Changing conceptions of power: elites in Africa

Africa's elites are more numerous, variegated, and globally influential today than at any time since independence.Consider that in 2021-22 the four top international prizes in literature were won by Africans, as was the world's top architectural prize. 1 Or consider the prominence and impact of individuals such as World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus or Nobel-prize-winning environmentalist Wangari Maathai.Yet, this increase in the number, variety, and prominence of elites from the continent since independence has gone largely unremarked upon in the field of African Studies and has been barely incorporated into our analyses. 2Indeed, these and other elite achievements rarely figure in mainstream academic approaches to the study of Africa.When elites are considered, they largely go undefined and are depicted in ways that are pejorative or narrowly conceived.The failure of the field to grapple with the full breadth and influence of elites has resulted in a distorted frame of analysis that may miss more complex, interesting realities.It contributes also to a view of the continent as always and only subject and peripheral.I argue for two interconnected