Contemporary 'Africa Rising' narratives in historical perspective

In recent years a very positive policy and scholarly 'Africa rising' narrative has emerged. Based on Africa's economic growth and democratisation, this narrative differs significantly in tone from the depiction of death, starvation and warfare which seemed to define popular coverage of the continent through the 1980s and 1990s. In an anglo-centric context, this narrative has even penetrated popular culture, via Africa film festivals, 'Afropolitan' literature, and popular television, where Severino and Ray's book 'Africa's Moment' (2010) appears being read by a central character in the critically acclaimed US drama House of Cards.

Because it is optimistic, this narrative about Africa's 'rise', although contested, appears discursively distinct from some of the more evidently pejorative Afro-pessimism which dominated coverage of Africa in the preceding decades and rendered Africans as helpless or violent. This project however seeks to interrogate precisely what is new about these narratives by exploring positvity about Africa during three selected historical periods.

Because Africa rising narratives have emerged as a progressive response to more pessimistic narratives about Africa, the project will explore, in a British context, historical iterations of this narrative promoted by self-identified progressive movements which have come to the fore during periods of British reconsideration of its relationship with Africa, driven by broader geo-political and economic events. In order to historicise the current Africa rising moment the project will focus on the following movements and periods:

i) Missionary societies working in Southern Africa from the 1800s-1820s, a time of British consideration of the African interior;
ii) 'Paramountcy' and African rights movements during the 1920s-1930s, as British policy sought to make sense of growing nationalist sentiment in its African colonies alongside the threat of war in the European theatre;
iii) Liberal-settler and multi-racialist movements in the 1950s-60s, when British policy was concerned with establishing working relationships with the new African governments, and settler communities in its current and former colonies.

The project explores these periods through empirical archival research. A detailed understanding of the ways in which British progressive movements have rendered Africa optimistically will help to historicise contemporary Africa rising narratives, and illustrate the discursive continuities and ruptures which define these narratives across time as well as their relationships with the simultaneously pessimistic narratives which have been the primary focus of critical scholars on British and imperial representations of Africa. Indeed, because of this focus on the evidently pejorative nature of Africa's representation, much of this literature at first glance appears unable to comprehend modern narratives which focus more squarely on African agency, achievements, growth and development. The project thus contributes to ongoing critical debates regarding Western representations of Africa, but takes a different tack from more conventional approaches. It challenges received critical wisdom that the British encounter with Africa has always been based on racially-informed pessimism regarding the capabilities of Africans, by instead focusing on more positive representations of Africa and Africans, whilst being cogniscant of the racial prejudices which may have informed these perspectives as well. The project provides the foundations for studies of positive narratives about Africa across different imperial centres, as well as optimism expressed towards Britain's other colonial possessions, and brings the study of optimism within the purview of other regional specialists, and disciplines, including history, politics, literature and film, as well as the concerned general public. Project developments will be disseminated via popular African news and commentary websites.

Project benefits will accrue thanks to collaborations with media organisations, creating written outputs for their general audiences as well as audience-specific learning outputs. The project meets criteria listed as 'Economic and Social Impacts' by the joint research councils including 'Enhancing the research capacity, knowledge and skills of public, private and third sector organisations'; 'Changing organisational culture and practices'; and 'Increasing public engagement with research and related societal issues'.

Beneficiaries:

1) Africa is a Country: Africa is a Country (AC) is a widely read critical commentary website whose editorial team have informed this proposal. AC has requested 4 project-generated articles pertinent to its audiences, at 6-monthly intervals. This project will thus enhance AC's knowledge repositories, and increase public engagement with its website.

2) Development NGOs and media outlets working on Africa accessed through AC: This project challenges broad-brush narratives about Africa. Development NGOs and journalists often deploy these for reasons of fundraising and public attention. AC has an extensive readership among many Africa-focussed UK-based NGOs and media/cultural professionals. For instance, AC content is regularly featured on the Guardian and Observer newspaper websites. AC will assist the PI in targeting particular audiences with particular outputs. For instance, whilst the first of the 4 articles I will write for AC will be pitched at its general audience, subsequent articles will address discrete sub-audiences, such as the NGO community. Members of these audiences will be provided with project-generated insights into contemporary and historically-produced progressive representations of Africa and encouraged to reflect on how they present Africa to their audiences. The project will contribute to potential changes in organisational practices, and enhance audience knowledge.

3) Public audiences with an interest in African-based commentary and opinion:

a. I will use my blog to disseminate project information, updates and findings. Every post is disseminated through Twitter. I am followed by several African news correspondents who regularly retweet my posts to their several thousand followers. In addition, all project related blogs will be disseminated through the QMUL twitter feeds which collectively have over 120,000 followers.

b. Other public audiences will benefit through the collaboration with AC. With 10,000 daily unique site visits, the articles I write AC will reach a broad and engaged audience of journalists, development professionals, activists, scholars and general readers. The project will increase public engagement with research and encourage broader reflection on societal issues of racism and colonialism.

c. The Royal Africa Society has invited me to the 2015 Africa Writes and 2016 Africa Utopia festivals. I will sit on panel discussions relating to issues addressed by this project. Again, this will increase public engagement and encourage reflection on societal issues.

4) Politics and International Relations (IR) undergraduates: The majority of Politics and IR undergraduates conduct desk-based final year dissertations, but it is unusual for them to engage with archives within their general research training. This project will cement my own archival research skills. I will use these to run annual workshops on archival research within my department's final year research training module to enhance student research capacity/employability. The Higher Education Academy's discipline lead has engaged with this proposal, and advised on how to embed best practice in undergraduate archival research training across the discipline through participating in the BISA and PSA Learning and Teaching Working Groups.

These benefits are independent of the academic outputs, and all have been designed to emerge through the duration of the project (i.e. 2015/2016).