ABSTRACT
This chapter brings together a range of insights gleaned from the main chapters of our study on the poetics and politics of resource exploitation, and the continued struggles for social and environmental justice in post-colonial Africa. The fundamental argument that the chapter makes is that Africa continues to be subjected to violent capitalocenes, vulnerability to climate change, erosion of indigenous knowledge practices, and environmental injustices that come with these. An overall insight emerging from this volume is that the vulnerability of African countries will remain a concern if the colonial architecture, which ties the continent to exploitative ethos and western ideas of modernity, is not disrupted and re-aligned to the needs and local challenges of the African continent. However, given the uneven geopolitical relations between Africa and the Global North, in particular, Africa’s historical role as the supplier of raw materials to industrialised nations of the West, a major mindset shift and leadership is needed to re-centre Africa’s environmental needs and to bring to an end the ruthless exploitation and degradation of Africa’s resources and its people. The chapter concludes that this is a challenge that Africa’s vast communities must undertake and re-assert their agency as the custodians of their resources and environmental sustainability in order to break the cycle of often wanton and violent resource exploitation.
