In the 1960s, newly independent African governments asserted sovereignty over their metal and mineral resources, in a reversal of their prior colonial exploitation by European mining corporations. In this excerpt from his new book Disrupted Development in the Congo: The Fragile Foundations of the African Mining Consensus – published today, with the first three chapters available as free downloads – Ben Radley shows how transnational corporations have once again become the dominant force assuming ownership and management of industrial mining projects, and this time around across a far greater number of African countries than during the colonial period. Radley argues this latest reversal has taken place through a three-stage process spearheaded by the World Bank: first, blame the African state; second, liberalize and privatize; and third, criminalize African miners. Recent mining code revisions in several countries have been heralded by some as marking a new era of resource nationalism. Yet the new codes remain a far cry from the earlier period of resource sovereignty.

Barbara Bompani takes aim at the dominant narrative that rising homophobia in Africa is the result of external actors, and in particular US conservative Christian groups. Drawing from more than a decade of research and analysis, she argues rising homophobia is not simply the result of external influence, but is shaped by the complex role religion has played in shaping new forms of nationalisms on the continent. What we are observing in several African countries, she contends, is the emergence of a new politics that threatens untold and profound harm to LGBT communities.

ROAPE’s Mike Powell introduces a selection of Amílcar Cabral’s writings, speeches, and interviews. Cabral was one of the most important revolutionaries of the 20th century who led and founded a movement which not only led to the liberation of Guinea Bissau but prepared the ground for a revolution in the colonial power itself. This selection of Cabral’s speeches and interviews, and other writings, is provided in the hope that some readers will find in them inspiration and hope for the revolutionary struggles to come.

Contributing to the ongoing discussion of the conflict over Laascaanood in Somaliland, Markus Hoehne critically engages with Jamal Abdi’s earlier arguments about the matter. Hoehne argues that what is at stake in the conflict over Laascaanood is the question of Somaliland’s secession versus the unity of Somalia. This conflict has been smoldering for a long time. The UK seems to play an increasingly neo-colonial role in this conflict, with British politicians and diplomats siding with the government in Hargeysa while a British oil company is investigating oil prospects in central Somaliland.

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.