Rutgers—Camden student's new book aims to challenge Western narratives on economics in Africa
On October 10, Bronwen Everill, a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing student at Rutgers—Camden and director of the Centre of African Studies at the University of Cambridge, published her book, "Africonomics: A History of Western Ignorance." Launching her release with a book tour in the U.K., it will be available in the U.S. in 2025.
As an author and historian, Everill told The Daily Targum she wrote this book to approach African economic history and practices from a perspective that is not frequently portrayed.
"A lot of the stories about imperialism in Africa have been focused on people going there with bad intentions, right?" she said. "This is a book that is instead focusing on people who meant well, or who you thought they meant well, but who still … (had) just as detrimental an impact on Africa, because they (didn't) take African sovereignty, African democracy, seriously."
By focusing on these people, Everill said her book aims to shed light on all of the actors of African nations' economies. She told the Targum that by breaking down the notion that Westerners had superior knowledge to Africans, she wanted to discuss the real histories and stories to more accurately portray economies in Africa. Furthermore, Everill said she hopes to break down the narratives that portray African people as powerless in managing their own economies.
Everill's interest in writing this book sparked from when she conducted research in Sierra Leone, only a few days after Lehman Brothers collapsed, inducing the 2008 financial crisis. She noted how development economists over there were faithful in the economy, especially compared to their Western counterparts.
"I just thought that contrast was really jarring," she said.
Everill also said she intends to move toward a different way of telling complicated stories from the past. As she was writing the book, Everill took an approach to discuss Africa's economic development while making it accessible to people who do not work in academia.
"For me, the primary goal was finding compelling stories that would allow me to tell this as a narrative history, rather than this sort of analytical monograph kind of book that is for other historians," she said.
Everill launched her book tour, hitting London, Cambridge and Oxford, where the book is already available. After speaking to people across different venues, she said attendees who work in aid and development seemed to receive the book well with reasonable self-awareness.
By bridging together her Rutgers degree and her previous academic work, she was able to unite individual stories with archival research to write a story for wider audiences in "Africonomics: A History of Western Ignorance." She added that the writing process was a positive experience for her, despite the negativity around the history itself.
"There are more stories to tell that are really hard to tell with the available source material," she said. "But I think if you are working from a place where you are thinking about people … as complex characters, that you can flesh out what little there is on the page."
