Formation/Cours

In the past fifteen years, the formidable stakes of Africa’s geological wealth have positioned the continent as the global economy’s ‘last frontier’. Cobalt, a core component of ion-lithium batteries and rare earths, a critical feature of wind turbines, are the green gold of the energy transition. These resources are also found in two countries best-known for the violence of their colonial and postcolonial trajectories, the Congo and Burundi.

Is the new Scramble for Africa ushering in a brighter, more just future – away from the geological scandals of the past?

This course revisits key debates on the uneven and unequal relationship between Africa and the world economy to track the structural variables (legal, political, economic, social) that have shaped this relationship over time, from the colonial era to the present. Meanwhile, it asks a core question for our times: how can we respond to the climate emergency without depleting common goods – foremost the economic, societal, and environmental welfare of African societies?

To do so, the course espouses an interconnected understanding of global value chains (GVCs) that deploys a multidisciplinary approach (combining politics, anthropology, legal scholarship along with critical political economy) and a multiscale perspective – looking at African sites, but also patterns of power expansion in the ‘Global North’ and financial capitals. It thereby critically assesses the specific role played by law as a vernacular of the relationship between Africa and the world economy, from the 19th century Scramble, through to the on-going rush for ‘green’ minerals.