Africa in the world - Rethinking Africa’s global connections

The debate about Africa’s changing relations with the world that evolved over the past decades, has recently got new impetus in view of current global configurations and the role played in this by several African leaders, who, often pushed by their populations, have taken firm initiatives to break away from their colonial ties. While the initial emphasis on China’s role in Africa is still a prominent feature in much research, it has been acknowledged that other emerging global players, like Russia, Turkey, and the Emirates, have also become important. These not only challenge global power constellations, but also help to reconfigure power constellations and redistribute resources at the local and regional levels in Africa - with repercussions for the global level as well. There is a need, however, for a more in-depth reflection on what these new developments mean from the vantage point of Africa, to develop a perspective in which the agency of Africans in co-shaping the contemporary world is prominent, and to do so in historically informed ways. Building on earlier work done by this CRG (see for instance Dietz et al 2011, Kaag et al 2021, Kaag et al 2025), this Collaborative Research Group brings together scholars who aim to discuss their work from the point of view of Africa’s global connections in the past and the present, and to contribute to some of the larger questions related to Africa’s changing position in the world.