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Is “Portuguese-speaking” Africa Comparable to “Latin” America? Voyaging in the Midst of Colonialities of Power*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 June 2013

Michel Cahen
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Abstract

Establishing a comparison between so-called “Latin” America and “Portuguese-speaking” Africa may well prove useful in highlighting certain major differences between those countries of America and Africa having undergone early colonization. But the main difference will not concern the hundred and fifty years between the independences of the early nineteenth and those of the late (1974-1975) twentieth century. It will lie in the very nature of the states created, on the one hand, by independences without decolonization - the colonial (Latin) states - and, on the other hand, by independence with decolonization - the decolonized (African) states: states, that is, which are differently embedded into colonialities of power. But such a comparison will also help to bring out certain common features stemming from the “longue durée” of Iberian colonizations. One such feature, despite the distance involved, is the Creole issue: the persistence and political importance of social milieus stemming from the first age of colonization. Although those old colonial elites were pre-capitalist - in the sense of not accumulating via the capitalist mode of production - they were, however, fully integrated into the merchant capitalist world-system.

Résumé

Établir une comparaison entre lesdites Amérique “latine” et Afrique “de langue portugaise” peut s’avérer utile pour souligner certaines différences majeures entre ces pays d’Amérique et d’Afrique issus de colonisations précoces. Mais la principale différence ne concernera pas les 150 années entre les indépendances du début du xixe siècle et celles de la fin (1974-1975) du xxe siècle. Elle sera relative à la nature même des États créés d’une part par des indépendances sans décolonisation – des États coloniaux (latins) – et d’autre part par des indépendances avec décolonisation – des États décolonisés (africains) –: c’est-à-dire des États qui ont été façonnés par des colonialités du pouvoir différentes. Une telle comparaison peut aider aussi à problématiser certaines caractéristiques communes issues de la longue durée des colonisations ibériques. L’une d’elle, toute proportion gardée, est la question créole: la persistance et l’importance politique, aujourd’hui, de milieux sociaux issus du premier âge de la colonisation. Bien que ces vieilles élites coloniales eussent été pré-capitalistes – au sens où leur accumulation ne procédait pas du mode de production capitaliste –, elles étaient cependant, pleinement intégrées au système-monde du capitalisme marchand.

Type
Critical Historiography
Information
History in Africa , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , October 2013 , pp. 5 - 44
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2013 

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Footnotes

*

This article was originally delivered as a paper at the “Democratization: Theory and Practice” seminar, Nuffield College, Oxford, organized by Laurence Whitehead & Timothy Power, 8 February 2011. I would really like to thank Ray Godfrey for all his help in editing the present paper.

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