In my previous exploration of reparations as revolutionary praxis, I examined how Africa’s position in the global political economy offers tremendous leverage points for transformative change. This week, I want to deepen this analysis by examining reparations through the lens of care justice – specifically how the extraction of care labour and the destruction of care-based knowledge systems represent a crucial but often invisible dimension of colonial and neo-colonial exploitation.

The Hidden Extraction: Global Care Chains and Africa’s Care Economy

When we discuss Africa’s contribution to global capitalism, we often focus on visible resources – the gold, cobalt, and platinum that power the world’s economies. However, there exists another form of extraction that remains largely invisible: the systematic appropriation of African care labour and care knowledge that sustains global social reproduction.

This care extraction operates through multiple mechanisms. Most visibly, through global care chains where African women work as nurses, domestic workers, and caregivers in the Global North. This creates what feminist scholars call a “care drain,” where the emotional and physical labour that could support African communities is instead exported to sustain households and healthcare systems in wealthy nations.

But the extraction runs deeper. When international financial institutions impose austerity measures and structural adjustment programs, they create care deficits in African communities. As public services are cut and social infrastructure crumbles, it’s women’s unpaid care work that fills the gap. This invisible subsidy to global capitalism remains unaccounted for in traditional economic metrics.

Perhaps most insidiously, there’s the appropriation of traditional care knowledge – from midwifery practices to herbal medicine to child-rearing wisdom. These knowledge systems, developed over generations by African women, are often repackaged as “innovations” by Western institutions, with neither recognition nor compensation for their origins.

Environmental Degradation as Care Burden: Gender, Resources, and Responsibility

The exploitation of Africa’s natural resources has always had distinctly gendered impacts. When mining operations contaminate water sources, it’s typically women who must walk further to fetch clean water. When deforestation decimates local forests, women spend more hours gathering firewood. When agricultural land is seized for extractive projects, it’s women’s food sovereignty and nutritional care work that’s compromised.

These environmental assaults don’t just extract resources – they extract care labour. Every form of ecological degradation multiplies the unpaid hours women must spend sustaining their communities. Every toxic spill creates new health burdens that women must shoulder. Every climate disaster increases the care work needed to help communities adapt and survive.

Yet within this crisis lies tremendous power and possibility. African women’s traditional ecological knowledge offers crucial alternatives to extractive development models. Their care-based approaches to resource management, built on principles of sustainability and regeneration, provide vital wisdom for addressing global challenges like climate change and biodiversity loss.

Reimagining Reparations through Care Justice

A care justice framework demands we expand our conception of what must be repaired. Beyond financial compensation, reparations must address:

• The systematic extraction of care labour through global care chains
• The exploitation of women’s unpaid care work through structural adjustment and austerity
• The appropriation of traditional care knowledge and practices
• The multiplication of care burdens through environmental degradation

This means demanding:

• Recognition and compensation for care extraction
• Restoration of women’s traditional resource governance roles
• Investment in care infrastructure and public services
• Protection and valuation of care-based knowledge systems
• Support for women-led climate solutions and ecological restoration

From Care Extraction to Care Sovereignty

Just as my previous piece argued for African economic sovereignty, we must also fight for care sovereignty – the right of African communities to retain and direct their care resources and knowledge systems. This means:

• Developing care infrastructure that serves African communities rather than global markets
• Protecting and revitalizing traditional care knowledge
• Supporting care-based approaches to resource management and environmental protection
• Ensuring care work is valued and compensated
• Restoring women’s leadership in community care systems

Care Justice as Revolutionary Praxis

The struggle for reparations is ultimately a struggle to transform how we understand and organize care in our global society. It demands we recognize not just the extraction of visible resources, but the appropriation of the invisible care labour and knowledge that sustains human life itself.

As Africa asserts its power on the global stage, centring care justice in reparations claims offers a revolutionary vision of transformation. It’s not just about compensating for past harms – it’s about creating new systems that recognize and value care as central to human flourishing. The power to make this change lies not just in Africa’s material resources, but in its rich traditions of care-based knowledge and practice. As we advance the reparations agenda, we must ensure care justice remains central to our revolutionary praxis.