Nation, State and Agency: Evolving Historiographies of African Decolonization (original) (raw)

Theory and Politics of African Decolonization

Prior to Ghana’s independence in 1957, Africa—the world’s second largest, and second most populous, continent—was nearly completely divided into colonial possessions owned by European imperial powers. By 1968, a short decade later, forty African countries had become independent nations through violent and non-violent struggle, leaving only fascist Portugal—and a handful of settler states—with substantial African possessions. At the forefront of this political moment was a group of African leaders and thinkers whose work helped shape not only the trajectory of individual African countries but the world as a whole. It is my contention that one cannot fully understand contemporary world politics without appreciating the processes of African decolonization. Unfortunately, most of the brilliant poets, intellectuals, and movement leaders at the heart of this world-historic transformation are not widely read today, especially in the American academy. This semester we will addresses this absence by reading their work as an entrée into thinking about present-day issues of economic inequality, political violence, and human emancipation in Africa, and around the world. The course starts with an examination of colonialism’s political, economic, cultural, and epistemic legacies. We then turn to specific debates concerning how various thinkers understood the problems facing the forging of African nation-states, the creation of a postcolonial African identity, and the establishment of an independent economy.

Decolonisation: African Political thought

International Journal of Teaching, Learning and Education

African political thought is fundamentally rooted in African heritage and culture. It is a frontal assault against the imperial powers of Great Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and the Union of South Africa, which denied the diverse African peoples of their right to self-government. Thus, the political concepts of African leaders at various times and places were intended to be last attacks against the denial of the basic human rights of the people. At the period, political thinking centred on two major threats to African states and the continent: colonialism and racism. In African Political Thought, the notion of Decolonization is best investigated and analysed in the context of its processes. Any attention that was paid to the African past highlighted the savage character of intergroup interactions. As colonial education was influenced by the need to explain the ills of colonialism, African history was filled with European discoveries of Africa. In order to rectify this a...

Towards a Critical Decolonial Turn/Theory: Beyond the Binary of the West Versus Africa

Africa Spectrum, 2024

As writing on decolonisation in African Studies has surged, efforts to avoid the concept becoming a mere metaphor, bandwagon, ideological trope, or mantra have grown, with scholars emphasising decolonial theory's ongoing relevance to the emancipation of formerly colonised Africans. This essay argues that to achieve its emancipatory goals, decolonial theory and intended praxes must re-centre the everyday realities of African societies. Recentring Africans is needed to move beyond Global North versus Africa as the ontological site for decolonisation. Recentring African societies has important epistemological and methodological implications for recentring African agency to make the decolonial project less reactionary and more proactive. I propose "post-independence" as an approach to decolonisation that offers descriptive and prescriptive means to locate the (im)material responsibilities of Africans in recentring their history. Post-independence allows a reimagining of how to undo the effects of colonialism by presenting colonialism as an episodic moment in Africa's long history.

Decolonization in Sub-Saharan Africa

European imperial retreat from sub-Saharan Africa, usually described as decolonization, was one of the most sudden and momentous transfor-mations in the history of the modern world. It occurred in the aftermath of World War II. Although the granting of self-government was not entirely novel prior to the end of the war in 1945 given the independence of Libe-ria in 1848, South Africa in 1910, and Ethiopia in 1943, nevertheless, the post-war imperial transformation was unprecedented. Between 1945 and 1965, almost all European African colonies, except the former Portuguese territories, Zimbabwe and Namibia, regained their independence. So sudden and dramatic was the phenomenon that it has since become known as “the winds of change.” Some profound questions have contin-ued to engage scholars since the demise of European colonies in Africa. For instance, to what extent was the decolonization consciously planned and directed by imperial powers? Why did European withdrawal from Africa occur when it did – after the end of World War II? How did the various European powers approach the process of devolution of power? It is the purpose of this article to address these questions and to hazard a simplified analysis of this rather puzzling process.

Empire and Economics: Decolonising Colonialism and Its Legacies in Africa

Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory, 2016

In order effectively to decolonise Africa we need to understand better the economic and political effects of colonialism in and on Africa today. To achieve that understanding we need to look beyond the tired, well-trodden themes in African historiography and political theory. Liberalism, communism, African and Afrikaner nationalism, localised cultural and social histories and related ideological conflicts of identity have failed to grasp and explain the relations of power that continue to operate at the level of economics, finance, education, war and politics. These factors have not adequately been thought through theoretically, precisely because they are treated as inevitable material circumstances separate from the longue durée of justifying ideas, enduring practices and relations of power and the persistence of institutions even, in many cases, sixty years after independence from colonial rule.