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The first study to use Jomo Kenyatta's political biography and presidency as a basis for examining the colonial and postcolonial history of Kenya.
Bringing together historians, political scientists, and literary analysts, this volume shows how biographical narratives can shed light on alternative, little known or under-researched aspects of state power in African politics. Part 1 shows how biographical narratives breathe new life into subjects who, upon decolonization, had been reduced to silence - women, workers, and radical politicians. The contributors analyze the complex relationship between biographical narratives and power, questioning either the power of biographical codes peculiar to western, colonial origins, or the power to shape public memory. Part 2 reflects on the act of (auto-)biography writing as an exercise of power, on...
This book shows the many facets of African engagements with the world. It starts from the premise that current global asymmetries ascribing Africa to a marginalized position are the effects of colonial and imperial pasts still lingering on. The decolonization process of the post-war structure which privileges the West in both political and economic terms. While new dependencies emerged, several old bonds were maintained and continue to influence African affairs quite strikingly. It is appropriate, then, to call these continued unequal relations between Africa and the West frankly 'neo-colonial'. This designation applies all the more as the post-colonial states of Africa inherited a complex l...
A novel, far-reaching analysis of contemporary history and politics in East Africa, focusing on the crisis in the region's postcolonial political order.
Focusing on political trials in Zimbabwe's Magistrates' Courts between 2000 and 2012, Susanne Verheul explores why the judiciary have remained a central site of contestation in post-independence Zimbabwe. Drawing on rich court observations and in-depth interviews, this book foregrounds law's potential to reproduce or transform social and political power through the narrative, material, and sensory dimensions of courtroom performances. Instead of viewing appeals to law as acts of resistance by marginalised orders for inclusion in dominant modes of rule, Susanne Verheul argues that it was not recognition by but of this formal, rule-bound ordering, and the form of citizenship it stood for, that was at stake in performative legal engagements. In this manner, law was much more than a mere instrument. Law was a site in which competing conceptions of political authority were given expression, and in which people's understandings of themselves as citizens were formed and performed.
Since Pauline Konga’s breakthrough performance at the 1996 summer Olympics in Atlanta, the world has become accustomed to seeing Kenyan women medal at major championships, sweep marathons, and set world records. Yet little is known about the pioneer generation of women who paved the way for Kenya’s reputation as an international powerhouse in women’s track and field. In Kenya’s Running Women: A History, historian and former professional runner Michelle M. Sikes details the triumphs and many challenges these women faced, from the advent of Kenya’s athletics program in the colonial era through the professionalization of running in the 1980s and 1990s. Sikes reveals how over time running became a vehicle for Kenyan women to expand the boundaries of acceptable female behavior. Kenya’s Running Women demonstrates the necessity of including women in histories of African sport, and of incorporating sport into studies of African gender and nation-building.
This edited collection investigates the relationship between gender and authority across geographical contexts, periods and fields. Who is recognized as a legitimate voice in debate and decision-making, and how is that legitimization produced? Through a variety of methodological approaches, the chapters address some of the most pressing and controversial themes under scrutiny in current feminist scholarship and activism, such as pornography, political representation, LGBTI struggles, female genital mutilation, the #MeToo movement, abortion, divorce and consent. Organized into three sections, “Politics,” “Law and Religion,” and “Imaginaries,” the contributors highlight formal and ...
What are the origins of the hostile environment against immigrants in the UK? Patel retells Britain's recent history in an often shocking account of state racism that still resonates today. In a series of post-war immigration laws from 1948 to 1971, arrivals from the Caribbean, Asia and Africa to Britain went from being citizens to being renamed immigrants. In the late 1960s, British officials drew upon an imperial vision of the world to contain what it saw as a vast immigration 'crisis' involving British citizens, passing legislation to block their entry. As a result, British citizenship itself was redefined along racial lines, fatally compromising the Commonwealth and exposing the limits of Britain's influence in world politics. Combining voices of so-called immigrants trying to make a home in Britain and the politicians, diplomats and commentators who were rethinking the nation, Ian Sanjay Patel excavates the reasons why Britain failed to create a post-imperial national identity. Chosen as a BBC History Magazine Book of the Year 2021 and shortlisted for the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize 2022
"Exploring over a century of Zimbabwe's colonial and post-colonial history, Elijah Doro investigates the murky and noxious history of that powerful crop: tobacco. In a compelling narrative that debunks previous histories glorifying tobacco farming, Doro reveals the indelible marks that tobacco left on landscapes, communities, and people. Demonstrating that the history of tobacco farming is inseparable from that of colonial encounter, Doro outlines how tobacco became an institutionalised culture of production, which was linked to state power and natural ecosystems, and driven by a pernicious heritage of unbridled plunder. With the destruction of landscapes, the negative impacts of the export trade and the growing tobacco epidemic in Zimbabwe, tobacco farming has a long and varied legacy in southern African and across the world. Connecting the local to the global, and the environmental to the social, this book illuminates our understandings of environmental history, colonialism and sustainability"--
Draws from original interviews to provide insight into why thousands of black soldiers fought loyally and effectively for the Rhodesian Army.