Summary This article explores Frantz Fanon’s psycho-politics of decolonisation, arguing that his revolutionary project extends beyond material liberation to include the transformation of consciousness. Situating Fanon’s thought as part of Marxist theories of subject formation and anticolonial praxis, it traces how colonialism’s structures produce compliant and complicit subjects, and how liberation must therefore involve dismantling the psychic effects of these structures. Through Fanon’s critique of colonial psychiatry and his reworking of psychoanalysis as a tool for emancipation, the essay shows that decolonisation demands both external and internal struggle: the rejection of the coloniser’s recognition and the creation of new, anti-imperial modes of being. Engaging Fanon alongside thinkers from Césaire to Martín-Baró and contemporary liberation psychologies, the article argues that the ongoing work of decolonisation lies in the dialectical relationship between material conditions and consciousness in our neocolonial world.

This article addresses the exploitation of natural resources in the Atlantic region of the Sahara from the innovative angle of the satirical creations of engaged artists. In both Mauritania and Western Sahara, the plundering and squandering of national natural resources by the political elites have been the object of extremely virulent positions taken by singers and poets. However, in these two territories, both currently experiencing a boom in extractive economies (fisheries and mining), the stories and political situations are very different. Through two examples of satirical creations available on the internet, the article first analyses the semantics of these artistic messages, then explores the aesthetic force of these productions and their political performativity and, finally, the role of engaged artists in the political and economic life of the West Saharan region today.

This article analyses the political economy of conflict in South Sudan as it has developed over the past 40 years and introduces the concept of humanitarian permanence to characterise a strategy whereby international aid has become an integral component to the economy. This local–international relationship is traced to the early and mid 1980s during the Second Civil War, while it also builds on earlier colonial patterns. The political economy of war in South Sudan involves a different specialisation and dynamic than those described in many of the ‘war economies’ around specific resources elsewhere in Africa. The concept of plural society characterises the social and economic framework that has been developed in the capital Juba as a central aid hub to this economy. The article thereby suggests a need for reconsidering international, including humanitarian, aid and its role. Moreover, it requires a reconsideration of how state building is conceptualised, since it here primarily functions as a façade.

This article examines the shifting imprint of Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth on the evolving anti-imperialist politics of Afro-Guyanese Marxist historian and revolutionary Walter Rodney (1942–80). Drawing on material from the Walter Rodney Papers and beyond, it argues that Rodney’s changing engagement with Fanon reveals key patterns and nuances about his political development on questions of class as the strategy and tactics of liberation. The article contends that while Rodney initially embraced Fanon’s ideas, he gradually refined, challenged and at times rejected them as he grappled with the failed promises of post-independence Jamaica and Tanzania. By tracing Rodney’s political evolution during his most active years from 1968 to 1978, the article explores Rodney’s turn towards Marxist theory as he diverged from Fanon on the question of spontaneity, the petty bourgeoisie in African societies and the centrality of the working class in the struggle against imperialism.

The study of the Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara has traditionally been approached from the perspectives of legal or political conflict analysis, often overlooking the defining significance of the conflict’s political economy. However, in recent decades, the fisheries sector has come to play a decisive role in the territories and can thus serve as an analytical vantage point from which to explore the detailed workings of occupation within the global capitalist economy. This article examines the development of the octopus and sardine industries in Western Sahara. It identifies the local, Moroccan and transnational actors that promote and have benefited from the globalisation of production in recent decades. The article highlights how the dispossession and exploitation of fisheries resources play a critical role in strengthening Morocco’s settler colonial project and semi-peripheral position, while also serving global capitalist elites and their control of, and profit making via, global value chains. Far from being an exceptional practice, occupation provides a controlled space of accumulation for global and Moroccan elites, as well as a handful of Sahrawi actors, fitting smoothly into historical dynamics of imperialism.

ROAPE at 50: A platform for the people, by the peopleThere emerges a new wave of African youth disenchanted with the prevailing status quo in their nations and across the continent.In Sudan, these young generations have vocally expressed their aspirations through marches, grassroots organisations and calls for freedom, peace and justice during and after the December 2018 Revolution, which persists amid the ongoing war that erupted in April 2023.Growing up in a nation that gained political independence three or four decades before they were born, these youths have witnessed the failure of most institutions and elites to fulfil the promises of genuine independence.Despite the exit of foreign colonisers, Sudan remains entrapped in the grip of colonial and imperial legacies, perpetuated by national elites who have brought little change to governance structures inherited from British rule.The currents of neoliberalism have seized control of Sudan's institutions of academia, research, media, civil society and politics, particularly since the 1990s, with the global sharp turn to the right.The NGO-isation of public life and the interlinkages between international donors and local entities have led to the portraying of political economy as a ghost from a distant past, discouraging any serious resistance to neoliberal discourse.The young revolutionaries of Sudan have had to confront walls of isolation, both local and global.Subjected to a ruthless military dictatorship enforcing extreme Islamic fundamentalism and a brutal market economy, they have relied on self-education to inform their resistance and political organising theories in the face of intimidation, ridicule, or even enticement.Access to technological resources has been limited and public education, when available, has been inadequate to equip students and graduates with tools to engage with critical narratives and connect beyond mainstream discourse.Access to revolutionary literature and research has been particularly challenging, with activists going to extra lengths to overcome these challenges.Some posted on social media outlets asking for people who could lend access to platforms that published relevant literature and materials.Reading groups were created throughout the country and in the virtual world where members translated, summarised, shared and discussed relevant literature they could access.

ROAPE at 50: The review in a changing worldMy first encounter with ROAPE was in graduate school some 45 years ago.One of its overseas editors, Bjrn Beckman, taught a course on the political economy of underdevelopment at Ahmadu Bello

This article is a subjective account of the patterns of polarisation in KwaZulu-Natal. It explores such polarisations in gender politics, livelihoods procurement in the cities and countryside, and in cultural and normative tensions. The article traces how the new ‘kingdom of money’ mobilises the aspirations of an African middle class in its belief in upward mobility. These polarisations had led to violence even before the July 2021 riots in Greater Durban.

ROAPE at 50: Tribute to ROAPE on its 50th anniversaryI recently moved from Johannesburg to London.My reasons were personal, and the loss has been considerable.My

This article posits that US-led imperialism remains the most fundamental contradiction to be assessed when analysing the material, social and political development of countries in Northern Africa. After grounding its conceptual discussion around the Marxian analytical character of imperialism, the article focuses on the military–financial nexus and then assesses the ideological implications of this. It argues that imperialism operates according to rational and interlinked strategies that deploy the systematic use of violence and intimidation that are central to undermining the political and developmental potential of Northern Africa. The discussion shows how imperialist policies curb the space of national autonomy required to advance a developmental path in the interests of popular classes and regional solidarity, at both the material and ideological levels.