The imagined Africa of the West: a critical perspective on Western imaginations of Africa. Issue 164 (2nd April 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Larsen, Rune; Jensen, Stig
• Is Part Of: Review of African political economy. Volume 47:Issue 164(2020)
• Page Start: 324
• Page End: 334
• Publication Date: 2020-04-02
• Subjects: Africa -- Economic conditions -- Periodicals; Africa -- Social conditions -- Periodicals; 330.96
• DOI: 10.1080/03056244.2019.1660155
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0305-6244

Abstract

SUMMARY: This debate piece discusses how exceptionalised images of Africa are reproduced in contemporary Western discourse and imagination, and argues that these exceptionalised depictions of Africa enable Western consciousness to escape a confrontation with its own dysfunctionalities, hereby projecting all the excremental features characterising human existence on to its African Other. This is interpreted as a way for Western subjects to alter themselves into a position of idealised and imagined advanced civilisation – thus legitimising contemporary acts of neo-colonial exploitation in Africa.