´Africa Is Not a Country´

No matter which part of the Globe are you coming from, your region and/or country is marked by stereotypes. Human mind needs concepts - simplified often - in order to put the world into a certain pertainable order. More often we need to figure out the other(s) rather than really understanding them. Geography, conflictual histories, distorted media reports are influencing our way to figure out the world around it, to simplify it in an equally distorted way.

Africa - which is definitely not a country - is by far one of the most stereotypes-ridden part of the world. As VICE journalist Dipo Faloyin in his debut book - that I had access to in audiobookformat, in the lecture of the author - shows through different approaches - governance, history, artifacts looting, literary but particularly film representations - Africa - no nuances and even reliable knowledge considered. 

Each chapter brings more context to the topic and it helps to understand the many aspects of the topic, even by someone less familiar with the issue. Particularly for academics with a focus on disrepresented areas - such as ´Balkans´, ´Eastern Europe´ and the ´Middle East´ it offers a flexible framework of identification and research. When the region is used for describe specific countries, the same simpleminded sin is repeated over and over again.

The book is informed and relies on various specific examples and what is how a book talking about stereotypes should include. Only through examples one can really understand the differences. Personally, although I am explosed to different information about countries like Ghana or Nigeria, I was largely not familiar with specific ongoing ´success stories´ in Rwanda or the women-driven projects, including in the field of governance, in Tanzania.

Personally, I would have expect more representativity, including in the countries once within the French colonial power. A rather newly mentioned colonial power, Germany, is though deeply and sharply analysed, which is already an important contribution to the general debate about colonialism.

This book is recommended both to academics and journalists, for both the content and the format. Hopefully, there will be more such books dedicated to various countries from the African continent and elsewehere as well.

Rating: 4 stars