Toward Expanding Links Between Political Geography and African Studies

Abstract

AbstractAfrica receives limited attention from political geographers, and African studies scholars pay too little attention to political geography. In reviewing the recent literature on African political geography, several themes emerge. This essay concentrates on three of these: the new scramble for Africa, political ecology, and electoral geography. The first two are areas in which a fair amount of political geography work has been done, but where more focus on particularly urban dimensions is warranted. The third arena of research is found to be highly under‐represented in recent scholarship, despite its palpable potential for yielding new insights and greater synergies between African studies and the sub‐field of political geography.