Demographic Shifts

If certain forecasts are to be believed, Africa’s population growth augurs a future of war and societal collapse. But for some governments and NGOs, the “youth bulge” driving growth could, if instrumentalised through neoliberal processes, generate huge economic dividends. Missing from the conversation are the voices and aspirations of young Africans themselves. 

The link between planetary limits and demography, portrayed in numerous works of fiction, has haunted modern ecological thinking since its origins. While ecologism has freed itself from its Malthusian heritage, focusing instead on our ways of inhabiting the world, it has done so by relegating reproduction to the private sphere, treating it as a political taboo. Between these two extremes lies a conceptual void that is yet to be explored.