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In more than a metaphorical sense, the womb has proven to be an important site of political struggle in and about Africa. By examining the political significance—and complex ramifications—of reproductive controversies in twentieth-century Kenya, this book explores why and how control of female initiation, abortion, childbirth, and premarital pregnancy have been crucial to the exercise of colonial and postcolonial power. This innovative book enriches the study of gender, reproduction, sexuality, and African history by revealing how reproductive controversies challenged long-standing social hierarchies and contributed to the construction of new ones that continue to influence the fraught politics of abortion, birth control, female genital cutting, and HIV/AIDS in Africa.
For more than a century, skin lighteners have been a ubiquitous feature of global popular culture—embraced by consumers even as they were fiercely opposed by medical professionals, consumer health advocates, and antiracist thinkers and activists. In Beneath the Surface, Lynn M. Thomas constructs a transnational history of skin lighteners in South Africa and beyond. Analyzing a wide range of archival, popular culture, and oral history sources, Thomas traces the changing meanings of skin color from precolonial times to the postcolonial present. From indigenous skin-brightening practices and the rapid spread of lighteners in South African consumer culture during the 1940s and 1950s to the growth of a billion-dollar global lightener industry, Thomas shows how the use of skin lighteners and experiences of skin color have been shaped by slavery, colonialism, and segregation as well as by consumer capitalism, visual media, notions of beauty, and protest politics. In teasing out lighteners’ layered history, Thomas theorizes skin as a site for antiracist struggle and lighteners as a technology of visibility that both challenges and entrenches racial and gender hierarchies.
During the 1920s and 1930s, in cities from Beijing to Bombay, Tokyo to Berlin, Johannesburg to New York, the Modern Girl made her sometimes flashy, always fashionable appearance in city streets and cafes, in films, advertisements, and illustrated magazines. Modern Girls wore sexy clothes and high heels; they applied lipstick and other cosmetics. Dressed in provocative attire and in hot pursuit of romantic love, Modern Girls appeared on the surface to disregard the prescribed roles of dutiful daughter, wife, and mother. Contemporaries debated whether the Modern Girl was looking for sexual, economic, or political emancipation, or whether she was little more than an image, a hollow product of t...
In recent years, scholarly interest in love has flourished. Historians have addressed the rise of romantic love and marriage in Europe and the United States, while anthropologists have explored the ways globalization has reshaped local ideas about those same topics. Yet, love in Africa has been peculiarly ignored, resulting in a serious lack of understanding about this vital element of social life—a glaring omission given the intense focus on sexuality in Africa in the wake of HIV/AIDS. Love in Africa seeks both to understand this failure to consider love and to begin to correct it. In a substantive introduction and eight essays that examine a variety of countries and range in time from th...
Sport and Violence takes a critical look at the culture of ‘sports rage’ and aggression in the sporting industry, covering ethical, historical and sociological causes and impacts. It examines international examples of sport violence, including: the father of a tennis competitor placing a drug in the drinks of her competitors; a player’s neck broken after being attacked from behind by an opponent in an NHL game; hooliganism in international soccer and more. The book not only attempts to explain how and why such violence originates, it examines its impact on society outside sport and suggests potential remedies for the problem. This book: Examines the culture of violence that permeates and surrounds sport, including the sociological causes of that violence, and what can be done to mitigate them Features an international perspective with examples of sport violence from throughout the world Offers a historical view on the evolution of violence in sport Its up-to-date and in-depth coverage of a controversial issue makes this book a valuable asset to both sports students and professionals working in sports management.
From the civil rights and Black Power era of the 1960s through antiapartheid activism in the 1980s and beyond, black women have used their clothing, hair, and style not simply as a fashion statement but as a powerful tool of resistance. Whether using stiletto heels as weapons to protect against police attacks or incorporating African-themed designs into everyday wear, these fashion-forward women celebrated their identities and pushed for equality. In this thought-provoking book, Tanisha C. Ford explores how and why black women in places as far-flung as New York City, Atlanta, London, and Johannesburg incorporated style and beauty culture into their activism. Focusing on the emergence of the ...
With over 400 A-Z entries, this new dictionary provides clear and authoritative definitions of terms within the fast-growing field of African Politics. It includes coverage on elections, parties and judiciaries, but also popular protest, gender-relations, the politics of development, and Africa's international relations. Entries comprise of major events and figures within African Politics, including the East African Community and independance, as well as covering key terms of particular relevance to Africa such as neopatrimonialism, queue voting, and post-conflict power sharing. Written by a world-leading political scientist working on the area of African politics, this dictionary is an essential guide for both undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as academics, journalists, and researchers working on African politics alike.
Gender is one of the most productive, dynamic, and vibrant areas of Africanist research today. This volume looks at Africa now that gender has come into play to consider how the continent, its people, and the term itself have changed.
The parents of a child born without hearing describe their efforts to reach across the barrier of silence to teach their daughter to speak and enjoy a normal life.
Pan American World Airways could be considered a corporate Cinderella--a rags-to-riches-and-back-again phenomenon. From its founding in 1927 and its relatively obscure inauguration as a mail carrier on a 90-mile mail run from Florida's Key West to Cuba, Pan Am's route system grew to span the globe. The company that would eventually become famous for its blue-and-white-world logo grew into a conglomerate of hotels, airlines, business jets, real estate, a helicopter service, and even a guided missiles range division. But financial problems plagued Pan Am in its last two decades, and in 1991, Pan American World Airways ceased flying after 64 years of service. The story of Pan Am is as much the ...