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Translocality
This volume discusses globalising processes from the perspective of the humanities and social sciences. It focuses on the ‘global south’, notably the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. Densely researched case studies examine a variety of approaches for their potential to understand connecting processes on different scales. The studies seek to overcome the main traps of the ‘globalisation’ paradigm, such as its occidental bias, its notion of linear expansion, its simplifying dichotomy between ‘local’ and ‘global’, and an often-found lack of historical depth. They elaborate the asymmetries, mobilities, opportunities and barriers involved in globalising processes. Their new perspective on these processes is captured by the concept of ‘translocality’, which aims at integrating a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches from different disciplines.
Financial Performance of Microfinance Institutions in Ghana and Uganda
This book examines the determinants of financial performance of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Ghana and Uganda, against the backdrop of the public and academic debate over the financial and social implications of microfinance. In the absence of a conceptual model, the study chooses an inductive research approach with the objective of defining and developing a conceptual model with the capacity to explain, quantify, and compare the performance of MFIs. The research is particularly relevant in the African context where microloan interest rates regularly exceed 100% per annum and where the microfinance industry is lacking behind its global peers in regard to financial and social performance. (Series: Contributions to the Africa Research / Beitrage zur Afrikaforschung - Vol. 59) [Subject: Economics, Finance, African Studies]
Transitioning to Sustainable Life on Land
Sustainable Life on Land, the fifteenth UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 15), calls for the protection, restoration and promotion of the sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems. Among others, it requires societies to sustainably manage forests, halt and reverse land degradation, combat desertification, and halt biodiversity loss. Despite the fact that protection of terrestrial ecosystems is on the rise worldwide and forest loss has slowed, the recent IPBES report concluded that “nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history”. Consequently, the United Nations General Assembly recently declared 2021–2030 the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. There is no dou...
Food Security and Nutrition
The persistence of an unacceptably high level of hunger and malnutrition worldwide presents a serious challenge to the world on the threshold of the third millenium. Although enough food is produced to feed mankind, about 840 million people go hungry; among them are 185 million pre-school children that are severely underweight for their age. Since an additional 80 million people have to be fed each year, achieving food security is a central global challenge, if not the most important development issue. The aim of the reader is to analyze actual problems in the field of food security and nutrition and to discuss present and future strategies to overcome hunger. Food security is a complex subject. In order to master this complexity, we distinguish between four dimensions of analyses: Theoretical-analytical, empirical-descriptive, normative-political, institutional. (Series: Spektrum. Berliner Reihe zu Gesellschaft, Wirtschaft und Politik in Entwicklungsländern/Berlin Series on Society, Economy and Politics in Developing Countries - Vol. 50)
The Anthropology of Africa: Challenges for the 21st Century
In 1999 (August 30 - September 2) the Pan African Anthropological Association (PAAA) marked the 10th anniversary of its creation by holding its 9th Annual Conference in Yaounde, Cameroon - the city and country of its birth. The conference, themed "The Anthropology of Africa: Challenges for the 21st Century", was attended by some seventy participants, mostly African. Among the international participants was Dr Sydel Silverman, President of the Wenner Gren Foundation at the time - a long term partner of the PAAA; she was present at the inaugural conference in 1988. The conference proceedings were initially published in 2000 with very limited circulation. Given the continued relevance of the pa...
Urban Mobility in a Global Perspective
For the first time in human history, the majority of the world's population is now no longer living in rural areas, but in cities. Whereas in the industrialised countries urban and transport development has now reached a certain degree of saturation, it is proceeding in other regions of the world with an enormous dynamism. The primary concern of this study is to present for the first time a survey of global urban and transport development in order to gain an overview of the magnitude of the global challenges. Against this background, the study concludes by proposing a direction for future deliberations, in the name of determining an adequate response to the looming problems. Oliver Schwedes has the professorship in Integrated Transport Planning at the Technische Universität Berlin in Germany. His research areas include urban and transport policy and planning. Ebook Download
Inter-firm Relationships and Governance Structures
Interest in the topic of governance and interfirm relationships in the Ethiopian leather and leather products industry was developed after observing a gap in the literature on value chain research at the international level and finding only a few empirical studies on value chains at the local level. Most of the value chain research conducted throughout the world are either too general or are simply functionalistic and, thus, fail to address the socio-cultural context. This study contributes to the literature in several ways: firstly, the present research suggests that a central focus of value chain analysis should be the examination of social networks within local, but also global, value chains, as social relations might play an important and so far neglected role in the struggle to participate in the rapidly changing world economy. Secondly, as a clear departure from mainstream value chain research, this study makes use of a mixture of value chain and network approaches for exploring processes and micro-level interactions used by individuals to construct and maintain networks.
Culture and the Changing Environment
Today human ecology has split into many different sub-disciplines such as historical ecology, political ecology or the New Ecological Anthropology. The latter in particular has criticised the predominance of the Western view on different ecosystems, arguing that culture-specific world views and human-environment interactions have been largely neglected. However, these different perspectives only tackle specific facets of a local and global hyper-complex reality. In bringing together a variety of views and theoretical approaches, these especially commissioned essays prove that an interdisciplinary collaboration and understanding of the extreme complexity of the human-environment interface(s) is possible.
Wilderness or Home?
This book critically probes into the politics of nature conservation and commodification. Building on political ecology, the book argues that conservation is used by state and non-state actors as an instrument of controlling multidimensional spaces of indigenous communities. The study creates a nexus between the hegemonic discourse of wilderness conservation in colonial Africa and Ethiopia's appropriation of this narrative and how it internally exported it to its peripheries. It found out that the successive Ethiopian regimes (the imperial, military and developmental state) share commonalities in using nature conservation both for political control of societies and their territories, and as a means of economic extraction through commodification. Asebe Regassa Debelo is a graduate of the Bayreuth International Graduate School of African Studies (BIGSAS). (Series: Contributions to African Research / Beitrage zur Afrikaforschung, Vol. 66) [Subject: Sociology, ?African Studies
In between Life and Death
This book recounts the stories of 30 expectant mothers living with HIV in Lesotho, and how they made decisions during an uncertain time. Social concerns - such as poverty, familial disruption, limited opportunities, and early infant care - are present during a time "in between life and death." Medical and non-medical solutions are found to make this life-changing event a success. Familial care, medical counseling, and ritual practices were combined, yet there were often conflicting demands. In between Life and Death is about the navigation of such conflicts. (Series: Contributions to the Africa Research / Beitrage zur Afrikaforschung - Vol. 61) [Subject: Sociology, Women's Studies, African Studies, Healthcare]
