Theories of social change and development in Africa

Abstract

The history of contemporary Africa can be traced, though not exclusively, to the events that characterized the Berlin Conference of 1884 on the Scramble for and Partition of Africa among European nations. The event marked the formal recognition and legitimacy status of African nations travails under the thralldom of colonialism, the economic, social, cultural and political consequences of which still linger on in the kind of change and development in Africa today. The foregoing laid the foundation on which this chapter discussed theories of social change and development in Africa. In this respect the chapter delineates three major phases in the history of African people as well as the concomitant effects regarding social change and development. In line with the above conceptualizations, the chapter illuminates theoretical contours of social change from the traditions of the evolutionists, the functionalists, the modernization theorists, the conflict cum neo-Marxists as well as convergence and postmodernist perspectives.