Overview

Marginality and Crisis: Globalization and Identity in Contemporary Africa extends the scope and understanding of the effects of globalization and its forces on Africa. With each chapter written by specialists who recognize that the future of Africa is entwined with that of the rest of the world, this volume explains with fresh vigor the new thinking on the historical specificity, value, opportunity, and shortcomings of globalization for a continent many regard as marginalized and in crisis. In the face of much pessimism, several questions have engaged the attention of this young generation of African scholars: Where is Africa in relation to globalization? Where are the things that make Africa Africa (such as economy, politics, culture, identity, and human relations) headed? Are Africa's communities helpless against global forces or empowered by new avenues of access? How do scholars and policymakers engage the problems of globalization vis-à-vis Africa's ethnic, linguistic, and other identities? What are the economic and political trajectories in various countries and localities? An invaluable source for scholars, students, and the general reader, the essays in this book have confidently and clearly explored and explained the crises that have engulfed the continent in the age of globalization. Unlike other works that have dwelt only on the continent's victimhood, this volume identifies key areas in which Africa can become more proactive and outward-looking in response to the forces and values that take the globe as their reference points.

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Reviews

Marginality and Crisis: Globalization and Identity in Contemporary Africa is essential reading for those seriously interested in understanding the complex political, social, and economic dimensions of globalization in African societies and the imaginative response of these societies to this enigmatic post-war phenomenon. Adebayo, Adesina, and Olaniyi, three renowned African scholars, and their colleagues have given us a critical volume on the transformative impact of globalization in contemporary African states, effectively engaging intersections of the local and the global, tradition and modernity, state and society. With compelling case studies, especially from Nigeria, Africa's most complicated postcolony, this volume is an important and timely contribution to African studies. -- Olufemi Vaughan Marginality & Crisis, a companion volume to Globalizations & Transnational Migrations: Africa & Africans in the Contemporary Global System competently documents and analyzes the manipulation, marginalization, and fragmentation of the mass of the African people through the agency of a decadent, materialistic, and fanatically secular culture that contemporary transnational capitalism purveys across the globe. To the extent that the sociology of economic life in Africa is more about community welfare and less about rational economic individualism, political and policy elites across the globe would do well to heed the call of this must-read volume?that the way forward is a return to the ontology of globalization as a commitment to the construction of an authentic global village, where shared human values and social solidarity are given free rein. -- Adekunle Amuwo This is a detailed study of an important subject. Marginality and Crisis brings out some of the neglected dimensions of globalization on a continent that has always been at the receiving end of global vicissitudes. The chapters are rigorous and lucid, and they provide all the analysis one needs to know on a phenomenon that is bound to dominate discussions in Africa for some time to come. -- Abiodun Alao Marginality & Crisis, a companion volume to Globalizations & Transnational Migrations: Africa & Africans in the Contemporary Global System competently documents and analyzes the manipulation, marginalization, and fragmentation of the mass of the African people through the agency of a decadent, materialistic, and fanatically secular culture that contemporary transnational capitalism purveys across the globe. To the extent that the sociology of economic life in Africa is more about community welfare and less about rational economic individualism, political and policy elites across the globe would do well to heed the call of this must-read volume--that the way forward is a return to the ontology of globalization as a commitment to the construction of an authentic global village, where shared human values and social solidarity are given free rein. -- Adekunle Amuwo

Marginality and Crisis: Globalization and Identity in Contemporary Africa is essential reading for those seriously interested in understanding the complex political, social, and economic dimensions of globalization in African societies and the imaginative response of these societies to this enigmatic post-war phenomenon. Adebayo, Adesina, and Olaniyi, three renowned African scholars, and their colleagues have given us a critical volume on the transformative impact of globalization in contemporary African states, effectively engaging intersections of the local and the global, tradition and modernity, state and society. With compelling case studies, especially from Nigeria, Africa 's most complicated postcolony, this volume is an important and timely contribution to African studies.--Olufemi Vaughan

Author Information

Akanmu G. Adebayo is professor of history at Kennesaw State University. Olutayo Adesina is associate professor in the department of history at University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Rasheed Oyewole Olaniyi is the sub-dean of the department of history at University of Ibadan, Nigeria.

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