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This volume presents comprehensive case studies on various topics in Religious Studies. It aims at bringing about the dynamics of change and innovations that characterise the study of religions in contemporary Nigerian society. The work focusses on Biblical Studies, Church History, Islamic Studies and African Traditional Religions.
The Coming African hour is not a slogan, nor wishful thinking. It is a conclusion that derives from an insightful analysis of the current situation pertaining on the continent. Several African scholars, coming from different regions and academic backgrounds are elaborating ideas and arguments in order to explain the constraints and to illustrate the opportunities. The result of that scientific gathering is a book that synthesizes and renews the reflections on development. What is at stake is not to be pessimistic or optimistic about Africa. The epistemological challenge is to understand what is going on. By focusing on converging and diverging African realities, on the issues of state, civil society, gender and development strategies, the authors of the book show under which conditions the African hour is coming. At that level, the commitment for political science meets the commitment for Africa. The main success of this book is to overcome the preconceived ideas and self-fulfilling prophecies about Africa. Here, the analysis avoids the trap of indulgence; then hope is based on truth. Consequently, the coming African hour is not inescapable: it is, as analyzed, a possibility that its achievement depends on institutional, human, political, social and economic factors.
The State of Africa 2010
(2010)
The State of Africa series project was conceived by the Africa Institute of South Africa (AISA) during its 2003-2004 financial year for purposes of mapping out on a regular basis critical issue areas relating to intra- and inter-African as well as extra-African relations. The first and second volumes of the series were published in 2004 and 2008 respectively. Volume 1: The State of Africa: Thematic and Factual Review served as an exploratory piece and covered a broad range of issues relating to politics and governance, millennium development goals (MDGs), peace and conflict and regional development. Volume 2: The State of Africa: Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development focused thematically and examined - from critical and comprehensive perspectives - issues associated with post-conflict in Africa. The volume was grounded on the continent's quest for conflict prevention, management and resolution as a means of creating an enabling environment for the consolidation of democracy and reconstruction of societies affected by crisis in general and war in particular. This volume, Volume 3: Parameters and Legacies of Governance and Issue Areas takes a multi-pronged and multi-faceted approach to some of these issues by providing in-depth analysis of dynamics at national, regional, continental and international levels. The global transformation in the 1980s and 1990s, which witnessed the crumbling of the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact and opened a window of opportunities for East-West bipolar rapprochement, particularly between the United States and Russia, also had impact on Africa at the national, regional and continental levels. Focusing on conceptual units, such as the state, indigenous organisations, regional and continental organisations as well as selected priority issues - in particular gender and empowerment, the global South, and space science - the chapters in the book provide useful insights into the nature and impact of the transformation and its impact on the socio-economic and politico-security situation in Africa.
The ongoing crisis in Zimbabwe has led to an unprecedented exodus of over a million desperate people from all strata of Zimbabwean society. The Zimbabwean diaspora is now truly global in extent. Yet rather than turning their backs on Zimbabwe, most maintain very close links with the country, returning often and remitting billions of dollars each year. Zimbabwe's Exodus. Crisis, Migration, Survival is written by leading migration scholars many from the Zimbabwean diaspora. The book explores the relationship between Zimbabwe's economic and political crisis and migration as a survival strategy. The book includes personal stories of ordinary Zimbabweans living and working in other countries, who describe the hotility and xenophobia they often experience.
Windhoek in the early 1960s: the 34-year-old politician Clemens Kapuuo knocks at the door of the senior advocate Israel Goldblatt to solicit advice regarding the myriad of difficulties encountered by Africans daily under the apartheid regime. An unusual relationship and friendship develops, one that transcends the racial divide in this South African-governed Territory and will last for nearly 10 years. Meeting in Goldblatt's chambers, at his home and in the Old Location, other participants in the consultations included the veteran politician Chief Hosea Kutako and a group of younger nationalists, among them Rev. Bartholomews Karuaera and Levy Nganjone. Through Kapuuo, Goldblatt also met Kaptein Samuel Witbooi and counselled the long-term prisoner from Caprivi, Brendan Simbwaye. Israel Goldblatt's notes on these meetings were discovered after his death and form the core of this book. They are complemented by additional biographical information about his interlocutors, and annotations that place his notes in their historical and political context. Illustrated with many photographs, this publication pays tribute to Israel Goldblatt and the Namibian nationalists who attempted to build bridges where apartheid entrenched racism and suspicion.
This book publishes Martin Legassick's influential doctoral thesis on the preindustrial South African frontier zone of Transorangia. The impressive formation of the Griqua states in the first half of the nineteenth century outside the borders of the Cape Colony and their relations with Sotho-Tswana polities, frontiersmen, missionaries and the British administration of the Cape take centre stage in the analysis. The Griqua, of mixed settler and indigenous descent, secured hegemony in a frontier of complex partnerships and power struggles. The author's subsequent critique of the 'frontier tradition' in South African historiography drew on the insights he had gained in writing this dissertation. It served to initiate the debate about the importance of the precolonial frontier situation in South Africa for the establishment of ideas of race, the development of racial prejudice and, implicitly, the creation of segregationist and apartheid systems. Today, the constructed histories of 'Griqua' and other categories of indigeneity have re emerged in South Africa as influential tools of political mobilisation and claims on resources.
The Thin Line
(2010)
Arja Salafranca is an accomplished writer, having twice won the Sanlam Literary Award in South Africa. The stories in her new book engage and reel in the reader on that 'thin line' from the start. The carefully drawn characters are haunting: Corinna trapped in her huge teenage body, Cleo in love with a married man after all these years, and poor skinny Mark, as he sees his love teeter away from him.'Ten Minutes to Hate' tells of an armed robbery in a packed theatre, and its effect, emotionally and psychologically, on two of the people involved. 'Collage' is the story of a possessive love so fierce, that only death can resolve it. Searingly honest, sometimes painfully so.
Piece Work
(2010)
Ingrid Andersen was born in Johannesburg, read for a degree in English literature at Wits and is presently completing her Masters. Her work has been published in literary journals for 16 years. Excision, her first volume of poetry, was published in 2004. Her influences include the French Romantic poets, Imagism and the writings of Basho. She is the founding editor of Incwadi, an SA journal that explores the interaction between poetry and image. An Anglican priest, she works in human rights, healing and reconciliation.
The bed, dressed in hand sewn quilt or threadbare blanket, may in and of itself be memorable, but it is what happens in the bed - the sex and lovemaking, the dreams, the reading, the nightmares, the rest, giving birth and dying - which give 'bed' special meaning. Whether a bed is shared with a book, a child, a pet or a partner, whether lovers lie in ecstasy or indifference, whether 'bed' relates to intimacy or betrayal, it is memories and recollections of 'bed', in whatever form, which have triggered the writing of these thirty stories by women from southern Africa. Well known writers Joanne Fedler, Sarah Lotz, Arja Salafranca, Rosemund Handler and Liesl Jobson will delight, but you will discover here new writers from Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, Namibia and Zambia, each with a unique voice as they cast light on the intimate lives of women living in this part of the world and the possibilities that are both available to and denied them. The BED BOOK of short stories - some quirky and tender, others traumatic or macabre - is the perfect companion to take to bed with you, to keep you reading long into the night.
This book contains a major research into, and deep investigation of Basotho language oral poetry in Lesotho at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The classical form, the dithoko, which was inspired by tribal wars or battles fought by the Basotho, is explored fully, but the absence of wars, and urbanisation with the economic and social imperatives of modernism, have inspired new forms of poetry. The new forms include dithoko, i.e. 'praise poetry'; the difela, 'mine workers' chants', and the diboko, the latter which as 'family odes', are still performed in rural areas. The research work involved the live performances of 33 diroki, i.e. poets, watched and recorded in their natural environments. The investigators were led by the late Professor Abiola Irele, then of Ohio State University.
The book interrogates the relationship between democracy and development and how underdevelopment prevents citizens from participating in democracy. Section One is a collection of experts' writing on key issues such as the single-party state; development policy; poverty, inequality and growth; the institutions of governance; the public service; and the role of civil society. Section Two, Idasa's Democracy Index 2010, releases Idasa's findings on Participation, Elections, Accountability, Political Freedom, Human Dignity and Democracy. The third in Idasa's Democracy Index series, this book argues that democracy needs economic development along with an embedded system of institutions, supported by active citizens and a vibrant political culture.
Since the collapse of apartheid, there have been major increases in migration flows within, to and from the Southern African region. Cross-border movements are at an all-time high across the region and internal migration is at record levels. The implications of greater mobility for areas of origin and destination have not been systematically explored. Migration is most often seen as a negative phenomenon, a result of increased poverty and the failure of development. More recently, the positive relationship between migration and development has been emphasised by agencies such as the Global Commission on International Migration, the Global Forum on Migration and Development, the United Nations Development Programme and the African Union. The chapters in this publication are all based on primary research and examine various facets of the relationship between migration, poverty and development, including issues that are often ignored in the migration-development debate like migration and food security and migration and vulnerability to HIV. The book argues that the development and poverty reduction potential of migration is being hindered by national policies that fail to recognise and build on the positive aspects and potential of migration. As a result, as these studies show, migrants are often pushed to the margins where they are forced to 'survive on the move'. Their treatment violates labour laws and basic human rights and compromises the potential of migration as a means to create sustainable livelihoods, reduce poverty and food insecurity, mitigate the brain drain and promote the productive use of remittances. This book shows that migrant lives and livelihoods should be at the centre of international and African debates about migration, poverty and development.
Social Accountability in Africa: Practitioners' Experiences and Lessons is a collection of case studies from Africa on social accountability. This collection attempts to build a consolidated body of knowledge on social accountability efforts across the continent. The case studies are diverse and present unique approaches to how social accountability strategies and interventions are implemented within different countries. The book is written by practitioners, for practitioners, providing first hand experience of designing and implementing social accountability initiatives and the challenges, methods and successes each one presents.
The relationship between migration, development and remittances in Lesotho has been exhaustively studied for the period up to 1990. This was an era when the vast majority of migrants from Lesotho were young men working on the South African gold mines and over 50 percent of households had a migrant mineworker. Since 1990, patterns of migration to South Africa have changed dramatically. The reconfiguration of migration between the two countries has had a marked impact on remittance flows to Lesotho. The central question addressed in this report is how the change in patterns of migration from and within Lesotho since 1990 has impacted on remittance flows and usage.
South Africa's provincial education departments have been reduced to provincial administrations, for reasons that include the powerful role national government plays in delivering education services. This book looks in detail at education spending and asks: Can we afford to maintain administrations that cannot possibly change the course of poor quality education and engineer a brighter future for our poor and deprived learners? The authors believe this question and the future role of provincial education departments need to be discussed, openly and publicly, without delay.
To many young people, the term sport has an exhilarating ring; to many older persons, it signifies recreation and leisure. From colonial times, it has been viewed as a means of social control. Increasingly, it is being touted by governments and donor agencies as a self-evident tool of Africa's development. How accurate are these individual, romantic and moral notions of sport? In this volume, eleven African scholars offer insightful analyses of the complex ideological and structural dimensions of modern sport as a cultural institution. Drawing on various theories and cross-cultural data, the contributors to this volume highlight the various ways in which sport norms, policies, practices and representations pervasively interface with gender and other socially constructed categories of difference. They argue that sport is not only a site of competition and physical recreation, but also a crossroad where features of modern society such as hegemony, identities, democracy, technology, development and master statuses intertwine and bifurcate. As they point out in many ways, sport production, reproduction, distribution and consumption are relational, spatial and contextual and, therefore, do not pay off for men, women and other social groups equally. The authors draw attention to the structure and scope of efforts needed to transform the exclusionary and gendered nature of sport processes to make them adequate to the task of engendering Africa's development. Gender, Sport and Development in Africa is an immensely important contribution to current debates on the broader impacts of sport on society. It is an essential reading for students, policy-makers and others interested in perspectives that interrogate the grand narratives of sport as a neutral instrument of development in African countries.
Few African countries provide for an explicit right to a nationality. Laws and practices governing citizenship effectively leave hundreds of thousands of people in Africa without a country. These stateless Africans can neither vote nor stand for office; they cannot enrol their children in school, travel freely, or own property; they cannot work for the government; they are exposed to human rights abuses. Statelessness exacerbates and underlies tensions in many regions of the continent. Citizenship Law in Africa, a comparative study by two programs of the Open Society Foundations, describes the often arbitrary, discriminatory, and contradictory citizenship laws that exist from state to state and recommends ways that African countries can bring their citizenship laws in line with international rights norms. The report covers topics such as citizenship by descent, citizenship by naturalisation, gender discrimination in citizenship law, dual citizenship, and the right to identity documents and passports. It is essential reading for policymakers, attorneys, and activists. This second edition includes updates on developments in Kenya, Libya, Namibia, South Africa, Sudan and Zimbabwe, as well as minor corrections to the tables and other additions throughout.
Uganda's broadcast media landscape has witnessed tremendous growth in recent years. While the public broadcaster remains the dominant national player - in terms of reach - in both radio and television, commercial broadcasters have introduced a substantial level of diversity in the industry. Public broadcasting faces serious competition from the numerous private and independent broadcasters, especially in and around the capital Kampala and major urban centres. In fact, the private/commercial sector clearly dominates the industry in most respects, notably productivity and profitability. The public broadcaster, which enjoys wider geographical coverage, faces the challenge of trying to fulfil a broad mandate with little funding. This makes it difficult for UBC to compete with the more nimble operators in the commercial/private sector. Overall, there appears to be a healthy degree of pluralism and diversity in terms of ownership.
This report on the broadcast media in Nigeria finds that liberalisation efforts in the broadcasting sector have only been partially achieved. More than a decade after military rule, the nation still has not managed to enact media legislation that is in line with continental standards, particularly the Declaration on Freedom of Expression in Africa. The report, part of an 11-country survey of broadcast media in Africa, strongly recommends the transformation of the two state broadcasters into a genuine public broadcaster as an independent legal entity with editorial independence and strong safeguards against any interference from the federal government, state governments and other interests. The report was written by Mr. Akin Akingbulu Executive Director, Institute for Media and Society, IMS, Nigeria.
Strengthening popular participation in the African Union : a guide to AU structures and processes
(2010)
The African Union (AU) has committed to a vision of Africa that is 'integrated, prosperous and peaceful - driven by its own citizens, a dynamic force in the global arena' (Vision and Mission of the African Union, May 2004). This guide is an effort to take up the challenge of achieving this vision. It is a tool to assist activists to engage with AU policies and programmes. It describes the AU decision-making process and outlines the roles and responsibilities of the AU institutions. It also contains a sampling of the experiences of those non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that have interacted with the AU.
Reforming the Malawian Public Sector argues that the new public management model that Malawi, like most African countries, adopted under the influence of donor organisations has not led to the intended development. The book examines decentralisation, performance contracting, and public-private partnerships as key aspects of the reforms and comes to the conclusion that at best, it can be argued that the failures have been due to poor implementation and this could be attributed to the fact that the process was led by donors who lacked the necessary institutional infrastructure. The book uses the 2005/6 fertiliser subsidy programme, which the government embarked on despite donor resistance that it went against market models, but which turned out to be overwhelmingly successful to demonstrate the state's developmental ability and potential. This volume is essential reading for academics, students, and practitioners seeking a deeper understanding of public administration, management, policy, development and governance in Africa and the rest of the developing world. The book is dedicated to the memory Guy Mhone, a Malawian, who was among Africa's leading scholars in public administration and governance. His works focused mainly on public sector reforms and development.
This study explores the service-citizenship nexus in Nigeria, using the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme as an empirical backdrop. It attempts to understand the relationship between civic service and citizenship on the one hand, and it examines the question as to whether youth service promotes a sense of citizenship and patriotism on the other. In the relevant studies on service and sociology, the assumption that service is antecedent to, and impacts positively on citizenship, is taken for granted. However, conclusions from this study call for an urgent rethinking of this wisdom. Using data from open-ended interviews, questionnaires and focus group discussions, the study traces the ways in which political dynamics in Nigeria have affected the implementation of the NYSC programme. The study articulates allegiance to national ideals as an essential foundation for creating and nurturing citizenship. Although it upholds the potential of national service as a tool for national integration, this research cautions against unalloyed faith in its presumed agency, arguing that the limitations imposed by the prevailing socio-political ecology should not be ignored.
The events of May 2008 in which 62 people were killed simply for being 'foreign' and thousands were turned overnight into refugees shook the South African nation. This book is the first to attempt a comprehensive and rigorous explanation for those horrific events. It argues that xenophobia should be understood as a political discourse and practice. As such its historical development as well as the conditions of its existence must be elucidated in terms of the practices and prescriptions which structure the field of politics. In South Africa, the history of xenophobia is intimately connected to the manner in which citizenship has been conceived and fought over during the past fifty years at least. Migrant labour was de-nationalised by the apartheid state, while African nationalism saw the same migrant labour as the foundation of that oppressive system. Only those who could show a family connection with the colonial and apartheid formation of South Africa could claim citizenship at liberation. Others were excluded and seen as unjustified claimants to national resources. Xenophobia's conditions of existence, the book argues, are to be found in the politics of post-apartheid nationalism where state prescriptions founded on indigeneity have been allowed to dominate uncontested in conditions of an overwhelmingly passive conception of citizenship. The de-politicisation of an urban population, which had been able to assert its agency during the 1980s through a discourse of human rights in particular, contributed to this passivity. Such state liberal politics have remained largely unchallenged. As in other cases of post-colonial transition in Africa, the hegemony of xenophobic discourse, the book contends, is to be sought in the specific character of the state consensus.
This is an introductory textbook on the Zimbabwean legal system. It sets the stage for a comprehensive description of that legal system by opening with some theoretical issues on the nature of law in general, particularly a definition of law, the role and purpose of law in society, the relationship between law and justice and how morality impacts on law. After outlining this theoretical framework, it turns to the Zimbabwean legal system and covers the following key areas: sources of Zimbabwean law, the scope of Roman-Dutch law in Zimbabwe, the law-making process and the role of Parliament, the structure of the courts in Zimbabwe, the procedures in the civil and criminal courts, the legal aid system and the nature of the legal profession. It covers the process of appointment of judges and its effect on the independence of the judiciary. It has a long closing chapter on the interpretation of statutes covering all the rules, maxims and presumptions.
Morgan Tsvangirais appointment as Zimbabwes Prime Minister in 2009 followed many years leadership of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trades Unions and the Movement for Democratic Change. How has that experience equipped him for high national office? Does he have the personal, intellectual and political qualities required to be President? In July 2004, as he was awaiting the verdict in his treason trial, Tsvangirai spent several days in conversation with Stephen Chan. Chan was concerned to find out if Tsvangirai was more than merely a charismatic leader of the opposition; if he had his own intellectual agenda [and] political philosophy. His questions were even-handed and astute. Discussion by discussion, Morgan Tsvangirai had become more open, more human less cautious and, paradoxically, more obviously and naturally presidential. Five years later, having reviewed the events since their discussions took place, Chan writes: I have not made a saint of him, not even an Atlas. I hope I have not criticized him too much or too unfairly. Probably no one could have done for Zimbabwe what he has. Citizen of Zimbabwe is a rare and intimate portrait of political leadership in Africa.
This nine-country study of higher education financing in Africa includes three East African states (Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda), five countries in southern Africa (Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa), and an Indian Ocean island state (Mauritius). Higher Education Financing in East and Southern Africa explores trends in financing policies, paying particular attention to the nature and extent of public sector funding of higher education, the growth of private financing (including both household financing and the growth of private higher education institutions) and the changing mix of financing instruments that these countries are developing in response to public sector financial constraints. This unique collection of African-country case studies draws attention to the remaining challenges around the financing of higher education in Africa, but also identifies good practices, lessons and common themes.
Undisciplined Heart
(2010)
When Jane Katjavivi becomes involved in London in support of change in Southern Africa, she meets and marries a Namibian activist in exile. Moving with him to Namibia at the time of Independence in 1990, she faces a new life in a starkly beautiful country. She starts to publish Namibian writing and opens a bookshop. In Windhoek she develops friendships with a group of strong, independent women, who have also come from other countries, and are engaged in different ways to overcome the divisions of the past. Over coffee, drinks and food, they support each other through times of happiness and sadness, through juggling careers and family, and through illness and death. When her husband is made Ambassador to the Benelux countries and the European Union, and later Berlin, Jane has to build a new identity as the wife of an ambassador, and come to terms with her own ill-health without her friends around her to support her. Set against the backdrop of the historical, political and social development of newly independent Namibia, Undisciplined Heart tells the story of Jane's love for her family, friends and her adopted country, in a gentle and honest way that reflects the joys and tragedies of life
This Place I Call Home
(2010)
Ten stories. Ten voices. Ten diverse perspectives of what home has meant to South Africans that country's challenging history. In this thought provoking collection we are drawn into the lives of others. From an old widower who seems content on the outside but feels that his world is unravelling in the new South Africa, to an immigrant who has fled racial persecution in 1930s Europe and now finds himself on a barren sheep farm in the Karoo, to a Polokwane teacher confronted with the moral dilemma of xenophobic sentiments in her township, This Place I Call Home, leaves the reader deeply aware of local realities. Even though these powerful stories are often characterised by hardship and personal loss, one cannot help but emerge inspired by the tenacity of the human spirit and the resilience of South Africa's people.
Lava Lamp Poems
(2010)
A remarkable feature of the collapse of the British Empire is that the British departed from almost every single one of their colonial territories invariably leaving behind a messy situation and an agenda of serious problems that in most cases still haunt those territories to this day. One such territory is the Southern British Cameroons. There, the British Government took the official view that the territory and its people were 'expendable'. It opposed, for selfish economic reasons, sovereign statehood for the territory, in clear violation of the UN Charter and the norm of self-determination. It transferred the Southern Cameroons to a new colonial overlord and hurriedly left the territory. The British Government's bad faith, duplicity, deception, wheeling and dealing, and betrayal of the people of the Southern Cameroons is incredible and defies good sense. Ample evidence of this is provided by the declassified documents in this book. Among the material are treaties concluded by Britain with Southern Cameroons coastal Kings and Chiefs; and the boundary treaties of the Southern Cameroons, treaties defining the frontiers with Nigeria to the west and the frontier with Cameroun Republic to the east. The book contains documents that attest to the Southern Cameroons as a fully self-governing country, ready for sovereign statehood. These include debates in the Southern Cameroons House of Assembly; and the various Constitutions of the Southern Cameroons. The book also reproduces British declassified documents on the Southern Cameroons covering the three critical years from 1959 to 1961, documents which speak to the inglorious stewardship of Great Britain in the Southern Cameroons. This book removes lingering doubts in some quarters that the people of the Southern Cameroons were cheated of independence. Its contents are further evidence of their inalienable right and sacred duty to assert their independence. No one who reads this book can possibly be indifferent to the just struggle of the Southern Cameroons for sovereign statehood.
The New World Order Ideology expressed in the form of neoliberal globalization has been used by numerous politicians, scholars and media men through the ages. It refers to a worldwide conspiracy to effect complete and total control over the planet through money farming. This book examines the case of Africa put directly on the chopping board as client states by this ideology - when less hampered by idealistic slogans as human rights, raising living standards and democratization - to better the achievement of the agenda of the money farmers whose goal is to establish government by loan operations. The money farmers' strategy, as in credit card companies, is to lend as much as the subject target can borrow and still pay fees, charges and interest payments. This means to encourage them to borrow, loan after loan, consolidate all other loans and keep lending - up until the crop of foreign exchange seems in jeopardy. The ideal from the Lending Agency viewpoint is to get an African country maxed out on loans to the point that it actually operates all of its government and the nation on LOANS. Once that goal is achieved, you basically have a never ending crop of FOREIGN EXCHANGE from helpless and hopeless African governments and people. Here is Tatah Mentan at his trenchant best!
This is an original and innovative study of mobile phones in Africa from a theological perspective. The First and the Second Special Assemblies for Africa of the Synod of Bishops, held in Rome in 1994 and 2009 respectively, made an urgent appeal to the Church in Africa to employ various media forms of social communications for evangelization and the promotion of justice and peace. Evidently, electronic media are now increasingly used for evangelization across Africa. The proliferation of the mobile phone in Africa is a most welcome development to this end. On the basis of a thorough review of the growing literature on the mobile phone and the cultures it inspires, Goliama highlights the ambivalent nature of mobile cultures for the Roman Catholic Church's evangelization mission in Africa. He argues not only for the continued merits of face-to-face communication for the Church's pastoral approach in the African context. He points to how this could be enriched by a creative appropriation of the mobile phone as a tool for theological engagement, in its capacity to shape cultures in ways amenable to the construction of a Cell phone Ecclesiology. Such emergent mobile cultural values include the tendency of mobile users to transcend social divides, to promote social interconnectedness, and to privilege the question 'where are you?'. This informed and well articulated exploration of Cell phone Ecclesiology is thus envisaged to aid the Church in Africa to wrestle more effectively with challenges that diminish human life and promote instead qualities that are life-affirming to all categories of people in the Church and society.
What a Next of Kin!
(2010)
This psycho-anthropological and socio-cultural novel logically and succinctly x-rays the foundations and raison d'être of patriarchy through the implied questions - Is wealth the basis of patriarchy? Have women any role in the system? And how far can a patriarch protect his lineage from alien blood? The extremely wealthy father of eight daughters protagonist Ndi, says yes, to the first question; no, to the second; and in the third questions he says, through dogged pursuance of looking for a male heir by any means; but his lone son whom he unknowingly begot in a remote village in his early life and whom he accidentally stumbled upon and adopted as his heir in his odyssey of looking for a male heir through a series of marriages, says no, to the first question; yes, to the second and to the third question, he says fate is the umpire; and succeeds in convincing his father that he is right.
Here is a collection of sixty-two beautifully crafted poems on some of the deepest of human emotions. They celebrate love, constancy, beauty, marriage, birth and death; in the poems are hailed intellectual labour, leadership and duty. Occasionally, the poet depicts the states of his mind against the backdrop of nature, interfusing description, memory and meditation in a manner essentially romantic. The best in Ambanasom's poetry is matter and manner combined. The striking force of the poems lies in the intriguing relationship between romanticism and romance. Ambanasom's romanticism is concerned with the concept of nature as a universal being or a cosmic entity, nostalgia, the attempt to link his childhood with the present and the future, and the response to nature at different levels of his development. The poet also demonstrates a penchant for rural subject matter, places and people. In the poet of romance there is a more direct expression of basic human emotions, in particular of love that is enchanting, possessing, seductive, and alluring. We find in the poems, love that is reciprocal and imbued with constancy and understanding.
How else does the ramified phenomenon of greed (corruption, nepotism, extreme self-aggrandizement, megalomanic tendencies etc) become nefarious to both the physical and mental worlds of a people either individually or collectively? It brings about a retrogressing, catabatic state in their evolution in both regards, eating back into the socio-economic and political set up of a given society as well as unquestionably impairing the mindset of its people.
Bill NDI's Bleeding Red: Cameroon in Black and White is another masterpiece from a poet with a deeply political vision. This collection of poems with Cameroon as the particular focal point is a paragon of socio-political and cultural alertness in verse that will get every reader on their toes. Bill NDI's world is fraught with topsy-turvydom. It is a world darkened by experience and a keen sense of the wrongs plaguing his beloved country. He points out, without preaching, where it all went wrong, how it can, or what it will take to, be redeemed. The acerbity of Bill NDI s criticism runs from the very first poem of the collection 'Anthem for Essingang' through The Promise to the very last one 'Papa Ngando Yi Mimba for Camelun'. What a clime characterised by a 'clan of mbokos, clan of bandits' It is just natural that as they perpetrate 'death and sadness' in his beloved fatherland, nothing but 'disgrace', 'great shame', and 'repudiation' awaits them for evermore.
This book discusses the social and political consequences of the economic and financial crisis that befell African economies since the 1980s, using as case study the plantation economy of the Anglophone region of Cameroon. The focus is thus on recent efforts to liberalize and privatize an agro-industrial enterprise where overseas capital and its domestic partners have converged, the consequent modes of production and labour, and the alternatives proposed and resistance generated. The study details how the unprecedented crisis caused great commotion in the region, and presented a serious challenge to existing theories on plantation production and capital accumulation. The crisis resulted in the introduction of a number of neoliberal economic reforms, including the withdrawal of state intervention and the restructuring, liquidation and privatisation of the major agro-industrial enterprises. These reforms in turn had severe consequences for several civil-society groups and their organisations that had a direct stake in the regional plantation economy, notably the regional elite, chiefs, plantation workers and contract farmers. On the basis of extensive research in the Anglophone Cameroon region, Konings shows that these civil-society groups have never resigned themselves to their fate but have been actively involved in a variety of formal and informal modes of resistance.
Pieces of Silver
(2010)
Rosi-Daniela Kouoh, a female Divisional Officer newly appointed to Njopongo, steps into office at a time when preparations for elections in the Riders Union sows panic in the hearts of the town's barons and a tragic road accident ignites feelings of vengeance and survival. In order to determine the root-cause of the rising tension and build a platform for lasting calm and justice, she gets two men out of police custody; Sadi, a loser and bitter father of an unborn child, and Esingi, a daring, retired streetboy and chauffeur to the powerful Lord Mayor and business tycoon. This is the thrilling tale of a woman determined to purge her town of injustice, corruption and greed. It is also the story of the niece of the Lord Mayor torn between family loyalty and her love for a poor bus driver.
Toil and Delivery
(2010)
Bill NDI's Toil and Delivery can be as playful and loaded as the clues in a cryptic crossword puzzle, which is to say that they are marked by a strange, energetic hybridity. They occupy a dynamic space between nursery rhyme and visionary Romantic verse, between the colloquial and the archaic, between postmodernity and anachronism. They are local and global, political and personal, Western and non-Western. With experiences traversing both Africa and the West, Bill F. NDI is one of those poets who gives meaning to the word globalisation. He embraces poetry as a material act in a troubled world, with poetry's power conveyed with typical irony.
Writing Therapy
(2010)
Writing therapy is a varied collection of poems of a brisk, forward taste. The poet uses her poems as a form of expression of the harmonies and tensions that reassure and perturb the mind, heart and Spirit. This is a canvas of emotional expression from the frustration of the African youth to the declaration of the feminist, the desolation of the lovelorn and finally the weathered contentment of the Christian believer!
We Get Nothing from Fishing : Fishing for Boat Opportunities Amongst Senegalese Fisher Migrants
(2010)
The world is regularly confronted on television and in other mass media with dramatic images of African boat migrants. Seemingly desperate, these Africans, most of them males, are willing to risk a perilous journey at sea, hoping for a better life in Europe. And, even worse, hundreds more are believed to die each year, swallowed up anonymously by the choppy waters off Africa's coast. This book focuses on fishermen who have played a pivotal role in boat migration from Senegal to Spain's Canary Islands, advancing various reasons for the fishermen's prominent role. Besides their long history of migration, their proven experience with navigating, their family's push and investment, their perceptions and ideologies about Europe, there is also their growing marginalization as a result of the deepening crisis in the Senegalese fishing sector and the inadequate policies of the Senegalese government that prevents them from having good prospects of improving their standards of living. The book provides deep insights into the meaning of boat migration, and on the effects of success or failure on the migrants and their families. It goes beyond the usual economic explanations to convincingly situate boat migration within the long-standing West African culture of migration, and highlight the significance of socio-cultural and political factors. Among the fascinating findings are the perception of migration as status enhancing and a rite de passage in the Senegalese fishing communities, and the profound roles of the extended family, social networks and, above all, religion, especially the widespread influence of the marabout. The importance of information and communication technologies in sustaining transnational networks is equally highlighted.
The Crabs of Bangui
(2010)
Every man lives for himself, using his freedoms to attain his personal aims, and feels with his whole being that he can at any moment perform or not perform this or that action. The higher a man stands in the social scale, the more connections he has with others and the more power he has over them, the more conspicuous is the predestination and inevitability of every act he commits. Upon this philosophy, a former banker, Hansel Bolingo, suddenly finds [or makes] himself the regional representative of a Chinese firm that deals in crabs in Bangui. This catapults him into a position of instant wealth. His mouth-watering affluence draws immediate attention while his hypnotic powers cause hundreds of [not-so-honest]citizens to clamour for shares from which he builds up a huge fortune. But he soon discovers that he cannot deceive everybody all the time.
Education of the Deprived is a perceptive socio-artistic examination of the key works of some major writers of Anglophone Cameroon literary drama today. For over two decades now socio-political developments in Cameroon, including the liberalization of the press, have led to an unprecedented proliferation of political, journalistic and imaginative writings. Availing themselves of their new-found freedom of expression, Cameroonians in general are forcefully articulating their views more than even before, and creative writers, in particular, are artistically recording intimate and painful experiences in the on-going endeavour to make sense of the socio-political environment; they are mapping out, through images and symbols, the peculiar contour of the collective Cameroonian soul. What observers have noticed, with regard to Anglophone Cameroon imaginative writing, however, is that there are few significant critical works to match the burgeoning creative literature. While in the 1970s there was a cry concerning the scarcity of imaginative works by Anglophone Cameroonians, the complaint now, at the turn of the 21st century, is that there is a dearth of critical literature capable of catapulting, on to the international literary scene, the Anglophone Cameroon literature being written. This book covers both traditional and modern drama as written by Anglophones, lays bare the technical differences between the two dramatic traditions, and brings out the central themes developed by these committed dramatists.
Black Caps and Red Feathers
(2010)
In Black Caps and Red Feathers the reader is taken into Creature's subconscious on the garbage heap where he is tenant, and where he recounts his multitudinous and gruesome experiences in Traourou's underground prisons. Ancestral Earth, set within a traditional African background, indicts Akeumbin, the king and custodian of the earth of Allehtendurih, who is caught in the dilemma of stopping a plague caused by the reckless exploitation of the earth and showing affection for his fiftieth bride. In compliance with the Princes of Earth, the women who are the principal victims, bring pressure to bear on the King who condescends to the urgency of appeasing the Ancestral Earth. The common denominator in both plays is communal grudge against irresponsible leadership and its fallouts of indiscriminate victimization that allow for the anticipation of a new or renewed consciousness.
The Moogo, the region of the Moose - known as 'Mossi' in ancient literature-occupies the entire central zone of Burkina Faso. It is divided into several kingdoms, the principal one comprising today's capital of Ouagadougou. Along with the singing griots, the evening storytellers pass on the ancestral word during the evening gatherings where they provide the group with models to follow. The folktale is the most appropriate form for teaching young children to express themselves, to structure their thoughts, and to reason. The tales portraying familiar animals will be reserved for the group of youngest children. The legendary gluttony and foolishness of Mba-Katre, the hyena, in contrast with the cunning and finesse of Mba-Soamba, the hare, will interest above all children from 10 - 12 years of age. The stories describing the origin of things, the reason for various social taboos, the legitimacy of social functions and structures, as well character flaws that need correcting, are reserved as a priority for adolescents.
Anxiety in Mosaic
(2010)
Anxiety In Mosaic is a sum up of a man's fears and hopes into a volume of poetry; anxieties that span a cross section of the human phenomena of greed (in ramifications) and the resultant socio-political, economic and environmental consequences; the repercussions of worsted governance, feminist, ecological, emigrational and imperialist concerns, presented from the perspective of a philosophical questioning. The charm of these thoroughly vocal, finely-crafted poems not only lie in the quasi-compendious multiplicity of subject matter but also in their creative and innovative re-chartings.
Each of the essays in this book is marked by a certain simplicity and clarity, a seriousness tinged with humour, masking a profundity that are unmistakably characteristic of Godfrey B. Tangwa alias Rodcod Gobata, one of the leading critical minds amongst Cameroonians. The essays are centred on the theme of democracy and meritocracy which the author believes to be the pre-conditions for genuine development in Africa. The immediate focus of these essays is Cameroon, a country remarkable for experimenting with French/English bilingualism and for having a political dictatorship which claims, wrongly or rightly, to have transformed itself into a democracy; but they are equally relevant to other countries in Africa and beyond. Each of the essays stands alone but they are all telling various aspects of the same story from various angles at various times using different modes of expression. Anyone who seeks a glimpse of understanding of the trouble with Africa and particularly with Cameroon, 10 years into the 21st century, would read this book with great profit.
Patrick Tataw Obenson, alias Ako-Aya, the rabid critic, social crusader and witty journalist, all rolled up in one, was indeed a popular and widely admired pioneer in daring journalism and social commentary in Cameroon. Little wonder that when he died, he left behind countless painful hearts and many questions on the lips of his admirers. As a man of the people, the fallen hero of Cameroon's Fleet Street shared his experiences, be they good or bad, with his readers. He was a virile critic even of the sordid things in which he himself secretly indulged. Obenson's mind was open, and through his popular newspaper column - Ako-Aya - he exposed society and social action in all their dimensions. He had an axe to grind with all perpetrators of social vices, especially those of them that infringed on the rights of the common man. He gave them a good fight, using his newspaper as his only weapon - a weapon which could not be neutralized even by the most affluent nor the most coercive leadership. And he did so with nerve and valour and venom. Only Tataw Obenson could spit out really scathing pieces of satire, aimed directly at the highest governing authorities of his society. Only Obenson could make allusions even to his own apparently ugly self. Only he could be liberal and honest enough to confess how he boarded a taxi and later bolted without paying the driver. Only Obenson was able to foresee his imminent demise from the face of the earth and literarily wrote his own epitaph
This book addresses the key issues of reinstating the veritable nature of African values and most specifically those of the Bamilikes that had been discarded since Western Christianity came into contact with black Africa considered animist. This task is warranted by the malaise experienced in churches by some African Christians. This is further made necessary and even pressing by the sense failure that the first wave of evangelisation, which has proven incapable of incorporating the Words of God in the African religious belief systems. This analysis takes into account the exigencies of the present context. The media as well as educated men talk ceaselessly of globalisation and the global village. The question we should be asking is to know if globalisation can be attained without due consideration of African values. This work aims at showing the scientific, sociological and cultural bases of African values so far castigated by colonial discourse. One of the ways to make this known is to expose it, analyse it and show its importance at various levels.
The following pages, initially prepared for limited circulation in 1961, contain brief extracts and summaries of those parts of Eugen ZintgraffÍs book Nord-Kamerun (1895), of most interest concerning the colonial Bamenda and Wum Division. ZintgraffÍs book, the first by a European about the Grassfields, has not been translated and is hard to get second-hand. In using these notes the following points should be borne in mind: ZintgraffÍs knowdie;ledge of Bali (Mungaka) and Hausa was very slight, and his discussions of character, motives and political institutions are consequently superficial and open to criticisms. He had no means of checking what he was told, or thought he was told. He had no previous knowledge of any similar culture and no training in ethnographical method. He was, however, a good observer, and his descriptions of tools, dress, weapons and the like, can be regarded as fairly reliable. Finally, it must be remembered that Zintgraff wrote the book to justify his own actions and to support that small but influential section of public opinion in Germany which favoured rapid imperial expansion. A full account of the actions and motives of ZintgraffÍs opponents in the Kamerun Governdie;ment and in the Colonial Bureau of the German Foreign Office has not been written: we only have one side of the story. But there are some suggestive points made in RudinÍs Germans in the Cameroons and others referred to in these notes. What is perhaps most striking about ZintgraffÍs account is the fact that the people of the Western Grassfields were not so isolated from one another or their neighbours as might be thought. A network of trade-friendships covered the country and big men exchanged gifts over long distances. These links must be set beside the insedie;curity due to raids and slave-catching, and are well worth investigation.
In the olden days, after a day's work in the farms, children and parents returned home feeling worn out. As a sort of evening entertainment, children of the same family, compound or village then gathered round a story-teller to listen to folk tales and riddles. This was common in every African home. The listeners participate with joy by joining in the songs and choruses. Sometimes the children were given the opportunity to tell stories that they had known while the adult story-teller listened attentively in order to add more details where necessary. In telling these stories and riddles, children were expected to learn something through all those activities connected with the customs, environment, language and religious practices of their people. This book provides children with stories, riddles and some proverbs that parents ought to have told their children at home but have failed because of their present day busy schedules. Teachers will fill that vacuum at school as they guide the children in reading the stories, riddles and proverbs in their second language-English. As an instructional tool, this collection will foster literacy, promote cultural awareness and create situations where learners share with one another their personal experiences and traditions.
The Earth Mother
(2010)
The fight against evil remains at the core of this play, pitting Kamsi and her supporters against a few daring councillors. Skilfully scripted by a renowned actor and playwright, this drama exposes the alliances and explosive tensions in Nyong village overwhelmed by unseen but supposedly harmful forces. Spiced with witty proverbs and humour, The Earth Mother will not fail to thrill its readers.
Strange Passion
(2010)
In Strange Passions John Ngong Kum Ngong's vocation and prime obsession remain constant - the soul of the nation. Passion, the central symbol in this collection is the patriotic sentiment in its various manifestations. As a self-conscious artist, Ngong summons his audacious technical dexterity to sublimate the sauciness characteristic of his style and direct it towards ideological ends. The significance of his contribution is as much in the urgency, originality and authenticity of his message as in the full range and complexity of his style, and the depth and density of his thoughts.
Snatched from the Grave
(2010)
The Bafaw Language (Bantu A10) is a product of the language research programme of the Department of Linguistics of the University of Buea. It is the first serious piece of work on this highly endangered language, and aims to account generally for the data of Bafaw. The work therefore lays the foundation for more advanced work in the future. It provides a description of: the phonology, i.e. the sound system; the morphology or lexis; and the syntax of the Bafaw language. The work goes far beyond to provide a sociolinguistic survey of the Bafaw language community, and offers a discussion of functional literacy in Bafaw, the development of an orthography and the thematic glossary of the language. The book provides a useful resource for the Bafaw language development and an inspiration for further research and scholarship.
Bernard Nsokika Fonlon, 1924-1986, rose from humble origins to become one of Cameroon's most famous sons. He was a scholar, a poet, a politician, a philosopher, a man of action and a man of courage. He was never too busy to see someone who was troubled, never too tired to take up the case of the oppressed or the downtrodden. He was a man who could communicate, with style, in half a dozen world languages but who could also use Pidgin English if it meant putting his listeners at ease. He was a man who moved in opulent circles but who collected for himself not money but the hearts of those who got to know him. It is easy to use superlatives of someone like Bernard Fonlon, easy to make him sound like a sage or a saint; it is less easy to describe the humour and the courtesy and the gentleness that irradiated all that he said and did. This book describes briefly the life and times of a man whose story incorporates the history of a young nation and whose autobiography, The Pathfinder, has all the excitement of an adventure novel. We could use a lot of words and still not get to the heart of the matter because ordinary words are for ordinary men and Bernard Fonlon was unique. To those who knew him, no introduction is necessary; to those who did not know him, no short introduction is enough. Bernard Fonlon did not leave a worldly legacy to his family and friends and country. He left much more. He left ideas that can never be buried and ideals that will challenge new generations.
This collection represents, in substance and style, folk tradition in the North-West Region of Cameroon. Contained herein is a sampling of various human emotions, parental concerns, and societal conflicts: emotional insecurity, deceit, obstinacy, power and control, trickery, malevolence, greed, jealousy, and more. The stylistic representation is reflected in the double writing, as shown by the dialogues, the songs, and the use of choruses. These tales are ageless, placeless, and, therefore, anonymous; yet they are also the collective wisdom of a people who are supposed once to have walked the planet and communed with other animals and non-animals on the same terms. That is how humans, animals, vegetation, water, and hills/mountains are equally animate and have linguistic expression for their thoughts and sentiments. Folktales served primarily as entertainment, and also as a convenient way of teaching history and culture, and they invariably promoted good listening and speaking skills in the vernacular language as children learned to model the rhetorical patterns of their adult folklorists - with children taking turns night after night till they had gone full circle and then started recounting the same tales over. While the morale of some of the tales is obvious, that of other tales is not; and that, again, is typical both of the traditional mind set and of the educational backdrop of storytelling.
This book is a descriptive and documentary analysis of the Mankon I-language and E-language mirrored through aspects of history, geography, flora and fauna. These aspects manifest in the taxonomic nomenclatures attributed to referents in society. Because these referents were hitherto transmitted orally from generation to generation, the author has painstakingly analysed and documented aspects of Mankon culture for posterity. The work focuses in particular on Mankon proverbs for insights into the structure and function of the language. As a vehicle of communication, language plays a primordial role in encoding and decoding 'metalinguistic' data. Through thorough scientific linguistic universals and principals, Chi Che has proposed orthography for Mankon pedagogy that is simple, tenable and practicable. This book is the answer to the international clarion call for societies to analyse and document their endangered indigenous cultures. Schools, linguists, sociolinguists, anthropologists, historians and others will find this book especially useful.
For millennia, Africans have lived on the African continent, in close contact with the diversities of nature: floral, faunal and human; and in so doing they have developed cultures, values, attitudes and perspectives to the problems, ethical and otherwise, that have arisen from the existential pressures of their situation. The problem, however, is that such values and perspectives do not necessarily form coherent ethical theories. Theory-making is a second order activity requiring a certain amount of leisure and comfort which the existential conditions of life on the African continent have not easily permitted in the retrospect-able past. The elements of African bioethics are to be found in its cultural values, traditions, customs and practices. These are research-able, highlight-able and usable by those who would. The bioethical problems of our current global existential situation are such that all possible solutions, no matter their provenance, ought to be tried. Western culture has far too loud a voice combined with deaf ears in contemporary ethical discourse. But it should never be forgotten that other cultures have their own word to say and that alternative values, ways of thinking and practices exist, and attempt should always be made to bring these out and to highlight them, if they could possibly contribute to the satisfactory solution of a global problem. This book brings together various papers on bioethical issues and problems, written at different times, some previously published, each of which attempts to bring out some African elements, perspective or concern. The African narrative style predominates through these essays but their framing conforms, more or less, to the Western paradigm for presenting academic issues.
This book critically discusses missionary Christianity and colonization in Africa as twin enterprises with a common ambition. While the colonialist set out to invest capital and reap profit, the missionary desire was to tend and turn African souls from damnation. It was this desire that drove the missionaries into the interior, propelled by the belief that no land was too remote to escape their attention and vigilance. It equally kept missionary zeal buoyant. The clarification of the concept of salvation within the Roman Catholic Church during the Vatican II Council set in motion the current lethargy that has in some places crippled the mission itself. In retrospect, one can begin to wonder why Africans became Christians. What reasons motivated the early adherents to cling to this foreign religion? Were there some internal deficiencies in African traditional religions, which the Africans hoped to remedy by joining the new religion? Or was it just part of the wholesale flirting with whatever was foreign and perceived to be modern? What baits were used by the missionaries to entice Africans? Christianity posed a danger to many of the time-honoured answers to African problems. These were the values Africans converting to Christianity were expected to abandon. Why have Christians continually returned to their abandoned roots in time of crisis? This moving, well argued, richly documented and empirically substantiated study concludes by cautioning against the stubborn drive at radical conversion to Christianity with scant regard to the imperatives of enculturation.
Memory is the Weapon
(2010)
Donato Francesco Mattera has been celebrated as a journalist, editor, writer and poet. He is also acknowledged as one of the foremost activists in the struggle for a democratic South Africa, and helped to found both the Union of Black Journalists, the African Writer's Association and the Congress of South African Writers. Born in 1935 in Western Native Township (now Westbury) across the road from Sophiatown, Mattera can lay claim to an intriguingly diverse lineage: his paternal grandfather was Italian, and he has Tswana, Khoi-Khoi and Xhosa blood in his veins. Yet diversity was hardly being celebrated at that time. In one of apartheid's most infamous actions, the vibrant multicultural Sophiatown was destroyed in 1955 and replaced with the white suburb of Triomf, and the wrenching displacement, can be felt in Mattera's writing. The story of his life in Sophiatown as told in this essay is intricate. Covering Mattera's teenage years from 1948 to 1962 when Sophiatown was bulldozed out of existence, it weaves together both his personal experience and political development. In telling the story of his life as a 'coloured' teenager, Mattera takes on the ambitious goal of making us recapture the crucial events of the 1950s in Sophiatown, one of the most important decades in the history of black political struggles in South Africa.
A Basket of Flaming Ashes
(2010)
Ashuntantang is an extraordinary weaver of words who showcases vivid pictures that compete with 3D simulation. Her greatest asset is her use of the beautiful traditional Cameroonian anchor that evokes folk tales with its moonlight romance and glory. You feel, laugh, weep, shiver, wonder, and hail the triumphant spirit of the persona as it navigates African postcolonial and global experiences with the melancholy of an exile who is purposeful, strategic, and a lot of fun.
This book is a compilation of oral histories about the movement of Luo and some Bantu-speaking peoples. It includes histories of many clans or ethnic groups, and how drought, warfare, disease, and competition over pastoral resources in western Kenya forced them to look for a land that they could call their own. Highly entertaining, the stories cross over from pre-colonial to post-colonial eras, with tales of fooling the colonial officers, winning battles and producing miracles. Although warriors and chiefs play a critical part in the stories so too do unlikely actors such as women, prophets, and common farmers. As one of the elders put it, 'Without history you are like wild animals' you need to know where you came from and who you are.' People with kinship connections to the ethnic groups represented here will delight in the references to places, people, kin groups and events. Residents of western Kenya will be able to trace some of their genealogies to North Mara and vice versa. Historians and anthropologists will find in this book a rich primary source for their own research. Those interested in cultural change will find this a fascinating case of Luo assimilation: events chronicled in this book are still underway and observable in communities today. Producing the text in both Swahili and English ensures that local people will have access to these histories for their own learning and on-going discussions about the past.
The Master’s program in Money and Finance (MMF) is an innovative joint venture of the Department of Money and Macroeconomics and of the Department of Finance, both located in the new House of Finance. The program offers promising students from all over the world an intellectually stimulating and challenging setting in which to prepare for their professional careers in central banking, commercial banking, insurance and other financial services. By being located in Frankfurt, one of the world's leading financial centers and the only city in the world with two central banks (the ECB and the German Bundesbank), it offers unique opportunities for interaction with practitioners. The program is taught exclusively in English; knowledge of German is not required for admission to, or completion of the program. It has been designed with a view to establishing itself as a leading Masters program integrating studies in monetary economics, macroeconomics and finance and a major gateway to high-profile jobs in the banking and financial sector.
Reproductive Health, Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction in Africa : Frameworks of Analysis
(2010)
This volume contains framework papers prepared for a collaborative research project on Reproductive Health, Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction in Africa, an initiative of the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC). Taken together, the chapters in this book make a compelling argument that improvement in reproductive health is key to raising household incomes and to reducing poverty. the books reveals that the triple phenomena of better reproductive health, economic growth, and declining poverty, are likely to be found in an environment in which labour and product markets function. Further, a macroeconomic framework that encourages domestic and foreign investments and promotes social protection for current and future generations is essential.
This books is the result of concerted teamwork among the academia staff of the Department of Religious Studies, University of Nairobi between 1986 and 1990. The Project was prompted by the necessity to produce relevant and comprehensive textbooks for the undergraduate degree programme. The book has remained in demand, confirming the relevance and quality of its content covering the whole range of major religions of the world with extensive geographical and historical acope. It includes a specific section on African Religion, thus placing the African Religious Heritage within the mainstream of the comparative study of the world's religions.
Jean Hartley, born in Kenya, is acknowledged as being the first to legitimise fixing for wildlife film crews. Over the last 25 years, she has worked on over a thousand films, the vast majority being about wildlife and nature. She features five of the great film makers who all started their careers in Kenya in the1950s, legends whom she is proud to call personal friends. Watching all of their films, and many more, she became fascinated by the history of film making in Kenya and determined to find out when it all started. In this insightful book, she traces the roots of wildlife film back a hundred years, drawing on accounts of the original film makers and the professional hunters who guided those early safaris. She tracks the changes from those grainy, speeded up, silent films through to the technologically perfect High Definition and 3D films that are being made today.
A woman yearns for self-assurance to be a woman of dreams, of song and poetry. The feel of life, buried by over socialisation and domestication processes, oppressed by the surrounding culture and dealing with a problem without a name, is lifted in the process of dreaming, singing songs and reciting poetry. That is the woman Wanjira becomes when she narrates stories. She reclaims her dreams through her stories. She reclaims her wellness, hope, independence and strength. You see the sparkle in her eyes when she talks abut dances, courtship, beauty, children, love, courage, determination, joy, and womanhood. Reclaiming My Dreams: Stories by Wanjira wa Rukenya is thus, an individual artist's work. It goes a long way in helping students appreciate the narrative genre and understand the creative role of individual artists. This understanding demystifies the idea that anybody and everybody in the African society is a storyteller; an assertion that has belittled the artistry of African Oral Literature. The book makes us appreciate our cultural heritage. Students of literature in Secondary Schools and in higher institutions of learning will find this book useful.
The Cold War period witnessed competition from political, economic, ideological, diplomatic, military and social dimensions between the United States of America (USA), and the then Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). In the superpower rivalries, India and Africa were adversely affected in many ways. The situation did not change for the better in the post-Cold War period, which has witnessed the domination of the world by the US and its allies, the Group of Eight (G-8) industrialised countries. This domination has been characterised by the process of Americanization of the worlds, otherwise termed globalisation, in virtually all spheres of life. USA, India, Africa During and After the Cold War demonstrates that both the United States and The Soviet Union used African States, India and other Third World countries for their own geopolitical considerations; that the foreign policy and foreign relations of the US were meant to subject Africa and India to the dictates of US imperialism. The book assesses the impact of the Cold War and the post-Cold War order on Africa, India and the entire world and argues that the Non Aligned Movement is still relevant to the Third World countries despite the demise of the Cold War. The book analyses issues from the African point of view as opposed to hitherto Western view points but provides a balanced appreciation of the complex forces that shape foreign policies and foreign relations globally. It is a valuable contribution to modern diplomatic history and targets university students, researchers, foreign affairs ministries, and practising diplomats.
Despite being a large capital city in Africa in terms of size and its regional role, Nairobi is an unrecognised entity. For the majority of its inhabitants, the capital of Kenya is a transit point rather than a dwelling place. Since its origins, Nairobi has been a city of migrants, more predisposed to their rural roots than to their current city status. It is a non-conforming town, which conceals its urbanity more than it claims it, and whose identity remains evasive. Nairobi presents itself as a mosaic of residential areas which bring to mind the cityís history. The racial segregation that stratified the development of the colonial city has today disappeared, but it has given way to a form of social segregation. One must, therefore, not seek a unique identity in Nairobi, but rather, several identities - those of different communities that comprise the city and whose dynamics are seen at village and residential estate level. However, Nairobi is also a city that is contradictory. This East African capital city is often associated with slums and crime, and their increase and growth stigmatises the failure of urban policies. Therefore, it is at these cracks and fringes of the city that we should seek out the identities and dynamics that have shaped the city for a century. Nairobi is a fragmented city that can be understood in steps. The 13 contributory articles in Nairobi Today thus reveal the city. This multidisciplinary collective work invites us to gain entry into certain areas of the city, to visit its communities and to familiarise ourselves with its formal and informal institutions. This is a requirement in order to fully understand what makes Nairobi what it is today.
Sitting on the terrace of the royal plantation Frederiksgave, his favourite retreat, Governor Edward Carstensen came to see the inevitable: Denmark had to give up her 'possessions' in Africa. As fate would have it, he came to be the instrument by which two centuries of Danish involvement on the Gold Coast was terminated, thereby making way for the emergence of the colonial system that developed there. After the abolition of the slave trade, Denmark had struggled to find ways and means to legitimate her continued stay at the Coast. At an early stage the Danes initiated a number of attempts to establish experimental plantations to cultivate export crops such as cotton, coffee and sugar. But a transition from slave trade to 'legitimate' products required stability and peace, and a need for control, which the rather limited Danish presence was not able to maintain. Closing the Books comprises a compilation of the official reports that the last Danish Governor sent home during his term of office at the Gold Coast. The reports reflect his personal views regarding the economic and political situations there, as well as his ideas on the 'civilization of Africa'.
The importance of watercourses to human life and development cannot be overemphasised. From communication, trade, agriculture and the location of human settlements, they have played an immeasurable role. Almost 60% of Africa lies within shared rivers and lake basins. The Nile is shared by more than seven nations, the Zambezi by six, and the Congo by nine. With populations on the rise, many countries have been labeled water scarce nations, and in fifteen years it is predicted that many people on earth will be exposed to water shortage consequences such as famine and disease. Thirteen African nations already suffer water stress and soon another twelve will join the list unless something is done to thwart the problem. On March 20, 2009 in Nairobi, Hekima College collaborated with Jesuit Hakimani Centre and the French Institute for Research in Africa (IFRA) to host the Hekima College Water Day Academic Seminar with the theme Shared Waters, Shared Opportunities. This book is the result of critical research and presentations by internationally renowned scholars, researchers and experts, and students of the Institute of Peace Studies and International RelationsHekima College. For most of 2009 Kenya suffered severe problems caused by flooding which took many lives and destroyed homes and important infrastructures. It highlighted the issues of water management and water conflicts, not only in Kenya but in other parts of East Africa, as it was made abundantly clear that not only scarcity of water, but excess water, incorrectly managed, can be disastrous. This timely, scholarly book presents discussions of the issues which underlie the major water crises in the region. They open the debate into the water problems of Kenya and East Africa in an effort to join the global campaign to find solutions to these difficulties.
The last text on the geography of Uganda was written in 1975 by Professor Brian Langlands. Since the last publication, Uganda has undergone numerous changes. The population has more than tripled from less than 10 million to almost 30 million. The district boundaries have changed and the number of districts increases every year. New districts are created every year. Economic productivity has also shifted over the years. Furthermore, new and emerging diseases have surfaced in Uganda. This book addresses the need for an updated document on the geography of Uganda. This book was written by a joint group of Ugandan geographers. The contributors authored chapters in their areas of specialization. There are a total of twelve chapters in the book. These chapters are based on the most current data available.
Cheche, a radical, socialist student magazine at the University of Dares Salaam, first came out in 1969. Featuring incisive analyses of key societal issues by prominent progressives, it gained national and international recognition in a short while. Because it was independent of authority, and spoke without fear or favor, it was banned after just a year of existence. The former editors and associates of Cheche revive that salutory episode of student activism in this book with fast-flowing, humor spiced stories, and astute socio-economic analyses. Issues covered include social and technical aspects of low-budget magazine production, travails of student life and activism, contents and philosophy of higher education, socialism in Tanzania, African liberation, gender politics and global affairs. They also reflect on the relevance of past student activism to the modern era. If your interests cover higher education in Africa, political and development studies, journalism, African affairs, socialism and capitalism, or if you just seek elucidation of student activism in a nation then at the center of the African struggle for liberation, this book presents the topic in a lively but unorthodox and ethically engaging manner.
This book brings together articles and conference papers on the Zambezi River and Kariba Dam written by Dr. Tumbare between 1998-2010. Part I discusses issues of river basin and integrated water resources management and Part II contains papers in infrastructure development in the water and energy sectors.
Laughing Store is just what we need in times of troubles and uncertainties such as these. A book of humour from an acclaimed master of laughter, it lifts our hearts and raises our spirits. Jokes that touch about every domain of existence - from sex to religion, from births to deaths, from politics to the beer parlour, from the courtroom to the hospital. And most important of all, conceived in the supremely original Cameroonian flavour of jokes.
This edited volume is the first scholarly tome exclusively dedicated to Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the literary chronotope. This concept, initially developed in the 1930s and used as a frame of reference throughout Bakhtin’s own writings, has been highly influential in literary studies. After an extensive introduction that serves as a ‘state of the art’, the volume is divided into four main parts: Philosophical Reflections, Relevance of the Chronotope for Literary History, Chronotopical Readings and Some Perspectives for Literary Theory. These thematic categories contain contributions by well-established Bakhtin specialists such as Gary Saul Morson and Michael Holquist, as well as a number of essays by scholars who have published on this subject before. Together the papers in this volume explore the implications of Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope for a variety of theoretical topics such as literary imagination, polysystem theory and literary adaptation; for modern views on literary history ranging from the hellenistic romance to nineteenth-century realism; and for analyses of well-known novelists and poets as diverse as Milton, Fielding, Dickinson, Dostoevsky, Papadiamandis and DeLillo