Contemporary 'Africa Rising' narratives in historical perspective
Lead Research Organisation:
Queen Mary University of London
Department Name: Politics
Abstract
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.
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.
Planned Impact
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).
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).
People |
ORCID iD |
Clive Gabay (Principal Investigator / Fellow) |
Publications
Gabay
(2018)
Imagining Africa: Whiteness and the Western Gaze
Gabay C
(2018)
Decolonizing interwar anticolonial solidarities: The case of Harry Thuku
in Interventions
Description | This project has generated a number of key findings. Some are historically specific I.e. hard evidence that African anti-colonial activists in East Africa in the post World-War One period were actively engaged with transnational pan-Africanist networks (a fact overlooked by mainstream scholarship of the period. Others are more general, i.e. that fascination with various aspects of African political, economic and social life directly correlates with anxieties concerning Western geopolitics, economy and society. |
Exploitation Route | The findings of the project, especially concerning race and Whiteness (which was an unanticipated direction for the project at its inception), are due to be taken forward in a variety of contexts, including a new project I have developed on the end of Empire, racism and neoliberalism in the UK, a proposal on which to the AHRC was recently reviewed and to which I have responded pending a final outcome, as well as through the teacher-training project I described in the narrative section. |
Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy Education Government Democracy and Justice Other |
URL | https://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/history/african-history/imagining-africa-whiteness-and-western-gaze?format=HB |
Description | In November 2015 I contributed a blogpost on a popular website, www.africasacountry.com, summarising project findings at that point. More recently, I was invited to give a talk at a large educational festival called Limmud. My session, which involved a discussion on racism and Whiteness, was attended by approx 70 people from the general public. One of the attendees was a teacher at a London secondary school who has just finished a project on civil rights memorialisation in the United States. Her School have provided her with funds to develop anti-racist training for secondary school teachers across London, and she has asked me to contribute the intellectual content as well as inform the actual delivery of that content in a number of workshops across London during 2018/19. Subsequent to this, I was invited ti deliver an anti-racism workshop to students at Kings College, London, and was approached to contribute a chapter on race to a new and prestigious Oxford University Press Handbook on International Political Sociology (due 2021). |
First Year Of Impact | 2015 |
Sector | Education,Government, Democracy and Justice,Other |
Impact Types | Cultural Societal Policy & public services |
Description | Anti-racism training with Kings College University Palestinian Society |
Organisation | King's College London |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | I was invited by the KCUL Palestinian Student Society to run a three hour workshop on anti-racism and anti-semitism. I was approached by one of PalSoc committee members who had read Imagining Africa |
Collaborator Contribution | None |
Impact | Potential for future workshops with other student Palestinian Societies |
Start Year | 2020 |
Description | Archival Research Workshops |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
Results and Impact | Workshops for final year undergraduate students on 'Conducting Archival Research for International Relations/Politics Dissertation Projects'. Approximately 20 students attended each one-off workshop (one in 2016, the second in 2017). |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016,2017 |
Description | Blog entry |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | A blog published by Cambridge University Press to coincide with the relase of the book I wrote (Imagining Africa) |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
URL | http://www.cambridgeblog.org/2018/11/imagining-africa/ |
Description | Blog publication |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | 1st of four blog pieces being written in collaborative arrangement with the widely-read blog Africa is a Country (www.africasacountry.com). The blog piece was emailed out to Africa is a Country's 250,000 strong mailing list. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
URL | http://africasacountry.com/2015/11/between-rwanda-and-mandela/ |
Description | Presentation at public educational festival |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | A talk on Whiteness and racism at a public educational festival called Limmud. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
Description | QM Press Release |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | I was asked to provide a comment for a press release concerning a new piece of research by a colleague in the School of Medicine and Dentristy, concerning psychological evaluations of individuals who express sympathies for extremist racist views. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
Description | Talk Radio |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | I was interviewed in a morning segment on Talk Radio about the white supremacist terror attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March 2019. I know of no known impacts of this appearance. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |