and publishing. If scholars continue to ignore them, that will further obscure their contribution to scholarship. In this article, I focus on my experience of writing on the Black actor Ken Gampu (1923-2003), whose success in Hollywood and in South Africa during apartheid makes him an extraordinary historical subject. Yet, Gampu's life is largely unrecorded, traceable only in the films and television series he performed in, and significantly limited archival sources. The contradiction of his 'celebrity' during a politically repressive period, and the academic disregard of his life and work have birthed the methodological burden of presenting him to contemporary readership(s). In the light of these problems, I have begun to think about how undisciplined approaches can salvage the value of historical subjects - through disruptions of conventional methodologies. I argue that only by embarking on epistemic disobedience can we usefully reverse the erasure of academically disregarded and historically repressed subjects.