Chapter 2 - Figures of Extraction

Summary

Chapter 2, Figures of Extraction: Representations of Mining in Ghana and Zambia, examines how postcolonial masculinity is reconfigured according to Africa–China relations. I home in on what I call “figures of extraction” by examining representations of mining – literal mineral alluvium – in two pieces of genre fiction. One main stake is to unpack the sensationalist discourse surrounding Africa–China relations that depicts the dynamic as a Manichean struggle between an African hero and Chinese villain. Another is to show how Chinese investment triggers the colonial trauma of European colonialism, even as the Chinese presence is configured in critically different ways. I demonstrate that when the dynamic is oversimplified, jingoistic nationalisms easily instrumentalize it to incite an “anti-Chinese populism” (Hess and Aidoo). This simplification often ignores the complicit role that corrupt African elites play in facilitating resource exploitation.