Page Title

The dismantling of inequality was at the center of the call for political independence in Africa during its high tide in the 1960s. The first generation of African leaders, many of whom had led liberation movements, viewed colonialism – and later neocolonialism – as the structural base from which all manner of inequalities emerged and were sustained. During this era from the pre-independence 1960s to the early 1980s, the dominant theoretical approach of African economists and leaders understood inequality as structural and societal in its causes and adopted a set of policies aimed at addressing those problems in equally structural ways.

At the domestic level, the new post-colonial African states initiated large-scale social programs aimed at the mobilization of resources towards the goal of reducing, if not eliminating, inequalities. In many cases, these states registered non-trivial rates of success. For example, the economist John Sender, in a remarkable essay published in 1999, documented the ways in which the post-independence African state achieved significant improvements in the societal standing of women across the multiple dimensions of education, health, agriculture and so on (Sender, 1999). At the regional level, African leaders joined other leaders in the Third World movement in calling for a New International Economic Order (NIEO) that would reorient the global economy away from the unjust exploitation of developing countries towards one “based on equity, sovereign equality, interdependence, common interest and cooperation among all States” (UN General Assembly, 1974, p1). Even though the NIEO did not succeed in its mission of reordering the global economic system, it had a substantial impact in shaping normative debates and strategies of emancipation in the Third World (Morrison, 1984).

​

The neoliberal revolution that swept through the western world in the 1980s and then spread to the rest of the developing world, including Africa, from the 1990s reversed the achievements of the previous two decades not least at the level of ideology. The neoliberal revolution resuscitated and rejuvenated theories that saw inequality as the result of just deserts – the result of bad policies and poor choices of African governments rather than structural barriers. African countries, under the mandate of the IMF and World Bank, begun dismantling the social programs that had been so successful in reducing inequality in the immediate post-independence era. At the international level, the Third World project collapsed under the weight of neoliberal globalization. Rather than banding together to demand structural changes to the global economy, developing countries now articulated strategies of economic development that eschewed cooperation and solidarity in favor of competition within and between countries. The result of all this has been, unsurprisingly, an explosion in inequality globally, and especially in Africa where neoliberalism has been its most violent (Wiegratz, 2024).

 

A series of shocks in the twenty-first century have forced a rethinking of these theories of inequality and the policies which resulted from them. The financial crisis of 2008-2009 and the ensuing recession was the first major such shock. These economic disasters were understood to be the result of unbridled capitalism and unchecked inequality over the preceding decades leading to mass misery across the world (Perugini and Collie, 2016). The Covid shock of 2020 to 2021 dramatically exposed vulnerabilities in the public health and global social safety net infrastructure caused by the neoliberal push to reduce the size and activity of the state. The Covid shock forced many countries in Africa and the Global South to question many of the tenets of globalization, including the claim that global supply chains and innovations in the medical sphere were global public goods. A third shock, whose effects will unfold and intensify over the next couple of decades, is climate change, which in the absence of large-scale public intervention will wreak havoc on marginalized communities and  increase inequalities within and between countries (Islam and Winkel, 2017).

​

This new issue of African Social Research reflects this global and African turning of the tide in rethinking inequality. The essays in this issue were first presented at an emerging scholars workshop held at the Lusaka Contemporary Art Center (LuCAC) in August of 2024 on the theme The Political Economy of Inequality in Africa. Participants at the workshop, who were advanced PhD students and early career academics mostly from Africa, presented early versions of their essays and received feedback from mid-level to senior academics many of whom were drawn from the University of Zambia.[1] The essays in this volume are a product of the interactions at that workshop. A number of key themes emerge from their contributions which reveal the shifting intellectual trends in African engagement with inequality and globalization.

​

The first theme that strongly emerges from this work and is represented across many of the contributions is that of gender inequality. The essays under this theme use a myriad of methods and interdisciplinary approaches that together weave a vivid picture of the lived realities of women in Africa. The essays by Wycliffe Alwago, Ebere Nnanwube and Tirsit Seme describe the occupational experiences of African women in respectively Kenya, Nigeria and Somaliland. The essays by Mellisa Kaliofasi and Jill Samukimba explore the different constructions and reconstructions of gender respectively among the Shona and amaXhosa in Zimbabwe and South Africa. A final essay in this theme by Bisimwa Makanishe explores the livelihood experiences of women who are survivors of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. 

​

A second theme that emerges from this work are the different intersections and contradictions between inequality on the one hand and environmental sustainability concerns on the other. The essay by Fadzai Chipato, for example, documents the ways in which climate change abatement strategies are themselves generating inequality in Zimbabwe. The essay by Mehdi Kharibouch studies societal impacts of phosphate extraction on marginalized communities in Morocco. 

​

A third theme in this collection of essays looks at the macroeconomic drivers of inequality in Africa. The essay by Francisco Perez studies the impact of the flight of capital on inequality in Africa while the essay by Swetha Ramanchandra looks at the intersections between colonial regimes, foreign aid and inequality in Africa. Two papers by Colette Mborera and Takesure Taringana look at the roles of social policy in ameliorating or enhancing inequality in postcolonial Zimbabwe.

​

The last two essays in this collection stand on their own and focus on issues unique to Malawi. The first essay by Mwayi Lusaka looks at inequality from the point-of-view of cultural and heritage production in Malawi. The essay by Tawonga Kayira grapples with the contradictions inherent in legislation in so far as the law is wielded to police the lives of sexual minorities in Malawi.

​

The individual and collective work of the emerging scholars brought together by the Program on African Social Research at LuCac gives a flavor of the richness and complexity of the avant garde in inequality studies in Africa. The next generation of African scholars are carrying forward the concern with inequality that was a preoccupation of an earlier generation of African scholars and statesmen. Their insights should inform not only local policy but also broader global debates about economic inequality, globalization, and policy.

 

​

References

Islam, S. N., & Winkel, J. (2017). Climate change and social inequality. In United Nations, DESA Working Paper (No. 152; pp. 1–25). United Nations. https://www.un.org/esa/desa/papers/2017/wp152_2017.pdf

Morrison, K. (1984). The New International Economic Order and Africa. Africa Development, 9(1), 5–30. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43657757

Perugini, C., Hölscher, J., & Collie, S. (2015). Inequality, credit and financial crises. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 40(1), 227–257. https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/beu075

Sender, J. (1999). Africa’s Economic Performance: Limitations of the current consensus. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 13(3), 89–114. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.13.3.89

United Nations General Assembly. (1974). Declaration on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order. http://www.un-documents.net/s6r3201.htm

Wiegratz, J. (2024). Capitalism and economic crime in Africa. In Routledge eBooks. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003034162

​

 

[1] In addition to myself, scholars who generously gave feedback were (in alphabetical order): Dr. Julius Kapembwa (University of Zambia), Dr. Mashekwa Maboshe (University of Zambia), Dr. Zachariah Mampilly (City University of New York), Victor Mutelekesha (LuCAC), Victoria Phiri (Livingstone National Museum), Dr. Cleopas Sambo (University of Zambia) and Dr. Malunga Syacumpi (University of Zambia). Dr. Dale Mudenda of the University of Zambia delivered a keynote on the relationship between trade liberalization and inequality.