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A Nose for Money
(2006)
Set in the fictional and reluctantly bilingual land of Mimbo in contemporary Africa, this story revolves around the tragedy of the haunting Prosp?re, a semi-literate Mimbolander who is searching for the finer things in life. The novel presents a graphic picture of the frustrations engendered by a society that values wealth over love.
The Junkyard Blues
(2013)
In Cameroon life isn't only like living in limbo, it is like living in the very centre of a hellish junkyard where dreams are dumped and wishes shattered at will by forces which can barely be controlled or understood. It is in this junkyard of dreams that Jude Maimo finds himself after years of studies and obtaining a university degree that could not even procure him a decent job. Reluctantly living under his brother's care after having failed grossly in an attempt to be independent, and doing a job that is more than an insult to him, he still hopes to one day live his simple dream; furthering his education long enough to have a respectable and decent job that could make him truly independent. Entangled in a relationship he can barely understand and weighed down by the daily temptations of natural life, a long lost friend from back in his school days suddenly appears as a light to lead him to the end of the tunnel. But a little too late, he discovers that the promised light of salvation is just another face of darkness, a darkness that wants more than his soul, a darkness that can only lead to tragedy.
This crowning collection brings together seven of Bole Butake's finest plays since 1984, namely: Dance of the Vampires; Family Saga; Lake God; Betrothal Without Libation; And Palm Wine Will Flow; The Rape of Michelle; and Shoes. More than an academic, Butake has distinguished himself as a playwright, unearthing and foregrounding the ills, travails and predicaments of a land and people trapped by the blood-dripping impunities of vampires in power. In his rich repertoire of over ten plays, Butake takes sides with the downtrodden, the wretched of the earth, the deprived and the underdogs. His jabs and jibes, aimed at the rulers, are scathing, at times vitriolic. He has excelled at a stubborn determination to ignore the sinecures, lure and allure of power without responsibility.
In Nomads, Emmanuel Fru Doh combines historical fact, legend, and rumour to emerge with a memoir charged with nostalgia. In the process, he merges scenes and events from several lives and the process of nation building as they all unfold and mature with the passing of time. It becomes obvious that these are somber moments in Doh's life and that of the Cameroon nation, a nation that in recent decades selfish and reckless leaders without goodwill, foresight, or true love for the fatherland have succeeded in destroying. It all boils down to one fact: indeed, there has always been a socio-political agenda by the Francophone-dominated regimes, but it had nothing to do with building a truly united Cameroon. The plan has always been to tactfully subdue and eventually neutralize the Anglophone dimension of the union.
This is a complex volume that combines a good deal of survey data on Bakassi and its populations with more ethnographically based insights into the conditions of the Bakassi communities. The book is the outcome of research carried out by Fongot Kini between 2004 and 2009. The work is intended to serve as first hand exhaustive information on the live situation in the contested Bakassi Cameroon-Nigeria border region. The term Bakassi engenders multiple meanings loaded with many conflicting emotional, spiritual and material interests. Native inhabitants are systematically disinherited of their ancestral cultural heritage and socio-economic resources. They are bastardised, humiliated and scammed by unscrupulous opportunists who deliberately misidentify them with intentions of dispossessing them of their ancestral lands and natural resources. Overall the author is in sympathy with the Bakassi who he argues have been marginalised and neglected by the Cameroon state. In particular, the value of the indigenous communities in terms of local economies as well as securing this vital border area has not been recognised and various external groups have been either allowed or encouraged to settle there to both the detriment of local populations and to the security of the region.
The Black Man and his Visa
(2013)
Tardif is the son of a medical practitioner, an herbalist and a spiritual healer in northwestern Cameroun. When his father eventually gives up his practice, his mother struggles to put him and four of his sisters through high school. But financing university is a challenge. Tardif works for seven years in the farms and as a school teacher and seeks help from all quarters of the globe to try to raise money for university in his home country. Then one day he finds himself in China - studying Chinese medicine - and hoping for a better life than the one he had in Cameroon. The predicaments are as challenging as they are profoundly instructive. Tardif poses as a Dutchman and as an American to get jobs teaching English and survive in his host country. He ends up earning the respect of his students and employers, but not without everyday encounters with precarity. Just as one problem is resolved, another always seems to be brewing on the horizon. Tardif autobiographically opens his adventures, his transformations and his musings on Chinese and African ways of thinking and living to those interested in intercultural mobility and learning about life. His story reads like a dairy and keeps one wondering what will happen next.
This is an eloquent, engaged and extremely well informed narrative of the environmental and natural resource conservation and management issues in Mozambique. While the topics in this volume are diverse, they are all explicitly designed to move beyond the routinized blame of natural resource mismanagement and environmental degradation on local communities, and to rethink ecosystem destruction, land degradation and natural resource over-exploitation in Africa and beyond. Never losing sight of the major causes of environment and resource mismanagement in Mozambique, the book advances the thesis that environment and resource problems are a result of compound factors such as poor governance, poverty, corruption, low education levels, and disregard of endogenous conservation epistemologies. A combination of all these factors makes the whole terrain of conservation even more complicated than ever; hence the need for urgent action by all social actors. This is a valuable book for environmental conservationists, land resource managers, social ecologists, environmental anthropologists, environmental field workers and technicians, practitioners and students of conservation sciences.
Proceedings of the 7th World Congress of African Linguistics, Buea, 17-21 August 2012 : Volume One
(2016)
Proceedings of the 7th World Congress of African Linguistics, Buea, 17-21 August 2012 : Volume 2
(2016)
Knell.Ashes.Seppuku
(2017)
A delinquent son, a barren woman, troubled marriages, a reunion between old childhood friends, and all manner of family drama. This novel's sudden twists and turns have all the makings of a relatable African saga. Tinashe is an intelligent and vibrant young man who is sent to the city of Gweru to further his education at Midlands State University by his father. He is staying with his aunt Margaret who is always fighting with her son Cephas. Tinashe is looking forward to enjoying life and having a great time in the city but things do not seem to be in parallel with his expectations. He later realises this when he is wrongly accused of murdering his aunt, Margaret.
In view of the resilience of Africa's underdevelopment, what do Africans make of their determined aspirations for development? The continent of Africa has constantly drawn global attention, most especially for both human and natural evils. Underdevelopment, it appears, is one of the most eminent threatening evils. It has plunged and promises to maintain the majority of Africa in abject poverty, insecurity, and vulnerability. What perpetuates the ghost and gory of underdevelopment in Africa, despite a proliferation of development rhetoric and initiatives? How do ordinary Africans react to repeated talk and claims of development with little evidence of transformation for the better in their material circumstances? This book interrogates the tenacity of underdevelopment amid calls for Africa to rise from its slumber and reclaim its position in global affairs as the mother continent of humankind. It contributes to the ongoing debates on why Africa remains trapped in the clutch of underdevelopment many decades after the purported end of colonialism. The book comes at a critical time in human history; a time when the talk on Africa's [under-]development is louder due to the ravages of economic downturns and dysfunctional conflicts. It poses a challenge to development practitioners, civil society activists, statesmen, economists, political scientists and theorists to rethink and reconsider their role as technocrats, experts and ambassadors of positive change in Africa and the world beyond.
Despite all the talk about African Renaissance, much of the continent is plagued by poverty and instability. To break out of that cycle, the guardians of African heritage (the old independence freedom fighters turned political leaders and their successors) and much of Afrocentric literature rightly promotes African ideas and solutions for African problems. While the idea in itself is noble, the danger is for Africa to close itself off and ignore 'outside' technical and intellectual innovations that it desperately needs to advance further. Africa through Structuration Theory - ntu-joins the discourse by attempting to restore intellectual freedom and convincingly defends structuration theory not only as the way forward for Africa but also as a legitimately African concept. It is innovative, refreshing and deserves to be heard across the world and appreciated especially by African graduates,'current and future'leaders of various African institutions or businesses, non-Africans who might hesitate to refer to such a theory when trying to understand and deal with African problems and the wider public who constitute the audience for this book. New in this edition: All chapters have been tightened up to make a clearer and more robust case. Chapter three, in particular, has been developed further in an attempt to demonstrate how Ubuntu is an African version of structuration theory. Overall, having both approached the subject from a rational perspective and presented Ubuntu in its preferred version, it became imperative to discuss the status/role of the African body in the expression of human agency and characterise different leadership practices in Africa that do not necessarily reflect the ideals of Ubuntu. Hence, Chapter 6: Body sociology and Africa and Chapter 7: The FS (fear and self-scrutiny) methodology of Ubuntu: a mapping of the field.
The emergent technoscientific New World Order is being legitimised through discourses on openness and inclusivity. The paradox is that openness implies vulnerability and insecurities, particularly where closure would offer shelter. While some actors, including NGOs, preach openness of African societies, Africans clamour for protection, restitution and restoration. Africans struggle for ownership and access to housing, for national, cultural, religious, economic, and social belonging that would offer them the necessary security and protection, including protection from the global vicissitudes and matrices of power. In the presence of these struggles, to presuppose openness would be to celebrate vulnerability and insecurities. This book examines ways in which emergent technologies expose Africans and, more generally, peoples of the global south to political, economic, social, cultural and religious shocks occasioned by the coloniality of the global matrices of power. It notes that there is the use by global elites of technologies to incite postmodern revolutions designed to compound the vicissitudes and imponderables in the already unsettled lives of people north and south. Particularly targeted by these technologies are African and other governments that do not cooperate in the fulfilment of the interests of the hegemonic global elites. The book is handy to students and practitioners in security studies, African studies, development studies, global studies, policy studies, and political science.
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.
Zimbabwe: The Blame Game
(2013)
The Blame Game is a cycle of creative non-fiction pieces, pulling the readers through the politics of modern day Zimbabwe. Like in any game, there are players in this game, opposing each other. The game is told through the eyes of one of the players, thus it is subjective. It centres on truthfully trying to find who to blame for Zimbabwe's problems, and how to undo all these problems. Finding who to blame should be the beginning for the search of solutions. It encourages talking to each other, maybe about the wrongs we have done to each other, and genuinely trying to embrace and forgive each other. In trying to undo the problems in Zimbabwe, it also offers insight or solutions on a larger platform - Africa: particularly South Africa; that it might learn from other African countries that have imploded before it, how to solve its own problems.
Since the mid-1980s, there has been much federalism talk in Cameroon where federation (said to have been created in Foumban in 1961) had supposedly been 'overwhelmingly' rejected in 1972 by Cameroonians. 'Confusioncracy' is the one good term that could conveniently explain it. Written with the trilogy of criticism, provocation, and construction in mind, this book aims at reconstructing a new and vigorous society in Cameroon that ensures respect for fundamental human rights and certain basic shared values. Much as the book centres on the Anglophone Problem; it is principally about human rights and their excessive violations - the direct result of the absence of separation of powers and constitutionalism. It largely condemns Cameroon's government for incessantly singing democracy and rule of law at the same time as it is massively torturing and wantonly killing citizens that dare to question the confusion. While sharing the position that a state like Cameroon must be seen to ensure that its laws and other practices accord with its international commitments, the book nonetheless strives to apportion the blame for Cameroon's human rights catastrophe accordingly; showing how the English-speaking minority itself, generally speaking, contributes to a large extent in propping up the dictatorship that is oppressing not only that minority but Cameroonians at large. The book challenges Cameroon to assume a leadership role in uniting Africans through meaningful federalization rather than further splitting them into incapable mini-states on the challenging world stage.
Greener from a Distance
(2013)
Albert?s life dream is to immigrate to the USA, to seek greener pastures. After several failed attempts, he finally gets a visa. Then he arrives the USA hoping for a bright and easy future. Before long he hears stories of desperation, struggles and a few successes. Desperation is portrayed by Mola aka Mboma who adopts a dead man?s identity in order to stay in the USA and by Bruno who marries a US-born woman as his ticket to the USA, knowing fully well that she was leading a double life. Struggles are seen in Paul and Matt who have to work more than two times harder to barely survive in the USA. However, Samson, the surgeon is an example of a success story. Albert has to decide whether to stay in the USA, concoct a story for asylum and chase the dream that has proven elusive for many, or go back to his reality in Cameroon. Though the pasture may actually be greener on the other side for some, it takes a tremendous amount of work and dedication to keep it that way. Realising that the life in the Diaspora is not a bed of roses as portrayed by some Cameroonians, he decides to return to his modest job in Cameroon. Although this book could be considered a cautionary tale about immigration, it is also about the corruption that has overtaken Cameroon and its people.
'Magnus Opus: A Tribute to Ntarikon is a scathing indictment of the political status quo in the Republic of Cameroon where the ruling party, the Cameroon People's Democratic Movement (CPDM), rides roughshod over the populace. In this long poem, Vakunta cries out poignantly against social dystopia and the deplorable moments lived by members of the Social Democratic Front (SDF) at Ntarikon Park on May 26, 1990. One cannot read this poem without feeling the despair and helplessness experienced by members of this political party as they were maimed, killed and reminded that the future holds no good for them. The prosody and semantics of the poem amplify the ontological angst experienced by Cameroonians on a daily basis.' Kashama Mulamba, Ph.D, Professor of English and French, Olivet Nazarene University, USA
This is a comprehensive text on the function of thought in the history and political sociology of Cameroon. The book brings out how the 'hidden hand of history' fashions a political thought which, in turn, creates its own history. Instead of Cameroonians making history, history makes Cameroonians. The book shows how political ideas are fashioned in a post-colonial context in which Europeans impose a superordinate arrangement on a people together with its philosophers. 'Thinking the nation' in Cameroon on behalf of Europeans, especially after the leaders of the national liberation struggle were all eliminated, European philosophers put in place a 'repressive machine' under which Cameroonians were subjected between 1958 and 1990. Repression gave way to a refined form of enslavement - a modernised version of slavery. Cameroonians joined the bandwagon and have been producing and reproducing Western industrial economies while day-dreaming of what they will never become. The whole idea of nation-building in post-colonial Africa is put in question. This book offers students of political studies, sociology, anthropology and history compelling evidence to grapple with questions as to whether Cameroon is a state or a nation and questions of sovereignty and citizenship.
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.
At the end of his tether, Solomon Wenku contemplates a life gone awry amid widespread postcolonial squalor. Tani enters his life supposedly as a contrast to his encroaching existential gloom only to speed up the pace of his total collapse. Sanya Oshas cult novel beams a searchlight on what it feels like to survive personally and collectively in unyielding tropical malaise. This web of a narrative pits the rural versus the urban, tradition against modernity with a gallery of immortal characters and with a yearning that sings lushly of freedom.
This book is a pacesetter in matters of mining and the environment in Africa from multidisciplinary and spatio-temporal perspectives. The book approaches mining from the perspectives of law, politics, archaeology, anthropology, African studies, geography, human ecology, sociology, history, economics and development. It interrogates mining and environment from the perspectives of customary law as well as from the perspectives of Euro-modern laws. In this sense, the book straddles precolonial, colonial and postcolonial mining and environmental perspectives. In all this, it maintains a Pan-Africanist perspective that also speaks to contemporary debates on African Renaissance and to the unity of Africa. From scrutinising the lived realities of African miners who are often insensitively and unjustly addressed as illegal miners, the book also interrogates transnational mining corporations; matters of corporate social responsibility as well as matters of tax evasions by transnational corporations whose commitment to accountability to African governments is questioned. With both theoretical chapters and chapter based on empirical studies on mining and the environment across the African continent, the book provides a much needed holistic, one stop shop for scholars, activists, researchers and policy makers who need a comprehensive treatise on African mining and the environment. The book comes at the right time when matters of African mining and environment are increasingly coming to the fore in the light of discourses about the new 21st century scramble for African resources, in which big transnational corporations and nations are jostling to suck Africa dry in their race to control planetary resources. It is a book that speaks to contemporary broader issues of (de-)coloniality and transformation of African minds and African environmental resources.
Eritrean refugees crisscross between countries in the Horn of Africa and North Africa in search of a safe place. Along their journeys, they are looted, threatened, intimidated, violated, and held for ransom. This book revisits the human trafficking crisis that first emerged in the Sinai at the end of 2008 and examines the expansion of human trafficking of Eritrean refugees and other forms of exploitation beyond the Sinai. It focuses on the modus operandi of these practices and on identifying their key facilitators and beneficiaries. The book locates the origin of these practices within Eritrea; it reveals how a deliberate policy of impoverishment and human rights abuses has driven the people out of the country, and how individuals within Eritrea, and particularly within the ruling party, benefit from the smuggling and trafficking of Eritrean refugees. The use of information communication technologies (ICTs) is identified as key to the new modus operandi of this criminal business and is found to further facilitate widespread collective trauma amongst Eritreans, who witness the abuse of their family members and fellow nationals through digital networks. An entire section in this book is dedicated to assessing the extent and effects of individual and collective trauma caused by Sinai trafficking and to examining potential approaches to healing. Other sections discuss the vulnerabilities of Eritrean minors and women, and the connections between human trafficking, terrorism and organ trafficking. The last section of the book raises the question of accountability. It examines and evaluates international responses to this forgotten crisis, and discusses the need for policies that tackle the problem where it emerges: in Eritrea.
Contemporary scholarly discourses about decolonising materialities are taking two noticeable trajectories, the first trajectory privileges establishing connections, relationships and associations between human beings and nature. The second trajectory privileges restoration, restitution, reparations for colonial dispossessions, lootings and disinheritance. While the first trajectory presupposes that colonialism was merely about separation, alienation, and disconnections between human beings and nature, the second trajectory stresses the colonialists dispossession, disinheritance and privations of Africans. Drawing on contemporary discourses about materialities in relation to semiotics, (non-)representationalism, rhetoric, ecocriticism, territorialisation, deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation, translation, animism, science and technology studies, this book teases out the intellectually rutted terrain of African materialities. It argues that in a world of increasing impoverishment, the significance of materialities cannot be overemphasised: more so for the continent of Africa where impoverishment materialises in the midst of resource opulence. The book is a pacesetter in no holds barred interrogation of African materialities.
Poetic encounter: Rhapsodies from the South is compilation of poems by Southern African Writers from South Africa and Zimbabwe. The poems, were written not only to depict life but also tell tales of socio-political and economic history that Southern African people traversed from colonialism, apartheid to freedom. Therefore, readers from all walks-of-life can identify with themes such as apartheid, economic deprivation, religion and culture, love and so forth that are carefully ensconced in this compilation. The authors invite the readers, to not only indulge the lived injustice and violent nature of both our historic past and trajectory to the current state of affairs, but also appreciate, cry, smile and reminiscence about the life in general as encapsulated in this refreshing and aesthetic work of art - the poetic encounter.
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.
Gravitas: Poetic Consciencism for Cameroon is the poets requiem for the geographical expression code-named Cameroon. Vakunta speaks with the audacity of a daredevil and the certitude of a seer. This long poem has the twin virtues of gravity and clarity of purpose. The poet eschews the banality and sophistry characteristic of poetry for poetrys sake. Passion, sarcasm, and incisive irony are the hallmarks of this long didactic poem. The poet subscribes to Salman Rushdies pronouncement that a poets duty is to say the unutterable, name the unnamable, unmask masquerading miscreants and shame the scum of society. In this poem, music serves as a clarion call for examination of conscience, and alcohol ceases to serve as opium of the people. A bittersweet potion, this book echoes the defiant voice of a son-of-the-soil at odds with his native land gone topsy-turvy.
This book critically examines the relevance of the increasingly popular theories on relationality by interfacing those theories with the African [Shona] modes of engagement known as chivanhu [often erroneously narrowly translated as tradition]. In other words, the book takes seriously concerns by African scholars that much of the theories that have been applied in Africa do not speak to relevance and faithfulness to the continent. Situated in a recent Zimbabwean context marked by multiple crises producing multiple forms of violence and want, the book examines the relevance of relational ontologies and epistemologies to the everyday life modes of engagements by villagers in a selected district. The book unflinchingly surfaces the strengths and weaknesses of popular theories while at the same time underlining the exigencies of theorising from Africa using African data as the millstones. By meticulously and painstakingly unpacking pertinent issues, the book provides unparalleled intellectual grit for the contemporary and increasingly popular discourses on (de-)coloniality and resilience in relation to the African peoples and their [often deliberately contested] environments, past, present and future. In other words, the book loudly sounds the bells for the battles to decolonise and transform Africa on Africa's own terms. This is a book that would be extremely useful to scholars, activists, theorists, policy makers and implementers as well as researchers interested not only in Africa's future trajectory but also in the simultaneities of temporalities and worlds that were sadly overshadowed by colonial epistemologies and ontologies for the past centuries.
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.
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.
For centuries the continent of Africa has been characterised by negative images such as poverty, disease and conflicts. Today, however, the People's Republic of China's growing presence in Africa, particularly with regards to China-Africa business relations, brings new vitality to the continent. This new movement is not a windfall but rather obtained through the hard work of both African and Chinese people at various levels. Narrating on daily experiences of Chinese merchants and their vivid interactions with people in Botswana, this book decodes the frustrating while rewarding process through which China-Africa relations have been maturing on the grass-roots level. This book not only presents insights and suggestions to both Botswana and Chinese policy makers interested in understanding their constituents' everyday interactions with each other, but also offers readers interested more broadly in contemporary Chinese experiences in Africa a fascinating glimpse into these cross-cultural encounters. This book is an original and pioneering study of issues that resonate in almost every African country which has responded to a growing Chinese presence. It argues that as the process of globalisation permeates the everyday lives of people, each individual is empowered to be an 'ambassador' in shaping international relations.
Shadows of Footsteps
(2016)
As memorable for the beauty of his descriptions as for his poetic vision, in these poems Mwangwegho captures the tenderness of Malawi and the fragility of it, as well as exploring the depths of our universal lives. In three sections, Shadows of Footsteps, takes us to corners of the past, to a view of shared African experience and to a space where internal freedoms speak. The journey is wild in parts, but graceful in completion.
Using expibasketical theory and findings, this book attempts to understand and explain some of the wonders of love and the impacts these have on the other human institutions (such as marriage and family) that are supposed to be erected on love and understanding. Love is a phenomenon that is hard to correctly master, most probably because it is loaded with a lot of uncertainties. This simple fact must be the reason behind the commonplace saying that love is blind; a statement that can have several interpretations, one of which being that it is hard to read or know exactly what is on the other party's mind. Love thus becomes not only an intriguing feeling but also potentially full of intrigues. Can love be so blind to realities and still be love? The book answers many of such queries by expanding and delineating the frontiers of love, and thence marriage and family.
Jostling Between 'Mere Talk' & Blame Game? : Beyond Africa's Poverty and Underdevelopment Game Talk
(2018)
One of the fundamental challenges in rethinking and remaking development in Africa from a Pan African perspective is that too much mere talk and blame game have played out at the expense of real action. The blame game and mere talk on Africas poverty and underdevelopment jam have remained printed in bold on the face of the continent, yet Africas dire situation warrants nothing less than real emphatic action. This book focuses on the empirics of the production and reproduction of poverty and underdevelopment across Africa in a fashion that warrants urgent pragmatic policy attention and quest for workable homegrown solutions to persistent predicaments. The volume advances the need to recognise the realities of global inequalities and move swiftly in a most informed and transparent manner to address the poverty and underdevelopment conundrum. The book sets the tempo and pace on the need for praxis and pragmatism on the African situation. It is handy to students and practitioners in African studies, poverty and development studies, global studies, policy studies, economics and political science.
Despite sustained continental and national struggles for autonomy, sovereignty and independence in postcolonial Africa, the continent is increasingly embattled by the forces of globalisation which threaten African identity that is at the core of African struggles for continental and national unity. Situating the debates in the contemporary discourses on decoloniality, global consumerism, global food apartheid and the challenges and prospects of the emergent sharing economies, this book critically examines the importation, use and implications of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and other such non-food products on African bodies, institutions and cultures. The book poses questions about how Africa can be decolonised both politically and in terms of global food apartheid and the dehumanising importation and use of 'foreign' non-food products, some of which militate against the ethos of [African] identity, Renaissance and indigeneity. On note, the book urges the African continent to ensure the safety of imports ensuing from the global flows and circulations that are mired in the resilient invisible global matrices of power.
Dangerous Pastime
(2016)
Labour migration from Malawi to South Africa is a 'century-old phenomenon'. It dates as far back as the 1880s following the establishment of diamond and gold mines. In the period up to the 1980s, this migration took either formal or informal nature whereas in the post-1990 period it became exclusively informal, popularly known as selufu in Malawi. This book is an attempt to shed light on both forms of migration over time. By using the case of Mzimba, one of the major labour migration districts in Malawi, Perspectives of Labour Migration shows that migration, especially in the post-1990 period, remains a preoccupation of the different categories of both men and women in selected areas in the country. A cross-section of Malawians continue to regard emigration to South Africa as a means to an end: a way of fulfilling their heart-felt and life-time goals at household and societal levels. Because of their distinguished and unparalleled determination, these labour migrants continue to flock to South Africa in the midst of such challenges as xenophobia, crime, arrests and deportations. The book advances the argument that Malawian labour migrants are purposive and rational human beings who are ready to overcome these challenges, at times using the most improbable means, for example, through the use of mankhwala gha mwabi (luck medicine).
Africa Reunite or Perish
(2015)
Africa Reunite or Perish is a daring and timely book that explores the essence and nefariousness of neocolonialism in a purportedly independent Africa. The book shows how Africa spends billions of dollars in pseudo threats among African countries due to colonially-entrenched fear and war mongering. The book is emphatic on deconstruction and decolonisation as a categorical imperative for the reunification of Africa beyond the narrow confines of current nation states. Mhango takes a diagnostic-cum-prognostic approach in discussing Africa's predicaments, and in identifying and proposing solutions to problems confronting Africans. The book ascertains Africa's untapped potentials by proving how Africa can live without the infamy of excruciating dependency and beggarliness. It makes a compelling case for African unity beyond the tokenism of officialdom. It prescribes a truly pan-African driven reunification of Africa as the only means of reclaiming the glory she used to enjoy before she was savagely partitioned.
West African teachers and professors who are appropriating information and communication technologies (ICT) are making it part and parcel of education and everyday life. In Mali and beyond, they adapt ICT to their milieus and work as cultural agents, mediating between technology and society. They yearn to use ICT to make education more relevant to life, facilitate and enhance African participation in global debates and scholarly production, and evolve how Africa and Africans are projected and perceived. In sum, educators are harnessing ICT for its transformative possibilities. The changes apparent in student-teacher relations (more interactive) and classrooms (more dialogical) suggest that ICT can be a catalyst for pedagogical change, including in document-poor contexts and ones weighed down by legacies of colonialism. Learning from the perspectives and experiences of educators pioneering the use of ICT in education in Africa can inform educational theory, practice and policy and deepen understandings of the concept of appropriation as a process of cultural change.
'In Who's Afraid of Mongo Wa Swolenka? a book launch is planned which, from information given to His Royal Excellency Gbadarango Binyambutu Buthablaisi, by a traitorous intellectual seeking preferment; and by his security agents, is a campaign led by disgruntled writers and intellectuals of Nubialand for the return of their exiled colleague and international award winner, Professor Mongo Wa Swolenka. How the celebrated leader of Nubialand and master of gunocratic politics responds to the prevailing circumstances is the nerve centre of dialogue, action and morality in the play.' - John Nkemngong Nkengasong, Writer and critic, University of Yaounde I, Cameroon
The book consists of novel and empirical research in broad areas of technology and curriculum in selected African countries. The central theme of the book is technology and the higher education curriculum. The book consists of case studies from selected African countries, namely, Lesotho; Namibia; Kenya; South Africa; Zimbabwe; Tanzania and Nigeria. These studies confirm that in this contemporary digital era, educational technology is playing an increasingly important role. It has become so ubiquitous and fundamental in the teaching and learning. Higher education sectors across the continent are increasingly compelled to use educational technology to keep up with needs of 21st century students who want to be afforded opportunities to be able to learn in real time, anytime, and on their own terms using opportunities for creative innovation made possible by new information and communication technologies.
The once acrimonious debate on the existence of African philosophy has come of age, yet the need to cultivate a culture of belonging is more demanding now than ever before in many African societies. The gargantuan indelible energised chicanery waves of neo-colonialism and globalisation and their sweeping effect on Africa demand more concerted action and solutions than cul-de-sac discourses and magical realism. It is in view of this realisation that this book was born. This is a vital text for understanding contextual historical trends in the development of African philosophic ideas on the continent and how Africans could possibly navigate the turbulent catadromous waters, tangled webs and chasms of destruction, and chagrin of struggles that have engrossed Africa since the dawn of slavery and colonial projects on the continent. The book aims to generate more insights and influence national, continental, and global debates in the field of philosophy. It is accessible and handy to a wider range of readers, ranging from educators and students of African philosophy, anthropology, African studies, cultural studies, and all those concerned with the further development of African philosophy and thought systems on the African continent.
This book makes a rare contribution towards the preservation and promotion of ukhaliro wa bene Malawi (Malawian culture) that is fast waning. This dilution of culture was put in motion by the British colonial masters and got exacerbated with the inception of democratic governance in 1994. There is need for concerted efforts amongst various practitioners and stakeholders, led by the government itself, if the situation is to be put under control. Otherwise, sooner or later, it will simply be remote history that long time ago, there was a unique culture in Malawi. The book is a collection of twenty short stories that generally promote such themes as nkharo yiwemi (good behaviour); uheni wa chigolo na sanje (the bad side of selfishness and jealousy); kulimbikira pa vinthu (hard working spirit); and uheni wa mitala (the folly of polygamy), among others. The strength of the book lies in the fact that there is room for the reader to draw their own lessons based on their understanding of a particular story, in addition to the lesson already highlighted there-in. The book is a must read for all, young and old, especially those interested in understanding the societal values, not only about Malawi, but of Africa as a whole.
From Momany's wealthy and agonizing expibasketism so much can be drawn to teach about, demote or promote, and to portray Canada as it has never been properly understood; not only by outsiders but also by Canadians themselves. This book makes an extensive and detailed use of that basket of experience to deliver the message that Canada is not at all the 'children's-best-interests-friendly' nation that it is often mistaken for. Canada may be entitled to what it claims to be. But, since a country or community can only be correctly seen through the workings of the institutions that incarnate it, this study has dared to show a contrary portrait. It documents and proves the theorization that most of the country's institutions that are supposedly there to carter for and protect children and promote their wellbeing and glowing avenir often end up in reality instead actively working against the said children and all what their best interest should properly signify. The hope is that the experts in the relevant fields can find the material presented herein useful for their further specialized and in-depth analyses and sane policy formulation.
The most appealing quality of the novel is its haunting and unusual prose that really ought to be termed poetry. But this is poetry with an added touch as it is also a narrative that weaves together many lives engrossed in the daily struggle for survival. There are no heroes or villains, just ordinary folk trying to make the most of extraordinary circumstances.
There seems to be a sort of prevalent attitude in the Western world that its brand of democracy is something of a catch all solution for all the world's political problems. Hence, Western imperialism has always been sold under the pretext of spreading freedom and democracy. Democracy is beautiful. But it is no proof against imperialism. Whether democracy is causal is another whole consideration. It may be a case of the 'least bad of evil alternatives.' It may be a case of a state of social and political development over and above the way people organize themselves. It may be the fate of rational life on a planet with insufficient energy reserves to support locomotion without predation. But what gives anyone the right to go into a sovereign country and change its foundation through War? The whole democracy and freedom line is a lie to give Western imperialism a friendly face. Imperialism and its lie of spreading democracy is an unmitigated evil, whether for material gain, or the pride fostered by active participation in the machinery of state. Therefore, a people seeking to control their destiny must decolonize imposed Western democracy.
'Poems from Abakwa in Cameroon Pidgin English is one patriotic rage. An anthology of sorts, this book of poems contains wisdom, inspirational reflections and witticisms for all. Through apt descriptions, illustrations, dialogues, interrogations and incisive phraseology, Peter Wuteh Vakunta creates an effective balance of colorful images that traces and documents disturbing accounts and evidences of corruption, greed, skewed values and life experiences that have assaulted his fatherland, betrayed political leaders and institutions, court judges, and parliamentarians as the police-cum-military continue to put their ambitions above the country's needs while forsaking future leaders-children. Vakunta describes how civil servants represent selfish interests and aspirations. Judges are intimidated as the nation's laws continue to be transgressed. The police and military continue to abuse the trust invested in them by civilians and misdirect their patriotism while virtually the entire nation continues to live shaky lives with a punctured integrity. Vakunta does this in popular lingos commonly used by musicians, business folks, and the common man under several labels-pidgin English, Camfranglais, Cam-tok, Camspeak, Majunga tok ...' Dr. Fidelis Achenjang, Union College, USA
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.
Born with Voice
(2015)
Born with Voice examines the psyche and scrape of the victims of various crimes, especially sexual discrimination-cum-exploitation, rape, and the killing of people with albinism. The author digs deeper into the hearts and minds, and plights of victims to inspire the society to stand with, and support them. The book offers some nuggets such as, understanding the phenomenon, confronting it and stopping wars that cause sufferings such as rape and death. It champions the urgency of voice for all and sundry. It challenges the industries of technologies of crime and violence to rise above selfish self-interest in the interest of human rights and voicing the voiceless victims of their greed.
Soul On Sale
(2015)
Soul On Sale (SOS) sounds like a rap song though it isn't. It isn't purely a poem but a long- provocative and vigorous song focusing on the history of injustices and those suffering from injustice urging them to take action. It explores colonialism, corruption and neocolonialism Africa faces. It chides victims to self-reinvent so as to change the status quo manned by begging and venal potentates. It seeks to provoke readers to feel empowered and responsible. Thus, stand and change the world's status quo sui generis. It employs an enthralling-flow style in free verse to catch the attention of the reader.