Short Abstract

This panel examines the multiple prisms and renderings of Africa’s green industrial futures. It brings African studies into dialogue with political ecology, global development, and sustainability studies to explore how green industrialization is shaped, contested, and reframed on the continent.

Long Abstract

Green industrialization is the talk of the hour in Africa. It is associated with greater value addition, economic diversification, climate mitigation, technological upgrading, infrastructure, skills, and jobs. Such promises are projected for sectors including critical mineral processing, sustainable fuels, low-carbon fertilizers, green-steelmaking, data centres, battery manufacturing, among others.

Notwithstanding, critical scholarship shows how the global push for “green growth” and decarbonization entails far more than a technical shift. It reshapes resource geographies, societies and power relations across boundaries, creating winners and losers. Research also shows how planned “green” infrastructures in Africa expose nascent industries to predatory extractive practices by corporations, unbridled statism, and structural dependencies on fossil fuel regimes and Western institutional norms. Furthermore, those at the forefront of resistance and socio-environmental conflicts call for approaches rooted in decolonial, insurrectionary, and pluriversal perspectives.

This panel brings African studies into conversation with political ecology, global development, and critical sustainability studies to reflect on the multiple prisms and renderings of Africa’s green industrial futures through the following questions:

-How can African political actors advance green industrialization as part of their (geo)political strategies, industrial policy, and economic resilience agendas without locking Africa into hegemonic development orthodoxies?

-How are green industrial agendas influenced, captured, or obstructed by “old” industries, including fossil fuel interests?

-What consequences does green industrialization have for African civil societies and how do they oppose, reclaim, or reimagine these developments?

-How can alternative methods, including principles of citizen science, better represent place-based knowledges and monitor green industrialization dynamics on the continent?

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