Geography Archives: Africa

What do two South Pacific countries, two North American countries, one country in the Middle East, and (until recently) one country in southern Africa have in common with Europe?

Nigeria is experiencing its worst economic crisis in a generation. Annual inflation stands at more than 30%. Prices for food like yams, a staple food, are almost four times higher than last year.

That warning was 20 years ago, but in the years since, the U.S. has continued in its violent and aggressive ways, cloaking its violence and aggression with bromides about a rules-based international order and defence of democratic values. If only that was true.

The articles, speeches, and communiqués of Amilcar Cabral are required reading for revolutionaries today who are struggling with the agrarian question and the current wave of revolutions.

ON Independence Day–August 15th–we generally take stock of the path we have travelled since 1947. Today, I will take a different tack and focus on how or why a handful of European countries end up controlling major parts of the world.

As hunger threatens millions in southern Africa, some of the governments in these wildlife-rich countries have started harvesting game such as elephants, hippopotamuses, buffaloes, zebras, and others to feed their citizens.

“As such, it was necessary to engage authorities in Namibia on issues of concern to ensure our decisions and actions domestically are aligned with our obligations in terms of international law and our policy stance of many years on Palestine.”

Black August is a month to commemorate and tell the history of those African men and women brutalized, locked up, and killed by the U.S. criminal justice system.

The Society for International Relations Awareness (SIRA) Conference on Aug. 12-13 in Abuja, Nigeria, served as a powerful testament of solidarity and commitment for peoples fighting for self-determination.

For decades, most Black political commentary has expressed solidarity with the Palestinian people, but recently, a new phenomenon has appeared, particularly on social media platforms, which accuses all Palestinians of being anti-Black racists, and asserts that aligning with them is either of no use to Black people or even that it is detrimental to our own cause.

Baldwin theorizes whiteness as the psychology of empire.

The post-Malabo process to determine the next decade of agricultural policy has so far been characterised by outside influence and exclusivity.

The world’s largest cannabis producer aims to encourage legal cultivation of the plant and export it for industrial or medical purposes

Throughout history, young protesters have stood up against the status quo to bring about change. Generation Z has arisen, offering a priceless sacrifice to free Kenya from a malevolent system of governance.

From the 1942 ‘American century’ to Trump’s ‘American carnage’, the U.S. has shifted from a post-WW2 boom to decline, facing political divides, economic crisis, poverty, and social decay.

In 1974, 50 years ago, the newly launched Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE) journal boldly announced its intentions in the first editorial, “Appropriate analysis and the devising of a strategy for Africa’s revolution must be encouraged and we hope that the provision of this platform for discussion will assist that process”.

We are told that Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to be a powerful tool for advancing democratic concerns and human rights across Africa. Yet, there are also early indicators that AI could undermine democratic institutions and processes, especially if these technologies prioritise colonial-capitalist development trajectories. Scott Timcke looks at some of the issues at stake.

The concepts of self-determination sovereignty extend far beyond the individual empowerment of self-advocacy, and encompass collective liberation and self-determination. Claudia Jones’ work emphasizes the interconnectedness of struggles and the importance of sovereignty for Black women, which  requires building collective power and creating liberated spaces where colonized communities can exercise autonomy and self-governance.  

Rever: We should not be engaging with, or buttressing a nation that has inflicted so much harm on innocent people.

In order to allow for a deeper understanding of the ongoing conflict in the Congo today, this newsletter presents an analysis of the resource theft and processes of imperialism and colonialism that have long plagued this part of Africa, including the fight over raw materials that are key for the electronic age.