The Corporate Alibi: Capitalism and the Cultural Politics of U.S. Investments in Africa

In her pathbreaking book, Amy Elizabeth Stambach investigates American investors’ incursions into Africa, as seen by affected people on the ground. Stambach synthesizes a cluster of US-assisted industries across the continent, focusing on water resource management, real estate procurement, agricultural businesses, health care, and private education. Drawing on more than thirty years of research conducted in southern and eastern Africa, The Corporate Alibi examines how corporate globalization has been based on legal yet environmentally and socially devastating practices that divert scrutiny from the harm investors cause to the environment, democracy, and people.

More than just a critique of corporate globalization, this book serves as a beacon of hope, illuminating how communities can and do work around, against, and sometimes with investors to advance shared interests and ideals. Stambach suggests ways to operate within national and global governance structures to bring about a more politically and economically equitable future.

Amy Elizabeth Stambach is Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the author of Faith in Schools and Lessons from Mount Kilimanjaro.