Showing papers on "African studies published in 2018"

Epistemic Freedom in Africa: Deprovincialization and Decolonization

Abstract: Epistemic Freedom in Africa is about the struggle for African people to think, theorize, interpret the world and write from where they are located, unencumbered by Eurocentrism. The imperial denial of common humanity to some human beings meant that in turn their knowledges and experiences lost their value, their epistemic virtue. Now, in the twenty-first century, descendants of enslaved, displaced, colonized, and racialized peoples have entered academies across the world, proclaiming loudly that they are human beings, their lives matter and they were born into valid and legitimate knowledge systems that are capable of helping humanity to transcend the current epistemic and systemic crises. Together, they are engaging in diverse struggles for cognitive justice, fighting against the epistemic line which haunts the twenty-first century. The renowned historian and decolonial theorist Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni offers a penetrating and well-argued case for centering Africa as a legitimate historical unit of analysis and epistemic site from which to interpret the world, whilst simultaneously making an equally strong argument for globalizing knowledge from Africa so as to attain ecologies of knowledges. This is a dual process of both deprovincializing Africa, and in turn provincializing Europe. The book highlights how the mental universe of Africa was invaded and colonized, the long-standing struggles for 'an African university', and the trajectories of contemporary decolonial movements such as Rhodes Must Fall and Fees Must Fall in South Africa. This landmark work underscores the fact that only once the problem of epistemic freedom has been addressed can Africa achieve political, cultural, economic and other freedoms. This groundbreaking new book is accessible to students and scholars across Education, History, Philosophy, Ethics, African Studies, Development Studies, Politics, International Relations, Sociology, Postcolonial Studies and the emerging field of Decolonial Studies. The Open Access versions Chapter 1 and Chapter 9, available at https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429492204 have been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

African culture and values

Abstract: The main objective of this paper is to examine African culture and values. Since culture is often seen as the sum total of the peculiarities shared by a people, a people’s values can be seen as part of their culture. In discussing African culture and values, we are not presupposing that all African societies have the same explanation(s) for events, the same language, and same mode of dressing and so on. Rather, there are underlying similarities shared by many African societies which, when contrasted with other cultures, reveal a wide gap of difference. In this paper, we try to show the relevance of African culture and values to the contemporary society but maintain that these values be critically assessed, and those found to be inimical to the well-being and holistic development of the society, be discarded. In this way, African culture and values can be revaluated, their relevance established and sustained in order to give credence to authentic African identity.

Gatekeeping African studies: what does “editormetrics” indicate about journal governance?

Abstract: This paper probes the internal governance of research journals by focusing on the editorial boards of leading African studies academic journals. We submit editorships to systematic scrutiny through a number of perspectives: geography, gender, institutional affiliation, research performance, entry/exit, etc. Overall, leading journals in the area of African studies are found to be less inclusive than expected: under a quarter of the editors are Africa-based scholars while women are even scarcer. Observations on editorial inflation, repeat editors, interlocking editorships and differentiated journal positionings are also made possible by taking a quantitative approach to editorial evidence. What we refer as “editormetrics” thus suggests the need for further debate regarding the managerial rules and roles of journals. This perspective may, and perhaps should, inform other evidence-based appraisals of the journal “industry” and the research policy scene at large.

Decolonizing the African Studies Centre

Abstract: The African Studies Centre has been a privileged institutional form in Britain for knowledge production on Africa since the end of colonialism. This article argues that the origin of these UK centres should be located in the colonial research institutes established in Africa, in particular the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute and the East African Institute of Social Research. Attention to the knowledge about Africa that was deemed authoritative by these institutes as well as to the institutions and structures underpinning that knowledge production can raise important questions about today’s centres that need to be addressed as part of a decolonization agenda.

Land Reform Revisited: Democracy, State Making and Agrarian Transformation in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Abstract: Revisiting South Africa's land and agrarian questions / Grasian Mkodzongi and Femke Brandt -- Broadening conceptions of democracy and citizenship : the subaltern histories of rural resistance in Mpondoland and Marikana / Sarah Bruchhausen and Camalita Naicker -- From material to cultural : historiographic approaches to the Eastern Cape's agrarian past / Elene Cloete -- South Africa's dangerous game : re-configuring power and belonging on Karoo trophy-hunting farms / Femke Brandt -- Gendered nationhood and the land question in South Africa 20 years after democracy / Kezia Batisai -- Farm worker 'development' agendas : what does sports have to do with it? / Tarminder Kaur -- Intricacies of game farming and outstanding land restitution claims in the Gongolo area of Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa / Tariro Kamuti -- Inclusive business models in South African land restitution : great expectations and ambiguous outcomes explored / Nerhene Davis -- 'We won't have Zim-style land grabs' : what can South Africa learn from Zimbabwe's fast-track land reforms? / Grasian Mkodzongi -- Khoisan revivalism and land question in post-apartheid South Africa / Chizuko Sato -- The land-reform programme and its contribution to the livelihoods of poor people / Fani Ncapayi -- 'Disrupting spatial legacies' : dismantled game farms as success stories of land reform? / Mnqobi Ngubane -- Agency and state planning in South Africa's land-reform process / Femke Brandt and Grasian Mkodzongi. Abstract: "Land Reform Revisited' engages with contemporary debates on land reform and agrarian transformation in South Africa. The volume offers insights into post-apartheid transformation dynamics through the lens of agency and state making. The chapters written by emerging scholars are based on extensive qualitative research and their analysis highlights the ways in which people negotiate and contest land reform realities and politics. By focusing on the diverse meanings of land and competing interpretations of what constitutes success and failure in land reform Brandt and Mkodzongi insist on looking beyond the productivity discourses guiding research and policy making in the field towards an informed view from below".

African Cities and the Development Conundrum . Actors and Agency in the Urban Grey Zone

Abstract: Africa is urbanising faster than any other continent. The stupendous pace of urbanisation challenges the usual image of Africa as a rural continent. The sheer complexity of African cities contests conventional understandings of the urban as well as standard development policies. Lingering between chaos and creativity, Western images of African cities seem unable to serve as a basis for development policies. The diversity of African cities is hard to conceptualise—but at the same time, unbiased views of the urban are the first step to addressing the urban development conundrum. International development cooperation should not only make African cities a focus of its engagement—it should also be cautious not to build its interventions on concepts inherited from Western history, such as the formal/informal dichotomy. We argue that African cities are more appropriately regarded as urban grey zones that only take shape and become colourful through the actors’ agency and practice. The chapters of this special issue offer a fresh look at African cities, and the many opportunities as well as limitations that emerge for African urbanites—state officials, planners, entrepreneurs, development agencies and ordinary people—from their own point of view: they ask where, for whom and why such limitations and opportunities emerge, how they change over time and how African urban dwellers actively enliven and shape their cities.

‘A Conference That Didn’t’: African Diaspora Studies and an episode in anthropology’s identity politics of representation:

Abstract: In 1968, the Social Science Research Council of the United States established the Committee on Afro-American Societies and Cultures which lasted until 1975 and which was initially chaired by the anthropologist Sidney W Mintz. In April, 1970, the committee held a conference on ‘Continuities and Discontinuities in Afro-American Societies and Culture’ at the University of the West Indies in Mona, Jamaica. The conference occurred in the context of civil rights struggles and the prominence of the Black Power movement in the United States, the near-simultaneous rise of the Black Power movement in Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and elsewhere in the Caribbean, and on the heels of protests by black and African scholars and students at the African Studies Association meetings in Montreal in 1969, and similar protests at other scholarly venues. A number of prominent white Caribbeanist anthropologists and other social scientists were invited to present papers at the Social Science Research Council conference. When bla...

African Philosophy and the Otherness of Albinism: White Skin, Black Race

Abstract: Albinism is one of the foremost disability and public health issues in Africa today. It often makes headlines in local, national and international medias and forms the basis for intense advocacy at all levels. This is primarily due to the harmful representations of persons with albinism deeply entrenched in African traditions. These deeply rooted ideologies about albinism in African thought have largely promoted the continuous discrimination, stigmatization, harming, killing, commodification and violation of the human rights of persons with albinism in African places. How has albinism emerged as a thick concept in African traditions? What are these deeply entrenched ideas about the ontology of albinism in African thought? What epistemic injustice has been done to persons with albinism in Africa places? Why do harmful beliefs about albinism still persist in modern African societies? How does the African communalistic ethic justify the harm done against persons with albinism? What is the duty to, and burden of, care for persons with albinism? What peculiar existential challenges do persons with albinism in general and females with albinism in particular face in African societies and how can they be overcome? What can be learnt from the education philosophy of reconstructionism and genetic engineering in improving the wellbeing of persons with albinism? African Philosophy and the Otherness of Albinism: White Skin, Black Race digs deep into these philosophical questions revealing fascinating but latent aspects of how albinism is understood in African places as a necessary step to take in improving the wellbeing and integrity of persons with albinism in Africa today. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of African philosophy, sociology, African studies and disability studies.

Sporting subalternities and social justice: rethinking South African sports studies

Abstract: In asking: 'How does sport help us better understand the richness and complexities of African experiences, in the past and present?', Peter Alegi (2014) sets out an agenda for a field of research, we call: Sports Africa. Over the past three decades, study of sports in African Studies has gained some recognition with its own body of knowledge and debates.

Introduction: Understanding African Politics: Bringing the State Back In

Abstract: The question of whether formal political institutions such as the legislature, the electoral commission and the judiciary play a significant role in everyday political life is one of the most important debates in African studies. How we answer this question shapes not only our assessment of the prospects for democratic consolidation – which appear to be healthier if one thinks that political leaders are becoming ever more constrained by the rules of the game – but also how we understand and study the continent. If legislatures and judiciaries are largely irrelevant because they are powerless to check the authority of the executive, then Africanists do not need to devote much time to learning about them. To date, a significant proportion of the literature has depicted a continent in which formal institutions do not perform as intended; rather, official rules are described as being weak and fragile, rendered vulnerable to executive manipulation by the salience of corrupt personal networks and ethnic politics. This line of argument reached its logical conclusion in Africa Works , the bestselling treatise by Patrick Chabal and Jean-Pascal Daloz, which effectively argues that the continent is ‘institutionless’ (1999). In making this argument they did not mean to imply that Africa lacks shared customs and norms that regulate behaviour in predictable ways. The strength of these kinds of informal institutions has been widely recognised in work on ethnicity, patronage and traditional authority. Rather, their argument is that formal rules such as constitutions and legal systems do little to shape political life, which is instead fashioned by social customs and “traditional” forms of political behaviour. In other words, Chabal and Daloz conclude that Africa lacks effective political organisations – that, to borrow Joel Migdal's well-known phrase (1988), it is a continent of ‘strong societies and weak states’. Over the last twenty years, this position has become increasingly untenable. A number of Africanists have contributed to a body of work that documents processes of democratisation – cases in which elections and increasingly rule-bound politics lead to greater respect for civil liberties and political rights (Lindberg 2006), presidential term limits and transfers of power (Posner and Young 2007; Cheeseman 2010).

The Media Appeals Tribunal and the Protection of Information Bill as challenges to freedom of expression and good governance in South Africa

Abstract: This paper examines the Media Appeals Tribunal (MAT) and the Protection of Information Bill (PIB) as potential challenges to freedom of expression and good governance in South Africa The modus operandi and the objectives of MAT and PIB are presented and examined to indicate whether these may act as threats to freedom of expression and good governance This paper uses information obtained from academic articles, the South African Constitution, legislative documents, news articles as well as African and international reports This research finds that if MAT and PIB are passed as laws without substantial amendments in favour of the genuine respect for freedom of media and press, they will potentially lead to the regression of both freedom of expression and good governance and above all, threaten democracy in South Africa Key words: Media Appeals Tribunal, Protection of Information Bill, freedom of expression, good governance, democracy, South Africa

African Union Law: The Emergence of a Sui Generis Legal Order

Abstract: This book explores the emergence of African Union (AU) law as a legal order and its implications for existing order in the region. As an authoritative text on the development of AU law, the book covers such pertinent issues as legislative powers, competences, direct effect in AU law, subsidiarity, interventionism, and enforcement of laws. Olufemi Amao argues that there is a gradual movement from intergovernmentalism to supranationalism in the African Union legal order, and explores how this trajectory gradually and incrementally de-emphasises the discourse on nation state sovereignty; a concept that has caused many problems in the African context. Drawing upon EU law as a comparison, the book also examines how the development of supranationalism affects crucial issues such as human rights, democratic reforms, territorial matters, tribal and religious disputes, and economic relations. As a comprehensive examination of the development of law within a union, this book will be of great interest and use to students, scholars and practitioners in international law, international relations, and African studies.

Social software as a tool of promoting indigenous African languages in Higher Education

Abstract: Within the discourse of language planning and policy, there is an increasing realisation of the strategic role of information and communication technologies in the promotion of indigenous African languages. The article discusses the strategic role that social software, in particular blogs and wiki, can and should play in the development of African languages in South African Higher Education. The paper argues that while the colonial and apartheid legacy can be blamed for the underdevelopment of African languages, the reality of entrenched misconceptions about the use of African languages and poor language policy implementation in the post-apartheid era continue to hinder the promotion of these languages. The increase in the adoption of such social software tools in Higher Education institutions is therefore envisaged to present a platform for the development and promotion of African languages in the Higher Education domain.

African Economic Development

Abstract: Sub-Saharan Africa is at a turning point. The barriers to economic growth seen in the 1980-2000 era are disappearing and new optimism is spreading. However, difficult goals of eliminating poverty, achieving equity and overcoming environmental threats continue. This much-needed and insightful textbook has been written to help us understand this combination of emerging improvements and significant challenges. Opening with an analysis of the main theories relating to development in Sub-Saharan Africa, the book explores all the key issues, including: Human development; Rapid urbanization; Structural and gender dimensions; Sustainable development and environmental issues; and Africa’s role in the world economy. The authors use economic tools and concepts throughout, in a way that makes them accessible to students without an economics background. Readers are also aided by a wide range of case studies, on-the-ground examples and statistical information, which provide a detailed analysis of each topic. This text is also accompanied by an e-resource, featuring additional sources for students and instructors. African Economic Development is a clear and comprehensive textbook suitable for courses on African economic development, development economics, African studies and development studies.

Religious Innovation and Competition in Contemporary African Christianity

Abstract: This introductory essay lays out the main themes of a special issue of Journal of Contemporary African Studies which brings together six empirically grounded papers by African social scientists of ...

Lessons of the Northern War on African corruption

Abstract: In the 1990s states, international non-governmental organisations, and capitalist enterprises launched a novel campaign against transnational corruption. This essay addresses how and when this camp...

African Studies between Area Studies Tradition and Global Entanglement Approaches: Perspectives from The University of Cologne

Abstract: In the face of growing global interconnections, entanglements and conflicts as well as increasing awareness that such inter-continental linkages have considerable historical depth, African Studies—as well as other Area Studies—have increasingly come under pressure to re-contextualise their academic agenda as well as their place within their host institutions and the wider academic landscape. In Germany, African Studies encounter such challenges in a period in which comprehensive funding for Area Studies is available in highly competitive processes necessitating collaborations between area specialists, humanities scholars and more theoretically orientated social scientists. The key challenge is thus to maintain and develop strong regional expertise without neglecting a comparative and theoretically ambitious agenda. The University of Cologne has reacted to these challenges by establishing the Global South Studies Center (GSSC), an organisational framework that merges research from classical area studies disciplines and from the social sciences and humanities to open up new alleys for crossareal and interdisciplinary collaboration, and facilitates public outreach to a variety of audiences. This article traces the establishment of this new organisational unit, its potential and the challenges it faces in giving special attention to African Area Studies.

The provocation of empirical evidence: Soviet African Studies between enthusiasm and discomfort

Abstract: Focusing on the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s, the article looks at Africa through the eyes of Soviet scholars, who sought to comprehend the dramatic transformations on the continent. Incipient efforts under Comintern auspices in the 1920s and 1930s had fallen prey to the Stalinist purges. Since the mid-1950s, Soviet African Studies started to flourish, when socialism became a global project on Soviet political agendas in the context of cold war competition. Their expansion, however, was just as much an effect of intensifying encounters with colleagues in the region. Soviet scholars did not only struggle to reconcile the Marxist–Leninist framework with the diverse dynamics in African societies. They were also provoked by the reactions they received from Western and African counterparts during travels, and conferences. Challenging a diffusionist understanding of how ideas about socialism were ‘transferred’ from the Soviet Union to Africa, the key argument here is that the Soviet Union was neither an u...

The great English heist in African studies

Abstract: This is a paper in celebration of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s contribution to the way we think about language. I argue that the discussion of English in the academy needs to move forward from the possessio...

Researching Institutional Life in Modern Uganda

Abstract: This introductory article reflects on the trajectories, possibilities, and limitations of studying institutional life in Africa, with a particular emphasis on Uganda. Engaging with some of the central issues articulated in the African Studies Association’s theme for the 2017 Annual Meeting – “Institutions: Creativity and Resilience in Africa” – it considers the category of “institution” and how it has been imagined and contested in Africa’s past and present. The article begins by examining the competing visions of institutions across the continent in the late colonial period. It then moves to a closer consideration of institutions within Uganda’s historiography, while also introducing the articles in this collection and the themes that tie them together. The final two sections turn to the question of sources, illuminating both the possibilities and limitations of recent developments regarding Uganda’s archives. In so doing, this article considers not only the shifting terrain of Uganda’s research landscape, but also explores the ways in which the study of institutional life is animated by deep, longstanding deliberations on questions of community, authority, and reciprocity.

Culture and working life: Ari Sitas and the transformation of labour studies in South Africa

Abstract: This lecture was given at the Celebrating Ari Sitas: the World of Work and the Power of Poetics, Global Studies Programme (GSP) conference, September 4 & 5 2017, at the Centre for African Studies G...