ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how contemporary social movements in sub-Saharan Africa create meaning, express collective agency, and mobilise transformative action through cultural symbolism and strategic practice. Drawing on New Social Movement theory and inspired by Couldry’s concept of voice, this study critically explores how African movements engage in cultural production and reinterpret historical trajectories of resistance to challenge authoritarian rule, neoliberal reforms, and socio-economic marginalisation. Covering youth-led insurrections, feminist groups, and environmental justice alliances, these movements amplify marginalised perspectives and redefine citizenship, belonging, and political participation amid state coercion, economic hardships, and unequal digital access. Situated within a historical continuum, the analysis highlights continuities and changes linking anti-colonial and post-independence struggles to contemporary grassroots mobilisation, illustrating the resilient and evolving importance of voice as a performative political resource. This chapter shows how activists utilise cultural repertoires, digital infrastructure, and transnational solidarities to amplify their voices, assert agency, and build collective identities that transcend ethnic, class, and gender boundaries. By emphasising voice within cultural politics, this chapter underlines its key role in shaping emerging democratic imaginaries, positioning sub-Saharan African movements not merely as reactive responses to crises but as active expressions of social creativity and political imagination.
