[CfP] Conference 2015 – Africa working group

The recently-established Africa working group aims to promote intellectual and practical exchange between scholars and activists of African political economy, and those in other IIPPE working groups. Many of the most pressing questions and themes concerning Africa’s political economies – including land reform, the politics of resources, the influence of IFIs and econometric methodologies in development policy and academia, the relationship between state, capital and labour, financialisation and the changing and continuous nature of capitalist transformation – open up channels for comparison with other processes and regions. At the same time, the continent’s modern histories of decolonisation and ill-conceived boundaries, structural adjustment, militarisation and the struggle for sovereignty over currencies and economic policy more generally, have created particular regional dynamics that merit an area focus.

The Africa working group is supported by the Review of African Political Economy, whose contributions are based on politically engaged scholarship from a range of disciplines. This journal pays particular attention to the political economy of inequality, exploitation, oppression, and to struggles against them, whether driven by global forces or local ones such as class, race, community and gender. It sustains a critical analysis of the nature of power and the state in Africa in the context of capitalist globalisation.

We particularly welcome paper proposals on the themes of: critiques of International Political Economy; populism in practice, i.e. when it is operationalised via policy/programme (e.g. by neoliberal governments); political economy of economic fraud and anti-fraud measures; conservation-related capital (ecotourism and forestry-related carbon markets); and currency and monetary policy.

Please submit paper and panel proposals directly to the IIPPE website (selecting Africa) by 1 April – contact h.cross@westminster.ac.uk for enquires about the conference or working group.