Environmental Politics and Liberation in Contemporary Africa

This work explores the intricate relationship between liberation movements and environmental struggles in contemporary Africa. It is premised on the question why some movements are called environmental while others are "liberation." What socioeconomic and political circumstances lead to the making or dissipation of such distinctions? African liberation movements commonly offer alternatives in terms of political order and the means of earning a livelihood. The prominence of the environment (land, water, forests, oil, minerals, etc.) in the political objectives of most African liberation movements leads Salih to argue that in Africa, as well as in other developing countries, the distinction between environmental and liberation struggles is apparently superfluous. Liberation, in this broader perspective, therefore offers an emancipatory political potential that transcends the environment to include the laudable quest to transform the state and the authoritarian institutions of government that sustain it.