Reconfiguring African Studies, reconfiguring economics: centring intersectionality and social stratification

Abstract

African and African diaspora scholars have made key contributions to contemporary understandings of inequality, intersectionality, institutions and ‘development'. A recent major contribution to this debate is offered by Franklin Obeng-Odoom’s Property, Institutions and Social Stratification in Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2020). Drawing on a wide range of literatures, but especially from traditions of Black radical economic thought that span the United States, the Caribbean and Africa, the book calls for intersectional perspectives to be brought to bear on classical institutionalist and stratification economics traditions, in order to rethink ‘development economics’ as we know it. Obeng-Odoom utilises these traditions to make sense of persistent and increasing intra- and inter-group inequalities in Africa and between Africa and the world, showing how classed, raced and gendered identities shape diverse political and economic experiences, including the access to property or employment opportunities. At the same time, Black wo*men economists and wo*men economists of Colour have made notable contributions to the themes addressed by Obeng-Odoom's book – an archive that deserves deep attention. Gathering a collective of feminist economists from and beyond Africa (Abena D. Oduro, Tanita J. Lewis, Lebohang Liepollo Pheko, Sara Stevano, Ingrid Kvangraven), this symposium paper develops a conversation around the themes of intersectionality and social stratification in Africa.

Les chercheurs africains et de la diaspora africaine ont contribué de manière significative à la compréhension contemporaine de l'inégalité, de l'intersectionnalité, des institutions et du « développement ». Une récente publication de Franklin Obeng-Odoom's Property, Institutions and Social Stratification in Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2020), apporte une contribution majeure à ce débat. Ce livre, s'appuie sur un large éventail de littératures, notamment sur les courants de la pensée économique radicale noire qui s'étendent aux États-Unis, aux Caraïbes et à l'Afrique. Il préconise qu'une approche intersectionnelle soi apportée aux courants institutionnels classiques et aux études de de stratification économique afin de reconsidérer l'“économie du développement” telle que nous la connaissons. Obeng-Odoom se fonde sur ces courants pour expliquer les inégalités persistantes et croissantes entre les groupes en Afrique et entre l'Afrique et le reste du monde. Il montre comment les identités de classe, de race et de sexe façonnent les expériences politiques et économiques, y compris l'accès à la propriété ou aux opportunités d'emploi. En parallèle, les Black wo*men economists and wo*men economists of Colour ont apporté des contributions notables aux thèmes abordés dans l'ouvrage d'Obeng-Odoom - des archives qui méritent une attention particulière. Regroupant un collectif d'économistes féministes d'Afrique et d'ailleurs (Abena D. Oduro, Tanita J. Lewis, Lebohang Liepollo Pheko, Sara Stevano, Ingrid Kvangraven), cet ouvrage de symposium développe une conversation autour des thèmes de l'intersectionnalité et de la stratification sociale en Afrique.

Keywords:

• Feminist economics
• property
• inequality
• institutions
• decolonising economics
• African Studies

Mots clés:

• Économie féministe
• propriété
• inégalité
• Institutions
• décolonisation de l'économie
• études africaines

Acknowledgements

We thank Ange-Dorine Irakoze for her help with French translations, as well as Joël Glasman.

Disclosure statement

This article issue is the outcome of research conducted within the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bayreuth, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany ś Excellence Strategy – EXC 2052/1 – 390713894.

Statement of Ethics

At the time this study was conducted, the authors' institutions did not require ethical approval to be sought for this type of research.

Notes

1 This spelling includes those of non-binary, queer identifications.

2 https://www.africamultiple.uni-bayreuth.de/en/index.html (accessed 01/05/2022).

3 For some good characterisations of neoclassical economics/ the ‘economic mainstream’, see Wooley (1993), Stein (2021) and Komlos (2019). The tricky thing is that even dissenting economists or purported innovations in economics (such as the ‘new institutional economics’ or ‘behavioural economics’) often still hold on to certain key assumptions of neoclassical economics. This includes methodological individualism, the disregard for power (except for an occasional concern with ‘monopoly power'), the assumption that individuals enter ‘transactions’ on equal terms (equipped with the same social qualities), and the neglect of space and the environment. This is also evident in Wooley’s feminist critique of the standard neoclassical framework, which seeks to improve that framework rather than undoing it.

4 This is a list far from complete, as the interventions of Oduro, Pheko and Stevano show. For an excellent overview of feminist economic thought going back as far as to the late 19th and early twentieth century, see the review of the economist Nina Banks (Banks 2021). The overview, however, is tilted towards a US context. For a critical discussion of a uniform transfer of race-gender-class as a system of interlocking oppressions to an African context, see Oyêwùmí (2002).

5 See https://femnet.org/afma/ (accessed 01/07/2022).

6 Dr. Nyamekye Asare (Ottawa) also contributed to the round table, but unfortunately could not contribute to this paper.

7 Diversifying and Decolonising Economics (D-Econ): https://d-econ.org/ (accessed 01/07/2022).

8 The ecological questions in Georgist political economy are taken up much more in Obeng-Odoom (2021).

9 For a more extensive analysis of ‘rent’ in the Georgist methodology, see Obeng-Odoom (2022).

10 See reviews in, among others, Land and Liberty, Economic Geography, Journal of Australian Political Economy, Contribution to Political Economy, and Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review.

11 See reviews in the Journal of Economic Inequality and African and Asian Studies.

12 Another useful paper appearing after Obeng-Odoom’s book was published is Zacharias et al. (2021).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.