Recolonizing Africa: An Ethnography of Land Acquisition, Mining, and Resource Control

Dr. Mariam Mniga-Kurtz’s (George Mason University) recent book Recolonizing Africa (Routledge) examines resource conflicts among local people, governments, and transnational corporations, revealing how global systemic violence and irresponsible business practices precipitate economic inequality between African and financially rich nations - threatening peace and security, indigenous rights, and the environment.
Green technology and the high demand for electronics have intensified Africa’s role as a supplier of raw materials, natural resources, and cheap labor and as a large market of more than one billion people in the global economy. This unique ethnographic study, with elements of autoethnography, starts with Dr. Mniga Kurtz’s journey to Bulyanhulu, Tanzania, one of the largest gold mines in Africa, and moves to a broader analysis that reveals the systemic violence of resource extraction. Focus groups, interviews, and observations demonstrate the lack of distributive justice and intersectional equality in the process of land acquisition and resource extraction, described by villagers in racialized and gendered terms as exploitative and part of a racist system that fails to provide a fair distribution of benefits to local people.
Contact Sehrazat G. Mart ([e-mail]) with questions or to express interest in presenting at a future coffee hour event.