On critical African postsocialisms

Bibliographic Data

ID2230107
AuthorsKelly Askew (University of Michigan, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume14
Issue2
Pages503-508
Publication date2024-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueHau Journal of Ethnographic Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2049-1115 • E-ISSN: 2575-1433
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/730677
OpenAlexW4402664440
LanguageEN
References cited28

Relative to Eastern Europe, Asia, and Latin America, scant attention has been paid to the fate of formerly socialist states in Africa. One reason is that postcolonialism has served as the default analytic frame for everything Africa-related. Another reason is the persistence of Three-Worlds ideology with postcolonialism associated with the Third World and postsocialism with the Second. A third reason stems from the claim that African states could not properly be socialist in the absence of capitalism or class struggle. Katherine Verdery’s scholarship on socialism and postsocialism in Eastern Europe, however, has served as inspiration for the emergence of critical scholarship on African postsocialisms. This growing field takes seriously commitments to and afterlives of socialist ideology and policy across the continent while also examining their successes, failures, contradictions, and effects in the present

Geography · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics

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