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Although there is widespread food availability in urban areas across the Global South, it is not correlated with universal access to adequate amounts of nutritious foods. This report is based on a household survey conducted in 2015 in six low-income informal areas in Malawi's capital city, where three-quarters of the population live in informal settlements. Understanding the dimensions of household food insecurity in these neighbourhoods is critical to sustainable and inclusive growth in Lilongwe. The survey findings provide a complementary perspective to the 2008 AFSUN survey conducted in Blantyre, which suggested a level of food security in urban Malawi that was probably more typical of peri-urban areas where many people farm. Given that informal settlements house most of Malawi's urban residents, the Lilongwe research presents a serious public policy challenge for the country's leaders. Poverty is a profound problem in Malawi's rapidly expanding cities. Of particular concern is the poor quality of diets among residents of informal settlements. Precarity of income, reflected in the survey findings of frequent purchasing of staple foods and the need for food sellers to extend credit, appears to be a key driver of food insecurity in these communities. Economically inclusive growth, with better prospects for stable employment and protection for informal-sector workers, appears to be the surest route to improved urban food security in Malawi.
Shimmer Chinodya, winner of the 1989 Commonwealth Writers Prize (Africa region) is one of Zimbabwe's foremost fiction writers. This collection of short stories reveals his development as a writer of passionate questioning integrity. The first stories, 'Hoffman Street' and 'The Man who Hanged Himself' capture the bewildered innocence of a child's view of the adult world, where behaviour is often puzzling and contradictory; stories such as 'Going to See Mr B.V.' provide the transition between the world of the adult and that of the child where the latter is required to act for himself in a situation where illusions founder on a narrow reality. 'Among the Dead' and 'Brothers and Sisters' look wryly at the self-conscious, self-centred, desperately serious world of young adulthood while 'Playing your Cards', 'The Waterfall', 'Strays' and 'Bramson' introduce characters for whom ambition, disillusion, and disappointment jostle for attention in a world where differences of class, culture, race and morality come to the fore. Finally, in 'Can we Talk' we conclude with an abrasive, lucid, sinewy voice which explores the nature of estrangement. The charge is desolation. Can we Talk and Other Stories speaks of the unspoken and unsaid. The child who watches but does not understand, the young man who observes but cannot participate, the man who stands outside not sure where his desires and ambitions lead, the older man, estranged by his own choices. 'Can we Talk' is not a question but a statement that insists on being heard, and demands a reassessment of our dreams.
This book weaves together a rich tapestry on football fandom in Zimbabwe. Based on empirical research focusing on the different dimensions of fan practices and experiences, the book is the result of multiple fieldwork processes with fans in Zimbabwe spanning a period of eight years including desk research, interviews, observation, focus group discussions and netnography. It demonstrates the nexus between social identities and supporting a sports team, highlighting that there are deeper underlying meanings and assumptions to one's support of a sporting team. Manase Chiweshe highlights the various nuances of supporting football clubs. This book provides an alternative way to understanding communities and how sport can be viewed as a serious lens into societal organisations. It offers important insights into how Zimbabweans are also engaged in leisure activities and that play is also part of their life worlds. Given the major focus on poverty, disease and conflict, African stories of intimate play and enjoyment tend to be sidelined. Soccer has the power to bring together or divide communities. In many an African context, just as in Zimbabwe, everyday ethnic and religious rivalries are played out through football matches. It is thus important to capture this space and use football as a way to heal historic and deep-seated conflicts.
The primary goal of this study is to present the results of a comprehensive scope of key opportunities and challenges for harnessing migration for inclusive growth and development at the regional level in Southern Africa. The main objectives were as follows: Provide an overview of regional migration stocks and flows identifying regional trends, drivers and impacts from existing research literature and official data; Profile migrant characteristics at the regional level including demographic composition, types of migration and occupational profile; Examine the relevance of multilateral, continental and regional migration instruments, policies, protocols, agreements and forums with a view to identifying actions required to move the regional migration management agenda forward and align with the goal of enhancing migration for inclusive growth and development in Southern Africa; Analyze the key initiatives, opportunities and obstacles to developing a coherent, integrated and rights-regarding approach to migration management including areas of common commitment and ownership, and points of actual and potential conflict and disagreement between states; Conduct a gender analysis of regional migration dynamics including gender dimensions of migration, challenges, dangers and vulnerabilities confronting migrant women and other vulnerable groups, and gender analysis of migration management in Southern Africa; Identify potential programming areas that are weak or underdeveloped.
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.
This report compares the business operations of over 2,000 South Africans and refugees in the urban informal economy and systematically dispels some of the myths that have grown up around their activities. First, the report takes issue with the perception that South Africans are inexperienced and unmotivated participants in the informal economy. Many have years of experience and have successfully grown their businesses. Second, it contests the view that refugees enjoy a competitive advantage because they come to South Africa with inherent talent and already honed skills. On the contrary, over 80% of those surveyed had no prior informal sector experience and learned their skills on the job and after coming to South Africa. Third, the report shows that there is fierce competition in the urban informal sector between and within the two groups. However, business competition between refugees and South Africans is mitigated by the fact that they tend to dominate different sections of the informal economy with South Africans dominant in the food sector and refugees in the household products and personal services sectors. Finally, the report takes issue with recent arguments that all informal sector businesses are equally at risk from robbery, extortion and other crimes. It shows that South Africans are affected but that refugees are far more vulnerable than their South African counterparts. The report therefore confirms that xenophobia and xenophobic violence are major threats to refugees seeking a livelihood in the informal sector, especially if they venture into informal settlements.
One of the defining characteristics of many large cities in the rapidly urbanizing global South is the high degree of informality of shelter, services and economic livelihoods. It is these dynamic, shifting and dangerous informal urban spaces that refugees often arrive in with few resources other than a will to survive, a few social contacts and a drive to support themselves in the absence of financial support from the host government and international agencies. This report addresses the question of variability in economic opportunity and entrepreneurial activity between urban environments within the same destination country - South Africa - by comparing refugee entrepreneurship in Cape Town, South Africas second largest city, and several small towns in the province of Limpopo. The research shows that refugee entrepreneurial activity in Limpopo is a more recent phenomenon and largely a function of refugees moving from large cities such as Johannesburg where their businesses and lives are in greater danger. The refugee populations in both areas are equally diverse and tend to be engaged in the same wide range of activities. This report shows that different urban geographies do shape the local nature of refugee entrepreneurial economies, but there are also remarkable similarities in the manner in which unconnected refugee entrepreneurs establish and grow their businesses in large cities and small provincial towns.
This report examines the impact of xenophobic violence on Zimbabweans who are trying to make a living in the South African informal sector and finds that xenophobic violence has several key characteristics that put them at constant risk of losing their livelihoods and their lives. The businesses run by migrants and refugees in the informal sector are a major target of South Africa's extreme xenophobia. Attitudinal surveys clearly show that South Africans differentiate migrants by national origin and that Zimbabweans are amongst the most disliked. This report is based on a survey of informal sector enterprises in Cape Town and Johannesburg; and 50 in-depth interviews with Zimbabwean informal business owners in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Polokwane who had been affected by xenophobic violence. In many areas, community leaders are ineffective in dealing with the violence and, in some cases, they actively foment hostility and instigate attacks. The fact that migrant entrepreneurs provide goods, including food, at competitive prices and offer credit to consumers is clearly insufficient to protect them when violence erupts. However, the deep-rooted crisis in Zimbabwe makes return home a non- viable option and Zimbabweans instead adopt several self-protection strategies, none of which is ultimately an insurance against xenophobic attack. The findings in this report demonstrate that xenophobic violence fails in its two main aims: to drive migrant entrepreneurs out of business and to drive them out of the country.
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.
Lament for Kofifi Macu
(2017)
Angifi Dladla is a poet and playwright who writes in both English and Zulu. He is the author of eight plays and a poetry book in Zulu titled Uhambo. For many years he has been a writing teacher and director of Femba Writing Project, publishing school and prison newspapers, and the anthologies Wa lala, Wa sala and Reaching Out: Voices from Groenpunt Maximum-Security Prison. Lament for Kofifi Macu is Angifi Dladla's first collection of poems in English since The Girl Who Then Feared To Sleep (2001).
The publication is the latest in the African Studies in Russia series of compilations and contains full articles and annotations of the most important - from the point of view of editors - works of Russian Africanists over a certain period. The authors work at the Institute for African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS).The present issue covers the years 2014 to 2016 and consists of two sections. The first section presents conceptual articles on Africa published in authoritative journals. The second section offers synopses of books by Russian authors on economics, cultural anthropology, social and political development, gender studies, and international relations of African countries.The main objective of the triennial series of compilations is to introduce new findings of Russian Africanists to interested foreign scholars who do not speak Russian.
In this collection, Doh straddles the Atlantic with voices that doubt, question, and lament the black predicament; voices that evoke the wisdom of Africa's cultural values in a manner reminiscent of the continent's orality. Like the echoing of the talking drums in the forests and the savannahs, these voices acknowledge the challenges and vexing truths of the hour: the plight of a people that have been buffeted repeatedly by waves of invasion, deceit, and betrayals, yet against which onslaught they remain standing, frighteningly tall in dignity and integrity.
'It is my duty to take the message of revolt to other[s]. is is the only way to liberate the victims of suffering and slavery,' Nazmi Durrani quotes W.L. Sohan in this book. Resistance to imperialism in pre-independence Kenya by progressive South Asian Kenyans propelled the Kenyan liberation struggle to new heights. They were active in almost every field, from publishing progressive newspapers to supplying arms and material to Mau Mau. Liberating Minds consists of biographies of progressive South Asian Kenyans written by Nazmi Durrani. Originally published in Gujarati in the 1980s, they are available here in English for the first time, together with the original Gujarati. Also included is Naila Durrani's 1987 conference paper, 'Kenya Asian Participation in People's Resistance,' while Benegal Pereira introduces Eddie H. Pereira (1915-1995) and his resistance letters to the Colonial Times Newspaper.
Ivory Stars is Tanzanias first ever all-girls football team, but what makes this team even more unique is that they are people with albinism. Disregarded by society, the team is determined to show the world that they wont be held back. As International Albinism Awareness Day approaches, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro would defy stereotypes and prove that they are extraordinarily capable. Join Tatu, the team leader, and the Ivory Stars on their quest to reach the summit of the highest peak in Africa. Find out whether their determination will meet the challenges ahead. How will they manoeuvre through the twists and turns that lie in wait for them? What would it mean for them if they failed?
The Love Sheet
(2017)
The title should have warned me. On reading the title poem, I realise any of the poems is a gateway into this passion with compassion, into a garden whose fragrances colour every sound lovers make when words have to cope. Make the lovers poets, see how each facet is etched, each jewel worked and polished. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Hugh Hodge
When African Theology was first formulated, women played just a small role. In 1989 Mercy Amba Oduyoye set out to change this by creating the Circle of Concerned African Theologians in order to them a voice. The Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians is an African Baby, born in an ecumenical surrounding. Though there were other movements addressing the issue of gender inequalities in church and society, circle theologies are distinct from other women's liberation movements in that they are theologies formed in the context of African culture and religion. This book traces the Circle history from 1989 to 2007.
That Kind of Door
(2017)
Accident
(2017)
Carol Trehorne's only child, Max, is in ICU with severe burns. Max, a performance artist, has set himself alight. He recovers but it becomes clear that he is planning further performances that will put him at risk of serious injury or death. Carol, a single parent and a GP in a busy suburban practice, is worried that her son is not the genius his friends think he is, but might be on drugs or going psychotic. As she discusses her concerns with her son's psychiatrist, she wonders if her past behaviour, in particular her relationship with the adventurous and anti-social Jack, has influenced Max's determination to use his body as a site of violent art in the pursuit of revelation. Carol cannot accept that Max's self-harm will have any effect other than to add to the meaningless violence in the world. Accident raises questions about what kind of life is worth living and what death is worth dying. It explores the different responses artists and scientists can have to violence and self-destructive behaviour, and throws into sharp relief the difficulties parents face when their children me decisions that appear incomprehensible.
'Cape Towns public cultures can only be fully appreciated through recognition of its deep and diverse soundscape. We have to listen to what has made and makes a city. The ear is an integral part of the research tools one needs to get a sense of any city. We have to listen to the sounds that made and make the expansive mother city. Various of its constituent parts sound different from each other [T]here is the sound of the singing men and their choirs (teams they are called) in preparation for the longstanding annual Malay choral competitions. The lyrics from the various repertoires they perform are hardly ever written down. [] There are texts of the hallowed Dutch songs but these do not circulate easily and widely. Researchers dream of finding lyrics from decades ago, not to mention a few generations ago back to the early 19th century. This work by Denis Constant Martin and Armelle Gaulier provides us with a very useful selection of these songs. More than that, it is a critical sociological reflection of the place of these songs and their performers in the context that have given rise to them and sustains their relevance. It is a necessary work and is a very important scholarly intervention about a rather neglected aspect of the history and present production of music in the city.' Shamil Jeppie, Associate Professor, Department of Historical Studies, University of Cape Town
Otuzo twOvaherero
(2017)
Otuzo twOvaherero provides valuable information on Ovaherero patriclans and records folklore and praise poems in Otjiherero. Previously, these did not exist in written form. The book attempts to preserve these oral traditions before they disappear. It aims to restore pride to the Ovaherero, particularly in patrilineages that were displaced by the Ovaherero-German war of 1904-1907. Otuzo twOvaherero is structured around the Ovaherero patrilineal descent system (otuzo) which is the basis of the Ovaherero religion Oupwee. The surnames and homesteads that belong to the same patrilineage are grouped together under each patriclan to help the reader to easily trace the homesteads that belong to one patriclan (and thus have a common ancestry). The distinct features of each patriclan are specified in terms of totems, taboos, patriclans which collaborate, and praise poems of homesteads. All the patriclans and praise poems in this book were collected from Ovaherero communities living in Namibia. The author uses the term Ovaherero to include the various groups which speak the common language Otjiherero and which include the Ovahimba, Ovaherero, Ovatjimba and Ovambanderu. This book has the potential to promote unity within the Ovaherero community by showing how families are connected in lineages which trace back centuries.
Collected Plays: 2009 - 2017
(2017)
This collection contains five plays by the South African writer Allan Horwitz: The Pump Room; Comrade Babble; Boykie and Girlie; Jericho; and Book Marks. The plays explore the contradictions and dreams of the new and old South Africa, as well as universal themes that include the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and other moral dilemmas.
Saving Water
(2017)
These poems cover many different states of mind and situations and are deeply rooted in South Africa but also travel to other continents. A strong historical consciousness is mixed with different examples of violence and dispossession as well as an awareness of subconscious associations so that the political and the surreal intermingle - the brutalities of war and exploitation are softened by the tenderness of love. Stylistically inventive, it explores news forms while striving for an overall musicality.
It Does Matter To Listen is a collection of short anecdotal pieces of writings, spanning different subject areas - including politics, leadership and management - with the purpose of counselling and edifying the present and future generations. It is a must-read for anyone interested in how to go about business in everyday life, at home, at work and during leisure.
Eni and Other Poems
(2017)
Eni kaleidoscopically unveils human intrigues, predicaments and woes. It brings into sharp focus the most dreaded products of cruel oppression, exploitation, and destructionthe worst forms of human degradation and sufferings. However, it also sheds beams of hope, celebrating optimism in the struggle and eventually opening the curtain to the stage of victory of the oppressed and impoverished under the shameless sky.
From Antagonism to Re-engagement : Zimbabwe's Trade Negotiations with the European Union, 2000-2016
(2017)
The book interrogates the European Union (EU) - Zimbabwe Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations, covering trade in goods, trade-related rules and development cooperation. The negotiations coincided with EUs motives as the dominant development partner, and Zimbabwes state-stakeholder fault-lines, creating dilemmas in the pursuit of a fair EPA outcome. As a result, the economically weak Zimbabwe signed and ratified an asymmetrical interim EPA (iEPA) with an economically powerful EU in 2009 and 2012, respectively. Meanwhile, direct bilateral re-engagement which eluded the Government of National Unity (GNU), became real following ZANU-PF landslide victory on 31 July 2013, that sufficiently altered the power balance to trigger the process between the former nemesis in support of iEPA domestication, and social and economic development. ZANU-PF government stopped blaming the EU and other western nations for the countrys continued economic under-performance, signaling a softening approach on its part. Similarly, the EU and its member states softened its perception on ZANU-PF leadership leading to resumption and intensification of re-engagement despite failure to implement the Global Political Agreement-related constitutional and democratic reforms, agreed by GNU. This re-engagement was firmly endorsed when the EU and Zimbabwe signed an agreement in July 2015 to normalise bilateral relations and start cooperation.
The aim of this book is to provide comprehensive understanding of industrial economics and its applicability to African countries. The book is expected to serve as an intellectual and pedagogical support to teaching. It is a vital resource material for both undergraduate and post-graduate students. The text is also excellent for self-study for all people with a keen interest in the discipline because of the unique approach adopted by the author. Each chapter is arranged pedagogically starting with learning objectives followed by introductory remarks, then content and finally conclusion. Numerous relevant examples, case studies and review questions are provided.
Civil society is one of several Western political and social concepts that have not traveled successfully to Africa. Revived in response to the search for democracy in Eastern Europe during the late Soviet era, Western donors promoted and funded new civil society organizations in sub-Saharan Africa, regarding them as an essential grounding for African democratization. Most of these new civil society organizations had little in common with African associational activity. Focusing on the characteristics and behavior of long-standing African organizations would appear a better starting point for developing a useful concept of an African civil society. One candidate worth serious investigation is the Buganda Kingdom Government. This organization violates most distinctions central to Western notions of civil society. Yet it continues to behave like a civil society organization. Its political and conceptual collisions offer guidance toward a useful notion of African civil society and understanding Ugandan politics.
A New History of Tanzania
(2017)
Tanzania, the land and the people have been subject of a great deal of historical research, but there remains no readily accessible and concise history of the country. The aim of this volume is to fill that void. A New History of Tanzania takes its name from a lecture series introduced at the University of Dar es Salaam by Professor Isaria Kimambo in 2002. Prior to that, a book titled, A History of Tanzania, had been published in 1969 by East African Publishing House in Nairobi for the Tanzania Historical Association. That book is currently out of print and this is not a reprint. In this book, Prof. Kimambo has been joined by two other colleagues; Prof. Gregory H. Maddox of Texas Southern University, Houston (USA) and Salvatory S. Nyanto, a Tanzanian, Lecturer at the University of Dar es Salaam, and a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Iowa (USA); together they have produced an outline history of Tanzania that covers all important aspects from antiquity to the present that is different from and richer than its predecessor. Sources from the fields of archaeology, anthropology, biology, genetics and oral tradition have been used to produce this excellent book.
Yves R. Simon (1903-1961), one of the greatest contemporary philosophers, gives a modern formulation for many classical philosophical concepts such as authority, the common good, and natural law. These topics have received extensive attention from scholars. Simon also discusses the nature of human virtue, moral and intellectual, but this topic has been less studied until now. The idea of virtue, and in our case virtue in political life, runs through Simon's works. Through a close study of Simon's works and the relevant secondary literature, this book explores Simon's definition of virtue in order to highlight its originality, and show how he weaves the need for it into the fabric of three facets of political life, namely, the common good, the virtue of the ruler and the ruled, and the law. These ideas are important for the ruler-ship of any country and especially of developing nations which are populated by sit-tight dictators. Philosophy can be dry and abstract, yet in this case we deal with one of its more practical manifestations.
The Heart of Jacob
(2017)
Jacob prospers as a moneylender and pig merchant by taking advantage of other peoples misfortunes. But when he seeks to exploit the famine afflicting his village Tounga by lending money at high interest rates to poor villagers, he does not reckon what a sacrilege his pigs would commit which give the people an opportunity to feast on his own misfortune. When this happens community gives way to individual desires, and the stomach dictates to the head what it should think and believe in. Reason bends to absurdity and custom bows to bizarre novelty. Life explodes into a sinister mess that points to only one outcome: Jacob and societys ultimate ruin.
My Head Master
(2017)
I first time I saw the man who became my headmaster was when he rode his motorcycle past our house in Tyosa. He was a huge, dark, hairy man with big eyeballs that looked like they could see through anything and often saw through everything. His eyes were so frightening to me that I always trembled whenever he turned them on me. Not only were the eyeballs big, he had a way of baring them in the most frightening manner when he focused them on you. Older people said his father Akut was nicknamed Akut the owner of frightening eyes for pretty much the same reason. His eyeballs were said to be so big as to scare away birds whenever he entered the forest. Some people said they scared away chickens too. So he was called Akut the owner of frightening eyes.... But Akuts son was headmaster and no one dared pass his nickname to his son though he had passed his frightening eyes to the son. No one dared sing songs behind him the way children used to sing behind Akut his father Passing through and growing up in school with Akuts son as the Headmaster, and what it took to grow up in a closely-knit community through the eyes and memory of a pupil is a story that has to be told, the story of any pupil. And this is the story
The Great Lakes region of Africa is characterized by protest politics, partial democratization, political illegitimacy and unstable economic growth. Many of the countries that are members of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) which are: Burundi, Angola, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Sudan, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Zambia, have experienced political violence and bloodshed at one time or another. While a few states have been advancing electoral democracy, environmental protection and peaceful state building, the overall intensity of violence in the region has led to civil wars, invasion, genocide, dictatorships, political instability, and underdevelopment. Efforts to establish sustainable peace, meaningful socio-economic development and participatory democracy have not been quite successful. Using various methodologies and paradigms, this book interrogates the complexity of the causes of these conflicts; and examines their impact and implications for socio-economic development of the region. The non-consensual actions related to these conflicts and imperatives of power struggles supported by the agents of savage capitalism have paralysed efforts toward progress. The book therefore recommends new policy frameworks within regionalist lenses and neo-realist politics to bring about sustainable peace in the region.
This book is a biography based on a qualitative ethnographic study of adaptation to climate by Mr Zephaniah Phiri Maseko, an award-winning smallholder farmer from Zvishavane, rural Zimbabwe. Ethnographic data provides insight and lessons of Mr Phiri Maseko and other farmers' practices for rethinking existing strategies for adaptation to climate change. The concept of adaptation is probed in relationship to the closely related concepts of vulnerability, resilience and innovation. This study also explores the concept of conviviality and argues that Mr Phiri Maseko's adaptation to climate hinges on mediating barriers between local and exogenous knowledge systems. The book argues that Mr Phiri Maseko offered tangible adaptive climate strategies through his innovations that 'marry water and soil so that it won't elope and run-off but raise a family' on his plot. His agricultural practices are anchored on the Shona concept of' hurudza'(an exceptionally productive farmer). This book explores the concept and practices of 'uhurudza,'to suggest that the latter-day 'hurudza' (commercial farmer)'as embodied by Mr Phiri Maseko offers an important set of resources for the development of climate adaptation strategies in the region. This study of smallholder farmers' adoption of innovations to climate highlights the 'complex interplay' of multiple factors that act as barriers to uptake. Such interplay of multiple stressors increases the vulnerability of smallholders. The study concludes by arguing that in as much as the skewed colonial land policy impoverished the smallholder farmers, Mr Phiri Maseko nonetheless redefined himself as a latter-day 'hurudza and thus breaks free from the poverty cycle by conjuring ingenious ways of reducing vulnerability to climate. The book does not suggest that Mr Phiri Maseko's innovations offer a silver bullet solution to the insecure rural livelihoods of smallholder farmers; nevertheless, they are a source of hope in an environment of uncertainty. His steely tenacity in the face of a multi-stressor environment is to be treasured.
This book is about how extreme situations appearing to have a destructive potential can actually be used to produce meaningful individual and social lives. It is about the taming of fate. This notion means and accounts for the ability of individuals and communities to rebuild their lives against all odds. The book is based on case-studies that draw from theoretical insights derived from the sociology of disasters. It addresses some limitations of the sociology of risk, chief among which is the rejection of the relevance of the notion of risk to the study of technologically non-advanced societies. The book argues that this rejection has deprived the study of the human condition of an important analytical asset. The book claims that risk is a property of social action which can best be understood through the analytical scrutiny of its role in the historical constitution of social relations.
How does a peoples music reflect their history, their occupations, cultural beliefs and values? These are the core questions that this book addresses in relation to the Aawambo people of Namibia. The author, herself born and bred in Namibia, brings to the fore the nuanced views of different people, describing their personal musical experiences past as well as present. This is the first time that the music and stories of contemporary Namibian musicians is shared alongside those of the elderly. Similarly, it is the first time that some of the traditional Aawambo dances are analysed and described, abundantly illustrated with colourful photographs and several songs. Based on years of personal research, this book will appeal to research scholars, students and other interested readers alike, since its style is accessible but detailed, personal yet objective. Recommended for all those interested in culture, anthropology, the arts, and Namibian studies.
Poverty remains a thorny and topical challenge and research topic to scholars and researchers on African development. Scholars in the Global North have since the Second World War sought to research poverty and underdevelopment in Africa, postulating what they think are the major causes of insipid and abject poverty in the continent, but with little or no success on how to solve the poverty enigma. Sadly, little research and homework have been done by scholars in context (in Africa) on why there seems to be more production rather than eradication of poverty and vulnerability in Africa and among Africans. This book is born out of the realisation for the need for both scholars on the ground and outside Africa to earnestly interrogate and reflect on the poverty situation that continues to haunt the people of Africa and rattle the conscience of the world at large. With contributors from across the continent and beyond, the volume offers a balanced and rigorous, multi-faceted analysis of Africa's poverty and vulnerability from a rich tapestry of perspectives. The volume is handy to scholars and students in the fields of African and development studies, as well as to students of Sociology, Anthropology, Political Science and Policy Studies.
How come Africa is so underdeveloped when it is one of the richest continents on earth? The present volume is an attempt to theorise Africas [under-]development with a view to providing a sustainable, enduring framework of operations that will arrest the predicament of the continent while taking it forward from its current passivity. The volume rethinks and re-imagines a number of externally imposed problematic mechanisms used (un-)consciously in Africa, with the intention of raising awareness and fostering critical thinking in scholars of African development. The book is a pacesetter on how to think and research Africas [under-]development. It is also an invaluable asset for social scientists, policy makers, development practitioners, civil society activists and politicians.
This is a book on the state of social anthropology as an academic discipline in contemporary Zimbabwe. The authors are frustrated and disheartened by a problematic visibility and sluggish growth of the discipline in the country. The book makes an important claim that the future and vibrancy of anthropology in Zimbabwe, lies in how well anthropologists in the country and in the diaspora are able to join efforts in articulating, debating and enhancing its relevance and vitality. The book provides critical overview and nuanced analyses of the role and continued relevance of the discipline in reading and interpreting the social unfolding of everyday life and dynamism. It is a vital text for understanding and contextualising histories and trends in the development of social anthropology in Zimbabwe and how anthropologists in the country navigate the tumultuous waters and struggles that have engrossed the discipline since colonial times. The book has the capacity to generate added insights and influence national, continental, and global debates and trends in the field.
Emotional Pain
(2017)
Thorns and Roses: A Play
(2017)
'When a pen which drips woman, academic, mother, wife, teacher and administrator proposes to visit the stage, we expect the product to be as complex as the person. And we will be entirely justified in our expectation given that the stage more often than not is that place which captures and dramatizes our core selves in all their complexity. Thorns and Roses is produced by just that kind of pen. But in spite of her multi-layered identity, Frida Mbunda has succeeded in writing a play whose greatest attractions lie in its unassuming, down-to-earth appeal. It is the story of a single-parent home where a mother dedicates her life to her loving but vulnerable single daughter. As its title suggests, the play employs the allegorical archetype to colour the stage with characters and issues of immediate relevance. Womanhood is at the centre of Mbunda's dramatic quest. She knows that being a woman means being exposed to the attractions of shortcuts to happiness.' - Professor George Nyamndi, novelist, playwright and literary scholar, University of Buea, Cameroon.
Words like 'colonialism' and 'empire' were once frowned upon in the U.S. and other Western mainstream media as worn-out left-wing rhetoric that didn't fit reality. Not anymore! Tatah Mentan observes that a growing chorus of right-wing ideologues, with close ties to the Western administrations' war-making hawks in NATO, are encouraging Washington and the rest of Europe to take pride in the expansion of their power over people and nations around the globe. Africa in the Colonial Ages of Empire is written from the perspective that the scholarly lives of academics researching on Africa are changing, constantly in flux and increasingly bound to the demands of Western colonial imperialism. This existential situation has forced the continent to morph into a tool in the hands of Colonial Empire. According to Tatah Mentan, the effects of this existential situation of Africa compel serious academic scrutiny. At the same time, inquiry into the African predicament has been changing and evolving within and against the rhythms of this 'new normal' of Colonial Empire-Old or New. The author insists that the long and bloody history of imperial conquest that began with the dawn of capitalism needs critical scholarly examination. As Marx wrote in Capital: 'The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signaled the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief moment of primitive accumulation.' Africa in the Colonial Ages of Empire is therefore a MUST-READ for faculty, students as well as policy makers alike in the changing dynamics of their profession, be it theoretically, methodologically, or structurally and materially.
The Ways We Stretch Toward One Another is a collection of essays on the work of Pamela Reynolds. The essays take cues from Reynolds decades-long contributions to the field of anthropology in different ways. The authors weave Reynolds groundbreaking scholarship on the anthropology of childhoodof labour, of family, of resistance, justice, war and sufferingthrough the terms of their own work, in places and contexts that may at first appear quite distant from the villages of Zimbabwe and townships of South Africa that feature in Reynolds ethnographies. The Ways We Stretch Toward One Another is about anthropologists stretching in thought and practice toward one another, between generations, toward the people encountered in the field, through worlds entered and past, and how, in turn, these worlds lean into our own. At the core of each essay is a question about how we learn, how we pass lessons on, how we assume the mantle of anthropology for understanding the contemporary worldsomething that often requires folding intellectual friendships into the tools of our practice. The Ways We Stretch Toward One Another demonstrates how a master anthropologist has come to shape the priorities of others, in terms that are both creative and aware. Contributors: Thomas Cousins, Stefanos Geroulanos, Todd Meyers, Pamela Reynolds, Fiona Ross, and Vaibhav Saria; and a Foreword by Francis B. Nyamnjoh
There are milliards of off beam assumptions that Africa will always remain immobile in development of whatever type. This pseudo take has mainly been propounded by Western thinkers in order to dubiously make Africans internalise and reinforce this flimsy and flimflam dependency. Africa needs to embark on paradigm shift; and tweak and turn things around. Africa has what it take to do so quickly, especially now that new economic powers such as China and India are evolving as counterweight to the West. Shall Africa use these new economic forces to its advantage based on fair and win-win cooperation? To do so, Africa must make sure that it does not slink back into business as usual vis-a-vis beggarliness, dependence, frailty, gullibility, made-up backwardness, monkey business, and pipedreams, not to mention the nasty and narcissistic behaviours of its venal and navel-gazing rulers. Verily, Africa needs, inter alia, to use its God-given gifts, namely, immense resources, young population, abundance of vast and unexploited amounts of land. Equally, Africa must, without equivocation, invest copiously and earnestly in its people, the youth in the main. Most of all, Africa needs to shy away from all colonial carryovers and encumbrances. This volume shows many ways through and by which Africa can inverse the current imbroglio-cum-no-go it faces for the better; and thereby actualise the dream of being truly independent and prosperous.
This book examines the concept of the democratization of governance in universities in Kenya with particular emphasis on students involvement in governance processes and decision making. Data were collected from members of the student community utilizing a structured self-administered questionnaire and from purposively selected key informants and focus group discussants drawn from Kenyatta University (representing the public sector) and the United States International University (representing the private sector). The guiding argument for the study was that shared governance, one of the principles of good governance, is critical in enabling the universities to deliver their visions and the missions effectively. The results revealed that while in principle, Kenyan universities have embraced democratic governance in which all stakeholders, including students, have a role to play, in practice they continue to violate the core principles of good governance, particularly shared governance. Specifically, students, who are major stakeholders in university education, are largely excluded from significant structures of governance thereby limiting their influence and participation. Although their representation is mainly provided via student self-governance organs (unions, associations and/or councils), their effectiveness is undermined considerably by the lack of trust and confidencec of the student body and the unending manipulation by top university administrators and external political actors. Student active involvement in decision making is mainly confined to lower levels such as the school/faculty and departmental/programme. The authors call for a paradigm shift in the involvement of students in the governance of universities in ways that discourage the current culture of tokenism and political correctness that characterizes public and private universities in Kenya.
Some of the most provocative questions confronting philosophers in Africa are grounded in the historical memory of conquest and the peripheralisation the continent. Mungwini offers a critical reconstruction of indigenous Shona philosophy as an aspect of the African intellectual heritage held hostage by colonial modernity. In this comprehensive work, he lays bare the thoughts of the Shona, who are credited with the founding of the ancient Great Zimbabwe civilisation. Retracing the epistemic thread in the fabric of Shona culture and philosophy, he explores the assumptions that inform their thinking. The exchange of such knowledge is fundamental to the future of humanity.
This book comprises 19 creative non-fiction pieces and essays centred around the topics of language, thought, art and existence seen through the prism of practising artist in contemporary Africa. The collection continues with Zimbabwe's Tendai Mwanaka's creative non-fiction ideology of presenting non-fiction in a creative, fresh, easy reading, simple language. With most of the essays driven by personal stories, the author ably renders them accessible to a wide spectrum of readers from the scholarly to the journalistic and the general. The pieces are grouped according to the topics, with the language essays starting the book, followed by thought, existential, and art essays. In tune with the adage the personal is political, Mwanaka lets the personal drive these essays as he tries to investigate and conversationally navigate his thoughts, beliefs, feelings and experience on language, existence and art. This is an invaluable contribution to the academic establishment, social theorists, linguists, literary theorists, journalists, activists and the general readership.
Echoes of a Whisper
(2017)
Lughano Mwangweghos Echoes of a Whisper is an imaginative array of poetic verse steeped in Africa and tackling the fraught space of being betwixt and between, within and without, memory and the present. Love runs avidly as a theme throughout and imagery thereof is at once beautiful and absurd, adding further to a sense of suspension, a sense of unease. Mwangweghos poetry is edgy: its colour is that of tension. Yet, in such a way it speaks to both mind and soul - in places it provokes both physical and emotional reaction from the reader and the empowerment it transfers is uncanny. As his second collection of poetry, Malawian poet and short story writer Lughano Mwangwegho once again offers here writing rich in anguish and loveliness.
Today's Islamists are not a reproduction of an ancient legacy, but are modern political actors defined by modern discourses, argues Basheer Nafiin The Islamists. He examines the emergence and development of political Islam in the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century, discussing the historical context within which political Islam arose, and relating it to the social movements and political parties that lead the phenomenon today. On questions concerning the state, economics and law, the differences among Islamists are no less than their agreements. Nafit eases out some of these agreements and differences relating to governance, citizenship, pluralism, unity, revivalism, and truth. This very accessible work, intended for both an academic and general audience, highlights these matters by examining the groups and individuals that constitute the broad category of political Islam, considering how they have developed over time, and how they have impacted on the countries in which they operate.
Ellen Ndeshi Namhila is intrigued by the question: Why can the National Archives of Namibia respond to genealogical enquiries of Whites in a matter of minutes with finding estate records of deceased persons, while similar requests from Blacks cannot be served? Not satisfied with the sweeping statement that this is the result of colonialism and apartheid, she follows the track of so-called Native estates through legislation, record creation and disposal, records management and administrative neglect, authorised and unauthorised destruction, transfer and appraisal, selective processing, and (almost) final amnesia. Eventually she discovers over 11,000 forgotten surviving African estate records but also evidence for the destruction of many others. And she demonstrates the potential of these records to interpret the lives of those who otherwise appear in history only as statistics records which were condemned to destruction by colonial archivists stating they had little research value and no functional value. This study of memory against forgetting is a call to post-colonial archives to re-visit their holdings and the systemic colonial bias that continues to haunt them. This is the revised version of Ellen Namhilas 2015 doctoral thesis published at the University of Tampere, Finland.
In many instances, the colonial state has left a strong imprint on the postcolonial archive. In the National Archives of Namibia (NAN), for instance, it is difficult to locate pre-independence person-related records of the black majority, while the same type of records of their light-skinned compatriots are easily accessible. This lecture discusses a substantial corpus of about 11 000 so-called 'Native Estates' files which previously were not accessible through the existing finding aids. What is the research potential of these formerly neglected and untouched records in particular regarding the social history of contract labour in Namibia and of African migrants on a wider scale? Furthermore, a substantial amount of estate files of migrants from other African countries were discovered - a feature of Namibian history that has rarely been researched. The sometimes very detailed files reveal information on the migrants' origin, their integration in Namibian society and expatriate networks in the country. They also reveal that not only Angolans and West Africans but also a substantial number of migrants from other Southern African colonies found employment opportunities in Namibia during the colonial era. The 'Native Estate' records thus have an important research potential with regard to the entire Southern African region, which was heavily reliant on migrant labour both on the demand and on the supply side.