The Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE) is organising a symposium on the following theme:

The revolutionary left in Sub-Saharan Africa (1960’s-1970’s): a political and social history to be written

Background
The reason for this symposium stems from the following observation: while the revolutionary left movements of the 1960s and 1970s in Europe, the United States, Latin America and elsewhere have been the subject of abundant literature, similar movements that emerged during this period in Africa are still unknown. There are two main reasons for this: firstly, it was often an underground history with actors operating in hiding, and secondly, it is also a long-concealed history, either because of defeat (political and sometimes military), or of a certain form of self-censorship due to the subsequent reconversion of former revolutionary actors within the ruling elite or other reasons of ‘disavowal’ of this left-wing activist past.

The symposium is therefore meant to help reveal the invisible, forgotten and retrospectively compressed history of these left-wing movements in order to better appreciate the role they played in this period’s political power relationships, in the broad sense, within post-colonial African States. Beyond the political scope, it will attempt to assess their influence within the process for the “modernization of men”, according to Pierre Fougeyrollas’ formula about Senegal, in other words, the post-colonial societal genesis.

Much more information is available here.

Image courtesy of ROAPE

Contribute
Contributors are invited to submit a proposal in the form of an abstract (in English or in French) not exceeding 5,000 characters to the following e-mail address:  revleftafrica@rosalux.org by no later than 1st March 2019. Proposals will be reviewed.

On 31 March 2019, selected contributors will be invited to write their contributions of between 30,000 and 60,000 characters by 15 September 2019 at the latest.

In addition to the participation of researchers this symposium welcomes former  revolutionaries who will be able to join the discussions.

A symposium is scheduled to be held in Dakar on 31 October and 1 November 2019.

 Committee:
Ibrahim Abdullah, Jimi Adesina, Hakim Adi, Kate Alexander, Pascal Bianchini (organiser), Françoise Blum, Carlos Cardoso, Jean Copans, Thierno Diop, Mor Ndao, Ndongo Samba Sylla (organiser), Leo Zeilig.

About ROAPE
Since 1974 the Review of African Political Economy has provided radical analysis of trends, issues and social processes in Africa, adopting a broadly materialist interpretation of change. Established by a group of scholars and activists in the UK and Africa, the journal is committed to understanding projects of radical transformation.

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