Poverty in Africa: History, Misunderstandings, and the Living

Abstract

This article explores the historical and structural contexts that have defined and promoted poverty in Africa from the period of European colonisation to the present time. Today, poverty is experienced across the continent in various ways that make the phenomenon escapist in the efforts by statesmen, scholars, and development experts to understand and address it. This article historicises this challenge by generating insights from existing historical, economic, and anthropological perspectives on the socio-economic and political challenges of the continent. It interrogates the historical dynamics that impoverish the continent’s understanding of its poverty, leading to its compromised status as fragile partaker in the ensuing “world order.” This article maintains that these contexts are fluid and interwoven enough to warrant the description of African poverty as elastic and elusive—a reality that indicts the continent’s managers and globalisation advocates. Currently, adequate historicisation of African poverty is substantially lacking in existing literature and more so because the speed at which global development proceeds creates intense pressure on knowledge production and governance in Africa to keep pace with advancements that are hardly comprehended before new ones take over. Thus, this article provides insights into the history of poverty in Africa while examining the shape-shifting dimension of this phenomenon in the continent.