Grid-locked African Economic Sovereignty


Book Description

The emergent so-called “Fourth Industrial Revolution” is regarded by some as a panacea for bringing about development to Africans. This book dismisses this flawed reasoning. Surfacing how “investors” are actually looting and plundering Africa; how the industrial internet of things, the gig economies, digital economies and cryptocurrencies breach African political and economic sovereignty, the book pioneers what can be called anticipatory economics – which anticipate the future of economies. It is argued that the future of Africans does not necessarily require degrowth, postgrowth, postdevelopment, postcapitalism or sharing/solidarity economies: it requires attention to age-old questions about African ownership and control of their resources. Investors have to invest in ensuring that Africans own and control their resources. Further, it is pointed out that the historical imperial structural creation of forced labour is increasingly morphing into what we call the structural creation of forced leisure which is no less lethal for Africans. Because both the structural creation of forced labour and the structural creation of forced leisure are undergirded by transnational neo-imperial plunder, theft, robbery, looting and dispossession of Africans, this book goes beyond the simplistic arguments that Euro-America developed due to the industrial revolutions.




Global Jurisprudential Apartheid in the Twenty-First Century


Book Description

In Global Jurisprudential Apartheid in the Twenty-First Century: Universalism and Particularism in International Law, the contributors argue that the world is witnessing the formation of a global jurisprudential apartheid despite the promotion of democracy, equality, human rights, and humanitarianism. Examining organisations such as international criminal courts, the World Trade Organisation, the United Nations Security Council, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank, the contributors unpack the challenges of global jurisprudential apartheid. In particular, they analyse the ways in which these organizations hold and contribute to the increasing inequalities between the Global North and the Global South. Ultimately, Global Jurisprudential Apartheid in the Twenty-First Century shows that globalisation is a variant of the apartheid era particularism and not universalism, working to advantage the Global North while disadvantaging the Global South under the pretense of humanitarianism.




Sovereignty Becoming Pulvereignty


Book Description

This book delves into the topical issue of the future of humanity and of being African in a world increasingly subjected to the power of technology and the dominance of a mercilessly self-absolved global elite. A slave is not only someone who is materially impoverished but also someone who is deprived of autonomy and sovereignty in the sense of being physically or virtually chained or shackled to human and nonhuman networks that negate the essence of the "I" or the "self". Discoursing the neologism slave 4.0 with the ongoing 21st century revolutions designed to create flat ontologies, this book argues that the world is witnessing not only the emergence of industry 4.0 but also the concomitant emergence of slave 4.0. Whereas historically, Africans were physically captured and transported across the Atlantic Ocean, minds of twenty-first century Africans are set to be nanotechnologically scanned, captured and transferred to the metaverse where they will neither own natural resources nor biologically reproduce. The book is handy for scholars in sociology, anthropology, political science, government studies, development studies, digital humanities, environmental studies, religious studies, theology, missiology, science and technology studies.




African Perspectives on Poverty, Indigenous Knowledge Systems, and Innovation


Book Description

This book examines the connections between poverty and innovation in Africa. Through case studies and theorizations from a distinctly African perspective, it stands in contrast to current theoretical works in the field, which remain very much rooted in Western-orientated thinking. The book investigates the application of methodologies which explain numerous African contexts in connection with issues of poverty and inequality. It reflects on comparative practices and praxes on the African continent, including commonplace traditions and practices in alleviating poverty, taken against a background of the failure of current prescriptions for poverty alleviation, such as the Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) and the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP). There is a dire need for new practical perspectives which move Africa forward using its indigenous knowledge. Owing to a general lack of recorded African theories and methodologies on poverty, inequality and innovation, this book represents a pioneering corpus of African knowledge addressing poverty and inequality through local innovations. Adopting a transdisciplinary approach, it is relevant to students and scholars in development studies and economics, African studies, social studies, political history and political economy, climate studies, anthropology and geography.




Explaining Foreign Policy in Post-Colonial Africa


Book Description

This book explores foreign policy developments in post-colonial Africa. A continental foreign policy is a tenuous proposition, yet new African states emerged out of armed resistance and advocacy from regional allies such as the Bandung Conference and the League of Arab States. Ghana was the first Sub-Saharan African country to gain independence in 1957. Fourteen more countries gained independence in 1960 alone, and by May 1963, when the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was formed, 30 countries were independent. An early OAU committee was the African Liberation Committee (ALC), tasked to work in the Frontline States (FLS) to support independence in Southern Africa. Pan-Africanists, in alliance with Brazzaville, Casablanca and Monrovia groups, approached continental unity differently, and regionalism continued to be a major feature. Africa’s challenges were often magnified by the capitalist-democratic versus communist-socialist bloc rivalry, but through Africa’s use and leveraging of IGOs – the UN, UNDP, UNECA, GATT, NIEO and others – to advance development, the formation of the African Economic Community, OAU’s evolution into the AU and other alliances belied collective actions, even as Africa implemented decisions that required cooperation: uti possidetis (maintaining colonial borders), containing secession, intra- and inter-state conflicts, rebellions and building RECs and a united Africa as envisioned by Pan Africanists worked better collectively.




Contemporary Issues on Governance, Conflict and Security in Africa


Book Description

This edited volume reflects on some of the important discussions on the trends of governance, conflict and security in Africa. It explores some of the emerging concerns and offers a holistic understanding of the remote and immediate causes of the conflict and how the neo-colonial African states have been structured in a manner that makes violent conflict inevitable. The book thereby provides an overview of Africa’s security challenges and proffers some sustainable policy options for curtailing lawlessness and armed conflict on the continent. Literature is exhaustive about the nexus between governance, peace, and security; however, discourse on the impact of ‘new’ conflict on governance has been scant. Understanding these new trends has become a necessity and precondition for sustainable development, as reflected in both the African Union (AU) Agenda 2063 and the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).




From African Peer Review Mechanisms to African Queer Review Mechanisms?


Book Description

Tracing recent bouts of globalised Mugabephobia to Robert Mugabes refusal to be neoimperially penetrated, this book juxtaposes economic liberalisation with the mounting liberalisation of African orifices. Reading land repossession and economic structural adjustment programmes together with what they call neoimperial structural adjustment of African orifices, the authors argue that there has been liberalisation of African orifices in a context where Africans are ironically prevented from repossessing their material resources. Juxtaposing recent bouts of Mugabephobia with discourses on homophobia, the book asks why empire prefers liberalising African orifices rather than attending to African demands for restitution, restoration and reparations. Noting that empire opposes African sovereignty, autonomy, and centralisation of power while paradoxically promoting transnational corporations centralisation of power over African economies, the book challenges contemporary discourses about shared sovereignty, distributed governance, heterarchy, heteronomy and onticology. Arguing that colonialists similarly denied Africans of their human essence, the tome problematises queer sexualities, homosexuality, ecosexuality, cybersexuality and humanoid robotic sexuality all of which complicate supposedly fundamental distinctions between human beings and animals and machines. Provocatively questioning queer sexuality and liberalised orifices that serve to divert African attention from the more serious unfinished business of repossessing material resources, the book insightfully compares Robert Gabriel Mugabe, Thomas Sankara and Julius Kambarage Nyerere who emphasised the imperatives of African autonomy, ownership, control and sovereignty over natural resources. Observing Africans interest in repossessing ownership and control over their resources, the book wonders why so much, queer, international attention is focused on foisting queer sexuality while downplaying more burning issues of resource repossession, human dignity, equality and equity craved by Africans for whom life is not confined to sexuality. With insights for scholars in sociology, development studies, law, politics, African studies, anthropology, transformation, decolonisation and decoloniality, the book argues that liberal democracy is a faade in a world that is actually ruled through criminocracy.




Africa and the Fourth Industrial Revolution


Book Description

This book examines the epistemological, political, and socio-economic consequences of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) for Africa. Presenting various case studies on epistemic freedom, theology, race and robotics, tertiary education, political and economic transformation, human capital, and governance, it debates whether the 4IR will be part of the solution to the African problem, namely that of coloniality in its various forms. Solving the African problem using the 4IR requires ethical, just and epistemologically independent leadership. However, the lack of ICT infrastructure militates against Africa’s endeavours to make the 4IR a problem-solving moment. To its credit, Africa possesses some of the major capital needed (human, mineral, and social), and it constitutes a huge market comprising a young population eager to participate in the 4IR as problem-solvers and not as a problem to be solved—as equal citizens and not as the marginalized other.




From #RhodesMustFall Movements to #HumansMustFall Movements


Book Description

Might it be possible that the world is being migrated into an era where the imperial periphery will be increasingly governed through Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics designed to replace human beings? Celebrated as efficient, strong, unfailing, tireless, precise and beyond corruption, AI and robots are set to replace African leaders who are imperially deemed to be and consistently condemned as corrupt, failed, weak and inefficient. But, if these AI and robots are neo-imperial tools and machinations, the million-dollar question is whether empire is not returning to recolonise the [supposedly inefficient] Africans via the new technologies and machinism? Where Africans once celebrated their liberation war movements, empire has emplaced what it calls liberation technologies designed to supposedly liberate African youths from their own states and governments led by liberation movements. Where Africans once celebrated their liberation war movements, empire has placed its own NGOs/CSOs spewing liberal ideologies designed to ostensibly liberate African youths from their own supposedly failed and corrupt states and government leaders. With African youths/citizens allying not with their liberation movements but with the liberation technologies and liberal NGOs/CSOs, it is not surprising why African citizens oppose their states-led Fast-Track Land Redistribution Programmes while ironically they happily celebrate Fast-Tracked COVID-19 Vaccines. Positing the notion of #HumansMustFall movements, this book underscores ways in which empire is in a process of eternal return to 21st century Africa. The book is crucial for scholars and activists in political science, government studies, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, history, languages and communication studies, security studies, military studies and development studies.




The Russia-Ukraine War from an African Perspective


Book Description

In the Russia-Ukraine war, attention has been focused on the "Special Military Operation" This book argues that there are many other special operations, in various other arenas in the world, that deserve equal and urgent attention. Connecting special military operations to what it calls special economic operations, special cultural operations, special technological operations, special sexual operations and special political operations, the book argues that special operations are not exclusive. AIso drawing on topical debates about technoscience, the book critically examines invasive technologies in relation to bodily autonomy, integrity and privacy, and it urges scholars and thinkers to compare these invasive technological operations to invasive special military operations. The book grapples with the future of humanity in a world where the human is decentred even as the world is witnessing the proliferation of resource wars. The book is relevant for scholars in anthropology, sociology, politics, government studies, international relations, history, media studies, science and technology studies and disaster management.