Violence Against Nature in Africa: A Historical Assessment

The history of Africa has been dominated by narratives of violence. Violence has been at the centre of pre-colonial state formation, European invasion, slavery, colonial domination, liberation struggle, postcolonial civil wars and jihadist insurgency. Scholars from diverse fields have devoted their attention to the analysis of political violence with particular emphasis on the slave trade and military conflicts, but few have looked at violence against nature. Bearing in mind that violence takes varied forms, this chapter looks at violence against the natural environment in Africa. It builds from Lee (Aggression and Violent Behavior 30: 105–109, 2016) definition of environmental violence as: (1) the violence between people(s) over natural resources; (2) environmental policies that can be violent against people; (3) the secondary violence from the natural world as a result of human degradation of the earth; (4) direct damage to the environment by humans that threatens their own survival; and (5) climate change, in order to acknowledge the centrality of the natural environment in African historical processes. It argues against reducing the study of violence in Africa to the military and political unrest that have dominated the African landscape in the past five centuries. Thus, it contends that the emotive nature of violence in scholarly discussions occludes the negative effects of violence against the natural environment which have characterized African societies and international financial capital interactions with nature. Taking a historical approach, the chapter traces human interaction with nature from the pre-colonial period to demonstrate that nature has been subject to diverse forms of violence with diverse, but not yet fully understood, impacts. It shows that violence against nature represents direct and indirect attacks on socio-ecological systems and symbolizes an act of violence to the earth and the diverse inhabitants or species which depend on it.