Literature characterized by a particular style, form, and context is one of the many definitions of the term genre. In Navigating Genre . Kerry Dirk explains the vast meanings of the term. “Genres have the power to help or hurt human interaction, to ease communication or to deceive, to enable someone to speak or to discourage someone from saying something different..” Genres are able to give people a voice to speak on current effects that are happening around the world without the fear of something happening to them. Throughout history, we have been able to see people use the anonymity of writing to rebel against the horrible conditions they faced.
When writing a research paper it is important that the sources are similar to one another. Identifying a Conversation by Jason Carabelli, we are introduced to how to know if sources are speaking to each other. “When writers mention “conversations” and sources “speaking” to one another, they are referring to the ways that many voices shape how communities see a topic.” In other words, authors having the ability to communicate on issues that matter to them. When writers express the same concepts, this is generally the “conversation”. Moreover, this becomes stronger when writers are from different backgrounds. By using a scholarly article and a popular article, I will be able to discuss the different audiences they attract.
In The Impact of Colonialism on African Economic Development,the scholarly article discusses how the Europeans main goal was to maximize profits, therefore planting mainly cash crops. These articles are written by scholars/professionals who are experts in the particular subject.Prior to colonization, Europe was becoming more industrialized, and need to look for more raw materials. The title of the scholarly article gives the reader a sense of what they will be reading. By reading the title, we know that the author will be discussing about how colonization impacted Africa.
I found that throughout this article, the author uses strong language to discuss his overall perspective. “ The insistence of European powers rose on the power on the production of certain goods was done to the exclusion of the practicality of the crop or the impact on the local economy”. By using words such as insistence and exclusion, we are able to see the power struggle between the native African people with the European colonizers. This information is important because these events of imperialism and colonization still affects the continent of Africa today. Moreover, reading scholarly articles has the capability to educate people on a more efficient level. This is due to the rigorous stages of peer-reviewing that these articles must go through prior to getting published. The language that is used in the scholarly article, is primarily for educated people because of the difficult terms and ideas that are used throughout. This article helped me get a detailed understanding of the issues that stemmed from imperialism. Often we are faced with the media giving us information that has not been checked and reviewed before being published.
The author discusses some of the positive effects of colonization, including education reforms and new technology. “ During that time, colonial governments built a substantial infrastructure, introduced a cash crop system of agriculture, and changed the traditional standards of wealth and status.” . This allowed me to think that on a small-scale, imperialism allowed for new ideas of technology and ways of economic growth. When reading this, readers can see that the author has the ability to give both sides of imperialism, while giving their personal outlook on the subject.
Africa’s Renewed Crises of Unbalanced Trade, Disinvestment, Debt is a news article written by Eric Toussaint, Patrick Bond, Ishmael Lesuf, and Lisa Thompson. The title for the article already tells you what the topic of the article will be about. The article explains the severe economic crisis that is happening in Africa. “As a result, Sub-Saharan Africa’s current account balance – incorporating both the trade deficit and outflows of interest, profits and dividends – fell to negative $55 billion per annum.” This illustrates how imperialism has affected modern day Africa. This article contains numerous amounts of charts and data. This type of reading was written for everyone to understand. “Just as European imperial powers employed gunboat diplomacy, China is using sovereign debt to bend other states to its will… As [the bankrupt Sri Lankan port of] Hambantota shows, China is now establishing its own Hong Kong-style neo-colonial arrangements.” China has recently been giving loans to underdeveloped African nations, yet often these countries aren’t able to pay the loans back. Instead, China takes raw materials from the troubled country. There are many articles on Chinese imperialism in Africa . Some articles include Africa: As the Scramble for Africa Continues…., The China Factor, and Takeover Trap: Why Imperialist China is Invading Africa? . All of these titles are using powerful titles to convey important discussions on what is happening in Africa. The news outlets tend to be one-sided and are trying to persuade a particular audience of people. This article shows different charts such as Africa’s Battle, Repression and Protest, 2009-2018 and Cooperation in labor-employer relations. We see how Chinese imperialism is similar as European imperialism. We see them giving loans to countries that debts are already at an all time high. By doing this, the Chinese government are deliberately exploiting the countries who have accepted their loans.
The Impact of Colonialism on Africa Economic Development and Africa’s Renewed Crises of Unbalanced Trade, Disinvestment, Debt used genre to project the importance of the effects of colonization. They used their platforms to voice their truth. Both articles gave detailed accounts of events occurring in Africa. As a reader, both articles are compelling because they contain significant information of current events that many people do not know. We assume that imperialism is a thing of the past, when in actuality, China has slowly been using loans that they give as a upper hand to take materials from African countries. Reading these articles show that Africa has struggled and will continue to struggle unless there is a change from within. The two articles are having the same “conversation”. The scholarly article explains what has happened in the past with imperialism, and the popular article explains what is going on now. They use an aggressive tone to project the urgency of this topic.
By reading these articles, I gained a greater understanding of the imperialism of Africa. It just hasn’t become a problem of the past. African countries are still dealing with massive debts and corruption. As China started to imperialize some countries in Africa, Africans must come to realization on the loans are created for them to not be able to pay it back. Then, see how their lands have been exploited and make plans for how they will be able to create a stable economy.
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