CRG Africa in the World

The debate about Africa’s changing relations with the world has rapidly evolved over the past few years. The initial emphasis on China’s role in Africa has given way to a more diversified approach, acknowledging that other players have also become important as they not only challenge global power constellations, but also help to reconfigure power constellations and redistribute resources at the local and regional levels – with repercussions for the global level as well. There is a need for a more in-depth reflection on what these new developments mean from the vantage point of Africa. While the continent appears to be central to many debates on the so-called multipolar or polycentric world, Africa is still too often considered merely as a site where multipolarity is played out, while the ways in which Africa and Africans are co-shaping the contemporary world are largely ignored.

The CRG Africa in the World offers a forum for debate and reflections on some of the larger questions, inlcuding:

• In which way do diverse African actors deal with opportunities and challenges related to current global restructuring, how do they try to enhance their economic or political positions?
• Which new hierarchies of values and stratification are produced in Africa by the circulation of people and ideas, the fusion and syncretisation of images and artefacts?
• Which impact does this have on migration and for images of a “better life”, for Africans, but also for people from other continents who now discover Africa as a destination, among other things to escape environmental hazards or unemployment constraints in their home countries ?
• What is the historic long-term perspective of these developments, how are they embedded in longer-term traditions of economic and cultural exchange between African and other actors and regions?

With a series of events and related publications, and exchange and discussion of new findings and developments between its members and with others, the CRG wants to contribute to the production of knowledge on Africa’s role in the current era of global restructuring.