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Ghana’s main opposition party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) led by Nana Akuffo Addo, secured a resounding victory in the election on 7 December. For roape.net Nelson Oppong examines the political background to the victory.

In this far-reaching and provocative contribution to roape.net's debate on capitalism in Africa, Elísio Macamo argues that instead of discussing whether “Capitalism” as such is a valid concept or a useful description of social phenomena in Africa, we should interrogate how concepts developed in very specific times and places under specific circumstances can be usefully deployed in other settings.

Hannah Cross writes about Jeremy Corbyn’s alternative vision of society, and the new prospects for Britain’s relationship with Africa. Beyond his renowned stance against military interventions, there is also a record of opposition to other forms of domination in African countries.

Following a recent debate on 'African Capitalist Society' organised by Jörg Wiegratz of the Review of African Political Economy at the UK African Studies Association conference in Cambridge, Stefan Ouma continues the discussion on roape.net. As Ouma points out the historical context for such a debate is very different from the 1970s and 1980s – when ROAPE was at the forefront of scholarly discussions on this topic. Ouma argues passionately for a less holistic framing of the subject matter, talking in plural terms and avoiding linear, territorial, singular or transhistorical notions of 'capitalism'.

Africa's middle-class intellectuals, the political and business elite love to complain about how Africa is “misrepresented” in western media, but not the poor and oppressed who are the subject of that reporting. Remi Adekoya writes that the privileged classes resent seeing Africa’s widespread poverty on display.

In reflections on her fieldwork in South Africa, Asanda Benya writes about the difficulties and insights she gained while researching underground female mine-workers. Asanda argues that maintaining a distance, or being detached, was not a possible or morally available option, her research demanded that she became fully immersed in the lives of those being studied.

In February this year, during a protest against the lack of accommodation for poor students in Cape Town, South Africa, students and members of the #RhodesMustFall movement set alight paintings considered to be ‘colonial artwork’. In a conversation with the artist Faith Pienaar, anti-apartheid activist and judge Albie Sachs reflects on the meaning of art in troubled post-apartheid South Africa.

ROAPE’s Leo Zeilig talks to Lara Pawson about Angola, the left, writing about Africa from Europe, and the long process of uncovering what happened across newly independent Angola after the vinte-sete de maio (27 May) in 1977.

In this, the third in the series on protest, elections and presidential terms, David Seddon returns again to the three countries initially considered to examine the very different trajectories followed by them over the last six months, and extend the comparison to include two others – also in Central Africa.

ROAPE’s Leo Zeilig talks to Trevor Ngwane about political developments in South Africa, the crisis in the ANC, the growth of new struggles on the left, in the universities and workplaces. Ngwane is a long-standing socialist activist, researcher and writer.