Walter Rodney and The Restatement of Pan Africanism In Theory and Practice

Abstract

And] yet 'tis clear that few men can be so lucky as to die for a cause, without first of all having lived for it. And as this is the most that can be asked from the greatest man that follows a cause, so it is the least that can be taken from the smallest.-William Morris, The Beauty of Life (1880) 1Discovery creates the unity [and] unity is created in struggle and is so much more valid because it is created in struggle.-Walter Rodney (1974) 2

Development in Decolonization: Walter Rodney, Third World Developmentalism, and “Decolonizing Political Theory”

“…Accordingly, Rodney offers a multidirectional and more concretely historical picture of uneven development. In doing so, his efforts to renew pan-Africanism as a political project premised on structural critique also address the layered consciousness of Black diasporic identities between Africa and the New World (Henry 2000, 214;Hill 2015).…”

“…By emphasizing the transnational institutionalization of these specific trajectories of underdevelopment in particular, Rodney’s approach goes beyond dependency theory’s regionally bounded, overly static languages of “core” and “periphery.” Accordingly, Rodney offers a multidirectional and more concretely historical picture of uneven development. In doing so, his efforts to renew pan-Africanism as a political project premised on structural critique also address the layered consciousness of Black diasporic identities between Africa and the New World (Henry 2000, 214; Hill 2015).…”

“…As Robin D. G. Kelley and Jesse J. Benjamin (2018, xxxv) observe, Rodney’s “work exemplified a political economy that was literally grounded in the specificities and complexities of the communities and people he lived with and researched.” Laying hold of the creative and “scientific” impulse of pan-Africanism and Marxism hinged on the analysis of concrete political situations for radical democratic struggles grounded in the experiences of oppressed communities (Adeleke 2000; Burden-Stelly 2019; Campbell 1981; Davies 2019; Rodney 1972a; 1986). Rodney’s analysis of capitalism as a “living mode of production” called for attention to the particularities of development, which meant refusing to reify the stadial, developmental categories that (Rodney observed) Marx himself had recognized as theoretical extrapolations from his “specific historical and cultural setting” (Hill 2015, 143; Rodney 1986).…”