Africa's Global Infrastructures

Abstract

The boom in South–South relations since the early 2000s has seen a flurry of investment in Africa from emerging markets across the Global South. While the extent to which these projects spur growth is debated, few studies have addressed their impact on both ground-level political and socio-economic practices in Africa, and transnational governance practices more broadly. Through the lens of infrastructure, this book investigates the ideas, techniques, and practices that have travelled to, and emerge from Africa because of Global South-led projects. How have they been adapted, transformed and contested by local actors? How do they shape the governance of business–society relations? And how do practices emerging from these South-South relations transform Western-dominated transnational governance? The book zooms in on the sites of large-scale Chinese-, Brazilian- and Indian-funded projects—dams, ports, roads and mines—across several African countries. These “frontier zones” bring together politicians and practitioners, campaign groups and communities from Africa and elsewhere, and offer unique insight into the multiple global practices at work in our contemporary world. Taking a bottom-up approach, Africa’s Global Infrastructures shows the significance and implications of these increasingly pluralistic socio-economic interactions, for the continent and beyond.