Guest Contributors – Tim Zajontz

24. August 202124. August 2021

Afrika im Fokus des dritten SPD-Sommerstammtisches

THOMAS REIFF

Um aktuelle politische und wirtschaftliche Entwicklungen auf dem afrikanischen Kontinent ging es beim jüngsten Stammtisch des SPD-Ortsvereins Geislingen im „Café im Grünen“. Als Referenten konnte der Ortsvereinsvorsitzende Thomas Reiff den Politologen und Mitbegründer des Geislinger Vereins „Freundeskreis Uganda e.V.“, Tim Zajontz, begrüßen.

Zajontz lehrt und forscht an den Universitäten in Freiburg und Stellenbosch in Südafrika zu den internationalen Beziehungen des afrikanischen Kontinents. Beim Stammtisch des Geislinger SPD-Ortsvereins teilte der Politikwissenschaftler nun Erfahrungen und Erkenntnisse, die er während teils mehrjähriger Aufenthalte im südlichen und östlichen Afrika sammeln konnte.

18. April 202114. November 2023

Capitalism and Africa’s (infra)structural dependency: A story of spatial fixes and accumulation by dispossession

New chapter, co-authored with Ian Taylor, in Africa and the Global System of Capital Accumulation, edited by Emmanuel O. Oritsejafor and Allan D. Cooper

Abstract
Instead of expediting “Africa’s transformation”, as suggested by the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA) of the African Union (AU) (PIDA, n.d.), this chapter argues that the recent upsurge in infrastructure development has reinforced the continent’s dependency on external actors and fosters patterns of accumulation by dispossession. We are helped by David Harvey’s theory of spatio-temporal fixes and the key functions it attributes to infrastructure and debt in the global system of capital accumulation. The chapter proceeds in four stages. The chapter first briefly recounts Harvey’s concepts of the spatio-temporal fix and accumulation by dispossession. In a second step, we contextualize Africa’s recent infrastructure boom and situate it against the wider saga of “Africa rising.” The third part of the chapter scrutinizes China’s rise as the continent’s new “infrastructure giant” and problematizes particularities of the “Chinese infrastructural fix” in Africa. The chapter then concludes by extrapolating some trends that we believe will become increasingly relevant in Africa’s infrastructure sector and that underline the enduring function of infrastructure as “means of dispossession” (Cowen 2017).

Link to full text

26. February 202120. March 2022

In memoriam: Professor Ian Taylor

A collective tribute to a true friend of Africa and a wonderful teacher

**Professor Ian Taylor**
9 January 1969 – 22 February 2021

On 22 February 2021, we lost Professor Ian Taylor. Ian has been a world-renowned scholar who made outstanding contributions in the fields of International Relations, African politics and China-Africa studies. Besides his remarkable academic achievements and output, Ian was an extremely passionate educator who has inspired generations of students at all levels of their studies and literally all across the world. He was genuinely interested in the opinions and lives of his students and truly cared for them. This ‘collective obituary’ is a modest attempt to pay tribute to the important role Ian has played as a ‘teacher’, mentor or supervisor for many of us. We thank the editors of the St Andrews Africa Summit (SAASUM) Review to honour Ian’s life and legacy by publishing this collective tribute in their 2021 edition.

12. January 20215. March 2021

Wang Yi’s Africa Tour: An Inquest from Tanzania

MUHIDIN SHANGWE

From the Tanzanian perspective, Mr Yi’s visit to the East African nation seemed to have two main goals: Normalisation of the relations between Tanzania and China and showing China’s readiness to take part in the former’s industrialisation drive.

23. December 201812. January 2021

Cosmic Lottery

Zainab Magzoub writes about the ‘cosmic lottery’ she won as a refugee child.

ZAINAB MAGZOUB

When my mum informed me we would be relocated to Scotland at age nine, I wasn’t too happy. I hadn’t heard much about the country apart from it was very cold and that boys there wore ‘skirts’. Back home in Sudan, people refer to anywhere in the UK as London. I still frequently overhear in my mum’s conversation with friends and family in Sudan; ‘How’s life treating you in London?’ She has given up correcting them.

We arrived in the UK and claimed Asylum at the Croydon Home Office. Subsequently we were placed in a B&B in Margate for a month. Each day we would search for our names on the notice board to see if or when we were going to be taken to one of the dispersal cities. Luck of the draw found us on the eleven-hour coach trip to Glasgow. Looking back I feel both sympathy and admiration for my mum for making this journey with three young kids in tow and keeping an unwavering composure throughout. She had, after all, been through a lot worse.