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With this volume, the editors Katharina Edtstadler, Sandra Folie, and Gianna Zocco propose an extension of the traditional conception of imagology as a theory and method for studying the cultural construction and literary representation of national, usually European characters. Consisting of an instructive introduction and 21 articles, the book relates this sub-field of comparative literature to contemporary political developments and enriches it with new interdisciplinary, transnational, intersectional, and intermedial perspectives. The contributions offer [1] a reconsideration and update of the field's methods, genres, and theoretical frames; [2] trans-/post-national, migratory, and marginalized perspectives beyond the European nation-state; [3] insights into geopolitical dichotomies such as Orient/Occident; [4] intersectional approaches considering the entanglements of national images with notions of age, class, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity/race; [5] investigations of the role of national images in visual narratives and music.
Havana's apartment-galleries have been vital venues for the city's art scene since the 1990s, hosting art exhibitions, workshops, and conferences. In the context of Cuba's limited art market and dearth of cultural institutions with international reach, these residential spaces have offered artists a unique opportunity to display their work and to connect with international art circuits. Focusing on the histories of three specific apartment-galleries - El Apartamento, Estudio Figueroa-Vives, and Avecez Art Space - this chapbook reflects on the complex interplay of the local and the global in the 'worlding' of cultural institutions.
In the first half of the 20th century, when architecture and literature dreamed of transparency, glass was the material these dreams were made of. However, the historiography of both fields usually focuses on a few canonical works by male authors to tell the story of this shared fascination. Departing from this imbalance, this essay takes the opportunity to explore the glass culture of modernity through the lens of female projects whose stories often take place simultaneously on different continents. While the former silent film actor Evelyn Word Leigh builds a glass house for herself in Nyack, New York, artists and writers based in Europe – like Claude Cahun, Anaïs Nin, and Hilda 'H.D.' Doolittle – flesh out imaginary glass domes as construction sites of artistic subjectivities. Whether homes or domes, these creative women used glass environments to question and renegotiate their assigned places in Western societies, challenging the boundaries of female agency.
The standard view of the form-meaning interfaces, as embraced by the great majority of contemporary grammatical frameworks, consists in the assumption that meaning can be associated with grammatical form in a one-to-one correspondence. Under this view, composition is quite straightforward, involving concatenation of form, paired with functional application in meaning. In this book, we discuss linguistic phenomena across several grammatical sub-modules (morphology, syntax, semantics) that apparently pose a problem to the standard view, mapping out the potential for deviation from the ideal of one-to-one correspondences, and develop formal accounts of the range of phenomena. We argue that a constraint-based perspective is particularly apt to accommodate deviations from one-to-many correspondences, as it allows us to impose constraints on full structures (such as a complete word or the interpretation of a full sentence) instead of deriving such structures step by step.
Most of the papers in this volume are formulated in a particular constraint-based grammar framework, Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar. The contributions investigate how the lexical and constructional aspects of this theory can be combined to provide an answer to this question across different linguistic sub-theories.
"Ulysses, Dante, and Other Stories" presents a unique form of creative scholarship. It employs Dante's late medieval take on Ulysses and his tragic pursuit of 'virtue and knowledge' as a prism that refracts an ancient myth of journey and return into a modern story of discovery and nostalgia. Working notes, fragments from Ulysses' many stories, personal memories, illuminations, and rewritings combine to form a new chain of narratives about the desire to create, the art of travelling, and the will of self-reinvention.
Through a contrastive comparison between the classic detective Sherlock Holmes and contemporary research agencies such as Forensic Architecture, this paper examines a recent shift in the "evidential paradigm" (Ginzburg). Based on the role that the "evidential paradigm" plays for critical literary and cultural studies, the state-supporting positivism of Sherlock Holmes is distinguished from the state-critical constructivism of Forensic Architecture: Whereas Holmes conceived of the trace as a positive datum, in Forensic Architecture's virtual investigations it becomes an emergent from data. However, this juxtaposition needs to be differentiated when critically examining the "aesthetics of objectivity" (Charlesworth) of the animated videos Forensic Architecture use to present their findings. The essay closes by asking what conclusions can be drawn from the new forms of knowledge generation for the methodology of literary and cultural studies.
This monograph contributes to research in content and language integrated learning (CLIL). Amidst the absence of any educational standards as well as other research deficits, Chapter II sketches a conceptual framework with a competence model for multilingual CLIL classes in the social sciences. It develops a line of argument for the promotion of global discourse competence for democratic participation within a transnational civil society. The subsequent four chapters, comprising one conceptual, one methodological and two empirical contributions, look at different aspects of the conceptual framework. Chapter III defends the developed competence model and further specifies its idea of thought in proposing the construction of multilingual 'cosmopolitan classroom glocalities' for the genesis of 21st century skills. The example of #climonomics, a multilingual EU parliamentary debate about climate change, illustrates its practical realization within school education and exemplifies the contribution to education for sustainable development (ESD) and the value of democratic and participatory learning arrangements. Chapter IV introduces design-based action research (DBAR), the method used in Chapters V & VI. DBAR is a hybrid of action and design-based research and is thereby ideally suited for bridging the gap of theory and practice in educational research. Chapter IV argues for closer cooperation between academics and practitioners, along with pragmatic stakeholder participation by involving students and teachers into research, in a quest for inductively making practical knowledge scientific. Chapter V, more language-biased, draws on the notion of translanguaging and presents the concept of 'trans-foreign-languaging' as a multilingual approach to CLIL with first language (L1) use. During six weeks DBAR, a comprehensive CLIL teaching model with judicious and principled L1 use was designed together with the study group. The model offers affordance-based and differentiated methods for different learner types. Its genesis is reconstructed by a thick description of the natural classroom dynamics. Chapter VI, rather subjectbased, asks about the influence of such bilingual language use on emotions, in particular on the formation of political judgments. It suggests different ways to measure emotions during various natural classroom settings. The chapter concludes that CLIL with L1 use has the potential to engender a perfect equilibrium of emotional and rational learning, integrating emotions into learning and valuing its positive contribution towards appropriate and multilayered political judgments. The concluding Chapter VII binds the previous chapters together and discusses the results. Criteria for the generalization of the results are assessed, and limits demarcated. It highlights the contribution to CLIL research and looks into the future, suggesting further direct classroom interventions, also with the goal to prepare the research field for larger undertakings.
Shigeko Kubota's pioneering video "Sexual Healing" (1998) presents an ambivalent take on her disabled husband Nam June Paik in physical therapy. Accompanied by Marvin Gaye's titular pop song, it considers love, sex, and care in old age within the much-debated field of Fluxus collaborations, and its ideal of working together as equals when fusing life and art. "Worlding Love, Gender, and Care" delves into the four decades of Kubota and Paik's time together, reflects on feminist worlding, and investigates the vital contribution of female Fluxus artists to art history.
An interdisciplinary group of researchers from both Israel and Germany came together in December 2021 to exchange and discuss findings on the effects of the COVID-pandemic on children and older adults in Israel and Germany.This white paper provides a selection of empirical research findings, policy recommenda-tions and identified blind spots for future research with respect to a “linking ages” perspec-tive. The authors emphasize on loneliness in early and late life from a specific social science perspective and based on a selected set of definitions.
Siegfried Kracauer’s texts are a widely investigated field of sociology and media studies. It is less well known that Kracauer was a graduate architect, practised during World War I and was awarded his PhD after writing a thesis in 1915 in the field of architectural history. After the war, Kracauer published numerous critiques with a special focus on the architectural developments of the time. They document an interest in architectural phenomena ranging from a reflection on his own experiences to a general perspective on the subjectivity of the modern architect, as well as more universal social phenomena.
In essence, this essay claims that the lack of ornamentation in modern architecture can be grasped as an ornamental concept of the new social order of capitalism.
Self Study is a genre-bending work of autophilosophy. It opens a rare, rear window into the schizoid position of self-sufficient withdrawal and impassive indifference. This inability to be enriched by outer experiences feeds the relentless suspicion that hell is other people. Laying bare his life and work, Kishik engages with psychoanalysis, philosophy, and cultural inquiry to trace loneliness across the history of thought, leading to today's shut-in society and the autonomous subject of liberal capitalism.
Anarchival practises : the Clanwilliam Arts Project as re-imagining custodianship of the past
(2023)
Where is the past? It is not really behind us, but with us, constantly imagined and re-imagined in public discourse through historical narrations. Using the Clanwilliam Arts Project as a case study, this volume is founded on the 'anarchive', a conceptual constellation that positions the past in relation to the present, bringing into view strategies to facilitate remembering beyond the colonial archive.
Polish-German film relations in the process of building German cultural hegemony in Europe 1933-1939
(2022)
The article presents Polish-German film relations in the framework of Nazis cultural diplomacy between 1933 and 1939. The Nazi effort to create a cultural hegemony through the unification of the European film market under German leadership serves as an important point of reference. On the example of the Polish-German relationship, the article analyses the Nazi “soft power” in terms of both its strength and limits. Describing the broader geopolitical context, the article proposes a new trail in the research on both the film milieus and the cinema culture in Poland in the 1930s. In mythological terms, it belongs to cultural diplomacy and adds simultaneously to film history and New Cinema History.
Acute kidney injury (AKI) is still associated with high morbidity and mortality incidence rates, and also bears an elevated risk of subsequent chronic kidney disease. Although the kidney has a remarkable capacity for regeneration after injury and may recover completely depending on the type of renal lesions, the options for clinical intervention are restricted to fluid management and extracorporeal kidney support. The development of novel therapies to prevent AKI, to improve renal regeneration capacity after AKI, and to preserve renal function is urgently needed. The Special Issue covers research articles that investigated the molecular mechanisms of inflammation and injury during different renal pathologies, renal regeneration, diagnostics using new biomarkers, and the effects of different stimuli like medication or bacterial components on isolated renal cells or in vivo models. The Special Issue contains important reviews that consider the current knowledge of cell death and regeneration, inflammation, and the molecular mechanisms of kidney diseases. In addition, the potential of cell-based therapy approaches that use mesenchymal stromal/stem cells or their derivates is summarized. This edition is complemented by reviews that deal with the current data situation on other specific topics like diabetes and diabetic nephropathy or new therapeutic targets.
The policy review is part of the project EQualCare: Alone but connected? Digital (in)equalities in care work and generational relationships among older people living alone, a three-year international project involving four countries: Finland, Germany, Latvia and Sweden. EQualCare interrogates inequalities by gender, cultural and socio-economic background between countries, with their different demographics and policy backgrounds. As a first step into empirical analysis, the policy review aims to set the stage for a better understanding of, and policy development on, the intersections of digitalisation with intergenerational care work and care relationships of older people living alone in Germany.
The policy review follows a critical approach, in which the problems policy documents address are not considered objective entities, but rather discursively produced knowledge that renders visible some parts of the problem which is to be solved as other possible perspectives are simultaneously excluded. Twenty publicly available documents were studied to analyse the processes in which definitions of care work and digital (in)equalities are circulated, translated and negotiated between the different levels of national government, regional governments and municipalities as well as other agencies in Germany.
The policy review consists of two parts: a background chapter providing information on the social structure of Germany, including the historical development of Germany after the Second World War, its political structure, information on the demographic situation with a focus on the 60+ age group, and the income of this age group. In addition, the background presents the structure of work and welfare, the organisation of care for old people, and the state of digitalisation in Germany. The analysis chapter includes a description of the method used as well as an overview of the documents chosen and analysed. The focus of this chapter is on the analysis of official documents that deal with the interplay of living alone in old age, care, and digitalisation.
The analysis identified four themes: firstly, ageing is framed largely as a challenge to society, whereas digitalisation is framed as a potential way to tackle social challenges, such as an ageing society. Secondly, challenges of ageing, such as need of care, are set at the individual level, requiring people to organise their care within their own families and immediate social networks, with state support following a principle of subsidiarity. Thirdly, voluntary peer support provides the basis for addressing digital support needs and strategies. Publications by lobby organisations highlight the important work done by voluntary peer support for digital training and the benefits this approach has; they also draw attention to the over-reliance on this form of unpaid support and call for an increase in professional support in ensuring all older people are supported in digital life. Fourthly, ageing as a hinderance to participation in digital life is seen as an interim challenge among younger old people already online.
In summary, the analysis shows that the connection between ageing and digitalisation remains a marginal topic in current politics. The focus on older people merely as a potential group at risk of being left behind implies a deficit perspective on ageing and a homogenising of a large and diverse age group. Lessons learnt from the pandemic should not be interpreted in a one-sided way, by merely acknowledging the increasing number of (older) people moving online, but by acknowledging intersecting inequalities that mitigate social participation.
The metaphor of DIADEM informs the way in which Proverbs depicts the character of a woman of strength and her place in the society. The metaphor serves the Proverbs to conceptualise a prudent, virtuous and reasonable character in relation to the divine and the human, and thus to provide the main support of a successful life.
When taking into consideration the demographic and socio-economic trends in most European countries, the demand for domestic services will be increasing in the next decades. This development could be used for creating formal employment opportunities in private households for unskilled and low-skilled labour. However, it is not an easy task since it entails devising a strategy for reducing the high share of informal labour in as well as overcoming the current fragmentation of the domestic services sector. Both on the national and EU level there is a need for policy advice on how to best integrate the diverse but yet interrelated needs and interests of the households, the employees and the firms as providers of domestic services into one coherent strategy. So far, such a comprehensive strategy can be found only in France where the BorlooPlan systematically integrated measures and tools from all relevant fields of politics. Thus it led to a significant growth of the domestic services sector and a substantial increase of formal employment. This brochure presents the Generalised Model, a tool for devising a similarly comprehensive and coherent strategy. It was constructed by drawing on the successful French strategy of creating more formal employment relationships through the systematic development of the domestic services sector. The brochure demonstrates how other countries can learn from the French experience by analysing their current situation and using the Generalised Model to create a strategy fitting their specific circumstances. By studying the situations in Germany, Austria, Italy and Poland and considering how to create strategies fitting the different national settings in these countries it is shown how the Generalised Model can put into practice. These case studies were conducted in the EU Project “Labour Market Instruments for Reducing Illegal Employment in Private Households of the Elderly”, supported by DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion. The brochure intends to initiate and stimulate discourses on fostering the creation of formal employment in EU Member States. Therefore, it addresses different stakeholders such as policymakers on the national, regional and EU level, representatives of local administrations, providers of domestic services, domestic workers, trade unions or welfare associations, labour administration, placement services as well as providers of education and training.
The russian experiment
(1931)
The increasing digitization of the world of work is associated with accelerated structural changes. These are connected with changed qualification profiles and thus new challenges for vocational education and training (VET). Companies, vocational schools and other educational institutions must respond appropriately. The volume focuses on the diverse demands placed on teachers, learners and educational institutions in vocational education and training and aims to provide up-to-date results on learning in the digital age.
Guide to active recruiting : attract more female faculty increase diversity – optimize quality
(2018)
This is a story about a house with a history and about the people who lived or worked there. It captures something of the spirit of the times in the worlds of politics and development, and it discusses the links which were established between Oxfam GB in Zambia and the African National Congress of South Africa.
This collection of articles is based on presentations and discussions at the 2018 African Potentials Forum, held in Accra, Ghana. This forum was a part of the African Potentials Project, which aims to clarify the latent problem-solving abilities, ways of thinking, and institutions that have been created, accumulated, unified, and deployed in the everyday experiences of Africans. The notion of Africas latent power/potential is not related to romanticisation of the traditional knowledge of African society and its institutions as fixed, essentialised magic wands. This notion also raises objections against political dogmas that seek to smoke out and eliminate thought and values originating in Western modernity. The keyword of the Accra Forum was futurity. Africas future is laden with possibilities, latent power, and potential. It is bright and hopeful but, simultaneously, bleak and thought-provoking. For nascent democracies and economically challenged communities, the value of this potential lies not in its static qualities but in how these qualities can be harnessed and translated into beneficial practical outcomes. As a concept, potential connotes a time to come; a futurity that is full of known and unknown possibilities, challenges, and opportunities.
Selena Axelrod Winsnes has been engaged, since 1982, in the translation into English, and editing of Danish language sources to West African history, sources published from 1697 to 1822, the period during which Denmark-Norway was an actor in the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Five major books have been published. They describe all aspects of life on the Gold Coast [Ghana], the Middle Passage and the Danish Caribbean islands [US Virgin Islands], as seen by five different men. Each had his own agenda and mind-set, and the books, both singly and combined, hold a wealth of information - of interest both to scholars and lay readers. They provide important insights into the cultural baggage the enslaved Africans carried with them to the America's. One of the books, L.F. Rømer's 'A Reliable Account of the Coast of Guinea' was runner-up for the prestigious International Texts Prize awarded by the U.S. African Studies Association.
Selena Axelrod Winsnes has been engaged, since 1982, in the translation into English, and editing of Danish language sources to West African history, sources published from 1697 to 1822, the period during which Denmark-Norway was an actor in the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Five major books have been published. They describe all aspects of life on the Gold Coast [Ghana], the Middle Passage and the Danish Caribbean islands [US Virgin Islands], as seen by five different men. Each had his own agenda and mind-set, and the books, both singly and combined, hold a wealth of information - of interest both to scholars and lay readers. They provide important insights into the cultural baggage the enslaved Africans carried with them to the America's. One of the books, L.F. Rømer's 'A Reliable Account of the Coast of Guinea' was runner-up for the prestigious International Texts Prize awarded by the U.S. African Studies Association.
Knowledge for justice : critical perspectives from southern african-nordic research partnerships
(2017)
With the adoption of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement, the purpose of development is being redefined in both social and environmental terms. Despite pushback from conservative forces, change is accelerating in many sectors. To drive this transformation in ways that bring about social, environmental and economic justice at a local, national, regional and global levels, new knowledge and strong cross-regional networks capable of foregrounding different realities, needs and agendas will be essential. In fact, the power of knowledge matters today in ways that humanity has probably never experienced before, placing an emphasis on the roles of research, academics and universities. In this collection, an international diverse collection of scholars from the southern African and Nordic regions critically review the SDGs in relation to their own areas of expertise, while placing the process of knowledge production in the spotlight. In Part I, the contributors provide a sober assessment of the obstacles that neo-liberal hegemony presents to substantive transformation. In Part Two, lessons learned from NorthSouth research collaborations and academic exchanges are assessed in terms of their potential to offer real alternatives. In Part III, a set of case studies supply clear and nuanced analyses of the scale of the challenges faced in ensuring that no one is left behind. This accessible and absorbing collection will be of interest to anyone interested in NorthSouth research networks and in the contemporary debates on the role of knowledge production. The Southern AfricanNordic Centre (SANORD) is a network of higher education institutions that stretches across Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Botswana, Namibia, Malawi, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Universities in the southern African and Nordic regions that are not yet members are encouraged to join.
After troy
(2021)
after troy, Taban lo Liyong's booklength poem, is an expansive and engaging elaboration of two classical Greek texts, Homer's Odyssey and Aeschylus's Oresteia. Its focus is the homecoming from the Trojan war of two hero-kings, Odysseus and Agamemnon. Lo Liyong recreates their thoughts and speech, adding dialogue from other characters, most of them women, who are not given a voice in the original stories. after troy is also a philosophical enquiry into retribution and justice.
Covid stories from East Africa and beyond : lived experiences and forward-looking reflections
(2020)
The coronavirus has rattled humanity, tested resolve and determination, and redefined normalcy. This compelling collection of 29 short stories and essays brings together the lived experiences of covid19 through a diversity of voices from across the African continent. The stories highlight challenges, new opportunities, and ultimately the deep resilience of Africans and their communities. Bringing into conversation the perspectives of laypeople, academics, professionals, domestic workers, youth, and children, the volume is a window into the myriad ways in which people have confronted, adapted to, and sought to tackle the coronavirus and its trail of problems. The experiences of the most vulnerable are specifically explored, and systemic changes and preliminary shifts towards a new global order are addressed. Laughter as a coping mechanism is a thread throughout.
Another collection of exciting stories, articles and poems by young South Africans. We hope you will enjoy them so much that you #Can't StopReading. All of these pieces have been read and enjoyed by thousands of readers on FunDza's online library. Each piece also has discussion and writing activities for reading clubs and classes.
At Independence in 1980, Julius Nyerere called Zimbabwe 'the jewel of Africa', and cautioned its new leaders not to tarnish it. Tragically, they paid no heed to Africa's esteemed elder statesmen. Arguably - and only if one ignores the carnage of Gukurahundi - the first decade was a developmental one, with resources being used prudently to benefit the formerly disadvantaged majority population. However, the 1990s witnessed a transition from a developmental to a predatory leadership which saw Zimbabwe cross the millennial line in crisis, where it has remained ever since. While many African countries have moved forward over the last three decades, Zimbabwe has gone relentlessly backwards, save for the four-year interregnum of the tripartite coalition government, 2009-2013. Virtually all development indicators point in the wrong direction and the crisis of poverty, unemployment, and the erosion of health. education and other public goods continues unabated. The imperatives of political survival and power politics supersede those of sound economics and public welfare. Moreover, unless good politics are conjoined with a sound people-first policy, the country will continue sliding downhill. Zimbabwe's Trajectory tells the story of the country's post-independence dynamics and its recent descent into becoming one of the three most unhappy countries in the world.
A Brutal State of Affairs analyses the transition from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe and challenges Rhodesian mythology. The story of the BSAP, where white and black officers were forced into a situation not of their own making, is critically examined. The liberation war in Rhodesia might never have happened but for the ascendency of the Rhodesian Front, prevailing racist attitudes, and the rise of white nationalists who thought their cause just. Blinded by nationalist fervour and the reassuring words of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and army commanders, the Smith government disregarded the advice of its intelligence services to reach a settlement before it was too late. By 1979, the Rhodesians were staring into the abyss, and the war was drawing to a close. Salisbury was virtually encircled, and guerrilla numbers continued to grow. A Brutal State of Affairs examines the Rhodesian legacy, the remarkable parallels of history, and suggests that Smith's Rhodesian template for rule has, in many instances, been assiduously applied by Mugabe and his successors.
Over the past fifteen years, Weaver Press has published seven anthologies of some one hundred short stories giving voice to new and established Zimbabwean writers. In Windows into Zimbabwe Franziska Kramer and Jürgen Kramer have selected from these anthologies twenty-three stories, which they consider the best or most representative of a particular period in the Zimbabwean narrative since 1980. They present the stories within sections which frame certain themes such as Independence, Gukurahundi, Land, Gender Relations, Money Matters, Social Relations, Exile and Resilience. For the general reader, Windows into Zimbabwe contains some wonderful stories rich in insight, perception, nuance and humour. Writers such as Charles Mungoshi, Petina Gappah, NoViolet Bulawayo, Valerie Tagwira and Shimmer Chinodya are included as well as relative newcomers with new perceptions and fresh voices. The compilers have also provided an introductory overview casting light on the relationship between fiction and society; and for teachers(in schools, colleges and universities) each story is accompanied by explanatory notes, questions and study tasks to further the reader's understanding. Windows into Zimbabwe will positively deepen your appreciation of the country and its people.
The water cycle
(2018)
The Water Cycle is tremendously scenic and realistic in depiction of the plight of the African child in the midst of clash of Western and African cultures. This novel presents a captivating rendition of a clash of cultures and is a well-woven, heart rending tragedy of a man at the crossroads of two cultures.
As the Chinese economy continues to grow, increased commercial engagement with Africa will offer the continent new and rewarding prospects for trade, investment and economic development. The challenge is for Africa to grasp these opportunities and take full advantage of China's friendship and willingness to co-operate. The Forum on China-Africa Co-operation (FOCAC) provides a mechanism for all-inclusive diplomatic consultation to advance China Africa co-operation and to effectively manage expanding economic inter-dependence. FOCAC is a political arena for developing Sino-African co-operation and problem solving. FOCAC also provides an important framework for developing a common development agenda. Given new global trends towards antiglobalisation, FOCAC's importance is expected to increase in the years ahead. This book seeks to strengthen the China-Africa relationship and offer new suggestions for both policy makers and scholars seeking to understand and advance FOCAC for mutual benefit. FOCAC holds the key to Africa's development and long-term prosperity. The new policy initiatives and proposals outlined in this study make a very valuable contribution to strengthening FOCAC and advancing Africa's economic development.
The stone ruins of the Nyanga area of eastern Zimbabwe have aroused much interest since they were first reported to the outside world at the end of the 19th century. Early fanciful speculations about their meaning have slowly given way to better understanding based on archaeological research, most recently by the University of Zimbabwe in co-operation with the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe and the British Institute in Eastern Africa. The ruins represent the remains of family homesteads and extensive stone-built agricultural terraces. Successive stages of development have been traced, starting with settlements on some of the highest peaks around AD 1300 and expanding gradually for five centuries to cover an area of over 5000 square kilometres. These stages show how the farming community adapted to and exploited the opportunities offered by the varied environments of the Nyanga highlands and lowlands to develop a specialised agricultural system integrating cultivation and livestock. In this book, Robert Soper sets out the accumulated knowledge and understanding of the old Nyanga society, in particular the significance of its agricultural works to which the landscape bears eloquent witness.
Phenomenology of decolonizing the university : essays in the contemporary thoughts of afrikology
(2019)
The epistemic Eurocentric boarders, expand towards the global south, they dehumanise and obliterate existing forms of thinking through colonialism and coloniality. In doing so, the global south has lost the sense of being self, Africans have become non-thinking objects. This has led to a series of ceaseless conflicts, poor leadership, and developmental crisis and provides fertile ground for Eurocentric superiority. This book Phenomenology of Decolonizing the University: Essays in the Contemporary Thoughts of Afrikology is a diagnosis of the problems of the mind in the global south and provides solutions in the decolonisatiom of the mind such as humanising the university, the rewriting of African stories and facilitates an epistemic rebellion.
Women, visibility and morality in Kenyan popular media explores familiar constructions of femininity to assess ways in which it circulates in discourse, both stereotypically and otherwise. It assesses the meanings of such discourses and their articulations in various public platforms in Kenya. The book draws together theoretical questions on 'pre-convened' scripts that contain or condition how women can circulate in public. The book asks questions about particular interpretations of women's bodies that are considered transgressive or unruly and why these bodies become significant symbolic sites for the generation of knowledge on morality and sexuality. The book also poses questions about genre and representations of femininity. The assertion made is that for knowledges of femininity to circulate effectively, they must be melodramatic, spectacular and scandalous. Ultimately, the book asks how such a theorisation of popular modes of representation enable a better understanding of the connections between gender, sexuality and violence in Kenya.
Hollywood and Africa - recycling the 'Dark Continent' myth from 1908-2020 is a study of over a century of stereotypical Hollywood film productions about Africa. It argues that the myth of the Dark Continent continues to influence Western cultural productions about Africa as a cognitive-based system of knowledge, especially in history, literature and film. Hollywood and Africa identifies the 'colonial mastertext' of the Dark Continent mythos by providing a historiographic genealogy and context for the term's development and consolidation. An array of literary and paraliterary film adaptation theories are employed to analyse the deep genetic strands of Hollywood Africa film adaptations. The mutations of the Dark Continent mythos across time and space are then tracked through the classical, neoclassical and new wave Hollywood Africa phases in order to illustrate how Hollywood productions about Africa recycle, revise, reframe, reinforce, transpose, interrogate - and even critique - these tropes of Darkest Africa while sustaining the colonial mastertext and rising cyberactivism against Hollywood's whitewashing of African history.
Recently, the salient idea of personhood in the tradition of African philosophy has been objected to on various grounds. Two such objections stand out - the book deals with a lot more. The first criticism is that the idea of personhood is patriarchal insofar as it elevates the status of men and marginalises women in society. The second criticism observes that the idea of personhood is characterised by speciesism. The essence of these concerns is that personhood fails to embody a robust moral-political view. African Personhood and Applied Ethics offers a philosophical explication of the ethics of personhood to give reasons why we should take it seriously as an African moral perspective that can contribute to global moral-political issues. The book points to the two facets that constitute the ethics of personhood - an account of (1) moral perfection and (2) dignity. It then draws on the under-explored view of dignity qua the capacity for sympathy inherent in the moral idea of personhood to offer a unified account of selected themes in applied ethics, specifically women, animal and development.
To understand the policy environment within which refugees establish and operate their enterprises in South Africa's informal sector, this report brings together two streams of policy analysis. The first concerns the changing refugee policies and the erosion of the progressive approach that characterized the immediate post-apartheid period. The second concerns the informal sector policy, which oscillates between tolerance and attempted destruction at national and municipal levels. While there have been longstanding tensions between foreign and South African informal sector operators, an overtly anti-foreign migrant sentiment has increasingly been expressed in official policy and practice. This report describes the strategies being used to turn South Africa into an undesirable destination for refugees, including the setting up of additional procedural, administrative and logistical hurdles; the undercutting of court judgments affirming the right of asylum-seekers and refugees to employment and self-employment; ensuring that protection is always temporary by making it extremely difficult for refugees to progress to permanent residence and eventual citizenship; and restricting opportunities to pursue a livelihood in the informal sector. The authors conclude that the protection of refugee rights is likely to continue to depend on a cohort of non-governmental organizations prioritizing migrant livelihood rights and being willing and able to pursue time-consuming and costly litigation on their behalf.
Bheki Mseleku is widely considered one of the most accomplished jazz musicians to have emerged from South Africa. His music has a profound significance in recalling and giving emphasis to that aspect of the African American jazz tradition originating in the rhythms and melodies of Africa. The influences of Zulu traditional music, South African township, classical music and American jazz are clearly evident and combine to create an exquisite and particularly lyrical style, evoking a sense of purity and peace that embraces the spiritual healing quality central to his musical inspiration. The Musical Artistry of Bheki Mseleku is an in-depth study of his musical style and includes annotated transcriptions and analysis of a selection of compositions and improvisations from his most acclaimed albums including 'Celebration', 'Timelessness', 'Star Seeding', 'Beauty of Sunrise' and 'Home at Last'. Mseleku recorded with several American jazz greats including Ravi Coltrane, Joe Henderson, Pharoah Sanders, Charlie Haden, Billy Higgins and Abbey Lincoln. His music serves as a vital link to the African-American musical art form that inspired many of the South African jazz legends.
Why do we need to communicate science? Is science, with its highly specialised language and its arcane methods, too distant to be understood by the public? Is it really possible for citizens to participate meaningfully in scientific research projects and debate? Should scientists be mandated to engage with the public to facilitate better understanding of science? How can they best communicate their special knowledge to be intelligible? These and a plethora of related questions are being raised by researchers and politicians alike as they have become convinced that science and society need to draw nearer to one another. Once the persuasion took hold that science should open up to the public and these questions were raised, it became clear that coming up with satisfactory answers would be a complex challenge. The inaccessibility of scientific language and methods, due to ever increasing specialisation, is at the base of its very success. Thus, translating specialised knowledge to become understandable, interesting and relevant to various publics creates particular perils. This is exacerbated by the ongoing disruption of the public discourse through the digitisation of communication platforms. For example, the availability of medical knowledge on the internet and the immense opportunities to inform oneself about health risks via social media are undermined by the manipulable nature of this technology that does not allow its users to distinguish between credible content and misinformation. In countries around the world, scientists, policy-makers and the public have high hopes for science communication: that it may elevate its populations educationally, that it may raise the level of sound decision-making for people in their daily lives, and that it may contribute to innovation and economic well-being. This collection of current reflections gives an insight into the issues that have to be addressed by research to reach these noble goals, for South Africa and by South Africans in particular.
Modern-day science is under great pressure. A potent mix of increasing expectations, limited resources, tensions between competition and cooperation, and the need for evidence-based funding is creating major change in how science is conducted and perceived. Amidst this 'perfect storm' is the allure of 'research excellence', a concept that drives decisions made by universities and funders, and defines scientists' research strategies and career trajectories. But what is 'excellent' science? And how to recognise it? After decades of inquiry and debate there is still no satisfactory answer. Are we asking the wrong question? Is reality more complex, and 'excellence in science' more elusive, than many are willing to admit? And how should excellence be defined in different parts of the world, particularly in lower-income countries of the 'Global South' where science is expected to contribute to pressing development issues, despite often scarce resources? Many wonder whether the Global South is importing, with or without consenting, the flawed tools for research evaluation from North America and Europe that are not fit for purpose. This book takes a critical view of these issues, touching on conceptual issues and practical problems that inevitably emerge when 'excellence' is at the center of science systems. Emerging from the capacity-building work of the Science Granting Councils Initiative in sub-Saharan Africa, it speaks to scholars, as well as to managers and funders of research around the world. Confronting sticky problems and uncomfortable truths, the chapters contain insights and recommendations that point towards new solutions - both for the Global South and the Global North.
Reflections of South African Student Leaders 1994-2017 brings together the reflections of twelve former SRC leaders from across the landscape of South African universities. Reviews of the previous volume, 1981-2014 suggested that it contributed significantly to a better understanding of the stringent demands of visionary and transformative leadership required by university leaders in the fastchanging and increasingly complex public higher education sector. This volume is based on comprehensive interviews with former student leaders, each of whom provided a personal account in their own words of their experience in the position of student leadership. The interviewees are from different backgrounds and of diverse political persuasions. The book is important for current and future leaders of higher education institutions as it provides insights into the thinking, aspirations, desires, fears and modus operandi of student leaders. Such insight can contribute to developing and implementing appropriate strategies for achieving meaningful and constructive engagement with current and future student leaders.
This monograph focuses on Gnokholo, a precolonial province of Senegal that has long been landlocked because of its eastern position and inhabited by Mandingoans. The decline of the Malian empire in the 15th century has been confined to a situation of geographical marginality in the foothills of the mountains Of the Fouta Djalon. This book reconstructs the geography, history, economy, culture and social structures of the pre-colonial Gnokholo Kingdom. It fills a deficit insofar as social studies have neglected these populations considered as part of a minority culture. Written in a simple and clear style, this book is in keeping with the tradition of the work of Father Boilat. It is an anthropological collection of a body of knowledge revealing various aspects of the country and the inhabitants of the Gnokholo.
The slave trade, the conquest of the Americas and the invasion of Africa have deeply transformed the relations between Europeans and other groups. The jump from difference to superiority and racial hierarchy was so swift that it led to the moral collapse of Europe and North America. By shifting the devaluation of so-called 'inferior' beings from non-Whites to non-Aryans, Nazism committed the unforgivable crime of bringing into the heart of the European world a ferocity up to then reserved for other continents. In this book, White Ferocity: The Genocides of Non-Whites and Non-Aryans from 1492 to Date, Plumelle-Uribe investigates and demonstrates, with harrowing evidence and analyses, how Europeans justified the destruction of other peoples as unavoidable based on the officially declared belief of others being inferior.
Mary Elizabeth Barber (1818-1899), born in Britain, arrived in the Cape Colony in 1820 where she spent the rest of her life as a rolling stone, as she lived in and near Grahamstown, the diamond and gold fields, Pietermaritzburg, Malvern near Durban and on various farms in the eastern part of the Cape Colony. She has been perceived as 'the most advanced woman of her time', yet her legacy has attracted relatively little attention. She was the first woman ornithologist in South Africa, one of the first who propagated Darwin's theory of evolution, an early archaeologist, keen botanist and interested lepidopterist. In her scientific writing, she propagated a new gender order; positioned herself as a feminist avant la lettre without relying on difference models and at the same time made use of genuinely racist argumentation. This is the first publication of her edited scientific correspondence. The letters - transcribed by Alan Cohen, who has written a number of biographical articles on Barber and her brothers - are primarily addressed to the entomologist Roland Trimen, the director of the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, London. Today, the letters are housed at the Royal Entomological Society in St Albans. This book also includes a critical introduction by historian Tanja Hammel who has published a number of articles and is about to publish a monograph on Mary Elizabeth Barber.
Why does Namibia's economy look the way it does today? Was the reliance on raw materials for exports and on the service sector for employment an inevitability? And for what reasons has the manufacturing sector - the vehicle for economic development for many now-high income countries throughout the 19th and 20th centuries - seen its growth held back? With these questions in mind, this book offers an extensive analysis of industrial development and economic change in Namibia since 1900, exploring their causes, trajectory, vicissitudes, context, and politics. Its focus is particularly on the motivations behind the economic decisions of the state, arguing that power relations - both internationally and domestically - have held firm a status quo that has resisted efforts towards profound economic change. This work is the first in-depth economic study covering both the colonial and independence eras of Namibia's history and provides the first history of the country's manufacturing sector.
The papers here were selected from presentations made at the 24th Annual Conference of the Linguistic Association of Nigeria (LAN) which held at Bayero University Kano. The book contains seventy-seven (77) papers addressing various issues in linguistics, literature and cultures in Nigeria. The book is organized into four sections, as follows: Section One - Language and Society; Section Two - Applied Linguistics; Section Three - Literature, Culture, Stylistics and Gender Studies and Section Four - Formal Linguistics.
This book contains the 9th Inaugural Lecture Series 2018 of the University of Lagos, Nigeria, delivered by Dafe Otobo on 4 July 2018. According to Professor Otobo, this is a small part in the on-going attempt at placing state policies, organisational, managerial and workers practices in Nigeria, if not Africa and elsewhere, into truer perspective. Aside from updating trade unionism and related developments in Nigeria, it is easily a thought-provoking and thorough-going critique of dominant received theories on labour and employment relations.
This book examines women's participation in the executive structures of the Basel Mission and Presbyterian Church in Cameroon in order to tell a new story of women and church leadership. In 1886, the Basel Mission commenced mission work in Cameroon and successfully established an indigenous church which gained independence in 1957 as Presbyterian Church in Cameroon (PCC). In both churches, women were underrepresented in the echelons of power owing to entrenched patriarchy and recourse to controversial empowerment. Female missionaries to Cameroon trained women in fields like motherhood, domestic science and marriage, which yielded little or no opportunities for local women to participate in the power structures of the Basel Mission. This patriarchal culture was handed down to the PCC, whose initial all-male authority ensured that the power structure was all-male. But growing feminism within the church and pressure from international ecumenical partners led to timid gender reforms which ended women's exclusion from the ordained ministry, promoted female eldership, led to the establishment of a convent, and the adoption of a gender inclusive policy. But women's dearth in positions of leadership persisted, with most executive structures filled by men. So, this book tells the story of women's involvement in the executive structures of the Basel Mission and Presbyterian Church in Cameroon. It is the first effort at a holistic approach to interpreting women's lack of power in these two churches. Based upon archival research and oral sources, the book tells the story of the people, forces and events that led to the consistent underrepresentation of women in the churches' echelons of power. The lived realities of women who challenged patriarchy and held leadership positions in the church are illuminated. It documents the reality of women's lack of power, with particular focus on the dilemmas of female pastors, elders, nuns, and female Christian groups.
Placing security studies in the context of contemporary discourses about the colonial comeback and posthumanism, this book postulates the notion of staticide which avers that the effacement of African state sovereignty is crucial for the security of the oncoming empire. Understood in the light of posthumanism, antihumanism, animism, postanthropocentrism and transhumanism; African human security has evidently been put on a recession course together with African state security. Much as African states are demonised as so failed, defective, corrupt, weak and rogue to require recolonisation; transhumanism also assumes that human bodies are so corrupt, imperfect, defective, failed, rogue and weak to require not only enhancements or augmentation but also to beckon recolonisation. Also, deemed to be ecologies, human bodies are set to be liberalised and democratised in the interest of nonhuman viruses, nanobots, microchips, bacteria, fungi and other pathogens living within the bodies. The book critically examines the security implications of theorising human bodies as ecologies for nonhuman entities. Reading staticide together with transhumanism, this book foresees transhumanist new eugenics that are accompanying the new empire in a supposedly Anthropocene world that serves to justify the sacrifice and disposability of some surplus humans living in the recesses and nether regions of the empire. Paying attention to the colonial comeback, the book urges African scholars not to mistake imperial transformation for decolonisation. The book is invaluable for scholars and activists in African studies, anthropology, decoloniality, sociology, politics, development studies, security studies, sociology and anthropology of science and technology studies, and environmental studies.
This volume brings together seven empirically grounded contributions by African social scientists of different disciplinary backgrounds. The authors explore the social impact of religious innovation and competition in present day Africa. They represent a selection from an interdisciplinary initiative that made 23 research grants for theologians and social scientists to study Christianity and social change in contemporary Africa. These contributions focus on a variety of dynamics in contemporary African religion (mostly Christianity), including gender, health and healing, social media, entrepreneurship, and inter-religious borrowing and accommodation. The volume seeks to enhance understanding of religion's vital presence and power in contemporary Africa. It reveals problems as well as possibilities, notably some ethical concerns and psychological maladies that arise in some of these new movements, notably neo-Pentecostal and militant fundamentalist groups. Yet the contributions do not fixate on African problems and victimization. Instead, they explore sources of African creativity, resiliency and agency. The book calls on scholars of religion and religiosity in Africa to invest new conceptual and methodological energy in understanding what it means to be actively religious in Africa today.
Dialogues in climate and environmental research, policy and planning : a special focus on Zimbabwe
(2020)
Climate change is the topic of the century. It is a subject of discussion by sceptics, heretics and those that have immersed in it as a serious debate for engagement. In this volume, the matter is localised to the plateau bordered by the great rivers of Limpopo to the south and Zambezi to the north. Evidence has it that climate change is inducing immense environmental change hitherto unknown including water stress and droughts, heat waves and flooding. The effects span across all sectors agriculture, forestry, engineering, construction and other socio-economic dimensions of life. When an issue becomes such topical, it becomes political but also courts policy debate. The thrust of this volume is to explore into climate change as an environmental concern begging government attention and requiring prioritisation as a shaper of our future, whether we set to put mitigation or adaptation measures in place, or we choose to do nothing about it, as sceptics would perhaps suggest. The book explores climate change as a theoretical, policy, technical and practical debate as it affects sectors and rural and urban spatialities in Zimbabwe. Contributions explore such themes as regional research, gender, disaster preparedness, policymaking, resilience, governance, urban planning, risk management, environmental law, and the food-water-health-energy-climate change nexus.
This provocative book on The Future of Africa addresses fundamental genealogical developmental challenges of vital concern to Africa's transformation is premised on the orientation that the continent's future is up to Africans, cognizant of the fact that Africans cohabit the same diversified and inter-connected planet with others. The issues addressed include: political, economic, social and technological reconstruction of Africa, the richest but the least developed part of the world; the need to fight the pandemic of inequality and social injustice; chronic corruption; the urgent need to usher the rule of law and of putting in place strategies addressing abject poverty; the empowerment of the female gender and youths; the comprehensive development and proper utilisation of indigenous knowledge systems in partnership with modern science and technology to energize infrastructural development and the industrialisation prowess of the continent. The book unveils vast inadequacies that need to be rectified to give the continent a new face uplift. It is a comprehensive, Afro-centric cross-cutting edge publication that structurally examines outstanding issues plaguing Africa as it advances critical priority policy proposals for the future of the continent. Policymakers, students, organisations and institutions will find the book indispensable for the sustainable transformation of the continent. The underlying message is 'development with a human face' and without leaving anyone behind.
From Plough to Entrepreneurship is motivated largely by the fact that Africans were deprived of economic and political autonomy by white government in South Africa. This marginalisation lies in the complex and interconnected processes of displacement and dispossession by which Africans were first dispossessed of their own land; then deprived of independent productive opportunities. The increasing scarcity of land as scarce commodity and African land ownership in Evaton, best explains the history of African local economic independence. For the local residents, land possession in Evaton provided a space where a moral economy that fostered racial pride and solidarity was forged. This richly sourced monograph develops the logical explanation that sticks together all forces that constrained Africans to give up labour to an industrial economy in Evaton. It provides the reader and student of racialised inequalities in South Africa with an understanding steeped in historical ethnography on how local Africans struggled for economic independence, and how whatever independence their struggles yielded, changed over time in Evaton.
Positing the notions of coloniality of ignorance and geopolitics of ignorance as central to coloniality and colonisation, this book examines how colonialists socially produced ignorance among colonised indigenous peoples so as to render them docile and manageable. Dismissing colonial descriptions of indigenous people as savages, illiterate, irrational, prelogical, mystical, primitive, barbaric and backward, the book argues that imperialists/colonialists contrived geopolitics of ignorance wherein indigenous regions were forced to become ignorant, hence containable and manageable in the imperial world. Questioning the provenance of modernist epistemologies, the book asks why Eurocentric scholars only contest the provenance of indigenous knowledges, artefacts and scientific collections. Interrogating why empire sponsors the decolonisation of universities/epistemologies in indigenous territories while resisting the repatriation/restitution of indigenous artefacts, the book also wonders why Westerners who still retain indigenous artefacts, skulls and skeletons in their museums, universities and private collections do not consider such artefacts and skulls to be colonising them as well. The book is valuable to scholars and activists in the fields of anthropology, museums and heritage studies, science and technology studies, decoloniality, policymaking, education, politics, sociology and development studies.
Child of earth
(2010)
Child of Earth is the story of Achu, a young African boy who loses his mother when he is still a baby. He is raised by his father in a household teeming with wives and children. Then the father dies and the task of raising Achu devolves on his aunt, his father's sister, who is married to one of the richest and most powerful men in the country. But the aunt is jealous because Achu is doing better in school than her own children . . .
Intimate strangers
(2010)
Intimate Strangers tells the story of the everyday tensions of maids and madams in ways that bring together different worlds and explore various dimensions of servitude and mobility. Immaculate travels to a foreign land only to find her fiancé refusing to marry her. Operating from the margins of society, through her own ingenuity and an encounter with researcher Dr Winter-Bottom Nanny, she is able to earn some money. Will she remain at the margins or graduate into DUST - Diamond University of Science and Technology? Immaculate learns how maids struggle to make ends meet and madams wrestle to keep them in their employ. Resolved to make her disappointments blessings, she perseveres until she can take no more.
Les murmures de l'harmattan
(2010)
The author of Harmattan Whispers reproduces life in such a harmonic order enveloped with dreams carefully filtered and balanced. As a keen observer of his society, he describes with passionate fervour movements that give existence its density. Emmanuel Matateyou in this poetic cocktail of his takes the reader through an African society where Harmattan, this North East trade wind, destroys as it sweeps along the ugly, the vicissitudes and the shredded pieces of life to leave place to a new kind of drunken quest. In the flux of his words and imagery, he gives life to dreams, fantasies and the Utopian visions of this lover of life, all of which are brought to the limelight through poetically revealing correspondences all rooted in passion and hope.
This is a very engaging book based on compelling stories of human triumph over adversity coming out of Africa, Asia and America. Gideon's personal journey and his account of his mother and uncle in this book exemplify what it means to be truly resilient. The book is moving, well thought out and masterfully structured, a most riveting Read. Gideon For-mukwai draws on local wisdoms from his native Cameroon to tell a universal story. It is a book written in evidence of a mind in tune with the heart. Its stories, strategies, and metaphors provide incredible wisdom relevant to any society and explicitly remind readers that our circumstances may be different, but the strategies to overcome are the same. If a widow can make a legendary success story in Africa, then almost anybody can. What makes this book special is the fact that it is based on the stories of modest human beings.
Konglanjo : (Spears of Love without Ill-fortune) and Letters to Ethiopia with Some Random Poems
(2010)
This collection of poems evolves as a network and satellite of an expressive pursuit of justice with a difference. For, though this poetry simultaneously shapes global and grassroots smiles and tears, its corpus is no matter for laughter or weeping. In familiar but not identical voices, the poet tackles social evils as parasites while cross-examining cultural assumptions in the same vein. Triple form -title poem, Letters to Ethiopia and Some Random poems, explores nightmares of colonial mission civilisatrice by dint of two decades of inspirational events from 1965 as invitations into a more serene world emerging from post-discoveries.
The forces of nature warranted that these two English speaking poets, linguists, translators cum academics and researchers be born in Ndop, Ngoketunjia Division, in the North West Region of Cameroon. The one is based in the USA and other in Australia. Disgusted by the rotten political clime in their country as well as the political stance of politician vis-à-vis the English speaking minority, these two poets in their poetry explore the ins and outs of the problems of existence, not only of the minority English speaking Cameroonian but those of minorities in a modern world with a push for globalization. To them art is not only a weapon for survival but one for resistance.
Rock of God (Kilán ke Nyùy)
(2010)
Rock of God centres on a significant war that Nso fought with Bamoun in the 1880s, and which war resulted in a devastating defeat for the Bamouns. During this war, a major Nso combat rule was broken: the Sultan (king) of Bamoun was decapitated. Both local story tellers and historians have indicated that the Sultan was only supposed to be captured alive. The play explores some very compelling reasons for this violation. It mocks any attempt at categorization because the events involved are as historically relevant as they are anthropologically profound; as literarily dense as they are linguistically compelling. It surely stands on its own because it clearly combines concepts of docu-drama, morality play, classical theatre, historical drama, and much more. But beyond all else, it is great artistry that demonstrates the genius of experimentation.
The call of blood
(2010)
Efenze, the President of the Board of Directors of government companies and a member of the Central Committee of the Ruling Party, eliminates his erstwhile business contractor, Sancheu, with the complicity of the latter's wife. His aim is to inherit Sancheu's widow and wealth and to forge his way into the Political Bureau of the Party. The Call of Blood is a dramatization of evil in its multifaceted dimensions including treachery, infidelity, greed, hypocrisy, double-crossing and vaulting ambition in a postcolonial society where those who wield political and financial power thrive or perish by their involvement in obscure schemes. The play is enriched by a great sense of dramatic economy and poetic style evident in the preponderant use of local imagery.
Kinsmen of the President
(2016)
Being a journalist in Nigeria is very risky business especially when you decide to go against the grain and print the truth. Jerry comes to see just how risky his job is when he is whisked away to jail after publishing a particularly scathing article. While in custody we see the prison system through his eyes and he takes us back as he feeds us with anecdotes of his former life.
Insights into Uganda
(2016)
Insights into Uganda' is a selection of newspaper articles written by columnist Kevin O'Connor for the Sunday Monitor, drawn almost entirely from 2007 to 2015. Divided into 13 chapters ranging from sex to religion and from inequality to the environment, the 193 articles are always thoughtful, often provocative and sometimes humorous. The text is further enlivened by Moses Balagadde's cartoons. Kevin provides a multitude of insights into Ugandan society, which amply reflect both the title of his column, Roving Eye, and his catchphrase, 'For the observer of human behaviour every scene has its interest'.
This book explores the emergent character of social orders in Sudan and South Sudan. It provides vivid insights into multitudes of ordering practices and their complex negotiation. Recurring patterns of exclusion and ongoing struggles to reconfigure disadvantaged positions are investigated as are shifting borders, changing alliances and relationships with land and language. The book takes a careful and close look at institutional arrangements that shape everyday life in the Sudans, probing how social forms have persisted or changed. It proposes reading the post-colonial history of the Sudans as a continuous struggle to find institutional orders valid for all citizens. The separation of Sudan and South Sudan in 2011 has not solved this dilemma. Exclusionary and exploitative practices endure and inhibit the rule of law, distributive justice, political participation and functioning infrastructure. Analyses of historical records and recent ethnographic data assembled here show that orders do not result directly from intended courses of action, planning and orchestration but from contingently emerging patterns. The studies included look beyond dominant elites caught in violent fights for powers, cycles of civil war and fragile peace agreements to explore a broad range of social formations, some of which may have the potential to glue people and things together in peaceful co-existence, while others give way to new violence.
Pio Gama Pinto was born in Kenya on March 31, 1927. He was assassinated in Nairobi on February 24, 1965. In his short life, he became a symbol of anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles in Kenya and India. He was actively involved in Goa's struggle against Portuguese colonialism and in Mau Mau during Kenya's war of independence. For this, he was detained by the British colonial authorities in Kenya from 1954-59. His contribution to the struggle for liberation for working people spanned two continents - Africa and Asia. And it covered two phases of imperialism - colonialism in Kenya and Goa and neo-colonialism in Kenya after independence. His enemies saw no way of stopping the intense, lifelong struggle waged by Pinto - except through an assassin's bullets. But his contribution, his ideas, and his ideals are remembered and upheld even today by people active in liberation struggles. This book does not aim or claim to be a comprehensive record on Pio Gama Pinto, just the beginning of the long journey necessary to record the history of Kenya from an anti-imperialist perspective. It introduces readers to voices of many people who have written about Pinto to build up as clear a picture of Pinto as possible. In that spirit, it seeks to make history available to those whose story it is - people of Kenya, Africa and progressive people around the world.
This is the fourth in a series of publications on Zambian languages and grammar. The intention of the series is to boost the meagre scholarship and availability of educational materials on Zambian languages, which became particularly urgent in 1996, following the decision of the Zambian government to revert to the policy of using local languages as media of instruction. Kaonde (or more correctly Kikaonde) is spoken in the part of the North-Western Province of Zambia to the east of the Kabompo River, in adjacent parts of Mumbwa and Kaoma Districts to the south, and in the Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo to the North.
This book is divided into eleven chapters. Chapters 1, 2 and 3 present analyses of the concepts of public health, sustainability and policy change. Chapters 4 and 5 describe the stakeholder analysis and national health accounts frameworks. These chapters determine the attributes, characteristics and other features of these concepts and frameworks. The aim is to improve general clarity and understanding of these concepts and frameworks that contribute to the Sustainability Impact Assessment framework and the case study methodological approach that exemplifies its role in sustainability assessment of policy change in immunization systems. Chapter 6 outlines the Sustainability Impact Assessment framework itself, setting out the steps involved in a typical SIA with examples of methodologies used in the case study. Chapter 7 describes the case study methodological approach including its rationale and components. Chapter 8 outlines the application context of the case study with emphasis on the country's immunization system. Chapters 9 and 10 describe the application scenarios of the methodological approach, detailing the stakeholder analysis and resource map assessment processes. The summary and conclusions of the book are provided in Chapter 11. This chapter reviews the contributions of the Sustainability Impact Assessment framework and case study methodological approach, providing additional discussion of relevant issues and some directions for future work.
African visionaries
(2019)
In over forty portraits, African writers present extraordinary people from their continent: portraits of the women and men whom they admire, people who have changed and enriched life in Africa. The portraits include inventor, founders of universities, resistance fighters, musicians, environmental activists or writers. African Visionaries is a multi-faceted book, seen through African eyes, on the most impactful people of Africa. Some of the writers contributing to the collection are: Helon Habila, Virginia Phiri, Ellen Banda-Aaku, Véronique Tadjo, Tendai Huchu, Solomon Tsehaye, Patrice Nganang and Sami Tchak.
Between 1992 and 1994 Malawi underwent a remarkable transition from dictatorship to democracy. Truly a transformation of power! Yet this period of profound change raised many issues of power and accountability. In this book some of the key questions are explained and addressed from a theological perspective. The work originated as a case study on the World Council of Churches 'Theology of Life' programme. It was then presented as a Kachere Monograph in the belief that it will not only contribute to the reconstruction of politic in Malawi but also be an important resource for all those concerned with the formation of a viable theology of power for today's world. It is now presented here again as a Luviri Reprint. The contributors are all drawn from the University of Malawi Department of Theology and Religious Studies. Kenneth Ross has written on 'The Transformation of Power in Malawi 1992-94: the Role of the Christian Churches' and 'A Practical Theology of Power for the New Malawi'; Felix Chingota on 'The Use of the Bible in Social Transformation'; Isabel Apawo Phiri on 'Marching, Suspended and Stoned: Christian Women in Malawi 1995'; James Tengatenga on 'Young People: Participation or Alienation? An Anglican Case'; J.C. Chankanza and Hilary Mijoga on 'Muslim Perspectives on Power'; Hilary Mijoga on 'Christian Experience in Malawi Prisons'; and Klaus Fiedler on 'Power at the Receiving End: the Jehova's Witnesses' Experience in One-Party Malawi' and 'Even in the Church the Exercise of Power is Accountable to God'
The green building evolution
(2019)
The Green Building Evolution illuminates global examples and makes use of case studies mainly from South Africa. This book is in five parts: Part I is a single introductory chapter centred on the evolution of the green building movement; Part II addresses the green building terrain; Part III presents selected case studies; Part IV focuses on chapters that address pushing the boundaries in the green building space; while Part V presents emerging trends and policy perspectives. Further details are contained in the main body of the book. It is our sincere hope that readers will experience the book as an informative and ground-breaking adventure. Written by 14 authors from different academic disciplines and areas of specialisation, the book comes as the sixth in a series that addresses global and national concerns on climate change, sustainable development and the green economy transition agenda. The book series is conceptualised and coordinated by the Exxaro Chair in Business and Climate Change, led by Prof. Godwell Nhamo and hosted by the Institute for Corporate Citizenship (ICC) at the University of South Africa (UNISA). The books are published by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) through the Africa Institute of South Africa.
Seeking Urban Transformation. Alternative Urban Futures in Zimbabwe tells the stories of ordinary peoples struggles to remake urban centres. It interrogates and highlights the principle conditions in which urban transformation takes place. The main catalysts of the transformation are social movements and planning institutions. Social movements pool resources and skills, acquire land, install infrastructure and build houses. Planning institutions change policies, regulations and traditions to embrace and support a new form of urban development driven by grassroots movements. Besides providing a comprehensive analysis of planning and housing in Zimbabwe, there is a specific focus on three urban centres of Harare, Chitungwiza and Epworth. In metropolitan Harare, the books examines new housing and infrastructure series to the predominantly urban poor population; vital roles played by the urban poor in urban development and the adoption by planning institutions of grassroots-centered, urban-planning approaches. The book draws from three case studies and in-depth interviews from diverse urban shapers i.e. representatives and members of social movements, urban planners, engineers, surveyors, policy makers, politicians, civil society workers and students to generate a varied selection of insights and experiences. Based on the Zimbabwean experience, the book illustrates how actions and power of ordinary people contributes to the transformation of African cities.
The inability to eradicate poverty among societies demands a synergistic approach. This calls for the development of multi-pronged pathways for transitioning towards sustainable development goals. Many of these have been developed and tested across the world. Some have proved to be effective in illuminating the underlying cause of the world's inability to eradicate poverty. This is being driven by the fact that sustainable development, as a global development concept, represents a multidimensional phenomenon that includes many different indicators of human development. This volume, which derives from the papers presented at the seventh Africa Unity for Renaissance Conference that was held at Freedom Park, Pretoria, South Africa, seeks to supplement existing pathways by highlighting Africa's approach to poverty alleviation, which can possibly be attained through enhanced nutrition, food security, energy and gender equity. Evidence presented reflects strengths, weaknesses and opportunities on how Africa can transition towards sustainable development goals. The information provided is useful to countries interested in assisting Africa to develop pathways for achieving sustainable development goals within the scope of Agenda 2063. The book is a good reference for policy makers, academics, government authorities and students interested in research and developmental studies.
This book questions colonial and apartheid ideologies on being human and being African, ideologies that continue to shape how research is conceptualised, taught and practiced in universities across Africa. Africans immersed in popular traditions of meaning-making are denied the right, by those who police the borders of knowledge, to think and represent their realities in accordance with the civilisations and universes they know best. Often, the ways of life they cherish are labelled and dismissed too eagerly as traditional knowledge by some of the very African intellectual elite they look to for protection. The book makes a case for sidestepped traditions of knowledge. It draws attention to Africa's possibilities, prospects and emergent capacities for being and becoming in tune with its creativity and imagination. It speaks to the nimble-footed flexible-minded 'frontier African' at the crossroads and junctions of encounters, facilitating creative conversations and challenging regressive logics of exclusionary identities. The book uses Amos Tutuola's stories to question dualistic assumptions about reality and scholarship, and to call for conviviality, interconnections and interdependence between competing knowledge traditions in Africa.
Marginality does not mean isolation. In Africa where people are permanently on the move in search, inter alia, of a 'better elsewhere', marginality means disconnection to obvious possibilities and the invisibility of the myriad connections that make life possible for the ordinarily sidestepped. This book is about the workings of networks of the mobile in Africa, a continent usually associated with the 'global shadows' of the world. How do changes in the possibilities for communication, with the recent hype of mobile technology, influence the social and economic dynamics in Africa's mobile margins? To what extent is the freedom associated with new Information and Communication Technologies reality or disillusion for people dwelling in the margins? Are ordinary Africans increasingly Side@Ways? How social are these emergent Side@Ways? Contributions to answering these and related questions are harvested from ethnographic insights by team members of the WOTRO funded 'Mobile Africa revisited' research programme hosted by the African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands.
This rich conversational auto-biography tells the story of the political life of Ndeh Ntumazah who was born in Mankon in 1926, spent the best part of his life suffering and sacrificing for the freedom of Cameroon, and died in London on January 21, 2010, at the age of 83, as President of the Union of the Populations of Cameroon (UPC). Ntumazah was a political activist for nearly 60 years. He joined the UPC around 1950 and remained a militant of the party until his demise. When the UPC was banned in French Cameroon in 1955, he was advised by his comrades to create another party in the Southern Cameroons, which would be the UPC in disguise. The party was called 'One Kamerun Movement - OK', with Ndeh Ntumazah as its President. Following its banning, the UPC started a war of liberation in French Cameoon, so Ntumazah from the safety of Southern Cameroons, liaised with his comrades in French Cameroon to carry out their underground operations. Ndeh Ntumazah left Cameroon to seek political asylum abroad in 1962. He stayed in Ghana, Guinea, Algeria and finally in Britain where he spent most of his time sensitising the world about the plight of Cameroon using various avenues like writing, conferences and deputations. Ntumazah is dead, but he lives on because his life stands out as a point of focus.
The volume draws from René Devischs encounters with groups in southsaharan Africa, primarily. The author had the privilege to immerse himself, around the clock, in the Yakaphones activities and thoughts in southwest DR Congo from 1972 to 1974, and intermittently in Kinshasas shanty towns, from 1986 to 2003. The author first examines what sparked his choice to come to Congo, and then to pursue research among the Yakaphones in the borderland with Angola. He then invites us to follow the trajectory of his plural anthropological view on todays multicentric world. It leads us to his praise for honorary doctor Jean-Marc Elas work. He then examines the proletarian outbursts of violence that rocked Congos major cities in 1991 and 1993. These can be read as a settling of scores with the disillusioning colonial and missionary modernisation, along with president Mobutus millenarian Popular Movement of the Revolution. Furthermore, after considering the morose reduction of a major Yaka dancing mask into a mere museum-bound curio in Antwerp, the book unravels the Yakaphones perspectives on spirits and sorcerys threat. It also analyses their commitment to classical Bantu-African healing cults, along with their parallel consulting physicians and healers. By sharing the Yakaphones life-world, the analysis highlights their body-group-world weave, interlaced by the principle of co-resonance. A phenomenological and perspectivist look unfolds the local actors views, thereby disclosing the Bantu-African genius and setting for a major reversal of perspectives. Indeed, seeing 'here' from 'there' allows the author to uncover some alienating dynamics at work in his native Belgian Flemish-speaking culture. To better grasp the realm of life beyond the speakable and factual reasoning, the approach occasionally turns to the later Lacans focus on the unconscious desire, the body and its affects. The book addresses students and researchers in the humanities and, more broadly, all those immersed in the heat of the encounter with the culturally different.
In a tribute to Hon. Justice Iorhemen Hwande CFR, Chief Judge of Benue State this book includes contributions from a variety of scholars from Nigeria. 14 essays cover a wide range of topics such as: Insider Dealing by Company Directors and the Nigerian Capital Market; United Nations Conventions on the Law of the Sea as a Tool for the Resolution of Climate Change Disputes; Is a Practicing Christian Lawyer/Judge in Nigeria an Anachronism?; The Justiciability and Enforcement of Social Rights; and International Economic Law and Development.
Vestiges
(2013)
The poems in this collection are adequate, with great lines. The rhythm is stimulating to all the five senses thanks to the use of multiple images. A lot of imagery in Vestiges gives a picture of a war front after a ferocious battle. The objects, animals, and images in the poems disorient and lead the reader to focusing on putting flesh to the bones than just getting the juice of the poems... The rhythm more than anything else carries the reader through this chaotic tableau painted in Vestiges. In a way, this comes across as a substantiation of the poet's vision of our world and an explanation as to why he considers this collection as a skeleton; and precisely skeletons left by the ravages of war. Is the poet's world and ours a field of ruins and topsy-turvydom to which we are all blind? The answer is yours.
Captive of Fate
(2007)
Captive of Fate is the moving story of Ann, a victim of her own need for genuine love, and her gullibility in falling head over heels into the traps of lust set up by clever men. As Ann's biographic narrative unfolds, the reader is faced again and again with the haunting question: 'Do all men want only one thing from a woman?' Hidden between the lines and yet hammering constantly at the reader's conscience are issues pertaining to gender violence and the plight of women in Africa.
The Green Cross of Kafira
(2013)
In his last play published posthumously the late Francis Imbuga presents the dramatic dialogue of his characters as mind games. In addition to using a narrator, Sikia Macho, to fill us in on the broken politics of Kafira, centring around detention without trial, Imbuga deliberately delays the inciting action, the formation of the Green Party of Kafira which then challenges the hitherto political monolith called the National Party. The candidate of the new party, former detainee Pastor Mgei, wins the election, and thereby dethrones the so-called Chief of Chiefs. In The Green Cross of Kafira, Imbuga, with a renewed sense of urgency, addresses the theme of dictatorship in Africa, and completes his trilogy of the Kafira plays which begins with Betrayal in the city followed by Man of Kafira.
Mohammed Chris Alli is a retired Nigerian Army Major General who served as Chief of Army Staff from 1993 to 1994 under General Sanni Abacha's regime and was military governor of Plateau State Nigeria from August 1985 to 1986 during the military regime of General Ibrahim Babangida. Many years later, he was appointed interim administrator of the state during a 2004 crisis in the state following ethno-religious killings in Shendam, Yelwa Local Government. In this anthology, organized as a symposium on Mohammed Christopher Alli?s work, he is identified as one of those critical and rational thinkers, philosophers, albeit, a General in the Nigerian Army, whose work finds a befitting logical space in the contemporary African philosophical tapestry. The book also captures the elements of military misrule in Nigeria and its undue influence on the body polity; it is a critical survey of past military misadventures, and a satire against false federalism, it is a firm warning against future corruption and impunity in the military.
This book addresses itself to mobilisation and involvement of rural people in development projects. It describes an imperfect but, nonetheless, exciting and thought-provoking exercise that drew social science researchers and students from four public universities in Kenya into an experiment in participatory research, community education and development in two locations. The experiment was grounded on the assumptions that the people of Kenya are a primary resource and that given proper roles and contribution of planners, researchers and programme implementers, self-sustainable development can become a reality. The contributors of this book have focused on the potential of the university to facilitate participation of the people in development. They have given specific suggestions on how this might be accomplished.