African Nationalisms, History and Development

AFRICAN STUDIES DEVELOPMENT STUDIES, University of YORK

“Always bear in mind that people are not fighting for ideas, for the things in anyone’s head. They are fighting to win material benefits, to live better and in peace, to see their lives go forward, to guarantee the future of their children”.

Call for Papers: African Nationalisms, History and Development. A conference to be held at York University, Toronto Canada – see details at the end.

Preamble

National development hardly followed nationalists obtaining state power. However, long before the multiple changes brought through neoliberalism’s attempt to integrate, or subordinate, Africa to global markets, many nationalists believed that national development was about a political economy of integration and transformation. Despite the many chosen or enforced changes to the paths of development taken since the inception of African independence, its primary meanings, if not its hopes, remain. There continues to be the evocation of long historical processes of transformatory and rapid social change; intentional efforts aimed at improvement by various agencies, including governments, “markets”, and various kinds of organizations and social movements; and a description, vision and measure of a desirable society that has overcome poverty.

For many, the benefits of the longue durée of historical transformation are not yet upon many African states and societies, while visions of a better society remain invisible. If the pervasive contestation over sites and agencies of development within and outside of the state continue because of the apparent collapse of the idea and practice of national development, their many sources and their legacies remain to be explored.

Presently, the distance from the initial historical political imagination of national development frequently persists because of the new challenges posed by both the revival of so-called development states and the numerous uses of the alternatives to state-centric initiatives of development. It is precisely because of this apparent detachment and the prima facie ideological demise of neoliberalism, that this conference aims to revisit the histories of nationalism and national development. Notwithstanding neoliberalism’s remaining ideological, institutional and economic vestiges, nationalism and national development are not exhausted.

This conference seeks neither to constantly render histories of national development to analogies from elsewhere, nor, as per the newer advances in the comparative economic history of development, to only attempt to account for Africa’s “great divergence” from other historical paths of development. Rather, the conference aims to understand both the general and specific historical roots entering into Africa’s heterogeneous nationalisms and the legacies that continue to shape or constrain their intended or unintended developmental trajectories.

While the themes of the conference are neither exhaustive nor exclusive, we would like participants to bear some of the following themes in mind.
Themes:

Convenors: Alex Caramento, J.P. Diamani, Pablo Idahosa, Uwafiokun Idemudia Merouan Mekouar, and Gertrude Mianda.

Please send a 200-300 word abstract in English or French to natdev1@yorku.ca by July 31st, 2015.

Invited Speakers

Dr. Ama Biney, Pazambuka*
Gillian Hart, University of California, Berkeley*
Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill* *Agreed to come