Geography Archives: Africa

The current complex of COVID-induced crises fits hand-in-glove with the system’s “normal” operation. Stability has been the delusional realm of a small sliver of the Global North, awash in post-World War Two imperialism and the repeated reinvention (and re-imposition) of various plantation systems of cheap and racialized labor.

Canadian mining companies own $2.5 billion of Burkina Faso’s gold, and the country is one of the most poverty-stricken in Africa.

The principal causes of conflict on the continent, SIPRI summarises, are: ‘state weakness, corruption, ineffective delivery of basic services, competition over natural resources, inequality, and a sense of marginalisation’.

FoodForward SA closes branches nationwide because of insecurity.

The other side of ecocide thrives in the fertile ground of radical socioecological theory.

As rioters target supermarkets, activists call on the government to help those who cannot survive amid rising prices and mass unemployment.

His work touched the civil rights, Black Power, and Pan-African movements and his selflessness and strong organizing skills helped create revolutionary cadre who continue to carry out the work he engaged in today. 

More than half a century after Kwame Nkrumah first articulated his magisterial critique of neocolonialism, Scott Timcke argues his critique remains just as relevant in the analysis of present-day developments of capitalism in Africa.

Neo-colonialism, Nkrumah noted, seeks to fragment Africa, weaken African state institutions, prevent African unity and sovereignty, and thereby insert its power to subordinate the aspirations of the continent for pan-African consolidation.

In this episode, we’re joined by Rohan Grey (@rohangrey), President of the Modern Money Network, Director of the National Jobs for All Coalition, Research Fellow at the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity, and JSD student at Cornell Law school. Our conversation is dedicated to Rohan’s current work on the political, economic, and cultural implications of money’s digital future.

Paternalistic U.S. government political posturing toward Africa has a history of turning into fatal consequences for the masses of African peoples.

A Chinese cartoonist’s political satire, which mocked the Group of Seven (G7) members that attempt to suppress China, went viral on Chinese social media on Sunday, when the G7 summit was underway in Cornwall, the UK.

African leaders had come to recognize the various factors that hinder the continent’s development and seriously jeopardize the future of its peoples. The Abuja Treaty was put in place to increase economic self-reliance, promote self-sustained development, and raise the living standard of African peoples.

Phoenix Express 2021, the AFRICOM-sponsored military exercise involving 13 countries in the Mediterranean Sea region, concluded last week. While its stated aim was to combat “irregular migration” and trafficking, the U.S. record in the region indicates more nefarious interests.

Money on the Left speaks with Sibel Kusimba, Associate Professor of Anthropology at University of South Florida, about her work on mobile money and digital finance in Kenya. In her recently published book with Stanford University Press titled Reimagining Money: Kenya in the Digital Finance Revolution, Kusimba both theorizes and critiques Kenya’s thriving M-Pesa mobile phone-based payment system as a constitutive component of Kenyan social life.

Historian Jeff Pearce, @jeffpropulsion, responding to the atrocity reports of Alula Solomon, @Alula_Solomon, CEO, Tigrai Media House

We deepen our analysis by focusing on various regions. After Latin America and the Caribbean and Sub-Saharan Africa, we continue with the Middle-East and North Africa (MENA).

This two-part long read is an extract from a chapter in a forthcoming book Fanon Today: The Revolt and Reason of the Wretched of the Earth (edited by Nigel Gibson, Daraja Press 2021).

In Sub-Saharan Africa, where health spending and human development levels are in a dramatic state, there is a stronger case than ever for unilateral suspensions of debt payments based on arguments recognized in international law; such as state of necessity and fundamental change of circumstances.

In France’s former African colonies, imperialist monetary policies from Paris continue to cripple domestic economies and undermine democracy. Colonialism in Africa won’t have meaningfully come to an end until true economic sovereignty is allowed to flourish.