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Be it a house or a makeshift, a shared or rented room, or a home of one's own, a place to live is central in the survival strategies of all urban households. In this volume the above authors explore the gendered experiences of housing and housing rights in African countries. The collection begins with articles on conceptual and methodological problems in gender-aware research. The following articles present cases showing a wide variety in housing experiences, a variety which depends on urban setting, tenure forms, stage in the life cycle or other factors. There are many differences but also many similarities in the pattern of women not having the same access and control over housing as men have. While women are often the main bread-winners, they are also the home-makers, in the literal sense that it is women who put intense efforts into making a place home.
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.
Recent developments have witnessed the emergence of civil society as a major development actor whose potentials and capacity, especially in Africa, are often taken for granted and treated as limitless. A critical assessment of some of these structures (NGOs, religious organisations, trade unions, home-based associations and the youth) and the legal and political context of the operation of civil society in Cameroon shows a popular effervescence that is visible in social development initiatives. Although this would complement the state and free enterprise, it is however often frustrated by the states suspicion in a context of rising social awareness and protest that is assimilated with political opposition or attempts at manipulation along partisan lines. This book is a call to reform the framework of civil society and assess its components and roles in shaping the future of Africa. Emmanuel Yenshu Vubo is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology. He obtained his Doctorate from the University of Yaounde in 1991 and has served in several capacities at the University of Buea.
The Making of the African Road offers an account of the long-distance road in Africa. Being a latecomer to automobility and far from saturated mass mobility, the African road continues to be open for diverging interpretations and creative appropriations. The road regime on the continent is thus still under construction, and it is made in more than one sense: physically, socially, politically, morally and cosmologically. The contributions to this volume provide first-hand anthropological insights into the infrastructural, economic, historical as well as experiential dimensions of the emerging orders of the African road. Contributors are: Kurt Beck, Amiel Bize, Michael Bürge, Luca Ciabarri, Gabriel Klaeger, Mark Lamont, Tilman Musch, Michael Stasik, Rami Wadelnour.
Why do birth rates fail to drop in Sub-Saharan Africa? This question has preoccupied demographers and population planners for decades. The expectation of fertility decline is based on the demographic transition model which still dominates demographic thinking, and which assumes a universal development towards low mortality and fertility levels following modernisation. This book argues that population dynamics can only be understood when viewed in their particular context. It provides both a critique of demographic methods and theorizing, and a detailed analysis of fertility issues in the rapidly changing urban environment of Bamako, capital city of Mali. A new light is shed on the population debate through the conceptualization of the meso-level, illuminating a part of the social world which usually remains obscure.
This book is comprehensive both in terms of time coverage, from before the Pharaohs to the present moment and in that it tries to consider cities from the entire continent, not just Sub-Saharan Africa. Apart from factual information and rich description material culled from many sources, it looks at many issues from why urban life emerged in the first place to how present-day African cities cope in difficult times. Instead of seeing towns and cities as somehow extraneous to the real Africa, it views them as an inherent part of developing Africa, indigenous, colonial, and post-colonial and emphasizes the extent to which the future of African society and African culture will likely be played out mostly in cities. The book is written to appeal to students of history but equally to geographers, planners, sociologists and development specialists interested in urban problems.
The editors are committed to destroying perceptions and stereotypes of third world women as passive victims who need to be "liberated" by Western feminists. The essays address cases in which women have challenged and resisted the political formations-nationalist struggles, revolutions, religious fundamentalist practices, and authoritarian regimes-that shape their daily lives. Each critic presents a close reading of the circumstances under which the feminist writers and film-makers.
Examines minority governments to show they are not exceptional or unstable.
The work of Eugen Ehrlich (1862-1922) is directly relevant for an understanding of law in society and of the role of sociology of law. Today, it is possible to see behind the smokescreen of historical debates and to assess Ehrlich's key ideas in the light of today's problems. The coexistence of state and local law still challenges lawyers and decision-makers. Ehrlich suggests sociology of law as an instrument to address social and legal problems that supplements standard legal methodology. The articles in this book place Eugen Ehrlich in the context of his times, outline the international reception of Ã?Â?his work, and show the relevance of his thoughts for contemporary issues. (Series: Society and Law / Gesellschaft und Recht - Vol. 8) [Subject: Socio-Legal Studies, Legal History]