'We cannot imagine life now without a mobile phone' is a frequent comment when Africans are asked about mobile phones. They have become part and parcel of the communication landscape in many urban and rural areas of Africa and the growth of mobile telephony is amazing: from 1 in 50 people being users in 2000 to 1 in 3 in 2008. Such growth is impressive but it does not even begin to tell us about the many ways in which mobile phones are being appropriated by Africans and how they are transforming or are being transformed by society in Africa. This volume ventures into such appropriation and mutual shaping. Rich in theoretical innovation and empirical substantiation, it brings together reflections on developments around the mobile phone by scholars of six African countries (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Mali, Sudan and Tanzania) who explore the economic, social and cultural contexts in which the mobile phone is being adopted, adapted and harnessed by mobile Africa.

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The Next Liberation Struggle: Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy in Southern Africa

Mobile Phones: The New Talking Drums of Everyday Africa

The Main Focus of Fundi Wa Afrika (Tailor or Builder in Kiswahili), IS the analysis of the state, defined as a multilayered entity from grassroot organizations to the leadership. The core of the state is the people who reside within its boundaries. Diverse ethnic groups and culture, history, and environment make up the state. Our approach includes historical, political, economic, and cultural analysis; it also looks at the impact of population control on the development of Africa. Fundi examines the nature and structure of the African state and tries to answer the following questions: How was the African state shaped? What values inform it, and what type of relationship between the rulers and the ruled does it favor?1

A new paradigm of the African state

Mobilization against apartheid in South Africa, the campaign against blood diamonds, the women's movement in Liberia where Africa's first female head of State was elected in 2005 - these are all examples of socially based movements that have had a major effect on Africa's recent history. Yet the most influential theories concerning social movements worldwide have paid little heed to Africa. This volume draws together contributions on social movements in Africa, setting empirical studies alongside a couple of theoretical chapters. The volume is the outcome of a conference held in Leiden on 23-24 October 2008. Contents: Theoretical perspectives: Introduction: African social movements or social movements in Africa? (Stephen EllisandIneke van Kessel); Social movement theory: past, presentandprospects (Jacquelien van Stekelenburg and Bert Klandermans); Speaking to global debates through a national and continental lens: South African and African social movements in comparative perspective (Adam Habib and Paul Opoku-Mensah). Case studies: African civil society, 'blood diamonds' and the Kimberley process (Lansana Gberie); The Islamic Courts Union: the ebb and flow of a Somali Islamist movement (Jon Abbink); Liberia's women acting for peace: collective action in a war-affected country (Veronika Fuest); Nurtured from the pulpit: the emergence and growth of Malawi's democracy movement (Boniface Dulani); Bare-foot activists: transformations in the Haratine movement in Mauritania (Zekeria Ould Ahmed Salem); An Islamic social movement in contemporary West Africa: NASFAT of Nigeria (Benjamin Soares); The United Democratic Front's legacy in South Africa: mission accomplished or vision betrayed? (Ineke van Kessel); 'Campus cults' in Nigeria: the development of an anti-social movement (Stephen Ellis). [ASC Leiden abstract]

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Movers and shakers : social movements in Africa

South African media in transition

Broadly defined as an ‘African worldview’ that places communal interests above those of the individual, and where human existence is dependent upon interaction with others, ubuntu has a long tradition on the continent. This paper explores the ways in which the philosophy and language of ubuntu have been taken up and appropriated by market ideologies in post-apartheid South Africa. The literature on ‘ubuntu capitalism’ offers the most obvious illustration of this, but there are more subtle ways in which ubuntu theory and language have been (re)introduced to post-apartheid South Africa to support and reinforce neoliberal policymaking. But rather than reject ubuntu thinking outright as too compromised by this discursive shift, as much of the Left in South Africa has done, the paper asks if there is something potentially transformative about ubuntu beliefs and practices that can be meaningfully revived for more progressive change.

The Next Liberation Struggle: Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy in Southern Africa

Citations

Mobile Phones: The New Talking Drums of Everyday Africa

A new paradigm of the African state

Movers and shakers : social movements in Africa

South African media in transition

Ubuntu bashing: the marketisation of ‘African values’ in South Africa

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