Africa: Missing Voices – serie

Traditional leadership is a factor that has long been overlooked in evaluations of rural local government in much of contemporary Sub-Saharan Africa. Grassroots Governance, an interdisciplinary and intercontinental collection, addresses this gap in African scholarship and brings new perspectives on the integration, or reconciliation, of traditional leadership with democratic systems of local government. Articles from the fields of political science, law, postcolonial studies, anthropology, cultural studies, and policy and administrative studies establish a baseline for best practice in Africa and the Afro-Caribbean while taking into account the importance of traditional leadership to the culture of local governance.Case studies are drawn from Ghana, South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, and Commonwealth countries in West, East, and Southern Africa, as well as Jamaica.

What does it mean to be African-Canadian?The African Diaspora in Canada addresses the conceptual difficulties and political contestations surrounding the term “African - Canadian.” In the midst of this fraught terrain, it focuses on first - generation, black continental Africans who have immigrated in the past four decades. In highlighting their experiences, this book addresses the empirical, conceptual, and methodological gaps that homogenize all black people and their experiences.Rooted in specific experiences, this book examines the social constructions of African - Canadians, their experiences within the political and education systems, and with the labour market. It explores the forms of cooperation and tension that characterize African - Canadian communities, and how multiple transnational spaces are negotiated and occupied. The book also explores the circumstances of children, as they try to define their identities vis - À - vis their parents and the larger Canadian society.

Geographically, demographically, and politically, South Africa and Canada are two countries that are very far apart. What they have in common are indigenous populations, which, because of their historical and ongoing experience of colonization and dispossession, share a hunger for land and human dignity.Based on extensive research carried out in both countries, A Common Hunger is a comparative work on the history of indigenous land rights in Canada and post-apartheid South Africa. Joan Fairweather has constructed a balanced examination of the impact of land dispossession on the lives of indigenous peoples in both countries and their response to centuries of European domination. By reclaiming rights to the land and an equitable share in the wealth-producing resources they contain, the first peoples of Canada and South Africa are taking important steps to confront the legacies of poverty that characterize many of their communities. A Common Hunger provides historical context to the current land claim process in these two former British colonies and examines the efforts of governments and the courts to ensure that justice is done.

It has been said that education in post-colonial Africa is in a state of crisis. Policies and practices from Eurocentric colonial regimes have carried over, intertwining with challenges inherent in the new political and economic climate. Leaders have done little to remedy the malfunctioning education system, and even where attempts have been made, they have overwhelmingly been shaped by commercial and capitalist interests.In New Directions in African Education, Nombuso Dlamini has gathered essays from continental African scholars who, before pursuing graduate studies in North America, had first-hand experience with the education system in post-colonial Africa. Their cross-cultural perspective has provided a unique opportunity to critically examine education in the African context and to present possible courses of action to reinvent its future. These authors are in search of a new model for African education - a model that embraces indigenous knowledge, helps cultivate a greater sense of pride in people of African descent, and, most importantly, serves local needs.

In the African context, shrines are cultural signposts that help one understand and read the ethnic, territorial, and social lay of the land. The contributions gathered here by Allan Charles Dawson demonstrate how African shrines help to define ethnic boundaries, shape group identity, and symbolically articulate a society's connection with the land it occupies.Shrines are physical manifestations of a group's claim to a particular piece of land and are thus markers of identity - they represent, both figuratively and literally, a community's 'roots' in the land it works and lives on. The shrine is representative of a connection with the land at the cosmological and supernatural level and, in terms of a community's or ethnic group's claim to cultivable territory, serves as a reminder to outsiders of ownership.Shrines in Africa explores how African shrines, in all their variable and diverse forms, are more than just spiritual vessels or points of worship - they are powerful symbols of ethnic solidarity, group cohesion, and knowledge about the landscape. Moreover, in ways subtle and nuanced, shrines represent ideas about legitimacy and authenticity in the context of the post-colonial African state.

A century ago, agriculture was the dominant economic sector in much of Africa. By the 1990s, however, African farmers had declining incomes and were worse off, on average, than those who did not farm. Colonial policies, subsequent 'top-down' statism, and globalization are usually cited as primary causes of this long-term decline. In this unprecedented study of the Igbo region of southeastern Nigeria, Chima Korieh points the way to a more complex and inclusive approach to this issue. Using agricultural change as a lens through which to view socio-economic and cultural change, political struggle, and colonial hegemony, Korieh shows that regional dynamics and local responses also played vital roles in this era of transformation.British attempts to modernize the densely populated Igbo region were focused largely on intensive production of palm oil as a cash crop for export and on the assumption of male dominance within a conventional western hierarchy. This colonial agenda, however, collided with a traditional culture in which females played important social and political roles and male status was closely tied to yam cultivation. Drawing on an astonishing array of sources, including oral interviews, newspapers, private journals, and especially letters of petition from local farmers and traders, Korieh puts the reader in direct contact with ordinary people, evoking a feeling of what it was like to live through the era. As such, The Land Has Changed reveals colonial interactions as negotiated encounters between officials and natives and challenges simplistic notions of a hegemonic colonial state and a compliant native population.

During the past forty years, Africa south of the Sahara has been the most conflict-prone region of the world. In spite of its geopolitical importance, it remains one of the least understood. African Wars provides a concise summary of four decades of warfare in sub-Saharan Africa with expert commentary by William Thom, an experienced and highly respected senior U.S. intelligence officer. As a defense analyst and senior Africa specialist in the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, William Thom acquired unique in-depth knowledge of conflict in this vast and troubled region. In African Wars, he shares this knowledge.Ranging from postcolonial insurgency in Rhodesia to ongoing strife in the Horn of Africa, from the horrors of Rwanda and the Congo to devastating civil wars in Angola, Mozambique, and Liberia, African Wars tracks seventeen different conflicts, many of which have a continuing influence on the continent's political-military affairs today. Thom complements his penetrating insights into and gripping accounts of specific wars with valuable wide-ranging impressions, in particular the often surprising adaptability of combatant groups to their material and political environments, and the frustrating marginalization of Africa within security circles during this period.African Wars is not only an edifying account of conflict, but also a lively memoir. Thom brings a wealth of detail, personal insight, and wit to the story of his training and education as an intelligence officer, the difficulties and oddities of traveling in Africa, and his skirmishes with the intelligence bureaucracy. Anyone interested in African security issues, contemporary warfare, or military intelligence will find this book indispensable.

This collection of essays examines the relatively new, and frequently overlooked, political phenomenon in post-colonial Africa of chieftaincy ""re-inventing"" itself.The traditional authority of chiefs has been one of Africa's missing voices who are now bringing new resources to the challenges that AIDS, gender, governance, and development pose to the peoples of Africa. Reinventing African Chieftaincy in the Age of AIDS, Gender, Governance, and Development presents new research in Ghana, Botswana, and South Africa, providing the broadest geographic African coverage on the topic of African chieftaincy.The nineteen authors, many of them emerging scholars from Africa, are all members of the Traditional Authority Applied Research Network (TAARN). Their essays give critical insight into the transformation processes of chieftaincy from the end of the colonial/apartheid periods to the present.They also examine the realities of male and female traditional leaders in reinventing their legitimacy and their political offices in the age of great social and political unrest, health issues and governance and development challenges.

Social Work in Africa offers professors, students, and practitioners insight concerning social work in the African context. Its purpose is to encourage examination of the social work curriculum and to demonstrate practical ways to make it more culturally relevant.Drawing on her experience as a social work instructor in Ghana with field research conducted for her doctoral thesis, author Linda Kreitzer addresses the history of social work in African countries, the hegemony of western knowledge in the field, and the need for culturally and regionally informed teaching resources and programs. Guided by a strong sense of her limitations and responsibilities as a privileged outsider and a belief that ""only Ghanaians can critically look at and decide on a culturally relevant curriculum for themselves"", Kreitzer utilizes Participatory Action Research methodology to successfully move the topic of culturally relevant practices from rhetoric to demonstration.Social Work in Africa is aimed at programs and practise in Ghana; at the same time, it is intended as a framework for the creation of culturally relevant social work curricula in other African countries and other contexts.

Through analysis of exceptionally rich data obtained from the Carnegie Corporation in New York, and from Nigeria's national archives, author Ogechi Anyanwu demonstrates how the pursuit of mass university education not only decolonized the elitist British education system but also ultimately reshaped modern Nigeria. More importantly, he argues that the impact of these policies cannot be fully understood withoutlooking closely at the intersection of domestic and external politics dictating the direction of higher education development as a vehicle for nation-building in Nigeria's pluralistic society.Although numerous studies have been made of Nigeria's higher education development in particular, and that of Africa in general, no work has placed the pursuit of mass university education (massification) at the centre of that country's postcolonial higher education reform or discussed it as a policy-driven and need-driven phenomenon. In The Politics of Access, Anyanwu undertakes a historical analysis of the diachronic impact of Nigeria's domestic socioeconomic, political, and ethno-religious forces, as well as external interests, on the country's policy initiatives, shifts, and outcomes of mass higher education policies.

Wars fought for political separation have become omnipresent in post-colonial Africa. From the division of Sudan, to the continued fragmentation of Somalia, and the protracted struggles of Cabinda and Azawad, conflict over secession and separation continues to the present day.This is the first single volume to examine the historical arc of secession and secessionist conflict across sub-Saharan Africa. Paying particular attention to the development of secessionist conflicts and their evolving goals, Secession and Separatist Conflicts in Postcolonial Africa draws on case studies and rigorous research to examine three waves of secessionist movements, themselves defined by international conflict and change. Using detailed case studies, the authors offer a framework to understand how secession and separation occur, how these are influenced by both preceding movements and global political trends, and how their ongoing legacies continue to shape African regional politics.Deeply engaging and thoroughly researched, this book presents a nuanced and important and important new overview of African separatist and secessionist conflicts. It addresses the structures, goals, and underlying influences of these movements within a broader global context to impart a rich understanding of why these conflicts are waged, and how they succeed or fail.