Histories of Empire and Environmental Legacies in Africa

Societal debates about climate change have rekindled interest in environmental history approaches. This review article considers three recent books in African environmental history, on the Kruger National Park, the East African Groundnut Scheme, and on infrastructure in postcolonial Dar es Salaam. Why is it important to study the empire–environment nexus? How do African experiences relate to discussions on the Anthropocene? Taking environmental dynamics into account enriches understandings of social, political, and cultural relationships and sheds light on imperialism and its complex legacies. This article makes the case for the importance of environmental history as a category of analysis, encouraging other scholars to think “with” the environment in broader debates concerning power, identity, and social change

Mining, waste and environmental thought on the Central African Copperbelt, 1950-2000

Since the early twentieth century, the copper-mining industry on the Zambian and Congolese Copperbelt has moved millions of tonnes of earth and dramatically reshaped the landscape. Nonetheless, mining companies, governments and even residents largely overlooked the adverse environmental aspects of mining until the early 1990s. By scrutinising environmental knowledge production on the Central African Copperbelt from the 1950s until the late 1990s, particularly regarding notions of ‘waste’, this article problematises the silencing of the environmental impacts of mining. To make the environmental history of the Copperbelt visible, this article examines forestry policies, medical services and environmental protests. Moreover, by historically tracing the emergence of environmental consciousness, it contextualises the sudden ‘discovery’ of pollution in the 1990s as a local and (inter)national phenomenon. Drawing on rare archival and oral history sources, it provides one of the first cross-border environmental histories of the Central African Copperbelt

Crops and Copper:Agriculture and urbanism on the Central African Copperbelt, 1950-2000

Agricultural production has historically been integral to the central African Copperbelt’s urban growth. None the less, urban agriculture has rarely received attention in the otherwise rich Copperbelt historiography. Government and mine officials, as well as social scientists, have persistently framed urban agriculture as an informal, subsistence and feminised activity. Growing maize or vegetables has, in such views, been interpreted as a sign of rurality that is ‘out of place’ in urban areas, at best a response to poverty and crisis or a practice engaged in only by ‘thrifty housewives’. Such narratives have distorted a proper understanding of urban agriculture. Drawing on new archival sources and oral history, this article presents a different view. It compares the Zambian and the Congolese Copperbelt from 1950 until 2000 to re-evaluate urban agriculture as a normal part of everyday life, an activity central to urban livelihood, identity and belonging. Growing crops has evolved over time in response to socio-economic change, but it has always been vital to the urban life of the diverse Copperbelt population. Considering agricultural production thus contributes to debates on urbanism in central Africa and beyond

Extractive industries and the environment:Production, pollution, and protest in global history

Resource extraction has historically caused dramatic environmental changes across the globe. Although mining and oil drilling have transformed landscapes and polluted the air and water wherever they have taken place, knowledge of how these environmental transformations have been experienced and lived in different parts of the world remains fragmentary. This special issue seeks to provide new insights into the environmental histories of resource extraction, particularly in the Global South, where extractive industries have intensified markedly since 1950. Inspired by recent environmental history scholarship, we link together analyses of imperialism, capitalism, and environmental inequality in African, Asian, and Latin American localities of resource extraction. Furthermore, drawing on the analytical framework of political ecology, we examine why protests against extractive industries did or did not occur in specific sites. Given the increasing global demand for resources and pressing current-day questions about how to live in the Anthropocene, it is timely to scrutinise production practices, pollution, and protest in global history

The climate crisis as a colonial crisis:Perspectives from African environmental history

By reviewing recent works in African environmental history, this article explores the colonial roots of the Anthropocene. I argue that a historical approach is crucial to understand the current climate crisis and its planetary inequalities. This article traces colonial environmental injustices, through examples such as forestry, agriculture and hydroelectric dam schemes, to show how they are reproduced and endure into the present. The exclusionary histories of the nature-culture divide as well as the problematic effects of colonial development schemes poignantly presage the unsustainability of contemporary interventionist climate policies. In this respect, African environmental history provides unique perspectives on the Anthropocene’s unequal dynamics. Historians can play a more prominent role in contemporary debates about the climate crisis by documenting these colonial legacies and in doing so they can contribute to more just and sustainable climate policies

Participatory action research in neoliberal academia : An uphill struggle

Peer reviewe

Toxic coloniality and the legacies of resource extraction in Africa

This review essay examines the colonial roots of toxicity caused by resourceextraction across Africa, thereby foregrounding the persistent necropolitics ofoil spills and mining waste dumps. Zooming in on examples of mining and oildrilling localities, with a particular focus on Johannesburg, the Central AfricanCopperbelt and the Niger Delta, it sheds light on what coloniality entails. Thisarticle traces the long-term temporalities of extraction, capitalism and wasteto show the toxic aftermaths of colonial mines and oil wells. In doing so, thearticle probes the possibilities and impossibilities for decolonial forms ofenvironment making. By bringing global environmental humanities literatureon resource extraction into conversation with the specific histories of Africanlocalities, the nature of the planetary regime of extraction and its toxic effectsare highlighted. More closely studying these histories of coloniality and toxicityis crucial in responding to the climate crisis