This article explores what challenges African sociologists face in the contemporary period. It argues that one needs to go beyond references to resource constraint or the emphasis on the market or the state in order to fathom the deeper canonical and epistemological problems that keep work outside and distant from the sociological canon. Part of the challenge is that most coherent work on the continent occurred outside the confines of sociology as such. After exploring the snares involved, the article turns to the kind of work that animated sociological thought from indigenous and endogenous forms of knowledge, development and underdevelopment debates, violence and power and a growing emphasis on labour studies. It concludes in trying to consolidate the areas of consensus among African sociologists.