Transdisciplinary Perspectives to Contemporary African Socio-Political, Economic, and Cultural Transformation

Conveners: Dr. Nnanna Onuoha Arukwe (University of Nigeria, Nsukka);
e-mails: noarukwe@yahoo.com, nnanna.arukwe@unn.edu.ng, Dr. Peter-Jazzy Ezeh (University of Nigeria, Nsukka); e-mail: ezeh.pj3@gmail.com

The 1950s and 1960s were the decades that witnessed the independence movement ferment that would ultimately usher in political independence for a preponderance of the African states. Immediately after political independence, what followed has been a struggle to develop the African continent in some transformative fashion. This struggle has over the years spurned its own fair share of controversies. So that there are the critical issues of plan implementation, corruption, over-bloated bureaucracy, the oil mono-economy, etc. Consequently, for over half a century, African society has grappled with the issue of the transformation of the continent into a highly evolved society in social, political and economic terms. Unfortunately, most of the strategies adopted to tackle this problem have either abysmally failed or at best fell short of meeting the apparent objectives to which they have been employed. This has made it ever imperative for scholars of Africa and African scholars to not only continuously appraise the trajectories of the chosen strategies for African socio-political and economic transformation but to always propose novel strategies to actualize the contemporary socio-political and economic transformation of Africa. However, for any strategy aimed at the socio-political, cultural, and economic transformation of Africa to be objectively possible and realistic, that strategy has to be at the same time transdisciplinary. As Africa, therefore, finds itself at the crossroads once again there is a need now more than ever before to interrogate the social, political, economic, and cultural development dynamics in contemporary Africa with a view to determine the best and most futuristic transformational perspectives towards an eventual African-generated solutions to most African developmental challenges, as well as broad-based strategies for future African progress and prosperity. The Panel welcomes contributions that examine the issue of socio- economic, cultural and political transformation of contemporary Africa in specific terms of governance, cultural imperatives, economic planning, pragmatic social development strategies that are relevant to reality in Africa; the Chinese development model and what contemporary African leadership can borrow from it; what cultural revivals or changes does Africa need to embark on, and how, in order to position itself for global cultural leadership or cope with the onslaught of multiculturalism; or whether there could be an alternative model of development, being neither Eastern nor Western that could be entirely home grown for Africa to make Africa to emerge on the world stage and come into its own as a society that could conveniently solve all its problems of social, political, economic or cultural dimensions.