An Historical Assessment and Analysis of Economic Imperialism in West Africa
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Date
2021-07-08
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
BRILL
Abstract
The West African political economy has been shaped by the policies, decisions and actions of dominant European imperialist countries since about over 500 years. Starting with imperial merchant capitalism along the West African coast in the 16th Century and French gradual acquisition of Senegal as a colony as from 1677, West Africa has remained under the imperialist hold. West Africa remains economically dependent on its former colonial masters despite more than 60 years since the countries started gaining independence. The consequences of economic imperialism on West Africa have included exploitative resource extraction, proxy and resource influenced civil wars, illegal trade in natural resources, mass poverty, and external migration of skilled workers necessary for national development. The world sees and broadcasts poverty, starvation, conflict and Saharan migration in the West African sub-continent, but hardly reports the exploitative imperialistic processes that have produced poverty and misery in West Africa in particular and across sub-Saharan Africa in general
Description
Journal of Labor and Society (2021) 1-17
Keywords
Colonialism, neo-colonialism, economic imperialism, anglophone, francophone, lusophone West Africa, CEFORGRIS, Joseph Ki-Zerbo University and Ouaga II University, Burkina Faso
Citation
Omobowale, A. O., & Sawadogo, N. (2021). An Historical Assessment and Analysis of Economic Imperialism in West Africa, Journal of Labor and Society (published online ahead of print 2021). doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/24714607-bja10020