Africa and Globalization

This chapter by Emmanuel D. Babatunde examines how culture is a created design for survival in a given environment. He shows that language is the physical expression of thought, art is culture in form, music is culture in sound, dance is rhythm in action, and value is the weight of importance that is attached to the essential elements of a people’s culture as demonstrated in their institutions such as the family, religion, economics, politics, as well as the cultural form of education peculiar to survival in one’s environment, using the level of technology that is available for making anything needed for survival easier, cheaper, and faster.

JP Afamefuna Ifedi in this chapter investigates how globalization has facilitated the ability of humans to reach all parts of the world, propelled by continuing perfection of information technologies, migration and movement of people across national boundaries, with effect on political and economic disparities and inequalities in Africa. He demonstrates that since the 1990s, the issue of “globalization” has been a critical fixation for scholars and analysts, and its meaning and effects are still strongly contested. He also shows that political and economic globalization are twin realities that are often viewed as being in a relatively nascent stage in the evolution of the capitalist global economy in which transnational capital is dominant in national and international domains and has impacted political conditions in Africa. He further reveals how European contact with Africa in the fifteenth Century led to the political marginalization and economic exploitation of Africa.

In this chapter, Kehbuma Langmia delves into the unsettled paradoxical relationship between Africa and the West, from a socioeconomic and political viewpoint, that is yielding much needed dividend in the communicative landscape among Africans in Africa on the one hand and African immigrants in the Diaspora on the other. He then reasons that what constitutes African and African immigrant communication in the age of media globalization is anybody’s guess. He points out that social media, the virtual public spheres for ‘trans-human’ communication, have overturned the age-old face-to-face communication between elders and young people, women and men, children and parents, dignitaries and commoners, socio-political elites and average citizens in Africa. He demonstrates that we are now breeding a generation of texters than talkers. Consequently, mediatized communication and in-person communication are now uncomfortable bedmates, a kind of double-edged sword. Communicators and communicologists on the continent and in the Diaspora are confronting communication through the lens of what W. E. B. Du Bois calls “double consciousness.” Similarly, African immigrants to the Western world are equally torn between abiding by the tenets of African forms of oral, in-person communication and embracing the individualistic, self-centered, hyper-reality infested social media interaction.

This chapter by Nichelle S. Williams probes how oil and petroleum products are resources traded as energy commodities with global demand that has steadily increased over the past 25 years. She informs us that in 2015, crude oil was one of the largest exports for many African countries, including Chad, Ghana and Equatorial Guinea. She pegs her analysis on what Mohamed Elnagar of Egypt’s National Research Center identifies as the three major sectors of the oil and gas industry: i.e. (1) the upstream sector that includes searching for crude oil, drilling of exploratory wells and drilling and operating wells that bring oil and raw natural gas to the surface; (2) the midstream sector, which includes the transportation, storage and wholesale marketing of oil and refined petroleum products; and (3) the downstream sector, which includes the refining of petroleum crude oil and processing of raw natural gas, and distribution of these products.

Abdul Karim Bangura in this chapter makes the case that it is not farfetched to assert that one area globalization (i.e. the process of going to a more interconnected world by diminishing the world’s social dimension and expansion of overall global consciousness) which has affected Africa’s socioeconomic and political development the most has to do with African languages and linguistics. In this chapter, he analyzes how globalization has impacted African languages and linguistics, with a focus on the state of language deaths across the continent. Employing his theorem of accelerated language deaths, he postulates that since the significance of accelerated language deaths in African countries is doubly contextual in being both context shaped (its contribution to ongoing sequence of linguistic actions cannot adequately be understood except by reference to the context in which it occurs) and context renewing (the character of linguistic actions is directly related to the fact that they are context shaped—the context of a next linguistic activity is repeatedly renewed with every current action), context then helps an analyst to rule out unintended activities and suppress misunderstandings of certain activities that take place in a linguistic community.

This chapter by Kelebogile T. Setiloane broaches how African countries have some of the highest child undernutrition and mortality rates globally. She argues that more than 50% of child deaths could be averted if children were not undernourished. She posits that the protection, promotion and support of exclusive breastfeeding in the first six months of life is acknowledged in parenting as the single most critical strategy to be employed if African countries are to reduce their child mortality rates. She delineates that while breastfeeding is tradition in every culture in Africa regardless of socioeconomic status, in the late 1960s it took a steep downward turn when it was discouraged through the aggressive marketing of commercial breastmilk substitutes. The introduction of these commercial breastmilk substitutes to African societies, she purports, shifted breastfeeding as the traditional way of feeding infants to more ‘modern’ ways of infant formula, preempting the increase in infant mortality. This shift, she proposes, also helped to entrench Eurocentric ideas in the guise of modernization. Consequently, European practices became the norm to be copied, first by African recipients of Western culture, education and life-style, and then by others who see these recipients as ‘role models’ to be emulated.

Gerald K. Fosten in this chapter begins with the assertion that globalization (the process by which businesses or other organizations develop international influence or start operating on an international scale) has some benefits is hardly a matter of contention. Thereafter, he argues that with these benefits, however, come certain adverse consequences. He then examines how globalization has a direct impact on consumerism (the preoccupation of individuals with the acquisition of consumer goods) in terms of the many nations in Africa that are experiencing rapid economic growth. He also broaches the fact that the African Development Bank estimates that by the year 2060, the population of Africa’s middle class is expected to grow by one billion people. He contends that such a development will present huge challenges to nations on the continent and their respective citizens. As byproducts of globalization and economic development, he observes, consumerism is rising rapidly and will continue to do so. He then asks: What are consequences of consumerism in terms of globalization? His answer is that the more negative the effects of globalization, the more negative the effects on consumerism. Thus, his hypothesis that underlies this chapter is that while globalization has produced benefits, it has also increased consumerism in Africa.

In this chapter, Cindy McGee exhibits that when other major epidemics such as the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) broke out, more attention was shifted to those diseases while HIV/AIDS received less attention. But while certain gains have been made against HIV/AIDS, she maintains, it still remains a quite deadly disease and having serious impact on development in Africa. She notes that according to the World Bank, HIV/AIDS remains a major public health concern and causes significant numbers of deaths in many parts of Africa. She adds that the organization estimated that the continent is home to 15.2% of the world’s population, and more than two-thirds of the total, some 35 million infected, were Africans, of who 15 million have already died. In addition, AIDS has raised death rates and lowered life expectancy among adults between the most economically productive ages of 20 and 49 by about 20 years. Therefore, she also points out, the life expectancy in many parts of Africa is declining, largely as a result of the HIV/AIDS epidemic with life expectancy in some countries reaching as low as 34 years.

This chapter by Billie Dee Tate deals with poverty as the scourge of a civilized society. He probes the following questions: What comes to mind when one tries to define abject poverty? Do we think about starvation? Do we think about contaminated water sources? Does the lack of adequate healthcare and access to free education constitute poverty? Who defines poverty? Is it the government’s responsibility to address poverty or the perpetual suffering of the people? Does governmental policies and fiscal ineptness cause poverty? Is poverty the result of systematic policies instituted through the evils of colonialism, imperialism, and Western capitalist institutions and policies? He then proffers that one has to wonder how the African continent which holds much of the world’s natural resources has the highest levels of poverty and despair. Africa and perpetual poverty, he posits, seem to go hand-in-hand and are interwoven in virtually all aspects of everyday life for most Africans. Consequently, he points out, Africa constitutes the majority of the world’s poorest population.

This chapter by Janeen C. Guest analyzes how Pan-Africanism is alive today in Africa and around the world and is seen much more as a cultural, social and economic philosophy than the politically-driven movement it was in the past. She shows that historically, Pan-Africanism was developed as a way to build relationships among people of the African Diaspora. Early Pan Africanists’ focus was on eliminating racial oppression, establishing equal rights, de-colonialism and unifying the political and cultural ties of Africans around the world. She also alludes to the fact that early Pan-Africanists such as Marcus Garvey formed the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in 1914, which sought to promote racial pride among Blacks. Garvey also popularized the phrase “Africa for the Africans” and established the “Back to Africa” Movement. There were other Pan-Africanists such as W. E. B. Du Bois who organized several Pan-African Congresses to fight for African countries’ independence from European colonialism. In addition, there was Kwame Nkrumah who fought for the liberation of Africa from colonial domination and stated that “Africans Must Unite!” In addition to the political focus, early Pan-Africanists brought about cultural and literary movements through the Harlem Renaissance, which enlightened the world about the cultural and intellectual contributions of Black people.

In this chapter, Abdul Razak Iddris broaches the idea that the Pan-African dream of a United States of Africa is still being expressed by Africans on the continent and those of African descent all over the world. He demonstrates that since the attainment of political independence in the 1950s and 1960s, African leaders have consistently reaffirmed their willingness to forge mutually beneficial economic and political alliances in order to enhance the social and economic development of people of Africa. This desire to achieve greater economic integration of the continent, he maintains, has led to the establishment of the most extensive network of regional organizations in the continent. Nonetheless, the ghost of the Berlin Conference (1884–1885) that divided Africa into specific spheres of influence and control, Iddris concedes, has continued to haunt the continent for many years after its independence from colonialism, thereby reinforcing the fragmentation of African economics. He also proffers that by echoing the calls of Kwame Nkrumah and other Pan-Africanists that Africa must Unite, African regional integration is seen or considered as a key driver and the way forward for the structural transformation of African economic development.

Elan Mitchell-Gee in this chapter starts with an observation about the contradictions of globalization made by the President of Côte d’Ivoire, Alassane D. Ouattara, while serving as Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund during the Southern Africa Economic Summit sponsored by the World Economic Forum in Harare, Zimbabwe on May 21, 1997. The observation leads Mitchell-Gee to raise the following questions in the case of Africa: (a) What are globalization’s implications for the conduct of economic policy in Africa? (b) What are the potential benefits and risks for Africa? (c) What will African countries have to do to benefit from it and to avoid its downside risks? She then demonstrates that while many observers have offered some suggestions to similar questions, few have employed lessons from old Pan-Africanists as antidotes to the encroachment of globalization in Africa. Operating from the thesis that there can be great virtue from old wisdom, she examines Martin Robinson Delany’s tenets on Pan-Africanism and how they can be utilized to combat the infringement of globalization in Africa. She also alludes to the fact that Delany was an exceptional orator, journalist, medical doctor, and civil rights activist during the nineteenth century.