Showing papers on "African studies published in 1969"

Education in developing areas.

Abstract: The role of improved educational systems in attaining development is a crucial one; educational changes were tied in the past to the final maturation of todays developed countries. Three underdeveloped regions of the world are studied in this regard: Middle Africa South Asia and Latin America. In several Middle African nations estimates have been made and educational planning has been adjusted. Heavily influenced by British French and Belgian colonizers minimum education for all is seen as crucial but opportunities are difficult to assess. The goal of Africanization has meant attempts to localize curriculum utilize only African personnel establish African studies programs and encourage African arts. South Asia saw industrial output double during the 1950s and slow down in the early 1960s; per capita income increased and the economy moved away from the agricultural sector although the masses of people have profited little. Educational progress has been hampered by a population with a high percentage below age 15 and by antimodern traditions. Most analysts argue for expansion at the secondary and higher educational levels only in vocational and professional courses yet rapid growth continues in the arts. Teacher supply is low and therefore so is the quality of education. National leaders have become increasingly committed to education and planning has been taking place in this regard. 4 points are made regarding Latin Americas education problems: 1) national government leaders are committed though mostly on paper to improving education to raise the living standard; 2) slow progress is being made to disseminate educational opportunities to all social and ethnic groups; 3) educational systems have not kept up with scientific and technological advances; and 4) this area is relatively well off among developing countries but progress is isolated in highly advanced regions. Social obstructions to using education in the development process are lack of education for women absence of demand for instruction and language barriers. All developing nations are tending to break away from Western influence in planning for education. Educational planning differs between developing nations: some (Mexico and Sri Lanka) are succeeding without centralized planning while others (India) have planning mechanisms which are very slow. Planning should be a continuous process of reassessment and should not degenerate into an exercise in population projections. The ultimate goal of organizing human beings to create new institutions different from those in existence should be kept in mind.

Establishing an African Publishing Industry: A Study in Decolonization

Abstract: IT IS, I BELIEVE, profoundly important for development and the process of decolonisation that an indigenous publishing industry should be established in independent Africa. It is also going to be extremely difficult, if the experience of the East African Publishing House is anything to go by. In the wider imperialist context it is perhaps significant that there is little pressure for this among the French-speaking countries and that much of the initiative in the English-speaking areas has come from individual British firms seeking an advantageous commercial position vis-a-vis their rivals. An indigenous publishing industry is important on several counts. It is important, first, for straightforward nationalistic reasons. Books are still probably the most effective single instrument for the purveying of ideas in the developing countries, and we cannot accept that these ideas must all originate, or first be subject to sieving, in London, New York, Paris or Brussels. It is important, secondly, on economic grounds. There is no technological reason why all the basic educational course books, and indeed most of the supplementary ones, at both primary and secondary level, should not be written, edited, designed, printed and published in Africa rather than in London, Malta, Paris or Hong Kong. This will lead to significant savings in foreign exchange and will have other obvious beneficial economic effects. Thirdly, there are inestimable cultural advantages. For example, if there had been no indigenous publisher in East Africa, Song of Lawino, by Okot p'Bitek, a cultural phenomenon of great importance for East Africa, would probably still be unpublished. I said that it would, however, be difficult to establish an indigenous publishing industry in Africa. In this, publishing is not really very different from any other industry. If you read a book we published recently called Who Controls Industry in Kenya ?1 you will begin to grasp the full extent of our problem. Western economic imperialism is a far more subtle and slippery animal than his political brother. He will do anything, compromise any principles, as long as he can still see something somewhere in it for him. He only turns really nasty when he loses all hope. The author is Publishing Director of the East African Publishing House in Nairobi. The paper was originally delivered as a talk to the Conference of the UK African Studies Association at Sussex on 19 September, 1968. His publications include The Myth of 'Mau Mau' (with Carl G. Rosberg), London, 1967. 1. Based on the Report of a Working Party established under the auspices of the National Christian Council of Kenya. 139

Tradition, Migration, Urbanization, Modernity, and Unemployment in Africa: The Roots of Instability

Abstract: (1969). Tradition, Migration, Urbanization, Modernity, and Unemployment in Africa: The Roots of Instability. Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des etudes africaines: Vol. 3, Unemployment in Africa, pp. 343-365.

James E.K. Aggrey: Collaborator, Nationalist, Pan-African

Abstract: (1970). James E. K. Aggrey: Collaborator, Nationalist. Pan-African. Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des etudes africaines: Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 511-530.

Development Administration in Africa: The Balance Between Politics and Administration

Abstract: (1969) Development Administration in Africa: The Balance Between Politics and Administration Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des etudes africaines: Vol 3, Rural Africa, pp 94-103

Ten Years of African Studies

Abstract: In the process of looking at the record of the Association's accomplishments over the past ten years, I came across some of the early records of the negotiations which brought the Association into existence, and I thought it might be of interest if I were to compare what has been done to what was envisaged as the task of the Association when the idea was first suggested. The origins of the Association go back to a seminar on Africa which met privately and informally in New York in 1954. Out of this group a plan was put forth for the formation of an African Institute, and an organizing committee, consisting of William A. Hance, Jean Comhaire, Alan Pifer, and Nicolaas Pansegrouer, was constituted to take care of the practical steps toward organizing such an institute. The proposed activities of the Institute included the assembly of documents and periodicals referring to Africa, the provision of scholarly and technical information and consultative services to educational, religious, governmental, and business groups, and the facilitation of visits to Africa for study and observation. Names suggested for the new body were the North American Institute of African Studies and the American Institute of African Studies. Not unsurprisingly, much of the discussion at this time, as now, centered about financing the new Institute.

The Place of Independent Religious Movements in the Modernization of Africa

Abstract: The eruption on to the world political scene of some thirty new independent nations in the continent of Africa within something like a decade is surely one of the most unexpected, exciting and significant political developments of our time. This essay is concerned with the religious background to this development in that part of the continent known as sub-saharan or Black Africa. Here the main religions involved have been the ethnic or traditional religions of the African tribal peoples in their interaction with the immigrant Christian religion associated with the invasion of Western culture, although in the northern and eastern reaches of this area Islam has long been a significant political influence. The contribution of the Christian religion commences with the churches brought by freed Negro slaves first to Sierra Leone in the late eighteenth century and then to Liberia early in the nineteenth century, and continues through the great missionary expansion and the resultant range of autonomous churches that have produced a Christian population of some 43 million (excluding Ethiopia) south of the Sahara. It is not our present intention to examine the extent to which Christian missions and churches, through their own teachings, through their pioneering in education, and through their association with Western culture and its political forms and ideas have been a major factor in the growth of nationalist sentiment and the achievement of political independence. The outlines, at least, of this history are often recognized, and for recent evidence one need only enquire into the education received by most of the founders or first heads of the new nations.

The Return of Brazilian Freedmen to West Africa in the 18th and 19th Centuries

Abstract: (1970) The Return of Brazilian Freedmen to West Africa in the 18th and 19th Centuries Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des etudes africaines: Vol 3, No 3, pp 577-593

Rural-Urban Interaction

Abstract: (1969). Rural-Urban Interaction. Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des etudes africaines: Vol. 3, Rural Africa, pp. 284-290.

Environment and Spatial Perception: An Approach to Research in African Rural Geography

Abstract: (1969). Environment and Spatial Perception: An Approach to Research in African Rural Geography. Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des etudes africaines: Vol. 3, Rural Africa, pp. 276-280.

The work of customary courts: some facts and speculations

Abstract: (1969). The work of customary courts: some facts and speculations. African Studies: Vol. 28, No. 1, pp. 37-48.

African Universities: Our Needs and Our Priorities *

Abstract: I would like, first of all, to express my profound sympathy to Mrs. Ida Brown and the children of my former mentor, Professor William O. Brown. Also to the Center and this our University for the loss of its founder Director of the African Studies Program and pioneer scholar in the field of African studies. I feel very honoured indeed that I have been invited to give this memorial lecture. I first met Professor William Brown in September, 1951 when, as part of a tour of European centres of learning with programmes on Africa, he came to the Department of Social Anthropology at Edinburgh University. As the Professor and the lecturer in the Department were both away, it fell to me to show him round the Department and talk about our work; but, as I had only just been appointed to the Department, we spoke more about Africa than about the Department's programme. This acquaintance was deepened into a lasting friendship when, in the Spring of 1953, I had the privilege of entertaining him as my house guest when he visited Sierra Leone. In the evenings we spent together in Freetown, I got to know Bill Brown; I got to know him as a man dedicated to and genuinely interested in the advancement of Africa. His was not merely an antiquarian interest; nor was he only interested in the kinship structures and anthropological tidbits of the African societies. He saw the Africans as personalities, as human beings, pursuing the same goal as others, and wanting for themselves the same rewards out of life. Those were the colonial days but, even in those days, Bill Brown was already deeply interested in the development of the African countries into viable nation states. It is not surprising, therefore, that this Center, under his leadership as its first Director, did not develop any narrow parochial interest, but studied Africa from a broader dimension, giving equal importance to historical, economic, political, as well as sociological factors in the development of Africa from traditionalism to modernity.

Selected Bibliography in Communication

Abstract: (1969). Selected Bibliography in Communication. Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des etudes africaines: Vol. 3, Rural Africa, pp. 248-256.

African Studies in Czechoslovakia: Achievements and Perspectives

Abstract: Scientific research of African societies and cultures in Czechoslovakia has developed only in the last two decades. Nevertheless, to precede the research there was a relatively extensive background shaped by the tradition of travelers whose interest was centered especially on geography, biology, and descriptive and collective ethnography. The most important of these travelers were Dr. Emil Holub (1847-1902), who crossed South Africa as far as the Zambezi River and published several books, most of which are now available in English, about his experiences; Remedius Prutký, a missionary who visited Ethiopia in 1751-1753 and not only described his travels but even compiled a vocabulary of the Amharic language; and Dr. Stecker and Ceněk Paclt, who traveled in the nineteenth century through Ethiopia and South Africa, respectively. In the twentieth century there was a considerable number of Czechoslovak travelers who acquainted their compatriots with the “Dark Continent.” Before World War II, three professor of Semitology at Charles University, Prague -- R. Dvořak, R. Ružicka, and A. Musil -- started to study Ethiopian languages and history. The well-known Austrian scholar of Czech origin, Dr. Pavel Sebesta (Schebesta) became one of the best specialists in the anthropology and ethnography of the Pygmies.

China's Nuclear Option

Abstract: The eventual deployment by China of a strategic deterrence capability in the form of nuclear ICBMs may be the means by which that country becomes inducted into fuller participation in the community of nations.Michael B. Yahuda, who holds degrees from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, is a lecturer in the department of politics at Southampton University. He is currently writing a dissertation on early Chinese Communist foreign policy formulation. Other articles by Mr. Yahuda appear in China Quarterly and the forthcoming Year Book of World Affairs, 1969.