African History and Institutions

The course is designed to equip students with the analytical tools necessary to understand: (1) the main theories concerning the formation of the colonial state; (2) the decolonisation process; and (3) the foundational elements of the independent state in Africa and of regional economic communities developed in response to domestic issues and global challenges.

By the end of the course, students will have acquired an understanding of the impact of colonisation on the various peoples of Africa and on their political, economic, social and cultural structures. They are expected to develop the ability to identify and articulate the diverse human responses to the colonial experience, which arose from the exportation of ius publicum Europaeum—the European public law used to divide the continent among European powers and demarcate their respective spheres of influence. This system aimed not only to control the exploitation of the land's natural and mineral resources but also to govern its "human capital".
The latter was classified using categories such as "ethnicity" or "race" within a framework of objectification and dependency, perpetuated through the systematic epistemological erasure of African cultures—an erasure that continues to shape how Africa is viewed in the prevailing narrative of Western societies. Students will thus come to understand the link between the historical legacy of competition for control on the one hand, and the management of natural resources in sub-Saharan Africa on the other—from the commodification of human beings to the globalised commodification of resources under the developmentalist state model. The course aims to foster students' capacity for critical and historically informed thinking in the study of past cultural conflicts and institutional stratification, as well as their lasting effects on the present—an essential objective for a degree programme in international cooperation.