Short Abstract

This panel examines how multinational corporations shape and are shaped by African economies and lifeworlds. We invite critical, historical, anthropological or other papers exploring shifting power dynamics, corporate accountability, and local negotiations of value from 1900 to the present.

Long Abstract

Since the colonial era, multinational corporations (MNCs) have played a fundamental role in shaping African economies, institutions, societies and everyday lifeworlds - while simultaneously being shaped by them. This panel explores the ways in which MNCs have positioned themselves within Africa’s evolving political and economic landscapes throughout the past decades and until today. How have corporate strategies, interests and governance models changed over time and within different contexts? How have MNCs engaged with decolonisation processes, with colonial and postcolonial situations? To what extend did corporate practices reflect broader shifts in global trade networks, industrial development and the international economic order?

We are interested in both well and lesser-known key actors, sites and arenas of corporate accountability and responsibility. Considering heightened demands for environmental justice, localized value generation, and corporate social responsibility in former and recent days, we want to shed light on how MNCs navigated claims and pressures from local populations, states, and civil society, and how they responded to new demands for public accountability.

We welcome empirical and theoretical contributions utilizing historical, economic, business, sociological, anthropological, political and multi-disciplinary perspectives. We particularly encourage papers adopting decolonial and critical approaches to unpack the variety of networks, contradictions, and lived realities embodying corporate power and accountability across the continent.

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