Pre-Reading Notes

Welcome to Chapter 6: Sub-Saharan Africa! This is a chapter I found students often struggled with when using other textbooks, but it seems like a more concise and focused approach has been positive for student understanding and I hope the same is true for your experience.

Before we get into the chapter, I’d like to ask you to take a moment and think about what you know (or perhaps “know” in quotes) about Africa. How would you describe the physical geography of this region? How would you describe the patterns of human development found here? Think about how Africa is depicted in the media, particularly in movies. I had a student once point out that many of the films about Africa don’t even have people in it, which was something I’d never considered! Think about how popular media’s depictions of Africa influence how we come to view this region.

Take this quick example. If I asked you to picture Kenya, what images come to mind? For many students, it’s something like this:

While there are certainly amazing landscapes like this in Kenya and safari tours, you might be surprised to see that this is also Kenya:

It’s pretty lovely, right? This is Nairobi, Kenya’s capital and a city of almost 4.4 million people (over 9 million if you include the greater metro area.)

So before you start out on this chapter, try and take just a few minutes to Google a couple of cities in Africa (or Google “Africa myths and reality” or my favorite, “African skylines”) and give your mental map of Africa a brief update.

The core focus of this chapter is colonization. The process of colonization, and later process of neocolonization, has shaped and reshaped the African landscape and continues to impact the development of this region today.

The learning objectives for Chapter 6, and questions you might consider, are:

• Identify the key geographic features of Sub-Saharan Africa
  • What are the most important physical features of the Sub-Saharan African landscape?
  • What environmental challenges does this region face?
• Describe the pre-colonial history of Sub-Saharan Africa
  • How would you describe the patterns of development and settlement in Sub-Saharan African prior to colonization?
• Explain the process of colonization in Sub-Saharan Africa and its effects on the modern geographic landscape
  • What were the driving forces behind the colonization of this region and how did colonial approaches differ?
  • How did colonization impact the modern landscape of Sub-Saharan Africa?
• Analyze how colonization has impacted political stability and economic opportunity across Sub-Saharan Africa
  • What impact did colonization have on the political geography of Sub-Saharan Africa?
  • What impact did colonization have on the economic geography of this region, and how does neocolonization impact development still today?

Don’t forget to add your own review questions to this list as you read the chapter!

Notes After Reading

Welcome back to the study notes for Chapter 6! What surprised you about this chapter and what were your biggest takeaways?

As I mentioned, I find that the more concise approach has meant that students no longer struggle as much with understanding this region, but I would like to take a little time to talk through the third learning objective, which some students still have a hard time answering. Here’s a reminder of what it was:

• Explain the process of colonization in Sub-Saharan Africa and its effects on the modern geographic landscape

I find it’s the second part that often leaves students a bit stumped, so let’s talk through it!

You know what colonization is after reading the chapter and some of the basics about what drove colonization and what countries were involved. But countries got their independence and so everything is fine now, right?

Well, let’s go back to some of the basics we just learned. Remember how the Berlin Conference literally redrew the map of Africa? Some ethnic groups were split apart, now occupying two territories. Others were lumped into a colony alongside other groups who they might have had historical disputes with. If you consider this “lumping and splitting” as it’s sometimes called from a colonialist perspective, it’s to a colonizer’s advantage to split a group up. Or to encourage infighting between groups who might not get along. Simply put, if you’re fighting with each other, or are unable to unify, I can keep control more easily.

Once we moved beyond colonization and these countries started getting independence, how do you then decide who should be in charge? If you have these artificially created boundaries, and one ethnic group spills over into another country, do we redraw the boundaries? If ethnic groups can’t decide who should lead, how do we create a stable government? As the book discusses, some ethnic groups turned to genocide, essentially seeking to eliminate the opposition.

Another challenge is that the colonizers had no interest in setting up development connections within Africa. The goal was essentially to move goods, and people, from the interior to the coast to be exported. So once the colonizers left, you now have a landscape where there are very few connections. Think about how this affects trade. Think about how this impacts political cooperation across countries.

So let’s fast-forward to today. Now we have neocolonization taking place. And while there can be some benefits in terms of economic development and trade, some researchers argue that that the benefit is imbalanced, with most of the money and resources still flowing out of Africa. It’s also hard to break free from neocolonization, especially given some of the post-colonial challenges I just outlined. You don’t declare independence from McDonald’s. (I mean, I suppose you could, but people would give you strange looks.) Rather, it’s a process of renegotiating trade deals and ensuring legal agreements benefit both parties – and this can be difficult when you have a big corporation on the other side selling what looks like a very appealing offer. Countries may be tempted to agree to short-term economic gains, but the longer-term concerns of neocolonization are harder to address.

Great work on this chapter! Don’t forget to go back to the chapter questions and test yourself!