THE ART OF CONQUERING WITHOUT BEING RIGHT: Agency, education, and learning by doing in Cheikh Hamidou Kane’s Ambiguous Adventure

We use Cheikh Hamidou Kane’s novel Ambiguous Adventure to engage literature in political economy on education and development in sub-Saharan Africa. We contextualize the novel in terms of the broader historical literature on colonial education in Africa. In light of this, we argue for theorizing formal education as a supportive factor in processes of learning by doing. Such processes can promote innovation and facilitate local agency. We read the novel as a testament to Africans’ quest for self-assertion in adverse circumstances. At the same time, we problematize clear-cut distinctions between “African tradition” and the “modern West,” instead arguing that, learning by doing, Africans created uniquely African modernities. At the heart of our account is an understanding of agency as grounded in intersubjective environmental engagement. Building on these themes, we also argue that deliberative governance is another practice, with deep roots in some African communities as suggested by the novel, that speaks to intersubjective environmental engagement and learning by doing.