Ndlovu Gatsheni - search results

Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni writes how war, violence and extractivism defined the legacy of the empire in Africa, and why recent attempts to explore the ‘ethical’...

In this wide-ranging interview with ROAPE's Mike Powell, Leo Zeilig asks him about Amílcar Cabral’s revolutionary activism. Powell talks about Cabral’s relentless focus on actual political dynamics of struggle, the purpose of theory, and his focus on the mode of production. For Cabral, Powell argues, nothing was static, everything was in a process of dialectical change, processes which could be consciously influenced by people acting together. Powell also discusses Basil Davidson’s collaboration and friendship with Cabral.

In July this year the Dutch King apologised for the country's historical role in slavery. Large numbers of young people were present to hear King Willem Alexander apologise for the crimes of his family and kingdom. Yet, there are many questions that remain unanswered in ongoing public debates. For ROAPE, Sayra van den Berg, Emmanuel Akwasi Adu-Ampong and David Mwambari argue that the past of slavery and (neo-)colonialism is not over.

ROAPE celebrates the life and work of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, who turned 85 in January this year. To mark the occasion, we share an extract on Ngũgĩ’s early novel A Grain of Wheat (1967), adapted from Sarah Jilani’s forthcoming book Subjectivity and Decolonisation in the Post-Independence Novel and Film. Jilani explores Anglophone and Francophone post-independence texts (1950s–1980s) from Africa and South Asia to consider what ‘decolonising the mind’ could mean, and entail. Guided by the thought of Frantz Fanon, the book demonstrates how a selection of literary and cinematic narratives from this period help us understand the transformation of subjectivities themselves as a part of the broader, unfinished project that is decolonisation.

In a debate on radical political economy, economics and economists working on Africa, Franklin Obeng-Odoom and Morten Jerven look at the use of statistics, mainstream economics, power, imperialism, patriarchy, and structural inequality. Both think that mainstream economists get much wrong about Africa, but they differ considerably in their diagnosis of the problem and the way forward.  

Aymar N. Bisoka, David Mwambari and Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni write about the recent Africa-France summit. The scholar Achille Mbembe was recruited to prepare a report for the summit by speaking to African youth. This blogpost asks what was the real meaning of the summit behind the official pronouncements.

In the sands of the arena, gladiators embodying colonial and decolonial modes of thought are locked in academic combat, exchanging blows of disciplinary conquest, identity and self-styled objectivity versus self-awareness and epistemic revolution. Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni, describing such a combat, reignites important questions and sets out to open our eyes to the battle lines, and the weapons that are available to defeat gladiatorial scholarship – the moment to learn to unlearn is upon us, he writes.

Following the publication of the special issue on Samir Amin, we post short interviews by the authors on the influence of Amin on their lives and research. The articles by Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Francisco Pérez, Ndongo Sylla, Francesco Macheda, Roberto Nadalini, Fathimath Musthaq and Max Ajl are available to read until the end of the month.

Introducing ROAPE’s special issue on Samir Amin (available to access for free until 31/03 - see links in blogpost), the editors, Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven, Maria Dyveke Styve, Ushehwedu Kufakurinani and Ray Bush, argue Amin’s legacy provides a lighthouse for those who not only want to understand the world, but fundamentally change it, by combining rigorous scholarship with political commitment and action.

In a contribution to ROAPE’s debate on capitalism in Africa, Stefan Ouma provides a critical account of Africapitalism as well as an assessment of the future/s it imagines, what it silences and its potential to transform African economies. Ouma concludes that the ecologically destructive and dehumanizing architecture of our global economic system provides further evidence to condemn any variant of capitalism.