Category: The African Revolution
This is the first of three lectures, the culmination of an undergraduate course given at Goldsmiths, University of London in 2005-6, that consider the question of how anthropologists might approach the formation of world society in the coming century. The other two were posted earlier. The set is: 1. the anticolonial revolution 2. development and […]
An undergraduate anthropology lecture in six parts given at Goldsmiths College in 2006 (filmed and edited by Ricardo Leizaola). Part 1. Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6
Africa’s traditional societies and agrarian civilization Africa has seen extraordinary urban growth in the twentieth century and this, rather than the conventional view of the continent as an exporter of raw materials, should form the basis for thinking about development in future. This means exploring ways of linking present forms of urban commerce to the […]
It is manifestly contrary to the law of nature, however defined.…that a handful of people should gorge themselves with superfluities while the hungry multitude goes in want of necessities. J.-J. Rousseau Discourse on the Origins and Foundations of Inequality among Men (1754) Cosmopolitan Right shall be limited to Conditions of Universal Hospitality [the right of […]
In 1900, about four-fifths of the planet’s land was controlled by people of European origin. Although European expansion was by then four centuries old, this land grab had largely taken place in the previous half-century and for most of Africa in the last two decades. It was manned by the world’s first population explosion, when […]
I’ve got Africa on my mind. Not an old sweet song, more a beat: ta-ta ti-ti ta-ti-ta. I hear it everywhere and it takes me back to those times I spent in Atinga’s gin-bar, tapping out the rhythm on a bottle while the guy sang to a one-string guitar. I want to tell you a […]
Jean-François Bayart says that African states, traditional and modern, have always practiced ‘the politics of the belly’; by which he means that they are distinguished by the ways their ruling classes routinely extract revenue from their long-suffering peoples. Catherine Coquéry-Vidrovitch earlier coined the expression ‘African mode of production’ to describe the most prominent of these […]
A new summary and table of contents for a book of 60,000 words that I hope to complete for Polity Press by next spring: The African Revolution: Africa in the 21st century world. The two lectures posted on May 16 contain an outline of the argument. What are Africa’s prospects for the coming half-century, viewed […]
The term ‘informal sector’ (later ‘informal economy’ and now often just ‘informality’) arose almost four decades ago to describe the unregulated activities of the Third World urban poor. But the problem of proliferating urban masses, supporting themselves in invisible ways and at some perceived risk to public safety, is an older one.
Lecture 1: African development in the twentieth century 1. ‘Africa’ and the question of ‘development’ 2. Africa’s traditional societies and agrarian civilization 3. Africa’s urban revolution in the twentieth century 4. A note on the North and South African exceptions 5. Urban commerce and the informal economy Lecture 2: African development in the twenty-first century […]
The two great memory banks are language and money. Exchange of meanings through language and of objects through money are now converging in a single network of communication, the internet.
We must learn how to use this digital revolution to advance the human conversation about a better world. Our political task is to make a world society fit for all humanity.
