Join the online book launch of the African edition of 'What is the Real Marxist Tradition?', 18:30 GMT 22 Oct. Discuss Marxism's impact in Africa & explore new & radical perspectives for the continent’s political social movements & struggles. roape.net/2026/09/30/w...

What is the Real Marxist Tradition in Africa? | ROAPE

John Molyneux’s classic statement of Marxist theory and practice What is the Real Marxist Tradition? was first published in 1984. The short book provided an incredibly sophisticated description of Mar...

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Rich Mallett argues that for Uganda’s boda boda workers ‘financial inclusion’ schemes promise ownership & entrepreneurship but in practice turn the dream of being your own boss into a precarious & often temporary escape from exploitation. roape.net/2026/09/25/t...

The price of becoming your own boss in Uganda’s boda boda industry | ROAPE

It is said that Uganda’s vast motorcycle-taxi industry employs more men than any other sector outside agriculture. In Kampala alone, Uganda’s rapidly expanding capital city, estimates suggests there c...

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In this new post for roape.net, James Akpu argues the underlying logics of a colonial wartime potato scheme in Nigeria’s highlands continue to reproduce themselves in so-called ‘food security’ programmes across the African continent today. roape.net/2026/09/18/f...

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For 50 years, ROAPE has brought readers pathbreaking analysis on radical African political economy.

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This is important. 📌

Review of African Political Economy @roapejournal.bsky.social · 4w ago

In the current moment, developing & deepening our understanding of US-led #imperialism is an urgent task for radical forces everywhere. In this spirit, ROAPE offers a curated selection of ten open-access publications on the topic from our archives: roape.net/2026/09/16/c...

In the current moment, developing & deepening our understanding of US-led #imperialism is an urgent task for radical forces everywhere. In this spirit, ROAPE offers a curated selection of ten open-access publications on the topic from our archives: roape.net/2026/09/16/c...

Charting the evolution of US-led imperialism, 1974-2026 | ROAPE

In 1990, Indian Marxist economist and political commentator Prabhat Patnaik asked ‘Whatever has happened to imperialism?’. His point was not that it had disappeared. To the contrary, he argued, “the d...

roape.net

African workers are deeply entrenched in a global system of migrant-labour exploitation & trafficking. Their experiences – from Gulf households to Myanmar’s scam compounds – expose the same recurring problem: what does a right to leave mean if workers cannot safely use it? roape.net/2026/09/09/a...

African migrant workers who cannot return | ROAPE

Somebody in Kampala or Accra or Harare sees a job advertisement. Customer service, or something in IT, somewhere abroad. The pay is better than anything available at home. The recruiter is responsive ...

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As part of our efforts to renew our ranks with radical African scholar-activists from the continent or the diaspora we introduce ROAPE's newest Editorial Working Group Affiliate, Abdoulie Kurang, who describes himself as an organic intellectual buff.ly/7EA3yji

Writing for roape.net, Abiola Isikalu argues that Burkina Faso is extending state control over citizens by treating education & mobility as security threats, conditioning belonging on perceived loyalty rather than actual conduct. roape.net/2026/09/02/b...

Before there is anything to punish: Burkina Faso’s new citizenship question | ROAPE

On July 16, 2026, when addressing the Forces vives in Yagha Province, Burkina Faso’s transitional president Captain Ibrahim Traoré referred to a statistic that seemed to take even him by surprise. “Th...

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We break our annual shutdown to bring this urgent piece of writing from ROAPE's Leo Zeilig. "Professor Arday is dead. Murdered. Yet again another Black person has been killed – pilloried in a public execution orchestrated by a profoundly racist press & organised fascists" roape.net/2026/08/24/t...

The murder of Professor Jason Arday  | ROAPE

On Sunday 16 August I joined the vigil for Professor Arday in London’s Trafalgar Square in the summer’s heat, packed tight with thousands of protestors marking their respect, holding bunches of flower...

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#Sahel

Review of African Political Economy @roapejournal.bsky.social · 2mo ago

In this piece, Nishant Upadhyay asserts that developments in Burkina Faso have facilitated a repoliticisation of political economy, including everyday life, through mass mobilisation. roape.net/2026/08/05/b...

In our last post before our August shutdown, Stephanie Kitchen & David Mills argue that since the 1990s, donors & multinational publishers have entrenched an extraverted academic publishing economy across Africa. roape.net/2026/08/07/t...

The extraversion of African academic journals | ROAPE

There is a long history of donor funding for African universities, research and publishing, going back to the colonial period, and the foundation of the International African Institute in 1926. The cr...

roape.net

In this piece, Nishant Upadhyay asserts that developments in Burkina Faso have facilitated a repoliticisation of political economy, including everyday life, through mass mobilisation. roape.net/2026/08/05/b...

Worth reading with ...

Review of African Political Economy @roapejournal.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Malick Doucouré argues that the recent anti-LGBT crackdowns in pro-Pan-African governments are about elites manufacturing unity against a fake external threat to absolve their failure to fix the economy. He argues it's time to reclaim the Pan-Africanism of Nkrumah & Sankara. buff.ly/hOFlOzV

Malick Doucouré argues that the recent anti-LGBT crackdowns in pro-Pan-African governments are about elites manufacturing unity against a fake external threat to absolve their failure to fix the economy. He argues it's time to reclaim the Pan-Africanism of Nkrumah & Sankara. buff.ly/hOFlOzV

The homophobia of Pan-African regimes | ROAPE

West Africa has experienced a series of significant geopolitical developments in recent years, with the potential to reshape both its political landscape and economic trajectory. These are, in many…

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Regarding the informal economy, this book talks about actions and efforts of informal traders and artisans in Nairobi in particular from their own points of view. It looks at how they organize and get by in order to consider approaches for integrating into global economy.

Citizen.Coping@propcazhpm.bsky.social · 3y ago

"African Markets and the Utu-buntu Business Model" by Mary Njeri Kinyanjui "The Utu-buntu Business Model sheds light on the ethics and values that underpin the work of traders and artisans in Nairobi.. their resilience and positive impact.." #OpenAccess library.oapen.org/handle/20.50...

In this new blog for roape.net, Shevonne Henry & Erick Mwale argue Africa’s informal sector, not the traditional industrial working class, is emerging as the continent’s most important revolutionary force. roape.net/2026/07/29/b...

Beyond Marx | ROAPE

The winter-beaten streets of the Johannesburg Central Business District are lined with informal traders this morning and they’re selling everything you can imagine – fruit, vegetables, cuts of meat, d...

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This question of who holds symbolic power in conservation is one we sit with daily. In Etanga we start by asking who owns the herd and whose knowledge names the land, before anyone draws a plan. Community first, or it is not conservation.

In this editorial, ROAPE's Ray Bush introduces Issue 188. Bush argues that US warmongering is intimately connected to events on the African continent, driving up energy costs, worsening Africa’s debt & hunger crises, & reinforcing its structural dependence. roape.net/2026/07/22/w...

War | ROAPE

The imperialist war waged by the USA and Israel against the Islamic Republic of Iran, the continued genocide in Gaza and the attempt to dismember Lebanon have far-reaching consequences for Africa. The...

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Offering his reflections on the first chapter of ‘The Big Conservation Lie’, James Mulei raises questions of symbolic power in the domain of wildlife conservation. roape.net/2026/07/16/o...

Of heroes and hero worship? Some musings on the first chapter of 'The Big Conservation Lie' by John Mbaria and Mordecai Ogada | ROAPE

As I read the opening chapter of The big conservation lie, I found myself less interested in the catalogue of failures it presents than in the conditions that make those failures persist without…

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🚨New journal issue alert! Volume 53 Issue 188 June 2026 War Pages: 129-279 Issue Editor: Ray Bush All articles, briefings and debates available to access, read and download for free from anywhere in the world 👇🏿 mailchi.mp/3d77c8c31fc4...

"At each stage of Guinea-Bissau’s economic history, women’s unacknowledged labour in cashew cultivation & processing provided the floor that kept households alive and the system functional. When the formal economy contracted, that floor held. When the state withdrew, that floor held." #WomensLabor

Cashew capitalism - part two | ROAPE

The dominant cashew economy had established patterns that outlasted independence in 1974. By then, Amílcar Cabral was already dead, assassinated by Portuguese agents in Conakry the previous year. He n...

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"Amílcar Cabral’s insight was that colonial underdvlpmt was a system [that couldn't] be dismantled by replacing personnel & leaving structures intact. The cashew monoculture.. has outlasted everything except the dispossession it was designed to produce. That dispossession has always been gendered."

Review of African Political Economy @roapejournal.bsky.social · 3mo ago

In the final instalment on cashew capitalism, Klas Lundström Martínez argues that Guinea-Bissau’s colonial cashew monoculture created a permanent system of economic dependency, with women’s invisible labour holding the entire economy together. roape.net/2026/07/13/c...

In the final instalment on cashew capitalism, Klas Lundström Martínez argues that Guinea-Bissau’s colonial cashew monoculture created a permanent system of economic dependency, with women’s invisible labour holding the entire economy together. roape.net/2026/07/13/c...

Cashew capitalism - part two | ROAPE

The dominant cashew economy had established patterns that outlasted independence in 1974. By then, Amílcar Cabral was already dead, assassinated by Portuguese agents in Conakry the previous year. He n...

roape.net

Peter Cole traces how Soweto’s Black students ignited a nationwide revolt against apartheid in June 1976, reshaping South Africa’s political future. roape.net/2026/07/08/s...

Soweto students rise up against apartheid | ROAPE

Soweto was a Black “township,” the South African term for an all-Black (or Indian or “Coloured”) suburb whose residents’ primary purpose was to serve the needs of the nearby white population, in this ...

roape.net

I used to loved cashew but I saw a news segments where the hands of the African* people who harvested and processed them were ruined while they were being economically exploited. Hard to enjoy after that.. *I don't recall the country, it was years ago.

Review of African Political Economy @roapejournal.bsky.social · 3mo ago

In the 1st of a 2-part instalment, Klas Lundström Martínez argues Guinea-Bissau’s ongoing crisis is shaped by circumstances rooted in the colonial era & the country’s failed attempts to break with its historical role as a cheap commodity producer for the Western world. roape.net/2026/07/06/c...

In the 1st of a 2-part instalment, Klas Lundström Martínez argues Guinea-Bissau’s ongoing crisis is shaped by circumstances rooted in the colonial era & the country’s failed attempts to break with its historical role as a cheap commodity producer for the Western world. roape.net/2026/07/06/c...

Cashew capitalism - part one | ROAPE

An independent Guinea-Bissau was supposed to become an egalitarian society that rejected colonial structures. Instead, its economy rests on a ‘cashew capitalism’ whose foundations lie in colonialism’s...

roape.net

#Cameroon

Review of African Political Economy @roapejournal.bsky.social · 3mo ago

60 years since Osendé Afana (1930-1966) was assassinated fighting Cameroon's neo-colonial state. Loic Gapin's blog revisits his 1966 book on how imperialism stifled African development — and why the problem hasn't gone away. buff.ly/XGyYjRK

60 years since Osendé Afana (1930-1966) was assassinated fighting Cameroon's neo-colonial state. Loic Gapin's blog revisits his 1966 book on how imperialism stifled African development — and why the problem hasn't gone away. buff.ly/XGyYjRK

The visionary political economy of Osendé Afana (1930-1966) | ROAPE

This year is the 60th anniversary of the assassination of Osendé Afana (1930-1966), the Cameroonian Marxist economist and national liberation leader who died fighting a guerrilla insurgency against…

roape.net

This year, the Ruth Prize is awarded to Dr. Antonater Tafadzwa Choto for her 2025 article, "Zimbabwe 1995–2000: Rereading Gramsci’s organic intellectual in contemporary working-class struggles". alt-text: Dr. Antonater Tafadzwa Choto wearing red academic robes while speaking at a podium

ROAPE Ruth First Prize 2026 | ROAPE

This year, the prize is awarded to Antonater Tafadzwa Choto for her 2025 article ‘Zimbabwe 1995–2000: rereading Gramsci’s organic intellectual in contemporary working-class struggles’. It was publishe...

roape.net

n this piece, ROAPE announces the 2026 winner of the Ruth Prize, Zimbabwean scholar and activist Antonater Tafadzwa Choto roape.net/2026/06/29/r...