This short booklet, written by a university professor from Senegal, is worth reading for all African students. It provides useful advice to future social science researchers who are going to write a dissertation or a doctoral thesis. As in all textbooks, it defines what scientific research is, how to construct a research question, how to compile a precise literature review, how to choose a suitable field of observation, how to select and apply a robust research methodology, how to present the results – preferably valid and rigorous – of the observations clearly, and then how to discuss them, identifying their theoretical and practical contributions.
The author accompanies his lessons with concrete examples and life stories drawn from African issues. Strangely, he makes no reference to the many works devoted to the epistemology of the social sciences. It is written in a precise and concise style, as befits any teaching manual.
But this book is more than a methodological guide; it is a message to the young people of Africa who are eager to contribute to the prosperity of their village, their region and their country; it is a warning against facile discourse and improbable ideologies; it is an incentive to acquire useful assets, to exercise critical thinking, to feed the public debate, and to propose solutions rooted in social reality. “The budding researcher, through their rigour, humility and passion, becomes a guardian of freedom”, “a key player in the transformation of their country”. These are lessons that should also be taught on the Old Continent.
Mistoihi Abdillahy is a university professor in social sciences and the founding president of ADP Consulting.
Jean-Jacques Pluchart