Search results for ""james currey""

Demonstrates shortcomings in Western feminist conceptualizations, and shows how insights from African feminist thinking may enhance understandings of gender, both in and beyond Africa. Winner of the 2012 gender research award KRAKA-prisen. This book is about gender politics in Mozambique over three decades from 1975 to 2005. The book is also about different ways of understanding gender and sexuality. Gender policies from Portuguese colonialism, through Frelimo socialism to later neo-liberal economic regimes share certain basic assumptions about men, women and gender relations. But to what extent do such assumptions fit the ways in which rural Mozambican men and women see themselves? A major line of argument in the book is that gender relations should be investigated, not assumed, and that policies not matching people's lives are not likely to succeed. The empirical data, on which the argument is based, are first a unique body of data material collected 1982-1984 by the national women's organization, the OMM [when the author was employed as a sociologist in the organization] and secondly data resulting from more recent fieldwork in northern Mozambique. Importantly inspired by African post-colonial feminist lines of thinking, the book engages in a project of re-mapping and re-interpreting 'cultureand tradition'. In this context, the book investigates in particular matriliny [c. 40% of Mozambique's population live under conditions of matriliny] and female initiation. The findings open new avenues for gender politics, and for re-thinking sexuality and gender - in Africa and beyond. Signe Arnfred is Associate Professor, Dept of Society & Globalization, and Centre for Gender, Power & Diversity, Roskilde University

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A compact and useable introduction to the understanding of contemporary Sudan, and a convenient reference work. The Sudan Handbook, based on the Rift Valley Institute's successful Sudan Field Course, is an authoritative and accessible introduction to Sudan, vividly written and edited by leading Sudanese and international specialists. The handbook offers a concise introduction to all aspects of the country, rooted in a broad historical account of the development of the Sudanese state. It consists of eighteen self-contained, cross-referenced chapters, covering essential topics in the geography, history, sociology, culture and politics of the country, written by outstanding Sudanese scholars and recognized international experts. It includes numerous purpose-drawn maps and diagrams,glossaries of key terms, capsule biographies of key figures, a chronology and a bibliography. John Ryle, Rift Valley Institute and Division of Social Sciences, Bard College, USA; Justin Willis, Department of History, Durham University, UK and former Director of the British Institute in Eastern Africa; Suliman Baldo, International Center for Transitional Justice, New York, International Crisis Group; Jok Madut Jok, Department of History, LoyolaMarymount University, USA. Published in association with the Rift Valley Institute

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This study recounts the reasons why the order for the Herero genocide was very likely issued by the Kaiser himself, and why proof of this has not emerged before now. In 1904, the indigenous Herero people of German South West Africa (now Namibia) rebelled against their German occupiers. In the following four years, the German army retaliated, killing between 60,000 and 100,000 Herero people, one of the worst atrocities ever. The history of the Herero genocide remains a key issue for many around the world partly because the German policy not to pay reparations for the Namibian genocide contrasts with its long-standing Holocaust reparations policy. The Herero case bears not only on transitional justice issues throughout Africa, but also on legal issues elsewhere in the world where reparations for colonial injustices have been called for. This book explores the events within the context of German South West Africa (GSWA) as the only German colony where settlement was actually attempted. The study contends that the genocide was not the work of one rogue general or the practices of the military, but that it was inexorably propelled by Germany's national goals at the time. The book argues that the Herero genocide was linked to Germany's late entry into the colonial race, which led it frenetically and ruthlessly to acquire multiple colonies all over the world within a very short period, using any means available. Jeremy Sarkin is Chairperson-Rapporteur of the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, and is at present Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. He is also an Attorney of the High Court of South Africa and of the State of New York. A graduate of theUniversity of the Western Cape and of Harvard Law School he has been visiting professor at several US universities where he has taught Comparative Law, International Human Rights Law, International Criminal Law and Transitional Justice Southern Africa (South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Namibia and Zimbabwe): University of Cape Town Press/Juta

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The Sudanese peace agreement reached a crisis point in its final year. This book offers an analysis of the impact of the implementation of the agreement on different Sudanese communities and neighbouring regions. After a long process of peace negotiations the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed on 9 January 2005 between the Government of Sudan (GOS) and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A). The CPA raised initialhopes that it would be the foundation block for lasting peace in Sudan. This book compiles scholarly analyses of the implementation of the power sharing agreement of the CPA, of ongoing conflicts with particular respect to land issues, of the challenges of the reintegration of internally displaced people and refugees, and of the repercussions of the CPA in other regions of Sudan as well as in neighbouring countries. Elke Grawert is SeniorLecturer at the Institute for Intercultural & International Studies (InIIS), Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Bremen, Germany.

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The conflict in the Nuba Mountains in central Sudan illustrates how state policies concerning the control of land can cause local conflicts to escalate into large scale wars, which become increasingly difficult to manage or resolve. The conventional perspective on Sudan's recent civil war (1983-2005) - one of the longest and most complex conflicts in Africa - emphasises ethnicity as the main cause. This study, on the contrary, identifies the land factor as aroot cause that is central to understanding Sudan's local conflicts and large-scale wars. Land rights are about relationships between and among persons, pertaining to different economic and ritual activities. Rights toland are intimately tied to membership in specific communities, from the family to the nation-state. Control over land in Africa has been, and still is, used as a means of defining identity and belonging, an instrument to control, and a source of, political power. Membership of these communities is contested, negotiable, and changeable over time. For national governments land is a national economic resource for public and private development, but the interests and rights of rural majorities and their sedentary or nomadic subsistence forms of life are often difficult to harmonise with land policies pursued by national governments. The state's exclusionary land policies and politicsof limiting or denying communities their land rights play a crucial role in causing local conflicts that then can escalate into large-scale wars. Land issues increase the complexity of a conflict, thereby reducing the possibilityof managing, resolving, or ultimately transforming it. The conflict in the Nuba Mountains in central Sudan, the regional focus in this study, is living proof of this transformation. Guma Kunda Komey is Assistant Professor of Human Geography, Juba University, Sudan.

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Designed as a textbook for the undergraduate and graduate levels. There has long been a need for a new textbook on West Africa's history. This comprehensive collection brings together leading scholars on key themes from West Africa's prehistory to the present. It discusses various disciplinary approaches to West African history, provides overviews of the literature on major topics, and breaks new ground through the incorporation of original research. Part one provides perspectives on West Africa's history from archaeology, ecology and culture, linguistics, and oral traditions. Part two provides longue duree perspectives on environment, society, agency and historical change. Part three examines how economic and political developments haveshaped religious expression and identity in significant ways. At the end of each chapter is a short list of recommended reading. EMMANUEL KWAKU AKYEAMPONG is Professor of History at Harvard University NorthAmerica: Ohio U Press; Ghana: Woeli Publishing Services

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Winner of the Aidoo-Snyder Prize. This groundbreaking book by two leading scholars offers a complete historical picture of women and their work in Uganda, tracing developments from pre-colonial times to the present and into the future. Setting women's economic activities into a broader political, social, and cultural context, it provides the first general account of women's experiences amidst the changes that shaped the country. Prior to the 1970s, relatively few Ugandan women broughtin their own income, despite producing most of the food and craftwork that was taken to local markets. Educational expansion in the 1950s and 1960s were years of gradual evolution for women and their work, with many employed as lower level teachers or nurses. Since the 1970s, there have been a number of dramatic changes which have led to many more women earning their own income: high mortality of men from conflict and HIV/AIDS, increased migration of women into urban areas, the collapse of the state-controlled economy and the emergence of a magendo economy, the development of a free market economy within a system of global capitalism, deepening poverty through Structural Adjustment Programmes, and the expansion of women's roles in many areas. This book traces the origins of the current situation, highlighting the challenges working women now face, and recommending strategies that will improve their circumstances in the future. North America: Ohio U Press; Uganda: Fountain Publishers

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This work examines the relationship between violence, narrative and memory in the former West Nile district of Uganda. West Nile is best known as the home of Uganda's notoriously violent dictator, Idi Amin. But the area's association with violence goes back much further, through the colonial era, when the district was significantly under-developedin comparison with mostof Uganda, and to a pre-colonial past characterised by slave-raiding and ivory poaching. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and archival research in the district capital, Arua town, during the late 1990s, when a low intensity conflict between the government and local rebels became embroiled in wars spilling over from nearby borders with Sudan and Zaire. The author adopts the unconventional approach of moving backwards from the present through successive layers of the past, developing an anthropological critique of the forms of historical representation and their relationship with the human realities of war and violence, in a border area which has long suffered the consequences of being portrayed as a 'heart of darkness'. The book contributes to current debates in political anthropology on issues such as border areas, the local state, and the nature of the 'post-colonial'. Itwill also be of interest to historians, political scientists, literary and cultural critics, and others working on questions of violence, narrative and memory. Uganda: Fountain Publishers Series editors: Wendy James& N.J. Allen

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The book looks at how conflict and competition between various forms of Hinduism undermines and sustains relations of hierarchy. In the context of Dutch colonialism, world war, the incorporation of Bali into the Indonesian state and the tourist boom, this book examines the complex relationships between the changing nature and continuing relevance of Balinese hierarchy, the neo-Hindu reforms of Balinese religion, and the impact these have had on new forms of identity. Since at least the 1920s commoners and other intellectuals and reformers have sought ways to challenge Balinesecaste hierarchy, both through egalitarian re-interpretations of Balinese institutions and through changing religious ideas and practices. State initiatives to transform 'traditional' Balinese religion into monotheistic and more 'authentic' form of Hinduism have precipitated the appearance of many indigenous new religious movements and the importation from India of devotional forms of Hinduism (Sai Baba and Hare Krishna), which has created a vastly more intricate religious landscape. These various forms of Hinduism, and the conflict and competition between, both undermine and sustain relations of hierarchy. Through historically informed, ethnographic analyses of status competition, caste conflict, ritual inflation, religious innovation, and the cultural politics of identity this book, written in an accessible style, makes a major contribution to our understanding of modern Balinese society and its future development. Series editors: Wendy James & N.J. Allen

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A volume of electoral studies of multiparty politics in 14 African countries during the 1990s. Most of the studies in this book are about national elections in Anglophone Africa. There are also less well-known examples from Sudan, Ethiopia and Guinea Bissau. The collection also features studies of the local elections in Namibia and of a significant by-election in Malawi. The multiparty period has been put, wherever possible, within the historical context of earlier elections in Africa. Questions addressed include: how did incumbent governing regimes learn to live with multiparty politics? Why have some elections been so closely fought and others have suffered from apathy? Why has there been relatively open political expression and activity when the elections have increased the political and economic manipulation by incumbent governments? Why have the elections of the 1990s been so marked by local and ethnic variations? To what extent did this wave of democracy result from pressure from donor countries? North America: Palgrave

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A detailed study of the impact of gender on the politics of Uganda. This study analyses the interrelationship between national and local politics and the women's movement in Africa. It covers: women's mobilization and social autonomy; the background to the National Resistance Movement; and decentralization and women's participation in Uganda. North America: University of Wisconsin Press; Uganda: Fountain Publishers

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Published in association with ROAPE Part of a series of studies that examine political issues confronting African peoples, societies and states, this text explores: theories of the state, the transition to democracy and economic development. Published inassociation with ROAPE North America: Africa World Press

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A political history of the Sudan since the second civil war began in 1983. This text provides a comprehensive analysis of Sudan's unresolved struggle between supporters of the majoritarian vision who seek to create a cohesive Arab-Islamic state and the pluralists who strive for equality before the law. North America: Indiana U Press

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Challenges many of the dominant beliefs in the discourse on development and aid. Is the world witnessing a global associational revolution spearheaded by development non-governmental organizations (NGOs)? Is the relationship between states and societies being more fundamentally redefined, even in remote, ruralcorners of the world? What role does the mushrooming of development NGOs play in this political-ideological process? What about NGO staff? Are they angels of mercy, government-paid development diplomats, propagandists for a triumphant West, or instruments in a coming clash between civilizations? Presented here are cases from Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Bangladesh and Nicaragua that shed light on these complex questions. The text puts forward a critique of central theories and concepts which have dominated research and discourse on development NGOs. It also proposes and demonstrates some different analytical approaches. North America: Africa World Press

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Describes the manner in which the Herero of Namibia struggled to maintain control over their own freedom in the face of advancing German colonial control. The Herero-German war led to the destruction of Herero society in all of its pre-war facets. Yet Herero society re-emerged, re-organizing itself around the structures and beliefs of the German colonial army and Rhenish missionaryactivity. Taking advantage of the South African invasion of Namibia in World War I the Herero established themselves in areas of their own choosing. The effective re-occupation of land by the Herero forced the new colonial state,anxious to maintain peace and cut costs, to come to terms with the existence of Herero society. The study ends in 1923 when the death and funeral of Samuel Maherero - first paramount of the Herero and then resistance leader - thecatalyst that brought the disparate groups of Herero together to establish a single unitary Herero identity. North America: Ohio U Press

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A comprehensive assessment of universities and higher education in Africa south of the Sahara. The authors draw on their experience from both Francophile and Anglophile Africa, and from teaching both in the sciences and the arts. North America: Ohio U Press; Ghana: Association of African Universities

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This volume explores the relationship between environment and rural culture, politics and economy in Tanzania. In his conclusion, Isaria Kimambo reflects on the efforts of successive historians to strike a balance between external causes of change and local initiative in their interpretations of Tanzanian history. He argues that nationalist and Marxist historians of Tanzanian history, understandably preoccupied through the first quarter-century of the country's post-colonial history with the impact of imperialism and capitalism on East Africa, tended to overlook the initiatives taken by rural societies to transform themselves. Yet, he suggests, there is good reason for historians to think about the causes of change and innovation in the rural communities of Tanzania, because farming and pastoral people have constantly changed as they adjusted to shifting environmental conditions. North America: Ohio U Press; Tanzania: Mkuki na Nyota

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How have African writers addressed the issue of war and its impact across the continent? Since the second half of the twentieth century, no single phenomenon has marred the image and development of Africa more than senseless fratricidal wars which rapidly followed the political independence of nations. This issue ofAfrican Literature Today is devoted to studies of how African writers, as historical witnesses, have handled the recreation of war as a cataclysmic phenomenon in various locations on the continent. The contributors explore the subject from a variety of perspectives: panoramic, regional, national and through comparative studies. War has enriched contemporary African literature, but at what price to human lives, peace and the environment? ERNESTEMENYONU is Professor of the Department of Africana Studies University of Michigan-Flint. The contributors include: CHIMALUM NWANKWO, CHRISTINE MATZKE, CLEMENT A. OKAFOR, INIBONG I. UKO, OIKE MACHIKO, SOPHIE OGWUDE, MAURICE TAONEZVI VAMBE, ZOE NORRIDGE and ISIDORE DIALA. Nigeria: HEBN

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This issue of African Literature Today focuses on new novels by emerging as well as established African novelists. This is a seminal work that discusses the validity of the perception that the new generation of African novelists is remarkably different in vision, style, and worldview from the older generation. The contention is that the oldergeneration novelists who were too close to the colonial period in Africa had invariably made culture-conflict and little else their dominant thematic concern while the younger generation novelists are more versatile in their thematic preoccupations, and are more global in their vision and style. Do the facts in the novels justify and validate these claims? The 13 papers in this volume have been carefully selected to consider these issues. Brenda Cooper a renowned literary scholar from Cape Town writes on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Purple Hibiscus, while Charles Nnolim writes about Adichie's more recent novel Half of a Yellow Sun; Omar Sougou of Universite GastonBerger, Senegal discusses 'ambivalent inscriptions' in Buchi Emecheta's later novels; Clement Okafor of the University of Maryland, addresses the theme of 'racial memory' in Isidore Okpewho's Call Me By My Rightful Name, juxtaposed between the world of the old and the realities of the present. Joseph McLaren, Hofstra University, New York, discusses Ngugi's latest novel, Wizard of the Crow, while Machiko Oike, Hiroshima University, Japan looksat a new theme in African adolescent literature, 'youth in an era of HIV/AIDS'. There is abundant evidence of the contrasts and diversities which characterize the African novel not only geographically, but also ideologically andgenerationally. ERNEST EMENYONU is Professor of the Department of Africana Studies University of Michigan-Flint. Nigeria: HEBN

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This is an annotated bibliography of the literature on mass communication and the press in Africa.

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With a focus on the urban setting of key Kenyan novels. A study of the key Kenyan novels since Ngugi published Weep Not, Child in 1962. North America: Africa World Press; Kenya: EAEP

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Is the woman writer free to follow her own creative impulse and write about what she pleases? Reflects the emergence of accomplished works by African women writers. North America: Africa World Press

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A stimulating account of a specific period in Uganda's history. This study of the recovery of Uganda asks whether its constitution-making process, which even involved a special election, will help consolidate the progress. It also considers the lessons for all the countries of Africa which areinvolved in introducing democracy. North America: Ohio U Press Uganda: Fountain Publishers

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Rich ethnographic studies expanding the understanding of ngoma in Africa. The indigenous African healing system of music, dance, possession and trance is perhaps best known through John Janzen's book Ngoma: Discourse of Healing in Central and Southern Africa. This collection engages with Janzen'sanalysis and examines ngoma in its culturally diverse manifestations. North America: Ohio U Press

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Exposes the subtle and ambiguous role ethnicity can play in social conflict. Social conflict is routinely attributed to ethnic differentiation because divinding lines between rival groups often follow ethnic contours; and cultural symbolism has often proved a potent ideological weapon. The purpose of thisbook is to examine the nature of the bond linking ethnicity to conflict in a variety of circumstances. The ten case studies from the Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya are based on primary research by anthropologists and historianswho have long experience of the region. North America: Ohio U Press; Uganda: Fountain Publishers; Kenya: EAEP

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This text offers an analysis of Africa's economic future. Has a turning point been reached in African economic recovery? Why have so few countries reached the UN growth target? Published in association with UNCTAD North America: Africa World Press

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SPECIAL COMMENDATION in Africa's 100 Best Books of the Twentieth Century. The series is illustrated throughout with maps and black and white photographs. Volume 7 examines the period of partition, conquest and occupation from the beginnings of the 'European Scramble for Africa' to the Italian fascist invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. Throughout the volume the focus is on the responsesof Africans themselves to the challenge of colonialism. A general overview is followed by more detailed regional analyses. Chapters 13 to 21 concern the impact of economic and social aspects of colonial systems in Africa from1919 to 1935; the operation of colonial economies; the emergence of new social structures and demographic patterns; and the role of religion and the arts in Africa during the colonial period. The final section traces the growth of anti-colonial movements, the strengthening of African political nationalism and the interaction between black Africa and blacks of the New World. Liberia and Ethiopia are discussed in special chapters. The seriesis co-published in Africa with seven publishers, in the United States and Canada by the University of California Press, and in association with the UNESCO Press.

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SPECIAL COMMENDATION in Africa's 100 Best Books of the Twentieth Century. The series is illustrated throughout with maps and black and white photographs. Covers the major forces at work in African society at the beginning of the 19th century until the onset of the European scramble for colonial territory in the 1880s. This study also looks at Africa's changing role in the world economy, and the effects of the abolition of the slave trade. The series is co-published in Africa with seven publishers, in the United States and Canada by the University of California Press, and in association with the UNESCOPress.

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As the research to this book proceeded there were major finds of papers previously unknown even to the David Livingstone Research Project in Edinburgh. This collection of David Livingstone's personal papers, edited by Timothy Holmes, is from the Livingstone Museum in Zambia and features many previously unpublished letters. The first part deals with his period in Botswana, the second part focuses on the Zambezi expedition (1858-64), the third section covers to time of his visit to Britain in 1864-5, and the fourth part covers his last journey (1866-73). North America: Indiana U Press; Zambia: UNZA Press

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Abdul Sheriff analyses the early stages of the underdevelopment of East Africa. The rise of Zanzibar was based on two major economic transformations: firstly, slaves became used for the production of cloves and grain for export, instead of the slaves themselves being exported; secondly there was an increaseddemand for luxuries such as ivory and Zanzibar took advantage of its strategic position to trade as far as the Great Lakes. Yet this economic success increasingly subordinated Zanzibar to Britain, with its anti-slavery crusade andits control over the Indian merchant class. North America: Ohio U Press; Kenya: EAEP

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Since the publication of Vansina's earlier book, oral traditions have now become widely accepted as a legitimate source of history. Although written by a leading historian of Africa, Vansina's work on oral traditions ranges far beyond Africa, so has a wider relevance. Vansina explains not only how oral traditions have been used in the past but also how they should be used by historians in their research. North America: University of Wisconsin Press; Kenya: EAEP

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Explores to what extent Africa's "rise" has impacted on development and whether the BRICS are creating a new version of dependency. Africa is said to be rising, turning a definitive page in its history, heralding new and exciting possibilities for the continent. This discourse maintains that with upsurge in economic growth comes improved governance and endogenous dynamics; that the emerging economies, and especially the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), have been instrumental in diversifying Africa's international relations, perhaps leading to a radical change in theglobal order, favourable to the developing world. But to what extent is this true, and how deep and how broad has been the impact on society at large? This book takes a critical look at the prevalent Africa Rising discourse,and explores the nature and implications of Africa's "rise" and the role that the BRICS have played in it. The author argues that Africa has still to undergo any structural transformation; that there is strong evidence that deindustrialisation and jobless growth have accompanied the upsurge of interest in the continent; and that far from making a radical turn in its developmental trajectory, Africa is being pushed into the resource corner as commodity exporters, to the North (and now, the BRICS) with little scope for industrial progress or skills advancement. Hope that the BRICS might offer an alternative to the extant neoliberal order are misplaced, for the BRICS have a stake in maintaining the current global unequality. Africa must therefore fashion its own independent path - while the emerging economies will be important, relying on external actors may simply reproduce anew the current state of underdevelopment. Ian Taylor is Professor in International Relations and African Politics, University of St Andrews; Chair Professor, Renmin, University of China; Professor Extraordinary, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa; Honorary Professor, Institute of African Studies, Zhejiang Normal University, China; and a Visiting Scholar at Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Uganda.

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A compelling exploration of one of the most ill-advised and calamitous interventions in colonial development history. As colonial development took off after the Second World War, in the context of national food shortages, Britain's Labour Government initiated the Groundnut Scheme, an extraordinarily ambitious project to convert 3 million acres of bush in Tanganyika into the largest mechanized groundnut farm in the world. It was to prove the largest, most expensive and most disastrous development scheme ever undertaken by the British Government. Never previously analysed in depth, the author draws on a wide range of sources to discuss the political dynamics that drove the Groundnut Scheme forward, despite the gravest doubts of agriculturalists and economists, why it went wrong, and what its impact has been since on the practice of economic development. Initially employing the United Africa Company as agent, the government set up an Overseas Food Corporation to manage the Groundnut Scheme as an example of socialist development in Africa. Army surplus kit and demobbed soldiers poured into the country and were sent up the railway line to Kongwa to beat the bush. By the time the effort was abandoned in 1950, costs had risen to a colossal 36 million - equivalent to over 1 billion today - and yet almost no groundnuts had been exported. The prototype of many large-scale, government-run, high-cost development projects that failed to deliver, the Groundnut Scheme was perhaps the first major failure of agricultural development in Africa, and its legacy in development practice still with us today.

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Explores similarity and difference, rapprochement and detachment, and divergence and competition between practitioners of Christianity, Islam and African religious traditions.

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Pioneering study of the role of the Christian churches in the Rwandan genocide of the Tutsi; a key work for historians, memory studies scholars, religion scholars and Africanists.

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First comprehensive account of the origins and early history of the Chewa as revealed by oral tradition and archaeology that allows a more accurate picture of a pre-literate society. The Chewa are the largest ethnic group in Malawi, representing a third of the population of approximately 19 million, and their language - Chichewa - is Malawi's national language. Yet the last book on the history of this group was published in 1944, and was based on oral history, or tradition. As with much African history, oral history started to be recorded only in the late 19th century. This is the first book to use not only oral history, but also documents written by early Portuguese explorers, traders and government officials, as well as archaeology, to piece together the early history of the Chewa. The author is an archaeologist, who discovered the first major Chewa settlement, Mankhamba, near the southern part of Lake Malawi. His excavations have enabled a more scientific chronology of the migrations of the Chewa into what is today Malawi and have provided physical proof of their early history as well as their material and spiritual culture and way of life. Professor Yusuf Juwayeyi has written and documented a very readable history and description of archaeology, which reveals the value of combining oral tradition together with archaeology to arrive at a more accurate picture of the history of a pre-literate society. This book will be of value not only to historians, archaeologists and anthropologists, but also the general reader interested in African history. YUSUF M. JUWAYEYI is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Long Island University, Brooklyn, New York. South Africa: UCT Press

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WINNER of the 2023 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Award Focuses on a much discussed and controversial aspect of conservation: the commodification of nature. Can the successful marketization of what is generally perceived as wilderness help to provide for biodiversity conservation, economic development and social emancipation? At a time of profound anxiety about the impact of human activity on nature and the catastrophic effects of climate change, the "sixth mass extinction", invasive species and rapidly expanding zoonotic diseases, this volume engages with the practices, discourses, and materialities surrounding the commodification of "the wild". Focusing on the relationship between commodification and wilderness, the contributors pay particular attention to commodification's newer iterations in which human management plays a significant role, such as wildlife-park tourism, trophy-hunting, and trade in herbal medicines, perfumes and luxury exotic food items. Dominant neoliberal approaches have aimed to address global environmental challenges through the commodification and marketization of nature: by valorizing nature, they claim, biodiversity can be safeguarded and "wild" landscapes protected. This, it is thought, will not only open up a new frontier of sustainable, non-exploitative, participatory capitalist expansion, but invigorate rural livelihoods, reduce poverty, and add important assets to otherwise vulnerable rural economies. This important book challenges this future trajectory. Investigating a broad range of cases across southern and eastern Africa, from the illegal sandalwood trade to legal trade in devil's claw and honeybush, to trophy-hunting and wilderness safaris, the contributors reveal the pitfalls and challenges of commodification, what this means for the continent and beyond. OPEN ACCESS: This title is freely available in digital format under the Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND

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Compelling memoir of Flora Veit-Wild and her relationship with the Zimbabwean novelist, poet, playwright, and essayist Dambudzo Marechera, one of Africa's most innovative and subversive writers and a significant voice in contemporary world literature. How shall I tell our story? I hear your voice ringing in mine. I struggle to disentangle a dense tapestry of memories. One thread will be caught up in another. Early images will embrace later ones. My gaze will often be filtered through your eyes, your poems. In the end I will not always be able to tell the original from the reflection. Just as you wrote, Time's fingers on the piano / play emotion into motion / the dancers in the looking glass never recognise us as their originals. This book is a memoir with a 'double heartbeat'. At its centre is the author's relationship with the late Zimbabwean writer, Dambudzo Marechera, whose award-winning book The House of Hunger marked him as a powerful, disruptive, perhaps prophetic voice in African literature. Flora Veit-Wild is internationally recognised for her significant contribution to preserving Marechera's legacy. What is less known about Marechera and Veit-Wild is that they had an intense, personal and sexual relationship. This memoir explores this: the couple's first encounter in 1983, amidst the euphoria of the newly independent Zimbabwe; the tumultuous months when the homeless writer moved in with his lover and her family; the bouts of creativity once he had his own flat followed by feelings of abandonment; the increasing despair about a love affair that could not stand up against reality; and the illness of the writer and his death of HIV related pneumonia in August 1987. What follows are the struggles Flora went through once Dambudzo had died. On the one hand she became the custodian of his life and work, on the other she had to live with her own HIV infection and the ensuing threats to her health. Jacana: Southern Africa

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Explores and interrogates the many and diverse perspectives of the new frontiers of African literary studies. Publication of the seminal volume African Literature Comes of Age, by C.D. Narasimhaiah (India) and Ernest N. Emenyonu (Nigeria), in 1988 generated the consciousness that African literature had attained maturity by the evolution of diverse concerns among scholars, critics, and researchers over the decades following the publication, in the English language, of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart in 1958. Since the publication of the first volume of African Literature Today (ALT) in the 1970s, the writings of Africans across the continent have spread across the globe, constituting refreshing and hitherto unimaginable epistemologies. This 40th volume provides a serious critical response to those changing horizons and reflects African literature's maturity, diversity, scope, spread, and above all, relevance. The topics discussed range from sickle cell disease to the animalization of humans, new feminisms and stereotypes of womanhood, the different shades of black masculinity, and political exploitation in creative works. Reaching across boundaries, recent fictions are seen to suggest a widening of conventional literary genres, and new forms that change the known trajectories of dramatic theatre. The substance, freshness, and vitality that characterize the articles in this volume of African Literature Today bring a welcome perspective to the continent's rich creative life. Funded by the Knowledge Unlatched Select 2023 collection, this title is available as an Open Access ebook under the Creative Commons License: CC BY NC

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Finalist for the 2019 Albert J. Raboteau Prize for Best Book in Africana Religions An innovative study of Christianity and society in Cameroon that illuminates the history of faith and cultural transformation among societies living under French rule 1914 to 1939. Between the two World Wars, the radical innovations of African Catholic and Protestant evangelists repurposed Christianity to challenge local and foreign governments operating in the French-administered League of Nations Mandate of Cameroon. Walker-Said explores how African believers transformed foreign missionary societies into profoundly local religious institutions with indigenous ecclesiastical hierarchies and devotional social and charitable networks,devising novel authority structures to control resources and govern cultural and social life. She analyses how African Christian religious leaders transformed social and labour relations, contesting forced labour and authoritarian decentralized governance as threats to family stability and community integrity. Inspired by Catholic and Protestant doctrines on conjugal complementarity and social equilibrium, as well as by local spiritual and charismatic movements, African Christians re-evaluated and renovated family and community authority structures to address the devastating changes colonialism wrought in the private sphere. The history of these reform-minded believers reveals howfamily intimacies and kinship ties constituted the force of community resistance to oppression and also demonstrates the relevance of faith in the midst of a tumultuous series of forces arising out of the colonial situation peculiar to Cameroon.

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Longlisted for South Africa's 2022 Sunday Times Non-fiction Award Definitive and gripping narrative history of the Communist Party of South Africa. Renowned historian Tom Lodge has written an immensely readable and compelling sweep of history, spanning continents and the last hundred years, producing the first comprehensive account of the South African Communist Party in all its intricacies. Taking the story back to the party's pre-history in the early 20th century reveals that it was shaped by a range of socialist traditions and that their influence persisted and were decisive. The party's engagement in popular front politics after 1935 has been largely uncharted: this book supplies fresh detail. In the 1940s the author shows how the party became a key actor in the formation of black working-class politics, and hitherto unused archival materials as well as the insights from an increasingly candid genre of autobiographies make possible a much fuller picture of the secret party of 1952 to 1965. Despite its concealment and tiny numbers, its intellectual impact on black South African mainstream politics was considerable. On the exile period, the author examines the activities of the party's recruits and more informal following inside South Africa, as well as the scope and nature of its broader influence. In 1990, a year in which global politics would change fundamentally, South African communists would return to South Africa to begin the work of reconstructing their party as a legal organisation. Throughout its history, the party had been inspired and supported by the reality of existing socialism, state systems embracing half of Europe and Asia, in which the ruling group was at least notionally committed to the building of communist societies. With the fall of Eastern European regimes and the fragmentation of the Soviet Union, one key set of material foundations for the party's programmatic beliefs crumbled and its most important international alliances in the global socialist community in Eastern Europe and Russia would end. Finally, Lodge brings the story up to date, assessing the degree to which communists both inside and outside government have shaped and influenced policy in successive ANC-led administrations, particularly during the popular resistance to apartheid during the 1950s, which was underpinned by the party's systematic organisation in the localities that supplied the ANC with its strongest bases. Jacana: Africa, India

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Investigates the production, trade and consumption of the bouquets sold in European supermarkets and the consequences of this for the globalised economy. From a macro-perspective, it appears that the cut flower industry has changed into a buyer-driven value chain with corporate retailers as the new lead firms. Yet, as this book shows, this is insufficient to explain how new trade relations come into being, and the consequences of this, not only for global economics, but for the producers, climate change and rural livelihoods. As the retailers and wholesalers of the flower industry in the West linked directly to producers in the Global South, trade relations changed fundamentally, and this critical new book explores the complexities of the power asymmetries and the way in which corporate retailers have shaped the market to promote their own interests, as well as the role non-economic actors played. This book examines in detail the situation at Lake Naivasha, Kenya, which has played a central part within this new market order. Since the 1970s, the area has developed into one of the most important production areas for the ready-made bouquets that sell so cheaply in European supermarkets. For the flower growers themselves, however, coping with the new conditions of supply and demand, the new market order has brought financial precariousness. Farms needed to be flexible in the production and marketing of their flowers. Yet while they were able to expand their production and achieve more stable employment conditions, this has not resulted in significantly higher remuneration. The rapidly changing economic situation has also had a profound impact, not only on local stakeholders, but on the environment, where there is intensified competition for resources and new production technologies. Published in association with the Collaborative Research Centre FUTURE RURAL AFRICA, funded by the German Research Council (DFG).

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Grassroots researchers examine the barriers and ways of implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in Africa. Many have praised the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), first adopted by the UN in 2006, as a revolutionary step towards disability rights in Africa. But how real is the progress towards equality for persons with physical disabilities, mental health difficulties, blindness, deafness or albinism? What are the barriers to the CRPD's successful implementation on the continent, and how might we enforce inclusiveness and equality among those disadvantaged? This book brings together the findings of researchers in Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Zimbabwe and South Africa to offer grassroots' perspectives on the challenges and possibilities of achieving disability rights under the CRPD. Challenging the generally optimistic view presented to date, the contributors provide evidence-based trenchant critiques of the Convention, highlight the ways in which disability rights are interpreted in varying contexts and with different disabilities, and examine particular issues in relation to children and women. Finally, the contributors suggest ways of moving forward and achieving disability rights in Africa.

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Pioneering study of the role of the Christian churches in the Rwandan genocide of the Tutsi; a key work for historians, memory studies scholars, religion scholars and Africanists. Why did some sectors of the Rwandan churches adopt an ambiguous attitude towards the genocide against the Tutsi which claimed the lives of around 800,000 people in three months between April and July 1994? What prevented the churches' acceptance that they may have had some responsibility? And how should we account for the efforts made by other sectors of the churches to remember and commemorate the genocide and rebuild pastoral programmes? Drawing on interviews with genocide survivors, Rwandans in exile, missionaries and government officials, as well as Church archives and other sources, this book is the first academic study on Christianity and the genocide against the Tutsi to explore these contentious questions in depth, and reveals more internal diversity within the Christian churches than is often assumed. While some Christians, Protestant as well as Catholic, took risks to shelter Tutsi people, others uncritically embraced the interim government's view that the Tutsi were enemies of the people and some, even priests and pastors, assisted the killers. The church leaders only condemned the war: they never actually denounced the genocide against the Tutsi. Focusing on the period of the genocide in 1994 and the subsequent years (up to 2000), Denis examines in detail the responses of two churches, the Catholic Church, the biggest and the most complex, and the Presbyterian Church in Rwanda, which made an unconditional confession of guilt in December 1996. A case study is devoted to the Catholic parish La Crête Congo-Nil in western Rwanda, led at the time by the French priest Gabriel Maindron, a man whom genocide survivors accuse of having failed publicly to oppose the genocide and of having close links with the authorities and some of the perpetrators. By 1997, the defensive attitude adopted by many Catholics had started to change. The Extraordinary Synod on Ethnocentricity in 1999-2000 was a milestone. Yet, especially in the immediate aftermath of the genocide, tension and suspicion persist. Fountain: Rwanda, Uganda

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Unpacks the histories, actors and geopolitics of India's soft power and evolving engagements with Africa. Since independence India has deployed its soft power in Africa, with educational aid and capacity-building at the heart of its Africa policy. However, following economic liberalisation and in a quest for greater global influence, India's geopolitics have changed. The country's discourse on Africa has shifted from the mantras of post-colonial solidarity and South-South Cooperation, and there is now a growing sense of Indian exceptionalism, as the country reimagines its past and future against the growing influence of the political right. In this book scholars from India, Africa, Europe and North America show how India's soft power has been implemented by the diaspora, government and private sector. Research documents how India's 'aid' has been re-thought in major schemes such as e-global education and health, Gandhi statuary and Covid-19 diplomacy in Africa.

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Examines the new challenges facing Africa's pastoral drylands from large-scale investments and how this might affect the economic and political landscape for the regions affected and their peoples. More than ever before, the gaze of global investment has been directed to the drylands of Africa, but what does this mean for these regions' pastoralists and other livestock-keepers and their livelihoods? Will those who have occupied drylands over generations benefit from the developments, as claimed, or is this a new type of territorialisation, exacerbating social inequality? This book's detailed local studies of investments at various stages of development - from Kenya, Tanzania, Somaliland, Ethiopia - explore, for the first time, how large land, resource and infrastructure projects shape local politics and livelihoods. Land and resources use, based on ancestral precedenceand communal practices, and embedded regional systems of trade, are unique to these areas, yet these lands are now seen as the new frontier for development of national wealth. By examining the ways in which large-scale investmentsenmesh with local political and social relations, the chapters show how even the most elaborate plans of financiers, contractors and national governments come unstuck and are re-made in the guise of not only states' grand modernist visions, but also those of herders and small-town entrepreneurs in the pastoral drylands. The contributors also demonstrate how and why large-scale investments have advanced in a more piecemeal way as the challenges of implementation have mounted. JEREMY LIND is Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), University of Sussex. DORIS OKENWA holds a PhD in Anthropology from the London School of Economics. IAN SCOONES is a Professorial Fellow at the IDS, University of Sussex and co-director of the ESRC STEPS Centre.

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First scholarly treatment of Uganda's first elected ruler; offers new insights into the religious and political history of modern Uganda. Assassinated by Idi Amin and a democratic ally of J.F. Kennedy during the Cold War, Benedicto Kiwanuka was Uganda's most controversial and disruptive politician, and his legacy is still divisive. On the eve of independence, he led the Democratic Party (DP), a national movement of predominantly Catholic activists, to end political inequalities and religious discrimination. Along the way, he became Uganda's first prime minister and first Ugandan chief justice. Earle and Carney show how Kiwanuka and Catholic activists struggled to create an inclusive vision of the state, a vision that resulted in relentless intimidation and extra-judicial killings. Focusing closely on the competing Catholic projects that circulated throughout Uganda, this book offers new ways of thinking about the history of democratic thought, while pushing the study of Catholicism in Africa outside of the church and beyond the gaze of missionaries. Drawing on never before seen sources from Kiwanuka's personal papers, the authors upend many of the assumptions that have framed Uganda's political and religious history for over sixty years, as well as repositioning Uganda's politics within the global arena. Fountain: Uganda

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