After several decades of exposing the impacts of neo-colonial presence and the corruption of neo-colonial regimes’ dictators, a shift has occured in the African Francophone novel.This is noticeable in works written as early as 1984 in which writers denounce the economic marginalization of the continent, its harsh urban conditions, and the overall disastrous effects of globalization as a form of imperial control impelled and fueled by Western interests and the model of the Western habitus. It is this shift that I will discuss in this paper by examining global consumerism as a narrative trope in Pape Pathé Diop’s La Poubelle (1984), Angèle Rawiri’s G’amèrakano: au carrefour (1988), Yodi Karoné’s Les Beaux gosses (1988) and Mongo Beti’s Branle-bas en noir et blanc (2000). These authors have deliberately chosen consumerism as a highly “visual” site of representation for broader political and social concerns. I will discuss the narrative strategies and literary devices the authors employ to depict the very spaces of globalization as counter-sites in which it is constantly contested. For instance, the Western reader is portrayed as an outsider whose gaze is mirrored in the fictional worlds of the characters. This strategy creates a backdrop for which representations of Dakar, Abidjan, and the fictional city, Izoua, juxtapose material excess pouring in, primarily from the West, with parallel narratives portraying characters, such as Toula in Rawiri’s novel, without the most basic needs. These works condemn globalization for denying large populations human equality and security, and demand that local voices inform global decisions.