African Social Studies Series – serie
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31 produkter
31 produkter
Del 7 - African Social Studies Series
Bodywork: Dress as Cultural Tool
Dress and Demeanour in the South of Senegal
Häftad, Engelska, 2004
1 210 kr
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This book looks at the encounter between dress and the body. In the social sciences, dress tends to be viewed as a form of communication, a way in which the wearer gives expression to his or her ideas or situation. 'Bodywork', rather than looking at what people do with their clothes, looks at what clothes do with the wearers.In the context of three small West African communities – Muslim, Christian and Animist – the book describes the dress styles and dress practices of the villagers and shows how a particular way of dressing influences the body's demeanour and habit. It considers thereby the role played by dress in the enculturation of the body.
Del 17 - African Social Studies Series
Pot-King
The Body and Technologies of Power
Häftad, Engelska, 2007
1 182 kr
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The king of Mankon, in the western highlands of Cameroon, is an agricultural engineer by training, a businessman, and a prominent politician on the national stage. He partakes in the “return of the kings” in the forefront of an African public space. This book analyses the principles of the sacred kingship which lie at the core of the king’s different roles. While showing that the king’s body acts as a container of bodily substances transformed into unifying ancestral life-essence by appropriate means, and bestowed upon its subjects, it develops an innovative approach to bodily and material cultures as an essential component of the technologies of power. In so doing, it departs significantly from previous approaches to sacred kingship.
Del 15 - African Social Studies Series
Kenyan Khat
The Social Life of a Stimulant
Häftad, Engelska, 2007
1 210 kr
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This book provides a richly detailed ethnography of Kenyan khat, tracing some of the many national and transnational trajectories this controversial stimulant takes from its centre of production in the Nyambene Hills to consumers in Kenya and throughout the world. The author, guided by his friend and khat connoisseur M'Mucheke, draws out the full economic, social and cultural significance of the substance, situating this significance within current debates on the legality of khat and the global rhetoric of the 'war on drugs'. The work explores how networks of Kenyan khat bring people of diverse backgrounds together in sometimes uneasy relationships, and highlights the vast cluster of meanings this remarkable commodity has accrued in its 'social life'.
Del 18 - African Social Studies Series
King of Drinks
Schnapps Gin from Modernity to Tradition
Häftad, Engelska, 2007
1 193 kr
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Imported schnapps gin has a remarkable history in West Africa. Gin was imported in great quantities between 1880 and World War I, when its consumption showed access to the modern, international world. Subsequently schnapps was transformed into a good that signified traditional, local culture. Today, imported schnapps has high status because of its importance for African ritual and as symbol of the status of chiefs and elders, but actual consumption is limited. This book explores this unexpected trajectory of commoditisation to investigate how imported goods acquire specific local meanings. This analysis of consumption and marketing of gin contributes to our understanding of patterns of consumption, rejection and appropriation within processes of identity formation, elite formation, and the redefinition of community in colonial and postcolonial West Africa.
Del 19 - African Social Studies Series
Governance of Daily Life in Africa
Ethnographic Explorations of Public and Collective Services
Häftad, Engelska, 2008
1 210 kr
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Anchored in an empirically-grounded anthropology, this book explores the notion of governance in a non-normative way. It describes and analyses the institutional and political processes through which social actors and groups - be they state, private or 'third-sector' - contribute to the provision of public and collective goods or services. The book draws on case studies from Anglophone and Francophone Africa, crossing anthropological traditions that have too often evolved in parallel directions and dealing with a range of topics such as health, water supply, sanitation and waste management, security, humanitarian aid, land issues and decentralisation. Beyond African boundaries, it contributes to current debates about governmentality, public policy, subject making, public/private boundaries, and the role of the state.
Del 21 - African Social Studies Series
Land, Labour and Entrustment
West African Female Farmers and the Politics of Difference
Häftad, Engelska, 2010
1 199 kr
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Diverse contractual arrangements and forms of exchange established between smallholder farmers, their households and community work groups, are important to our understanding of processes of agrarian transformation in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, little has been written in this area. Challenging portrayals of West African female farmers as a homogenous group, the present study provides an ethnographic account of the contractual relations established between female hosts and migrants, in the exchange of land and labour for agrarian production in a Gambian community. Further, it demonstrates the way in which, despite the liberalization of the economy, local cultural practices, such as that of entrustment, continue to be of significance in affecting the nature and particular character of agrarian transformation and postcolonial capitalist development.
1 210 kr
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The Maji Maji war of 1905-07 in Tanzania was the largest African rebellion against European colonialism. This volume offers the fullest account of the war in the English language. Using oral accounts and little-used documentary evidence, contributors offer detailed histories of districts and localities as well as groups, such as African soldiers in the German army, elephant hunters and women, whose roles in war have been neglected. The contributors examine varieties of communication during wartime, including the circulation of rumor between Africans and Germans. They also offer new insight into the most famous aspect of the war – the use of medicine which was believed to provide invulnerability. The contributors are historians and an archaeologist recognized as authorities on Tanzanian history.
Del 22 - African Social Studies Series
Disputing the Floodplains
Institutional Change and the Politics of Resource Management in African Wetlands
Häftad, Engelska, 2010
1 176 kr
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This book has received the Environmental Research Award 2011 of the University of Bern, Switzerland.African Floodplains in semi-arid areas are important for local livelihoods as they harbor many common-pool resources such as fisheries, pasture, wildlife, veldt products, water and land for irrigation. However, in many of these areas resources are under pressure. This book is presenting seven case studies from Mali, Cameroon, Tanzania, Zambia and Botswana based on anthropological fieldwork (2002-08) and explores how these common-pool resources have been managed in pre-colonial, colonial and postcolonial times. The major focus of the study is how institutional change has contributed to resource management problems and offers a comparative analysis based on the New Institutionalist approach (Jean Ensminger, Elinor Ostrom), which is combined with a special focus on ideology, discourse and narratives while focusing on conflict and power issues.With a foreword by Elinor Ostrom.
Del 23 - African Social Studies Series
Being and Becoming Hausa
Interdisciplinary Perspectives
Häftad, Engelska, 2010
1 199 kr
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Hausa society in West Africa has attracted researchers’ attention for decades, and has featured in the historical record for at least 500 years. Yet, no clear picture is available of the historical trajectories that underpin Hausa ethnogenesis. This book addresses this gap, deploying interdisciplinary approaches to revisit questions to which single disciplines have given partial answers, often due to the paucity of written sources for early periods of Hausa history. Contributors draw from the disciplines of anthropology, linguistics, economic history, and archaeology to enquire into how a ‘Hausa’ identity took shape and what have been its changing material and cultural manifestations. The result is a compelling overview of one of the most iconic groups of modern West Africa.
Del 24 - African Social Studies Series
Powerful Presence of the Past
Integration and Conflict along the Upper Guinea Coast
Häftad, Engelska, 2010
1 210 kr
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This book conceptualizes integration and conflict as interrelated dimensions of social interaction, social relationships and alliances, identifications and identity constructions within society at large. In order to reach an in-depth understanding of integrative and violent forms of interaction in the region of the Upper Guinea Coast, authors take into account the impact and repercussions of specific historical experiences as well as the continuities and changes of social patterns affected by the interaction of local and globalized values, institutions, and models of social organization. Rather than providing an(other) analysis of wars and violence as such, contributors aim at a better understanding of the social mechanisms that affect both the processes of integration and conflict at the local, national and regional levels.
Del 25 - African Social Studies Series
Politics of Ethnicity in Ethiopia
Actors, Power and Mobilisation under Ethnic Federalism
Häftad, Engelska, 2011
1 199 kr
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Most governments in Africa, seeing the political mobilisation of ethnicity as a threat, have rejected the use of ethnic differences as an explicit basis for political representation. The one prominent exception is Ethiopia, which since 1991 has imposed a system of ethnic-based federalism that offers each ethnic group the right of ‘self-determination’. This book provides a detailed empirical study of this system at work in the complex multiethnic environment of southern Ethiopia. It finds that ethnic self-rule, in combination with the power politics of an authoritarian regime, has produced both intended and unintended outcomes. While arguably easing large-scale ethnic conflicts, it has led to ‘ethnicisation’ of local socioeconomic disputes and to sharper inter-ethnic and intra-ethnic divides, often to the disadvantage of historically marginalised groups.
Del 27 - African Social Studies Series
Contested Power in Ethiopia
Traditional Authorities and Multi-Party Elections
Häftad, Engelska, 2011
1 199 kr
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This book offers a comparative ethnography of the contested powers that shape democratization in Ethiopia. Although multi-party elections have become the norm in Africa, relatively little is known about the significance of non-state actors such as traditional authorities in electioneering. Focusing on Ethiopia’s competitive 2005 elections, this book analyzes how customary leaders, political parties and state officials confronted and complemented each other during election time. Case studies reveal the contemporaneousness of traditional authorities in modern politics, but also how multi-party competition reproduces traditional relations of domination among ethnic groups. The book documents the importance of customary authority in selecting party candidates and providing legitimacy to political parties, but also their limitations in a country dominated by a semi-authoritarian party-state.
Del 26 - African Social Studies Series
Consider Somaliland
State-Building with Traditional Leaders and Institutions
Häftad, Engelska, 2012
1 210 kr
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Can ‘traditional’ leaders and institutions help to build more legitimate, accountable and effective governments in polities or ‘states’ under (re)construction? This book investigates the case of “Somaliland”, the 20-year old non-recognized state which emerged from Somalia’s conflict and state collapse. A careful analysis of Somaliland’s political history, it outlines the complex and evolving institutional and power dynamics involving clan elders, militia leaders, guerrilla movements, as well as politicians and civil servants in its emerging state structures. While showing the great potential of endogenous processes, it clearly demonstrates the complexity and the politics of those processes and the necessity to think beyond one-size-fits-all state-building formulas.
Del 28 - African Social Studies Series
Sure Road? Nationalisms in Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique
Häftad, Engelska, 2012
1 252 kr
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This book brings together new research on the subject of nations and nationalisms in Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique. It explores the history and politics of diverse nationalist discourses and ideologies, and it revisits the formation and contemporary developments of national imagined communities in Portuguese-speaking Africa. It does so by drawing on several disciplines and by exploring themes as diverse as Frelimo’s liberation literature, UNITA’s moral economy and the disaggregation of Guinea-Bissau. The authors provide novel insights in the hope of contributing to the academic and public debate on the subject, not least in those countries where, in the face of liberalisation, ruling parties and their opponents have been arguing intensively over, and have sometime struggled to re-invent, a sense of national community. Through their engagement with the subject, authors also make a contribution to the general discussion of the concepts of nations and nationalism.
Del 30 - African Social Studies Series
Nomads in the Shadows of Empires
Contests, Conflicts and Legacies on the Southern Ethiopian-Northern Kenyan Frontier
Häftad, Engelska, 2013
1 255 kr
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In Nomads in the Shadows of Empires Gufu Oba presents accounts of why the legacies of banditry and ethnic conflicts have proved so difficult to resolve along the southern Ethiopian and northern Kenyan frontier. Using interpretative and comparative methods to dialogue the relationships between different political actors on both sides of the frontier, the work captures the dynamics of political events related to imperial contests over borders and trans-frontier treaty. A complex evolution of inter-societal relations, as well as the relations between partitioned nomads and the imperial states had resulted in persistent conflicts. This work improves the understanding why frontier pastoralists continue to experience conflict over land, even after the transfer of the tribal territories to the imperial and postcolonial states.Please click here to watch an interview with the author in Oromo.
Del 29 - African Social Studies Series
Forgotten People
Political Banishment under Apartheid
Häftad, Engelska, 2013
1 293 kr
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The apartheid state employed many weapons against its opponents: imprisonment, banning, detention, assassination – and banishment. In a practice reminiscent of Tsarist and Soviet Russia, a large number of ‘enemies of the state’ were banished to remote areas, far from their homes, communities and followers. Here their existence became ‘a slow torture of the soul’, a kind of social death. This is the first study of an important but hitherto neglected group of opponents of apartheid, set in a global, historical and comparative perspective. It looks at the reasons why people were banished, their lives in banishment and the efforts of a remarkable group of activists, led by Helen Joseph, to assist them.
Del 31 - African Social Studies Series
Contest for Land in Madagascar
Environment, Ancestors and Development
Häftad, Engelska, 2013
1 210 kr
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The Malagasy possess a profound religious, socio-political and economic attachment to land which connects individuals and kinship groups with the ancestors. International stakeholders value Madagascar for its biodiversity, minerals and agricultural potential, while the Malagasy state views land as the necessary platform for its economic development. This collection presents original research by established and rising scholars across a broad spectrum of disciplines, including Human Genetics, Anthropology and History. Authors focus on land as the pivotal factor underlying the economic, social and religious structures of Malagasy society and its relationship with outsiders, aiming to provide new insights into the issues underlying Madagascar’s ongoing economic and political malaise.
Del 32 - African Social Studies Series
Conquest and Resistance in the Ethiopian Empire, 1880 - 1974
The Case of the Arsi Oromo
Häftad, Engelska, 2014
1 290 kr
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This work examines the philosophical origins of Oromo egalitarian and democratic thoughts and practice, the Gadaa-Qaalluu system, kinship organization, the introduction and spread of Islam and the consequent socio-cultural change. It sheds light on the advent of the Ethiopian empire under Menelik II, its conquests and Arsi Oromo fierce resistance (1880-1900), the nature and legacy of Ethiopian imperial polity, centre-periphery relations, feudal political economy and its impacts on the newly conquered regions with a focus on Arsi Oromo country. The book also analyzes the root causes of the national political crisis including, but not limited to, the attempts at transforming the empire-state to a nation-state around a single culture, contested definition of national identity and state legitimacy, grievance narratives, uprisings, the birth and development of competing nationalisms as well as the limitations of the current ethnic federalism to address the national question in Ethiopia.
Del 33 - African Social Studies Series
Colonial Survey and Native Landscapes in Rural South Africa, 1850 - 1913
The Politics of Divided Space in the Cape and Transvaal
Häftad, Engelska, 2014
1 246 kr
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In Colonial Survey and Native Landscapes in Rural South Africa, 1850 - 1913, Lindsay Frederick Braun explores the technical processes and struggles surrounding the creation and maintenance of boundaries and spaces in South Africa in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The precision of surveyors and other colonial technicians lent these enterprises an illusion of irreproachable objectivity and authority, even though the reality was far messier.Using a wide range of archival and printed materials from survey departments, repositories, and libraries, the author presents two distinct episodes of struggle over lands and livelihoods, one from the Eastern Cape and one from the former northern Transvaal. These cases expose the contingencies, contests, and negotiations that fundamentally shaped these changing South African landscapes.
Del 35 - African Social Studies Series
Africa in the Indian Ocean
Islands in Ebb and Flow
Häftad, Engelska, 2015
1 246 kr
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The four sovereign Indian Ocean states of Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius and Seychelles, the two French overseas departments of Mayotte and Reunion, as well as the British colony of BIOT (Chagos), all form part of Africa. As insular nations and territories in an increasingly globalized, militarized and largely unregulated ocean, they face particular challenges. Commonly overlooked in the fields of African and international studies, this text traces the islands’ history and explores their diverse contemporary social, political and economic trajectories. From human settlement and slavery to conflict resolution and piracy, the relations with continental Africa and the African Union feature prominently. Richly sourced, this comprehensive and up-to-date introduction to Africa’s Indian Ocean islands covers a significant lacuna.
Del 38 - African Social Studies Series
Elasticity in Domesticity: White Women in Rhodesian Zimbabwe, 1890-1979
Häftad, Engelska, 2018
1 081 kr
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In Elasticity in Domesticity: White women in Rhodesian Zimbabwe, 1890-1979 Ushehwedu Kufakurinani examines the colonial experiences of white women in what was later called Rhodesia. He demonstrates the extent to which the state and society appropriated white women’s labour power and the workings of the domestic ideology in shaping white women’s experiences. The author also discusses how and to what extent white women appropriated and deployed the domestic ideology. Institutional as well as personal archives were consulted which include official correspondence, diaries, personal letters, newsletters, magazines, commissions of inquiry, among other sources.
Del 41 - African Social Studies Series
From Sudan to South Sudan
IGAD and the Role of Regional Mediation in Africa
Häftad, Engelska, 2020
1 041 kr
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Irit Back’s book From Sudan to South Sudan: IGAD and the Role of Regional Mediation in Africa comprehensively analyses the full achievements, shortcomings, and implications of IGAD (Intergovernmental Authority on Development) mediation efforts in Sudan and South Sudan. IGAD’s active mediation was a primary force behind the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the south and the north that eventually resulted in South Sudan’s declaration of independence in 2011. The euphoria of this historic achievement was, however, almost immediately overshadowed by internal strife, which has, since 2013, escalated to a large-scale conflict in the new-born nation that demanded IGAD’s renewed mediation efforts. The book offers readers new insights and perspectives to apply when seeking to develop a more balanced understanding of Africa’s contemporary conflicts and the efforts to resolve them. More specifically, the book will also help readers to better comprehend the potential role of regional mediation in East Africa, a region with a turbulent history in the post-Cold War era.
Del 39 - African Social Studies Series
Moving Spaces
Creolisation and Mobility in Africa, the Atlantic and Indian Ocean
Häftad, Engelska, 2019
1 050 kr
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Moving Spaces: Creolisation and Mobility in Africa, the Atlantic and Indian Ocean addresses issues of creolisation, mobility, and migration of ideas, songs, stories, and people, as well as plants, in various parts of Africa, the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean worlds. It brings together Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone specialists from various fields – anthropology, geography, history, language & literary studies – from Africa, Brazil, Europe, and the Indo-Pacific. It is a book which, while opening new perspectives, also intriguingly suggests that languages are essential to all processes of creolisation, and that therefore the latter cannot be understood without reference to the former. Its strength therefore lies in bringing together studies from different language domains, particularly Afrikaans, Creole, English, French, Portuguese, and Sanskrit. Contributors include Andrea Acri, Joaze Bernardino, Marina Berthet, Alain Kaly, Uhuru Phalafala, Haripriya Rangan, Fernando Rosa, António Tomás and Shaun Viljoen.
Del 42 - African Social Studies Series
Contested Lands of Laikipia
Histories of Claims and Conflict in a Kenyan Landscape
Häftad, Engelska, 2020
1 124 kr
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Pastoralists, ranchers of European descent, conservationists, smallholders, and land investors with political influence converge on the Laikipia plateau in Kenya. Land is claimed by all - the tactics differ. Private property rights are presented, histories of presence are told, charges of immorality are applied, fences are electrified and some resort to violence. The region, marked by enclosures, is left as a tense fragmented frontier.Marie Gravesen embedded herself in the region prior to a wave of land invasions that swept the plateau leading up to Kenya’s 2017 general election. Through a rich telling of the history of Laikipia’s social, political and environmental dynamics, she invites a deeper understanding of the pre-election violence and general tensions as never done before.The manuscript is a revised version of the author's dissertation accepted by the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of Cologne in 2018.
Del 43 - African Social Studies Series
African Agency in China’s Tea Trade
Commercial Networks, Brand Creation and Intellectual Property
Häftad, Engelska, 2022
1 185 kr
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Every month tons of green tea travel from China to West Africa in a movement that largely thrives beyond the attention of Western observers. In this trade, Malian merchants assumed a central role. They travel to China, visit family gardens and the factories, which process and package the product. Together with their Chinese suppliers, they select the tea leaves and create their brand. On Bamako’s largest market, the Grand Marché, more than a hundred different tea brands are found, whose packages have colourfully, often eye-catching designs with brand-names such as Gazelle, Tombouctou, Arafat and Obama. This book explores the unique tea culture that celebrates with its brands the strength of desert animals, the fading glory of trading places, the excitement of social events and the accomplishments of admired politicians.
Del 44 - African Social Studies Series
Across the Waves
Strategies of Belonging in Indian Ocean Island Societies
Häftad, Engelska, 2022
1 126 kr
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All the islands of the western Indian Ocean are immigrant societies: Austronesian seafarers, African slaves, Arab traders, South Asian indentured labourers and European plantation owners have all settled, some voluntarily, others less so, on Madagascar and Zanzibar, in the Mascarenes and the Comoros. Successive arrivals often struggle to establish their places in these societies, negotiating their way in the face of antipathy, resistance, even violence, as different claims to belonging conflict. The contributions to this volume take a selection of case studies from across the region, and from different perspectives, contributing to a theorisation of the concept of belonging itself.Contributors are Patrick Desplat, Franziska Fay, Marie-Aude Fouéré, Akbar Keshodkar, Hans Olsson, Gitanjali Pyndiah, Ramola Ramtohul, Iain Walker
Del 46 - African Social Studies Series
State-building South Sudan
International Intervention and the Formation of a Fragmented State
Häftad, Engelska, 2022
1 160 kr
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How did South Sudan become one of the most striking examples of state-building failure and state collapse after years of international support? What went wrong in the state-building enterprise? How did external intervention overlap and intertwine with local processes of accumulation of power and of state formation? This book addresses these questions analysing the intersection between international and local actors and processes. Based on original ethnographic and archival data, it provides a unique account of how state-building resources were captured and manipulated by local actors at various levels, contributing to the deepening of ethnic fragmentation and the politicization of ethnicity.
Del 47 - African Social Studies Series
Zimbos Never Die?
Negotiating Survival in a Challenged Economy, 1990s to 2015
Häftad, Engelska, 2023
1 322 kr
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This book seeks to explore how the Zimbabwean society and its institutions have survived if not succumbed to continuous economic crises in the country. From the 1990s Zimbabwe experienced a sustained economic decline challenged by both internal and external strains. Coupled with internal mis-governance and corruption, the nation plunged into a political and economic crisis which culminated in the second highest world inflation rate for an economy that is not at war. In the face of the harsh and continuously deteriorating economic environments, Zimbabweans as individuals as well as part of institutions adopted various strategies to negotiate and survive the economic scourge.Contributors include Wellington Bamu, Nathaniel Chimhete, Anusa Daimon, Innocent Dande, Sylvester Dombo, Tinotenda Dube, Rudo Gaidzanwa, Tafara Evelyn Kombora, Ushehwedu Kufakurinani, Bernard Kusena, Eric Kushinga Makombe, Albert Makochekanwa, Blessed Masawi, Ivo Mhike, Joseph P. Mtisi, Joseph Mujere, Wesley Mwatwara, Pius S. Nyambara, Tinashe Nyamunda, Mark Nyandoro, Takesure Taringana and Nicola Yon (Mutimurefu).
Del 48 - African Social Studies Series
Contested Liberations, Transitions and the Crisis in Zimbabwe
Encounters with Post-colonial (Counter)Cultures (2000-2020)
Häftad, Engelska, 2024
1 119 kr
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How and when does culture enter the discourse on liberation, transition and crisis in an African post-colony such as Zimbabwe? In a deeply polarised nation reeling from a difficult transition and an unrelenting economic crisis, it is increasingly becoming difficult for the ZANU PF regime to prescribe and enforce its monolithic concept of liberation. This book culls, from contemporary (counter)cultures of liberation and transition, the state of liberations in Zimbabwe. It explores how culture has functioned as a complex site where rigid state-authored liberations are legitimated and naturalised but also where they are negotiated, contested and subverted.
Del 49 - African Social Studies Series
Space is the Ultimate Luxury
Capitalists, Conservationists, and Ancestral Land in Namibia
Häftad, Engelska, 2025
1 153 kr
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The Open Access publication of this book has been published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation.This book explores the history, ecology, and society of a seemingly inhospitable stretch of land along the Orange River in southern Namibia. Here, a group of African farmers have succeeded against all odds to stay on their ancestral homeland through decades of colonialism and apartheid. The twenty-first century, however, has brought different people looking to evict them: nature conservationists. These farmers face off against billionaire gemstone mine owners, rhinoceros veterinarians and carbon finance executives, seeking to prove their legal and moral claims to their ancestral lands. This book reveals how we got here and what is at stake if they fail.