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14 results in African Issues

Losing your Land
  • Dispossession in the Great Lakes
  • Edited by An Ansoms, Thea Hilhorst
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    24 February 2023
    Print publication:
    16 October 2014
  • Examines a new aspect of one of the highest profile issues facing Africa today-land-grabbing-and shows the widespread impact of small-scale dispossession.

Land, Investment and Politics
  • Reconfiguring Eastern Africa's Pastoral Drylands
  • Edited by Jeremy Lind, Doris Okenwa, Ian Scoones
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    18 January 2023
    Print publication:
    15 May 2020
  • Examines the new challenges facing Africa's pastoral drylands from large-scale investments and how this might affect the economic and political landscape for the regions affected and their peoples.

Disability Rights and Inclusiveness in Africa
  • The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, challenges and change
  • Edited by Jeff D. Grischow, Magnus Mfoafo-M'Carthy
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    07 October 2022
    Print publication:
    19 July 2022
  • Grassroots researchers examine the barriers and ways of implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in Africa.

Volunteer Economies
  • The Politics and Ethics of Voluntary Labour in Africa
  • Edited by Ruth Prince
  • Hannah Brown
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    18 June 2021
    Print publication:
    19 May 2016
  • Across Africa today, as development activities animate novel forms of governance, new social actors are emerging, among them the volunteer. Yet, where work and resources are limited, volunteer practices have repercussions that raise contentious ethical issues. What has been the real impact of volunteers economically, politically and in society? The interdisciplinary experts in this collection examine the practices of volunteers - both international and local - and ideologies of volunteerism. They show the significance of volunteerism to processes of social and economic transformation, and political projects of national development and citizenship, as well as to individual aspirations in African societies.
    These case studies - from South Africa, Lesotho, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Sierra Leone and Malawi - examine everyday experiences of volunteerism and trajectories of voluntary work, trace its broader historical, political and economic implications, and situate African experiencesof voluntary labour within global exchanges and networks of resources, ideas and political technologies. Offering insights into changing configurations of work, citizenship, development and social mobility, the authors offer new perspectives on the relations between labour, identity and social value in Africa.

    Ruth Prince is Associate Professor in Medical Anthropology at the Universityof Oslo; with her co-author Wenzel Geissler, she won the 2010 Amaury Talbot Prize for their book The Land is Dying: Contingency, Creativity and Conflict in Western Kenya. Hannah Brown is a lecturer in Anthropology at Durham University.

The Root Causes of Sudan's Civil Wars
  • Old Wars and New Wars (Expanded 3rd Edition)
  • Douglas H. Johnson
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    12 June 2021
    Print publication:
    18 November 2016
  • Expanded third edition of this key text on the complex underlying conditions of the civil war from the 1960s to the present day, including a new chapter on the current wars in Sudan's new south and South Sudan.

Africa's Land Rush
  • Rural Livelihoods and Agrarian Change
  • Edited by Ruth Hall, Ian Scoones, Dzodzi Tsikata
  • With contributions by Michael Mortimore , Joseph Yaro , Joseph Ariyo , Ward Anseeuw , Blessings Chinsinga , Michael Chasukwa , John Letai , Abdirizak Nunow , Gaynor Paradza , Marcel Rutten , Maru Shete , Emmanuel Sulle and Rebecca Smalley
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    21 May 2021
    Print publication:
    16 July 2015
  • Africa has been at the centre of a "land grab" in recent years, with investors lured by projections of rising food prices, growing demand for "green" energy, and cheap land and water rights. But suchland is often also used or claimed through custom by communities. What does this mean for Africa? In what ways are rural people's lives and livelihoods being transformed as a result? And who will control its land and agricultural futures?

    The case studies explore the processes through which land deals are being made; the implications for agrarian structure, rural livelihoods and food security; and the historical context of changing land uses, revealing that these land grabs may resonate with, even resurrect, forms of large-scale production associated with the colonial and early independence eras. The book depicts the striking diversity of deals and dealers: white Zimbabwean farmers in northern Nigeria, Dutch and American joint ventures in Ghana, an Indian agricultural company in Ethiopia's hinterland, European investors in Kenya's drylands and a Canadian biofuel company on its coast, South African sugar agribusiness in Tanzania's southern growth corridor, in Malawi's "Greenbelt" and in southern Mozambique, and white South African farmers venturing onto former state farms in the Congo.

    Ruth Hall is Associate Professor at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa; Ian Scoones is a Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex and Director of the ESRC STEPS Centre; Dzodzi Tsikata is Associate Professor at the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) at the University of Ghana, Legon.

Electricity in Africa
  • The Politics of Transformation in Uganda
  • Christopher D. Gore
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    25 August 2018
    Print publication:
    31 August 2017
  • No country has managed to develop beyond a subsistence economy without ensuring at least minimum access to electricity for the majority of its population. Yet many sub-Saharan African countries struggle to meet demand. Why is this, and what can be done to reduce energy poverty and further Africa's development? Examining the politics and processes surrounding electricity infrastructure, provision and reform, the author provides an overview of historical and contemporary debates about access in the sub-continent, and explores the shifting role and influence of national governments and of multilateral agencies in energy reform decisions. He describes a challenging political environment for electricity supply, with African governments becoming increasingly frustrated with the rules and the processes of multilateral donors. Civil society also began to question reform choices, and governments in turn looked to new development partners, such as China, to chart a fresh path of energy transformation.Drawing on over fifteen years of research on Uganda, which has one of the lowest levels of access to electricity in Africa and has struggled to construct several, large hydroelectric dams on the Nile, Gore argues that there is a critical need to recognize how the changing political and social context in African countries, and globally, has affected the capacity to fulfil national energy goals, minimize energy poverty and transform economies.Christopher Gore is Associate Professor, Department of Politics and Public Administration, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada.

China's Aid and Soft Power in Africa
  • The Case of Education and Training
  • Kenneth King
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    05 July 2013
    Print publication:
    16 May 2013
  • Why does China run one of the world's largest short-term training programmes, with plans to bring 30,000 Africans to China between 2013 and 2015? Why does it give generous support to 31 Confucius Institutes teaching Mandarin and Chinese culture at many of Africa's top universities from the Cape to Cairo? Why is China one of the very few countries to increase the number of full scholarships for Africans to study in its universities, a total of 18,000 anticipated between 2013 and 2015? China claims to have been involved for 60 years in South-South cooperation of mutual benefit to China and Africa. While its dramatic economic and trade impact, particularly on Africa, has caught global attention, little focus has yet been given to its role as an education donor - and especially to the critical role of China's support for training and human resource development for Africans in China, and within Africa itself. It is vital that we understand what is going on, and why education is so important in China-Africa relations. Here is hard evidence from Ethiopia, South Africa and Kenya of the dramatic growth of China's soft power and increasing impact in capacity-building, and of the implications of this for Africa, China and the world. Kenneth King is Professor Emeritus, University of Edinburgh, where he was Director of the Centre of African Studies for 20 years. Since 2007, he has been international advisor for China's largest Institute of African Studies.

From the Pit to the Market
  • Politics and the Diamond Economy in Sierra Leone
  • Diane Frost
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    05 April 2013
    Print publication:
    15 November 2012
  • Diamonds have played an important role in the political economy of Sierra Leone, as was highlighted by the use of 'conflict' or 'blood' diamonds in the decade-long civil war. Conflict diamonds were used not only by rebels, military groups and others inside Sierra Leone and Liberia, but also by groups extending beyond the borders of West Africa: global criminal networks, international terror groups, and 'legitimate' transnational companies. The diamond trade in Sierra Leone has also been subject to exploitation by global business interests, a form of corporate neo-colonialist predation that continues today and which has curbed the country's growth, while recent newspaper headlines also demonstrate the currency of rough diamonds. Sierra Leone's diamonds have been used to finance factions in Lebanon's civil war, criminal networks in the US and Russia, and al-Qaeda. The marginalization and exclusion of Sierra Leone, this book argues, mean that it, and other such resource-rich nations, remain reliant on aid. Diane Frost is Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology, University of Liverpool.

Identity Economics
  • Social Networks and the Informal Economy in Nigeria
  • Kate Meagher
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    05 April 2013
    Print publication:
    18 February 2010
  • Why have informal enterprise networks failed to promote economic development in Africa? Although social networks were thought to offer a solution to state incapacity and market failure, the proliferation of socially embedded enterprise networks across Africa has generated disorder and economic decline rather than development. This book challenges the prevailing assumption that the problem of African development lies in bad cultural institutions by showing that informal economic governance in Nigeria is shaped, not just by culture, but by the disruptive effects of rapid liberalization, state decline and political capture. 'Identity Economics' traces the rise of two dynamic informal enterprise clusters in Nigeria, and explores their slide into trajectories of Pentecostalism, poverty and violent vigilantism. Drawing on over twenty years of empirical research on African informal economies, the author highlights the institutional legacies, networking strategies and globalizing dynamics that shape the regulatory role of social networks in Africa's largest and most turbulent economy. Through an ethnography of informal economic governance, this book shows how ties of ethnicity, class, gender and religion are used to restructure enterprise networks in response to contemporary economic challenges. Moving beyond primordialist interpretations of African culture, attention is drawn to the critical role of the state and the macro-economic policy environment in shaping trajectories of informal economic governance. KATE MEAGHER is a former Research Associate at Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford and is currently a Lecturer in the Development Studies Institute at the London School of Economics. Nigeria: HEBN.

Diamonds, Dispossession and Democracy in Botswana
  • Kenneth Good
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    05 April 2013
    Print publication:
    20 November 2008
  • Is Botswana still 'an African miracle'? Thanks to diamonds the country's growth rate was the highest in the world into the 1990s, and regular parliamentary elections judged free on polling day have been held since 1965. However a duopoly of presidentialism and ruling party preponderance has stimulated arrogance, complacency and corruption among the country's rulers. What is 'perpetual democracy'? The ruling BDP is kept in perpetual power by the first-past-the post election system. The President in Botswana is empowered to do whatever he pleases. President Mogae has amended the constitution to ensure the automatic succession of the Vice-President General Ian Khama, the son of Seretse and Ruth Khama. A new Directorate of Intelligence Services provides closer control of power. Why are the Khoisan confined to 'a gulag of special settlements'? The expulsion of the San from Central Kalahari Game Reserve was relentlessly enforced in 1997 and 2002. A multi-cultural coalition asserts that the government is implementing 'a philosophy of cultural genocide on the non-Tswana tribes'. How can the gift of diamonds be turned to reform? Professor Good asserts the need to strengthen and democratise the electoral and voting systems. He sees diversification as essential to reduce the dependency on diamonds. He urges the use of mineral wealth to reduce the gap between rich and poor; half of the population are at present in poverty in a rich country. KENNETH GOOD was Professor of Politics at the University of Botswana when he was expelled from the country. South Africa: Jacana.

South Africa's Gold Mines and the Politics of Silicosis
  • Jock McCulloch
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    18 October 2012
  • South Africa's gold mines are the largest and historically among the most profitable in the world. Yet at what human cost? This book reveals how the mining industry, abetted by a minority state, hid a pandemic of silicosis for almost a century and allowed miners infected with tuberculosis to spread disease to rural communities in South Africa and to labour-sending states. In the twentieth century, South African mines twice faced a crisis over silicosis, which put its workers at risk of contracting pulmonary tuberculosis, often fatal. The first crisis, 1896-1912, saw the mining industry invest heavily in reducing dust and South Africa became renowned for its mine safety. The second began in 2000 with mounting scientific evidence that the disease rate among miners is more than a hundred times higher than officially acknowledged. The first crisis also focused upon disease among the minority white miners: the current crisis is about black migrant workers, and is subject to major class actions for compensation. Jock McCulloch was a Legislative Research Specialist for the Australian parliament and has taught at various universities. His books include 'Asbestos Blues'. Southern Africa (South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Swaziland & Botswana) : Jacana.

Sudan Looks East
  • China, India and the Politics of Asian Alternatives
  • Edited by Daniel Large, Luke A. Patey
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    20 November 2011
  • By successfully turning to China, Malaysia and India from the mid-1990s, amidst civil war and political isolation, Khartoum's 'Look East' policy transformed Sudan's economy and foreign relations. Sudan, in turn, has been a key theatre of Chinese, Indian and Malaysian overseas energy investment. What began as economic engagements born of pragmatic necessity later became politicized within Sudan and without, resulting in global attention. Despite its importance, widespread sustained interest and continuing political controversy, there is no single volume publication examining the rise and nature of Chinese, Malaysian and Indian interests in Sudan, their economic and political consequences, and role in Sudan's foreign relations. Addressing this gap, this book provides a groundbreaking analysis of Sudan's 'Look East' policy. It offers the first substantive treatment of a subject of fundamental significance within Sudan that, additionally, has become a globally prominent dimension of its changing international politics. Daniel Large is research director of the Africa Asia Centre, Royal African Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, and founding director of the Rift Valley Institute's digital Sudan Open Archive. Luke A. Patey is a Research Fellow at the Danish Institute for International Studies.

The Front Line Runs through Every Woman
  • Women and Local Resistance in the Zimbabwean Liberation War
  • Eleanor O'Gorman
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    20 October 2011
  • A Zimbabwe-specific study, focusing on the lives of women in a small locale (Chiweshe) during the anti-colonial insurgency, this book is also a challenge to established and still current modes of thought and research orientations which over-simplify the complex realities women face in the full range of violent conflicts, both past and present. By contextualizing the voices of women of Chiweshe, not only is an important and under-developed aspect of Zimbabwean and African history revealed, but a new approach to comprehending the highly-tensioned lives of women in war is presented, which is characterized here as Gendered Localised Resistance. This is examined through the prism of life in the Protected Villages in Chiweshe experienced in everyday social relations, revolutionary roles, and food security. It traces how women forged strategies of survival and resistance in the middle of guerrilla warfare pitted between the forces of the state and the revolutionary resistance movements. The book can be read as a unique and richly detailed account of the lives of women during the Zimbabwe civil war and liberation struggle; as a wider argument about how researchers can approach and incorporate lived experience into accounts of larger dynamics (war/revolution); and as a substantial and important contribution to feminist historiography and writings on women and war. Eleanor O' Gorman is Senior Associate at the Gender Studies Centre and a Research Associate at the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge; an independent consultant who has advised the UN, the UK Government (DFID and FCO), the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs, the European Commission, and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).