Lee Wengraf (Activist and writer)
Extracting Profit: Neoliberalism, Imperialism and the New Scramble for Africa
Book launch with discussant: Elisa Greco (University of Leeds)
21 November
6pm
Bush House Lecture Theatre 3, NE 0.01
30 Aldwych
London, WC2B 4BG
In the first decade and a half of the twenty-first century, Africa has undergone an economic boom. Rising global prices in oil and minerals have produced a scramble for Africa’s natural resources, led by investment from US, European and Chinese companies, and joined by emerging economies from around the globe. Rather than job creation, this period of “Africa rising” has fuelled the extraction of natural resources, profits accruing to global capital, and an increasingly wealthy African ruling class. Extracting Profit argues that the roots of today’s social and economic conditions lie in the historical legacies of colonialism and the imposition of so-called “reforms” by global financial institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. The chokehold of debt and austerity of the late twentieth century paved the way for severe assaults on African working classes through neoliberal privatization and deregulation. And while the scramble for Africa’s resources has heightened the pace of ecological devastation, examples from Somalia and the West African Ebola outbreak reveal a frightening surge of militarization on the part of China and the US. Yet this “new scramble” has not gone unchallenged. Lee Wengraf convincingly shows this with her accounts of platinum workers’ struggles in South Africa, Nigerian labour organizing and pro-democracy upheavals in Uganda and Burkina Faso.
Seminar in Contemporary Marxist Theory
All seminars are open to the public. No registration is required. Contact: Matt Vidal (mgvidal@gmail.com)
