Search results for ""james currey""
James Currey Inside West Nile: Violence, History and Representation on an African Frontier
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
£65.00
James Currey Hinduism and Hierarchy in Bali
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
£36.00
James Currey Multi-party Elections in Africa
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
£25.99
James Currey Women and Politics in Uganda: The Challenge of Associational Autonomy
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
£24.99
James Currey The Politics of Transition in Africa: State, Democracy and Economic Development
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
£24.99
James Currey The Sudan: Contested National Identities
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
£24.99
James Currey Angels of Mercy or Development Diplomats?: NGOs and Foreign Aid
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
£24.99
James Currey Herero Heroes: A Socio-political History of the Herero of Namibia, 1890-1923
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
£24.99
James Currey The African Experience with Higher Education
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
£24.99
James Currey Custodians of the Land: Ecology and Culture in the History of Tanzania
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
£24.99
James Currey ALT 26 War in African Literature Today
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
£19.99
James Currey ALT 27 New Novels in African Literature Today
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
£19.99
James Currey The Media in Africa and Africa in the Media: An Annotated Bibliography
This is an annotated bibliography of the literature on mass communication and the press in Africa.
£80.00
James Currey Urban Obsessions, Urban Fears: The Postcolonial Kenyan Novel
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
£24.99
James Currey ALT 15 Women in African Literature Today
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
£19.99
James Currey From Chaos to Order: The Politics of Constitution-making in Uganda
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
£24.99
James Currey Quest for Fruition Through Ngoma: The Political Aspects of Healing in Southern Africa
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
£19.99
James Currey Ethnicity and Conflict in the Horn of Africa
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
£24.99
James Currey African Development in a Comparative Perspective
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
£19.99
James Currey General History of Africa volume 7 [pbk abridged]: Africa under Colonial Domination 1880-1935
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.
£24.99
James Currey General History of Africa volume 6 [pbk abridged]: Africa in the Nineteenth Century until the 1880s
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.
£24.99
James Currey Letters and Documents, 1841-72
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
£70.00
James Currey Slaves, Spices and Ivory in Zanzibar: Integration of an East African Commercial Empire into the World Economy, 1770-1873
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
£24.99
James Currey Oral Tradition as History
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
£24.99
James Currey Africa Rising?: BRICS - Diversifying Dependency
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.
£19.99
James Currey Imperialism and Development: The East African Groundnut Scheme and its Legacy
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.
£24.99
James Currey War in Pre-colonial Eastern Africa: The Patterns and Meanings of State-level Conflict in the 19th Century
Of interest to researchers of pre-colonial African history, military history, and anyone involved in modern development and conflict resolution seeking to understand the deeper historical roots of African warfare. This is an examination of the nature and objectives of conflict in the major states of Eastern Africa in the nineteenth century. It focuses on highland Ethiopia, on the interlacustrine area of Buganda and its neighbours, and on the area of central Tanzania from the south of Lake Victoria to Lake Tanganyika. RICHARD REID is Lecturer in African History at SOAS Published in association with The British Institute in Eastern Africa North America: Ohio U Press; Uganda: Fountain Publishers; Kenya: EAEP
£24.99
James Currey Reel Resistance - The Cinema of Jean-Marie Teno
Weaving together critical analysis and a filmic conversation, this book journeys through the multiple layers of Cameroonian filmmaker Jean-Marie Teno's thematically and aesthetically challenging body of work, framed here as a form of decolonial cinematic resistance. Co-winner African Literature Association Book of the Year - Scholarship Both a monograph and a critical dialogue between academic Melissa Thackway, author of Africa Shoots Back, and the Cameroonian filmmaker Jean-Marie Teno, this collaborative work takes the reader on a journey through Teno's multifaceted on-going filmic reflection on Cameroon and the wider African continent, its socio-political systems, history, memory and cultures. Presenting and contextualizing Teno's cinema, it addresses the notion of political commitment in art and of cinema as a form of resistance. It also considers Teno's filmmaking both in relation to the theoretical and aesthetic debates to have animated West and Central African filmmakers since the 1960s and 1970s, and n relation to documentary filmmaking practices on the continent and beyond. In so doing, the book offers an analysis of the predominant stylistic and thematic traits of Teno's work, examines the individual films and the collective oeuvre, and highlights the evolutions of his film language and concerns. It identifies and explores the committed socio-political and historical themes at play, such as violence, power, history, memory, gender, trauma and exile. It also considers Teno's unwavering focus, both thematically and in his filmmaking choices, on forms and instances of resistance, framing his cinema as a form of decolonial aesthetics.
£24.99
James Currey ALT 41: African Literature in African Languages
Interrogates and explores African literature in African languages today, and the continuing interfaces between works in indigenous languages and those written in European languages or languages of colonizers. Sixty years after the Conference of African Writers of English Expression at Makerere University, the dominance in the global canon of African literatures written in European languages over those in indigenous languages continues to be an issue. This volume of ALT re-examines this central question of African literatures to ask, 'What is the state of African literatures in African languages today?' Contributors discuss the translation of Gurnah's novel Paradise to Swahili, and Osemwegie's Ọrọ Epic to English, and Wolof wrestlers' panegyrics. They analyse Edo eco-critical poetry, and the poetics of Igbo mask poetry, and morality in early prose fiction in indigenous Nigerian languages. Other essays contribute a semiotic analysis of Duruaku's A Matter of Identity, and the decolonization of trauma in Uwem Akpan's Say You're One of Them. Overall, the volume paints a complex image of African cultural production in indigenous languages, especially in the ways Africa's oral performance traditions remain resilient in the face of a seemingly undiminished presence of non-African language literary traditions.
£65.00
James Currey State-building and National Militaries in Postcolonial West Africa: Decolonizing the Means of Coercion 1958–1974
Explores the fundamental role of the military in state-building in francophone postcolonial West Africa and how foreign economic and military aid has influenced it. How did African armed forces in postcolonial states in francophone West Africa influence decolonization and state-building in African states? How did foreign assistance from ex-colonial powers, the USSR and the US and colonial state structures influence political systems, and sometimes result in weak and unstable governance? This book explores the development of national militaries in Cote d'Ivoire, Dahomey (now Benin), Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) and Togo during the 1960s and 1970s. Revealing the strength of decision-making power by African political elites, the study also shows the decisive impact of foreign economic and military assistance on countries that did not experience a prolonged armed conflict. The author provides new insights into the way the decisions of African governments in building their national militaries impacted postcolonial states' autonomy, legitimacy, sovereign control and governance. In West Africa, during the 1960s, France sought to maintain exclusive relations with its former colonies through military assistance, economic aid and close personal relations with African political and military elites. State coercive capacities extended far beyond the strength of political institutions, with soldiers' assumption of political roles linked to the weaknesses of colonial and postcolonial structures. Disagreements between French and American officials, as well as Arab-Israeli and Sino-Russo conflicts, increased African presidents' opportunities to mobilize external resources. Yet in the late 1980s, it became evident that national militaries and police were often the main causes of personal insecurity, rather than providing protection, and that some economies remained weak and political structures unstable. This book is available as an Open Access ebook under the Creative Commons license CC-BY-NC. The open access version of this publication was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.
£28.99
James Currey Contested Sustainability: The Political Ecology of Conservation and Development in Tanzania
Richly detailed and timely study on conservation, development and sustainability in Tanzania. Provides valuable insights into the successes and failures of the management and governance of wildlife, forestry and coastal resources. Responding to the urgent need to examine the outcome of interventions in governing natural resources, this book analyses different types of sustainability partnerships - with donors, governments, business, NGOs and other actors, and, crucially, assesses which result in better livelihood and environmental outcomes. The contributors, from a range of disciplines, compare 'more complex' partnerships to relatively 'simpler', more traditional top-down and centralized management systems and to location where sustainability partnerships are not in place. Within-sector comparisons allow a fine-tuned analysis that is formed of historical, location and resource-specific issues, which can be used as input for resource-specific policy and partnership design. Experiences and lessons can be drawn from comparisons across the three different sectors, which can be applied to natural resource governance more broadly. This book is openly available in digital formats under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND.
£28.99
James Currey Benefits of Famine: A Political Economy of Famine and Relief in Southwestern Sudan, 1983-9
First paperback edition with a new and updated author's introduction, and a Foreword by Douglas H. Johnson.. The conflict in Darfur had a precursor in Sudan's famines of the 1980s and 1990s. David Keen's The Benefits of Famine presented a new and startling interpretation of the causes of war-induced famine. The book is now in paperback for the first time with a new and updated introduction by the author. The Benefits of Famine gives depth to understanding the Darfur crisis. DAVID KEEN is Professor of Complex Emergencies at the DevelopmentStudies Institute, London School of Economics North America: Ohio U Press; Uganda: Fountain Publishers
£24.99
James Currey Transport Corridors in Africa
In-depth examination of the inherent tensions and dynamics of transport corridors in Africa: between short-term optics and long-term durability; between regional integration and national interest; between the facilitation of trade and the generation of corridor revenue. The image of the corridor, a central pathway of road and rail carving its way through Africa's interior, has guided the coordination of transport and trade developments on the continent in recent decades. Existing analysis of the "Corridor" - a label with a great capacity to change shape, guiding funding and infrastructural priorities at different times and in different settings - tends to be presentist, technical, and conveyed in the language of transport economics. The chapters collected here showcase a more varied approach, offering perspectives from academics and policy-makers coming from a range of disciplinary backgrounds. They capture the varied forms of the corridor concept (developmental, transport, and trade corridors), the multiplicity of actors (including China and the European Union), as well as the different permutations of the infrastructure itself, in corridors linking coastal states and in others that link coastal states with the hinterland. The breadth of cases allows for a comparative perspective of East, West, and Southern Africa, as well as the basis of comparisons outside of the continent in Europe, South Asia, and elsewhere. The motivations behind corridor initiatives in Africa range enormously, from resource extraction to urban development and poverty reduction. A lot depends on scale, and this collection places the grand designs thrashed out at continental and regional economic forums alongside the individual concerns of drivers and cross-border traders hauling goods across the continent's checkpoints. What emerges are a number of central tensions in the study of transport corridors: between short-term optics and long-term durability; between road and rail as modes of transportation; between regional integration and national interest; between the facilitation of trade and the generation of corridor revenue; between different port configurations; and between local dynamics and the dynamics of long-distance transportation. This book is available as an Open Access ebook under the Creative Commons license CC-BY-NC.
£26.99
James Currey Sports & Modernity in Late Imperial Ethiopia
Innovative study of the role of sports in modernity in Africa. Sports in Ethiopia was always more than a means of useful recreation. It was also a way to enjoy and define fun, as new modes of behaviour emerged that showed what it meant to be a modern man or woman. This book is the first academic study of the history of modern sports in Ethiopia during the imperial rule of the twentieth century. Showing how agents, ideas and practices linked societal improvement and bodily improvement, this innovative study argues thatmodern sports offers new possibilities to explore the meanings of modernity in Africa. Drawing on written and oral sources in Amharic, Tigrinya, English, French, German and Italian, Bromber provides an in-depth analysis of the role of sports in modern educational institutions, volunteer organizations and urbanization processes. She examines sports' function as a political propaganda tool during the Italian fascist occupation (1935 - 1941), as well as in representations of successful modernization under Haile Selassie (1930 - 1974). The integration into global networks of ideas about the fit colonized body linked Ethiopia, which was never colonized, to the legacy of colonialism. Institutions such as schools, civilian sports clubs, and volunteer organizations were not only loaded with coercive procedures, but instituted modes of behaviour that developed into certain styles and affirmation of the self as well as their contestation. Examining the locations for practising sports in organized forms, informal leisure and practices consumption in Ethiopia, this book contributes to recent debates on the role of sports in the history of urbanization in Africa, as well as those on global modernity. Ethiopia: AAUP
£75.00
James Currey Whites and Democracy in South Africa
Key book in Whiteness Studies that engages with the different ways in which the last white minority in Africa to give way to majority rule has adjusted to the arrival of democracy and the different modes of transition from "settlers" to "citizens". How have whites adjusted to, contributed to and detracted from democracy in South Africa since 1994? Engaging with the literature on 'whiteness' and the current trope that the democratic settlement has failed, this book provides a study of how whites in the last bastion of 'white minority rule' in Africa have adapted to the sweeping political changes they have encountered. It examines the historical context of white supremacy and minority rule, in the past, and the white withdrawal from elsewhere on the African continent. Drawing on focus groups held across the country, Southall explores the difficult issue of 'memory', how whites seek to grapple with the history of apartheid, and how this shapes their reactions to political equality. He argues that whites cannot be regarded as a homogeneous political grouping concluding that while the overwhelming majority of white South Africans feared the coming of democracy during the years of late apartheid, they recognised its inevitability. Many of their fears were, in effect, to be recognised by the Constitution, which embedded individual rights, including those to property and private schooling, alongside the important principle of proportionality of political representation. While a small minority of whites chose to emigrate, the large majority had little choice but to adjust to the democratic settlement which, on the whole, they have done - and in different ways. It was only a small right wing which sought to actively resist; others have sought to withdraw from democracy into social enclaves; but others have embraced democracy actively, either enthusiastically welcoming its freedoms or engaging with its realities in defence of 'minority rights'. Whites may have been reluctant to accept democracy, but democrats - of a sort - they have become, and notwithstanding a significant racialisation of politics in post-apartheid South Africa, they remain an important segment of the "rainbow", although dangers lurk in the future unless present inequalities of both race and class are challenged head on. African Sun Media: South Africa
£75.00
James Currey Namib: The archaeology of an African desert
WINNER SAfA BOOK PRIZE 2023 The first full-length examination of the archaeology and history of the Namib Desert. This is a story of human survival over the last one million years in the Namib Desert - one of the most hostile environments on Earth. Namib reveals the resilience and ingenuity of desert communities and provides a vivid picture of our species' response to climate change, and ancient strategies to counter ever-present risk. Dusty fragments of stone, pottery and bone tell a history of perpetual transition, of shifting and temporary states of balance. Namib digs beneath the usual evidence of archaeology to uncover a world of arcane rituals, of travelling rain-makers, of intricate social networks which maintained vital systems of negotiated access to scarce resources. Ranging from the earliest evidence of human occupation, through colonial rule and genocide, to the invasion of the desert by South African troops during the First World War, this is the first comprehensive archaeology of the Namib. Among its important contributions are the reclaiming of the indigenous perspective during the brutal colonial occupation, and establishing new material links between the imperialist project in German South West Africa during 1885-1915 and the Third Reich, and between Nazi ideology and Apartheid. Southern Africa: University of Namibia Press/Jacana
£90.00
James Currey African Theatre 19: Opera & Music Theatre
Compelling inside views of what characterises opera and music theatre in African and African diasporic contexts. Music is often cited as a central artistic mode in African theatre and performance practices. However, little attention has been paid to music theatre on the continent in general, and to opera in particular, with the exceptions ofa few noted genres, such as Concert Party or the Yorùbá "folk opera" of the 1960s, and the emerging research on opera culture in South Africa. This volume of African Theatre highlights the diversity across the continent from a variety of perspectives - including those of genre, media, and historiography. Above all, it raises questions and encourages debate: What does "opera" mean in African and African diasporic contexts? What are its practices and legacies - colonial, postcolonial and decolonial; what is its relation to the intersectionalities of race and class? How do opera and music theatre reflect, change or obscure social, political and economic realities? How are they connected to educational and cultural institutions, and non-profit organisations? And why is opera contradictorily, at various times, perceived as both "grand" and "elitist, "folk" and "quotidian", "Eurocentric" and "indigenous"? Contributors also address aesthetic transformation processes, the porousness of genre boundaries and the role of space and place, with examples ranging from Egypt to South Africa, from Uganda to West Africa and the USA. The playscript in this volume is We Take Care of Our Own by Zainabu Jallo GUEST EDITORS: Christine Matzke, Lena van der Hoven, Christopher Odhiambo & Hilde Roos Series Editors: Yvette Hutchison, Reader, Department of Theatre & Performance Studies, University of Warwick; Chukwuma Okoye, Reader in African Theatre & Performance University of Ibadan; Jane Plastow, Professor of African Theatre, University of Leeds.
£75.00
James Currey Land, Investment & Politics: Reconfiguring Eastern Africa's Pastoral Drylands
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.
£19.99
James Currey ALT 37: African Literature Today
AFRICAN LITERATURE TODAY was established at a time of uncertainty and reconstruction but for 50 years it has played a leading role in nurturing imaginative creativity and its criticism on the African continent and beyond. Contemporary African creative writers have confidently taken strides which resonate all over the world. The daring diversities, stylistic innovations and enchanting audacities which characterize their works across many different genres resonate with readers beyond African geographic and linguistic boundaries. Writers in Africa and the diaspora seem to be speaking with collective and individual voices that compel world attention and admiration. And they arebeing read in numerous world languages. This volume's contributors recognize the foundations laid by the pioneer African writers as they point vigorously to contemporary writers who have moved African imaginative creativityforward with utmost integrity, and to the critics who continue to respond with unyielding tenacity. The founding Editor of ALT, Professor Eldred Durosimi Jones, recalls in an interview in this volume, the role ALT played in the evolution and stimulation of a wave of African literary studies and criticism in mid-20th century: "The 1960s saw a good deal of activity among scholars teaching African Literature throughout Africa and the world, and this ledto a series of conferences in African Literature in Dakar, Nairobi, and Freetown.around the idea of communication between the various English Departments which took an interest in African Literature. We decided on a bulletin, which was just a kind of newsletter between departments saying what was going on....it was that bulletin that showed the potential of this kind of communication... after that we started African Literature Today as a journal inviting articles on the works of African writers." Contributors to the series demonstrate the impact of the growth in studies and criticism of African Literature in the 50 years since its founding. Series Editor: Ernest N. Emenyonu is Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Michigan-Flint, USA. Reviews Editor: Obi Nwakanma
£75.00
James Currey At the Crossroads: Nigerian Travel Writing and Literary Culture in Yoruba and English
Shortlisted for the SAUK Fage & Oliver Prize 2020 'Honorable Mention' for the ALA First Book Award - Scholarship 2021 A path-breaking contribution to the critical literature on African travel writing. Throughout the twentieth century, Nigerians have been writing about their travels within Nigeria using a variety of media and forms, from serialised newspaper travelogues to personal diaries, autobiographies and online narratives.These works offer important insights into how Nigerians have represented Nigeria to itself and to the world. This is the first book to examine the production of Nigerian travel narratives about Nigeria in the century from colonisation to independence. Rebecca Jones argues that we can read these texts both as the products of a local Nigerian print culture, and through their articulations with global travel writing traditions. Focusing on travel writing published from 1914 to 2014 in the Yoruba-speaking region of southwestern Nigeria, home to a well-established and prolific writing and print culture in both Yoruba and English, this cultural history of Nigerian travel comprisesclose readings of these works, and argues that the production of travel writing in the region can be read not simply as a foreign import, but as a cluster of genres with a cohesive local history. Writers discussed include Samuel Ajayi Crowther, I.B. Thomas, E.A. Akintan, Isaac Delano, D.O. Fagunwa, Amos Tutuola, Ben Okri, Babatunde Shadeko, Damilola Ajenifuja, Chibuzor Mirian Azubuike, Pelu Awofeso, Lape Soetan, Teju Cole, Adewale Maja-Pearce, Noo Saro-Wiwa, and the Invisible Borders collective. Nigeria: Premium Times Books
£80.00
James Currey Land, Migration and Belonging: A History of the Basotho in Southern Rhodesia c. 1890
A new history of the Basotho migrants in Zimbabwe that illuminates identity politics, African agency and the complexities of social integration in the colonial period. Tracing the history of the Basotho, a small mainly Christianised community of evangelists working for the Dutch Reformed Church, this book examines the challenges faced by minority ethnic groups in colonial Zimbabwe and how they tried to strike a balance between particularism and integration. Maintaining their own language and community farm, the Basotho used ownership of freehold land, religion and a shared history to sustain their identity. The author analyses the challenges they faced in purchasing land and in engaging with colonial administrators and missionaries, as well as the nature and impact of internal schisms within the community, and shows how their "unity in diversity"impacted on their struggles for belonging and shaped their lives. This detailed account of the experiences and strategies the Basotho deployed in interactions with the Dutch Reformed Church missionaries and colonial administrators as well as with their non-Sotho neighbours will contribute to wider debates about migration, identity and the politics of belonging, and to our understanding of African agency in the context of colonial and missionary encounters. Published in association with the British Institute in Eastern Africa
£70.00
James Currey Tanzanian Development: A Comparative Perspective
An up-to-date, comparative, examination of the developing economy of Tanzania and its grass roots progress out of poverty, with pointers to its wider implications for policymakers, NGOS and practitioners. Over the past thirty years, in common with a number of other Sub-Saharan African countries, Tanzania has experienced a period of painful adjustment followed by relatively rapid and stable economic growth. However the extent of progress on poverty reduction and the sustainability of the development process are both open to question. In this book, prominent international observers provide a range of different perspectives on the process of development over time and the issues facing a rapidly growing African economy: political economy; agriculture and rural livelihoods; industrial development; urbanisation; aid and trade; tourism; and the use of natural resources. Comparisons are drawn with other African economies as well as other developing countries, such as Vietnam. An invaluable deep review of Tanzania's economy and development, the book also looks at the wider implications of the research for the futureon the continent and beyond. David Potts is Honorary Visiting Researcher at the University of Bradford and was Head of the Bradford Centre for International Development 2015-16. He worked for six years as an economist in Tanzania's Ministry of Agriculture in the 1980s, has had many subsequent short-term assignments in the country and is co-editor of Development Planning and Poverty Reduction (2003).
£80.00
James Currey The African Garrison State: Human Rights & Political Development in Eritrea REVISED AND UPDATED
Examines Eritrea's deprivation of human rights since independence and its transformation into a militarised "garrison state", updated to include the recent UN Commission of Inquiry and the new geopolitical dynamics. When Eritrea gained independence in 1991, hopes were high for its transformation. In two decades however, it became one of the most repressive in the world, effectively a militarised "garrison state". This comprehensive and detailed analysis examines how the prospects for democracy in the new state turned to ashes, reviewing its development, and in particular the loss of human rights and the state's political organisation. Beginning with judicial development in independent Eritrea, subsequent chapters scrutinise the rule of law and the court system; the hobbled process of democratisation, and the curtailment of civil society; the Eritrean prison system and everyday life of detention and disappearances; and the situation of minorities in the country. While the situation is bleak, it is not without hope: the epilogue describes the recent UN Commission of Inquiry process, the renewed international dialogue with Asmara and the new geopolitical dynamics. Kjetil Tronvoll is Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Bjørknes University College, Director of Oslo Analytica policy research and advisory company, and a former Professor of Human Rights at the University of Oslo. ; Daniel Mekonnen is the Executive Director of the Eritrean Law Society, and a Guest Writer at the Writers in Exile Program of the Swiss-German PEN Centre in Luzern, Switzerland. Formerly, he was Judge of the Central Provincial Court in Asmara, Eritrea.
£24.99
James Currey Electricity in Africa: The Politics of Transformation in Uganda
Examines the history of electricity provision in Africa and the effects of privatization and infrastructure changes in energy transformation, offering a critical window into development politics in African states. No country has managed to develop beyond a subsistence economy without ensuring at least minimum access to electricity for the majority of its population. Yet many sub-Saharan African countries struggle to meet demand. Why is this, and what can be done to reduce energy poverty and further Africa's development? Examining the politics and processes surrounding electricity infrastructure, provision and reform, the author provides an overview of historical andcontemporary debates about access in the sub-continent, and explores the shifting role and influence of national governments and of multilateral agencies in energy reform decisions. He describes a challenging political environment for electricity supply, with African governments becoming increasingly frustrated with the rules and the processes of multilateral donors. Civil society also began to question reform choices, and governments in turn looked to new development partners, such as China, to chart a fresh path of energy transformation. Drawing on over fifteen years of research on Uganda, which has one of the lowest levels of access to electricity in Africa and has struggled to construct several, large hydroelectric dams on the Nile, Gore argues that there is a critical need to recognize how the changing political and social context in African countries, and globally, has affected the capacity tofulfil national energy goals, minimize energy poverty and transform economies. Christopher Gore is Associate Professor, Department of Politics and Public Administration, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada. OA EDITION This book has been made available as Open Access through the support of the Office of the Dean, Faculty of Arts, Ryerson University; Ryerson International; and the Department of Politics and Public Administration, Ryerson University.
£19.99
James Currey The Politics of Peacemaking in Africa: Non-State Actors' Role in the Liberian Civil War
A detailed examination of the role of two critical non-state groups in the Liberian Civil War peace process - the diaspora and the religious - that provides key insights for policymakers and NGOs into the roles that civil societyactors can play in conflict resolution and peacemaking. Throws light on the role of several key agents in bringing to an end one of the darkest episodes in post-independence African history.' Ebenezer Obadare, University of Kansas Until the 1990s, conflict resolution and peacemaking fell to states, the UN and other intergovernmental organizations. In recent times it is non-armed, non-state actors who have had a pivotal role in seeking to resolve civil wars in Africa. This book examines, for the first time, through an examination of the Liberian Civil War in particular, how non-state actors have impacted upon peace processes. The Liberian Civil War was the first post-Cold War intra-state conflict in West Africa and exemplified the "new wars" breaking out on the continent. The peace process that followed showed how future peacemaking processes might evolve, being not only the first in which a regional economic grouping had a role - in this case ECOWAS - but also involving non-state religious and diaspora actors. Religious actors, initiators of the Liberian peace process, were mediators, dialogue facilitators, watchdogs and trustees of the entire peace process. Although their efforts were mainly influenced by the desire to fulfil the divine mandate to "tend to the flock", they were also able to regain some of the societal influence that organized religion, especially Christianity, enjoyed during the 158 years of minority Americo-Liberian rule. Diaspora actors' roles ranged from being founders and sponsors of warring factions to providing succour to Liberians back home through remittances and engaging in the peace process. Babatunde T. Afolabi is a Senior Programme Manager at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD). He had previously worked at the ECOWAS Commission where he was involved in peace processes across West Africa.
£70.00
James Currey African Theatre 15: China, India & the Eastern World
PAPERBACK FOR SALE IN AFRICA ONLY Extends the study of China's "soft power" into theatre studies and looks more widely at syncretic traditions evolving in other long-term historic exchanges between Asia and Africa. China is the main focus of this volume, and articles consider the way it is using "soft power" in its extensive engagement with South Africa, and, through its support for theatre festivals, with Lusophone countries in Africa. China's involvement with the construction of theatres, opera houses and cultural facilities as part of its foreign aid programmes in such countries as Algeria, Cameroon, Mauritius, Ghana and Senegal, provides the background to the playscript included in this volume, Blickakte (Acts of Viewing) by Daniel Schauf, Philipp Scholtysik & Jonas Alsleben, that explores Chinese impact in Somalia. Issues also emerge around what China is "importing" culturally from Africa. In 2012, Soyinka's The Lion & the Jewel was produced there, and a season of Fugard's work was enjoyed in Beijing during 2014. During 2016 Brett Bailey's Macbeth Opera will be performed in Macao. In recent years courses in African theatre have been started in Beijing by Biodun Jeyifo, and also taught on occasions by Femi Osofisan, joint-editor of this volume. His well-known Esu and the Vagabond Minstrels as wellas Once Upon Four Robbers have been translated into Mandarin, along with Soyinka's The Lion & the Jewel. The volume also includes contributions on exchanges between other Asian countries and Africa such as articles on the production of African plays in Bangladesh and on the persistence of African performance traditions among African migrants in India. Attention is paid to the syncretic theatre traditions that have evolved wherever African andAsian populations have been in close and extended contact, as in Mauritius and Durban. Unusual exchanges and globalized theatre surfaces in the course of the volume. For example, while the Guangdong Provincial Puppet Art Theatre Group performed at the 41st Grahamstown Festival (2015), Chinese puppeteers are being trained to manipulate the War Horse for a Beijing production. Volume Editors: JAMES GIBBS & FEMI OSOFISAN Series Editors: Martin Banham, Emeritus Professor of Drama & Theatre Studies, University of Leeds; James Gibbs, Senior Visiting Research Fellow, University of the West of England; Femi Osofisan, Professor of Drama, University of Ibadan; Jane Plastow, Professor of African Theatre, University of Leeds; Yvette Hutchison, Associate Professor, Department of Theatre & Performance Studies, University of Warwick.
£11.36
James Currey ALT 34 Diaspora & Returns in Fiction: African Literature Today
Imagined or actual returns to a "homeland" in African literature are examined in relation to changing concepts of identity, belonging, migration and space. This special issue focuses on literary texts by African writers in which the protagonist returns to his/her "original" or ancestral "home" in Africa from other parts of the world. Ideas of return - intentional and actual - have been a consistent feature of the literature of Africa and the African diaspora: from Equiano's autobiography in 1789 to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's 2013 novel Americanah. African literature has represented returnees in a range of locations and dislocations including having a sense of belonging, being alienated in a country they can no longer recognize, or experiencing a multiple sense of place. Contributors, writing on literature from the 1970s to thepresent, examine the extent to which the original place can be reclaimed with or without renegotiations of "home". GUEST EDITORS: HELEN COUSINS, Reader in Postcolonial Literature at Newman University, Birmingham, UK; PAULINE DODGSON-KATIYO, was formerly Head of English at Newman University, Birmingham, UK, and Dean of the School of Arts at Anglia Ruskin University. Series Editor: Ernest Emenyonu is Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Michigan-Flint, USA. Reviews Editor: Obi Nwakanma
£70.00
James Currey The Road to Soweto: Resistance and the Uprising of 16 June 1976
A new history of the 1976 Soweto Uprising and the events leading to it in the preceding decade, that will transform our understanding of the historical evolution of the struggle against apartheid. This revisionary account of the Soweto Uprising of June 1976 and the decade preceding it transforms our understanding of what led to this crucial flashpoint of South Africa's history. Brown argues that far from there being "quiescence" following the Sharpeville Massacre and the suppression of African opposition movements, during which they went underground, this period was marked by experiments in resistance and attempts to develop new forms of politics that prepared the ground for the Uprising. Students at South Africa's segregated universities began to re-organise themselves as a political force; new ideas about race reinvigorated political thought; debates around confrontation shaped the development of new forms of protest. The protest then began to move off university campuses and onto the streets: through the independent actions of workers in Durban, and attempts by students to link their struggles with a broader agenda. These actions made protest public once again, and helped establish the patterns of popular action and state response that would come to shape the events in Soweto on 16 June 1976. Julian Brown is a Lecturer in the Department of Political Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Southern Africa (South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Swaziland & Botswana): Jacana 'throws new light on the background to the Soweto Uprising, providing insight into white and black student politics, worker protest and broader dissent' - William Beinart, University of Oxford 'an extremely important contribution to the historiography on protest in South Africa. It links black and white student protests (too often studied in isolation from one another) to workers' movements by looking at the changing forms of protest during the 1960s and 1970s, and the apartheid government's changing responses.' - Anne Heffernan, University of the Witwatersrand 'By showing how the Soweto Uprising served as a precursor for later historical and political events, the author convincingly shows the continuity from one from one protest and decade to the next.' - Dawne Curry, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
£63.00