Development and Subsistence in Globalising Africa

Book excerpt: In Africa, people striving to live and survive under the complex relationship between development and subsistence have been directly or indirectly feeling influences of globalisation. As Africa's involvement in globalisation deepens, social phenomena are apparently synchronizing or becoming more similar to those in the rest of the world, but they are not homogenised with them, especially those of developed countries now or in the past. The dichotomic view distinguishing development and subsistence has already become outdated. Day after day, African people are trying to reconcile or bridge the two as capable actors. People in Africa, faced with challenges common throughout the world, live in their own ways. Africa can contribute to the world by sharing knowledge acquired through the struggles of development and subsistence, and by bridging the two.