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Eschewing the postcolonial hubris that suggests Africa could only define itself in relation to its colonizers, a problem plaguing many studies published in the West on African cinema, this entry in the Directory of World Cinema series instead looks at African film as representing Africa for its own sake, values, and artistic choices. With a film industry divided by linguistic heritage, African directors do not have the luxury of producing comedies, thrillers, horror films, or even love stories, except perhaps as DVDs that do not travel far outside their country of production. Instead, African directors tend to cover serious sociopolitical ground, even under the cover of comedy, in the hopes of finding funds outside Africa. Contributors to this volume draw on filmic representations of the continent to consider the economic role of women, rural exodus, economic migration, refugees and diasporas, culture, religion and magic as well as representations of children, music, languages and symbols. A survey of national cinemas in one volume, Directory of World Cinema: Africa is a necessary addition to the bookshelf of any cinephile and world traveller.
In the early 1990s, Thailand launched an ambitious program of decentralized governance, conferring greater responsibilities upon sub-district administrations and providing fiscal opportunities for local development planning. This process was reinforced by Thailand's new Constitution of 1997, which explicitly assures individuals, communities and local authorities the right to participate in the management of natural resources. Drawing on a study of water management in the Mae Sa watershed, northern Thailand, this study analyzes to what extent the constitutional right for participation has been put into practice. To this end, a stakeholder analysis was conducted in the watershed, with a focus ...