![]() In both areas, neoliberalism as spectacle is employed to legitimize disciplinary regimes of debt that justify government implementation of austerity to control populations in the interest of facilitating expropriation of productive resources. Rather, they are corporate media representations that serve to keep those residing in “consuming spaces” perceptually distant from Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, the African continent, and other “productive margins.” In this chapter, I concentrate on neoliberalism as a key contested space that directly impacts the lived space of people in Burkina Faso and Egypt and is therefore critical for understanding repression, resistance, and potentials for revolution in these areas. I look at a different facet, arguing that these narratives were never meant as reflections, however flawed or incomplete, on lived realities of oppression and uprisings in Egypt or Burkina Faso. In addition to excellent chapters in the current volume, Manji and Ekine have, for example, written a highly critical in-depth volume contrasting the “African Awakenings” directly with the Arab Spring narrative, invoking 30 years of resistance against neoliberalism. "Important work is already being done to confront the Arab Spring narrative and the “non-narrative” of Africa on their own terms. Beginning in the late 1990s, the government began to privatize some state-owned entities in order to attract foreign investment. (In the early 21st century, however, unrest in neighbouring countries, particularly in Côte d’Ivoire, made it difficult for Burkinabés to find employment.) The development of industry in Burkina Faso is hampered by the small size of the market economy and by the absence of a direct outlet to the sea. As many as 1.5 million people, or almost one-third of the country’s labour force, have been abroad at any given time. Difficult economic conditions, made worse by severe intermittent droughts, have provoked considerable migration from rural to urban areas within Burkina Faso and to neighbouring countries, most notably Ivory Coast and Ghana. About nine-tenths of the population is engaged in subsistence agriculture or livestock rising. The capital, Ouagadougou, is in the centre of the country and lies about 500 miles (800 km) from the Atlantic Ocean. ![]() The name Burkina Faso, which means “Land of Incorruptible People,” was adopted in 1984. A former French colony, it gained independence as Upper Volta in 1960. ![]() The country occupies an extensive plateau, and its geography is characterized by a Savanna that is grassy in the north and gradually gives way to sparse forests in the south. Burkina Faso, landlocked country in western Africa. ![]()
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