Student movements in sub-Saharan Africa: Key socio-political stakeholders from corporatist mobilisations to avant-garde positions

ABSTRACT Although they have played a key role in socio-political mobilizations in sub-Saharan Africa, and sometimes even in some revolutionary processes, student movements on the continent have not attracted a substantial academic interest. The main argument of the article is that in Africa, student movements structurally stand as counter-hegemonic actors who have strongly influenced the political field, a phenomenon conceptualized through the notion of ‘generative function of the political’. Then it summarizes the historical evolution of African student movements through a periodization into ‘three ages’. Finally, in reviewing the existing literature, it addresses certain debatable issues that deserve to be enlightened, in particular the scope of the demands of these movements between corporatism limited to the academic sphere and political avant-gardism or the use of violence on campuses.