Globalization, boundaries, and livelihoods: perspectives on Africa

This paper takes a closer look at the paradoxes of globalisation as a process of inclusion and exclusion, empowerment and enslavement, citizenship and subjection, hope and disappointment. It argues that the neo-liberal rhetoric and euphoria on globalisation must be countered with the reality of exclusion for all but an elite few. The basic split might be between the rich and the poor across national borders, but the fact remains that the investors, advertisers and affluent consumers whose interests global capitalism represent, are more concentrated in and comprise a significant proportion of the populations of the developed world, than is the case in Africa where only an elite minority are involved and hardly any local consumer products are competitive globally. Yet, although structurally excluded, the bulk of ordinary people in Africa refuse to celebrate victimhood. Thanks to their ability to manoeuvre and manipulate, and thanks to the sociality and conviviality of their cultural communities, Africans have refused to internalise and surrender to marginalisation by states weakened by the profit motives of global capital. Thus, the paper also explores some of the creative strategies employed by Africans to appropriate, gatecrash, cushion, subvert or resist the effects of their exclusion by the global structures of inequality. The paper is therefore in tune with the growing need to understand the processes and prospects of globalising Africa and Africanising globalisation. Resume