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Theorising Development in Africa
How come Africa is so underdeveloped when it is one of the richest continents on earth? Indeed, Africa is a paradox: it is poor and rich at the same time! Resource-wise, Africa is among the top richest continents in the world, yet development-wise it is the poorest of all continents. This paradox desperately needs comprehensive theoretical unpacking and rethinking if Africa is to achieve breakthroughs to the multifaceted development-related problems that have haunted it since the beginning of its unequal encounters with Europe. Regrettably, current Eurocentric development theories fall short on several fronts. The need for a comprehensive body of knowledge –theories and models – from the...
Divining the Future of Africa
This book explores the relationship between Africa, the West and China. It notes that while Africa is a continent of diverse cultures, raw materials, human resource, indigenous knowledges, and above all the biggest recipient of foreign aid globally, it continues to lag behind all regions of the world in terms of socio-economic development. The book grapples with the important question on why this has been the case. It provides crucial critical insights on how Africa's situation could be reversed and the tapestry of its socio-economic problems eased. The book draws a link between culture, globalisation and socio-economic development, breaking new grounds in the discourse on development in pos...
Memoirs of an Unsung Legend, Nemeso
Nemeso - a four eyed man-lived in southeastern Zimbabwe in the mid-17th century. Stories about him are widely known by the Duma in southeastern Zimbabwe as he left a legacy, a delicious dish - of edible stinkbugs locally named harurwa. These insects, believed to be a gift to Nemeso by the ancestors, thrive in a grove (jiri) where no one has been allowed to meddle since the time of Nemeso, the medium through whom the stinkbugs were gifted to the living by the living-dead. The insects are a source of livelihood for the Duma people and for people beyond, and serve as a drive for forest conservation in the area. The wealthy stories of Nemeso's life have been passed on through oral tradition. This book, generated from an ethnographic reconstitution in southeastern Zimbabwe, documents the stories in a lively and fascinating thirst quenching manner.
Democracy, Good Governance and Development in Africa
Questions surrounding democracy, governance, and development especially in the view of Africa have provoked acrimonious debates in the past few years. It remains a perennial question why some decades after political independence in Africa the continent continues experiencing bad governance, lagging behind socioeconomically, and its democracy questionable. We admit that a plethora of theories and reasons, including iniquitous and malicious ones, have been conjured in an attempt to explain and answer the questions as to why Africa seems to be lagging behind other continents in issues pertaining to good governance, democracy and socio-economic development. Yet, none of the theories and reasons proffered so far seems to have provided enduring solutions to Africa’s diverse complex problems and predicaments. This book dissects and critically examines the matrix of Africa’s multifaceted problems on governance, democracy and development in an attempt to proffer enduring solutions to the continent’s long-standing political and socio-economic dilemmas and setbacks.
Human Trafficking and Trauma in the Digital Era
Eritrean refugees crisscross between countries in the Horn of Africa and North Africa in search of a safe place. Along their journeys, they are looted, threatened, intimidated, violated, and held for ransom. This book revisits the human trafficking crisis that first emerged in the Sinai at the end of 2008 and examines the expansion of human trafficking of Eritrean refugees and other forms of exploitation beyond the Sinai. It focuses on the modus operandi of these practices and on identifying their key facilitators and beneficiaries. The book locates the origin of these practices within Eritrea; it reveals how a deliberate policy of impoverishment and human rights abuses has driven the people...
Development Perspectives from the South
Not so long ago, The Economist described Africa as a hopeless continent. This damning description specifically referred to the development status of Africa. While the debate on the political and socio-economic [under-]development of Africa had been raging on prior to the Economist’s daring but controversial pronouncements, it intensified from thereon. Many concerned people from within the continent and elsewhere have reproved the proclamation but mainly in newspapers and the broadcast media. Not enough has been done by development scholars to critically reflect on the description and status of Africa’s development condition in a nuanced and systematic fashion. Yet, it is through incisive...
African Studies in the Academy
For a long time, African Studies as a discipline has been spearheaded by academics and institutions in the Global North. This puts African Studies on the continent at a crossroads of making choices on whether such a discipline can be legitimately accepted as an epistemological discipline seeking objectivity and truth about Africa and the African peoples or a discipline meant to perpetuate the North’s hegemonic socio-economic, political and epistemic control over Africa. The compound question that immediately arises is: Who should produce what and which space should African Studies occupy in the academy both of the North and of the South? Confronted by such a question, one wonders whether t...
Roaming Africa
What happens when digital innovation meets migration? Roaming Africa considers how we understand modern-day mobility in Africa, where age-old routes strengthen the resilience of people roaming the continent for livelihoods and security, assisted by mobile communication. Digital mobility expands connectivity around the world, and also in Africa. In this book, the authors show that mobility, resilience and social protection in the digital age are closely related. Each chapter takes a close look at the migration dynamics in a specific context, using social theory as a lens. This book adopts a critical perspective on approaches in which migration is regarded merely as a hazard. Edited by distinguished scholars from Africa and Europe, this volume, the second in a four-part series Connected and Mobile: Migration and Human Trafficking in Africa, compiles chapters from a diverse group of young and upcoming scholars, making an important contribution to the literature on migration studies, digital science, social protection and governance.
Death of a Discipline?
This is a book on the state of social anthropology as an academic discipline in contemporary Zimbabwe. The authors are frustrated and disheartened by a problematic visibility and sluggish growth of the discipline in the country. The book makes an important claim that the future and vibrancy of anthropology in Zimbabwe, lies in how well anthropologists in the country and in the diaspora are able to join efforts in articulating, debating and enhancing its relevance and vitality. The book provides critical overview and nuanced analyses of the role and continued relevance of the discipline in reading and interpreting the social unfolding of everyday life and dynamism. It is a vital text for understanding and contextualising histories and trends in the development of social anthropology in Zimbabwe and how anthropologists in the country navigate the tumultuous waters and struggles that have engrossed the discipline since colonial times. The book has the capacity to generate added insights and influence national, continental, and global debates and trends in the field.
Colonial Heritage, Memory and Sustainability in Africa
This book serves as a drive and medium for constructive analysis, critical thinking, and informed change in the broad area of cultural heritage studies. In Africa, how to overturn the gory effects and reverse the wholesale obnoxious and unpardonable losses suffered from the excruciating experience of colonialism in a manner that empowers the present and future generations, remains a burning question. Colonial and liberation war heritage have received insignificant attention. The relevance, nature, and politics at play when it comes to the role of memory and colonial heritage in view of nation-building and sustainability on the continent is yet to receive careful practical and theoretical att...
