How Europe is Evolving Toward Africa

No, this is not about the anxieties of Niall Ferguson.

Anthropologist John Comaroff spoke at The Graduate Institute in Geneva about the themes that lie at the heart of (the introduction to) the latest book he co-wrote with Jean Comaroff, and which carries the same title as the lecture: ‘Theory from the South: Or, How Europe is Evolving Toward Africa.’ (Keynote starts 5 minutes into the recording; there’s a Q&A in the last third, including some words about Lionel Messi.)

Further Reading

The people want to breathe

In Tunisia’s coastal city of Gabès, residents live in the shadow of the phosphate industry. As pollution deepens and repression returns, a new generation revives the struggle for life itself.

After Paul Biya

Cameroon’s president has ruled for over four decades by silence and survival. Now, with dynastic succession looming and no clear exit strategy, the country teeters between inertia and implosion.

Leapfrogging literacy?

In outsourcing the act of writing to machines trained on Western language and thought, we risk reinforcing the very hierarchies that decolonization sought to undo.