Resistance to Modernization in Africa

Resistance to Modernization in Africa PDF

Author: Giordano Sivini

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-28

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 135149323X

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Giordano Sivini has been an international aid consultant for over twenty-five years. Here he channels a 1960s and 1970s idealistic political commitment into fieldwork and the sphere of development from the 1980s to the present. Sivini writes with both passion and cynicism about his experiences with the numerous African aid projects he has been involved with over the years.While the fathers of independence of British and French decolonization wanted to change the colonial conditions of exploitation, Sivini finds that their good intentions have been shipwrecked. Ironically, the longer Sivini served as an aid consultant, the more he found himself dismayed at the various projects that were under way or slated to begin. He perceived some of the projects as grotesque, and, almost all ineffective. The money was wasted on such ventures not because of a particular government's interest in the social effects they would have on the local populace, but because of the direct and indirect benefits the government would receive.Sivini sees international development aid as its own market: development is a commodity that takes the form of large and small projects, and is traded for loans and gifts to generate political and economic advantages for the institutional participants in the exchange. Ultimately, governmental and aid projects often stimulate resistance from the local populace as agencies upset their usual system of production by regimenting peasants to produce for the market, then appropriate the cattle of nomadic pastoralists, villagizing and resettling peasants in areas of high productivity, and exploiting laborers in large farms. This creates social disintegration, mass migration in urban informal economy, and poverty.This is a dynamic and moving analysis of foreign aid that will be of interest to students of African studies, governmental programs, rural development, and political economy.

Oppression and Resistance in Africa and the Diaspora

Oppression and Resistance in Africa and the Diaspora PDF

Author: Taylor & Francis Group

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-12-18

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 9780367732028

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Africa's modern history is replete with different forms of encounters and conflicts. From the fifteenth century when millions of Africans were forcefully taken away as slaves during the infamous Atlantic slave trade; to the colonial conquests of the nineteenth century where European countries conquered and subsequently balkanized Africa and shared the continent to European powers; and to the postcolonial era where many African leaders have maintained several instruments of exploitation, the continent has seen different forms of encounters, exploitations and oppressions. These encounters and exploitations have equally been met with resistance in different forms and at different times. The mode of Africa's encounters with the rest of the world have in several ways, shaped and continue to shape the continent's social, political and economic development trajectories. Essays in this volume have addressed different aspects of these phases of encounters and resistance by Africa and the African Diaspora. While the volume document different phases of oppression and conflict, it also contains some accounts of Africa's resistance to external and internal oppressions and exploitations. From the physical guerilla resistance of the Mau Mau group against British colonial exploitation in Kenya and its aftermath, to efforts of the Kayble group to preserve their language and culture in modern Algeria; and from the innovative ways in which the Tuareg are using guitar and music as forms of expression and resistance, to the modern ways in which contemporary African immigrants in North America are coping with oppressive structures and racism, the chapters in this volume have examined different phases of oppressions and suppressions of Africa and its people, as well as acts of resistance put up by Africans.

The Idea of Development in Africa

The Idea of Development in Africa PDF

Author: Corrie Decker

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2020-10-29

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 110710369X

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An engaging history of how the idea of development has shaped Africa's past and present encounters with the West.

Our Continent, Our Future

Our Continent, Our Future PDF

Author: P. Thandika Mkandawire

Publisher: IDRC

Published: 2014-05-14

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 155250204X

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Our Continent, Our Future presents the emerging African perspective on this complex issue. The authors use as background their own extensive experience and a collection of 30 individual studies, 25 of which were from African economists, to summarize this African perspective and articulate a path for the future. They underscore the need to be sensitive to each country's unique history and current condition. They argue for a broader policy agenda and for a much more active role for the state within what is largely a market economy. Finally, they stress that Africa must, and can, compete in an increasingly globalized world and, perhaps most importantly, that Africans must assume the leading role in defining the continent's development agenda.

The African Diaspora

The African Diaspora PDF

Author: Toyin Falola

Publisher: University Rochester Press

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 456

ISBN-13: 1580464521

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The African diaspora is arguably the most important event in modern African history. From the fifteenth century to the present, millions of Africans have been dispersed -- many of them forcibly, others driven by economic need or political persecution--to other continents, creating large communities with African origins living outside their native lands. The majority of these communities are in North America. This historic displacement has meant that Africans are irrevocably connected to economic and political developments in the West and globally. Among the known legacies of the diaspora are slavery, colonialism, racism, poverty, and underdevelopment, yet the ways in which these same factors worked to spur the scattering of Africans are not fully understood -- by those who were part of this migration or by scholars, historians, and policymakers. In this definitive study of the diaspora in North America, Toyin Falola offers a causal history of the western dispersion of Africans and its effects on the modern world. Reengaging old and familiar debates and framing new ones that enrich the discourse surrounding Africa, Falola isolates the thread, running nearly six centuries, that connects the history of slavery, the transatlantic slave trade, and current migrations. A boon to scholars and policymakers and accessible to the general reader, the book explores diverse narratives of migration and shows that the cultures that migrated from Africa to the Americas have the capacity to unite and create a new pan-Africanist movement within the globalized world. Toyin Falola is the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities and University Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the 2011 recipient of the Distinguished Africanist Award from the African Studies Association and serves as the vice president of the International Scientific Committee of the UNESCO Slave Route Project. His previous books published by the University of Rochester Press include The Power of African Cultures and Nationalism and African Intellectuals.

State of the Continent

State of the Continent PDF

Author: M. Fobanjong

Publisher: African Books Collective

Published: 2018-12-29

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 194287636X

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What precisely is the state of the African continent today? Depending on ones perspective, the answer may either dwell on Africas recent economic and political accomplishments or focus on the long-standing single-story of failure, disaster and eternal dictatorships. This book provides a nuanced, forceful and balanced assessment of Africas political and economic performance since independence. While acknowledging Africas tragic pitfalls, dating to the transatlantic slave trade and colonialism, State of the Continent skillfully argues that theories associated with the dependency school are no longer enough to explain the continents failures in governance and economic performance. For a continent so richly blessed and endowed with both human and material resources, the blame for Africas lackluster performance falls squarely on its leadership. To get things right, Nkrumahs vision of the primacy of the political kingdom must be prioritized whereupon economic gains shall predictably, follow. In lucid and persuasive prose, this volume is an ideal book for scholars as well as students of international studies and African politics.

State of the Continent

State of the Continent PDF

Author: John M. Fobanjong

Publisher: Spears Media Press

Published: 2018-11-28

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13:

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What precisely is the state of the African continent today? Depending on one’s perspective, the answer may either dwell on Africa’s recent economic and political accomplishments or focus on the long-standing single-story of failure, disaster and eternal dictatorships. This book provides a nuanced, forceful and balanced assessment of Africa’s political and economic performance since independence. While acknowledging Africa’s tragic pitfalls, dating to the transatlantic slave trade and colonialism, State of the Continent skillfully argues that t­heories associated with the dependency school are no longer enough to explain the continent’s failures in governance and economic performance. For a continent so richly blessed and endowed with both human and material resources, the blame for Africa’s lackluster performance falls squarely on its leadership. To get things right, Nkrumah’s vision of the primacy of the “political kingdom” must be prioritized whereupon economic gains shall predictably, follow. In lucid and persuasive prose, this volume is an ideal book for scholars as well as students of international studies and African politics.

Understanding Modern Nigeria

Understanding Modern Nigeria PDF

Author: Toyin Falola

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-06-24

Total Pages: 691

ISBN-13: 1108837972

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An introduction to the politics and society of post-colonial Nigeria, highlighting the key themes of ethnicity, democracy, and development.

Women in Twentieth-Century Africa

Women in Twentieth-Century Africa PDF

Author: Iris Berger

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2016-04-26

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 0521517079

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Explores the paradoxical image of African women as exceptionally oppressed, but also as strong, resourceful and rebellious.

The Arts and Indigenous Knowledge Systems in a Modernized Africa

The Arts and Indigenous Knowledge Systems in a Modernized Africa PDF

Author: Runette Kruger

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2018-12-17

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 1527523624

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This collection derives from a conference held in Pretoria, South Africa, and discusses issues of indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) and the arts. It presents ideas about how to promote a deeper understanding of IKS within the arts, the development of IKS-arts research methodologies, and the protection and promotion of IKS in the arts. Knowledge, embedded in song, dance, folklore, design, architecture, theatre, and attire, and the visual arts can promote innovation and entrepreneurship, and it can improve communication. IKS, however, exists in a post-millennium, modernizing Africa. It is then the concept of post-Africanism that would induce one to think along the lines of a globalized, cosmopolitan and essentially modernized Africa. The book captures leading trends and ideas that could help to protect, promote, develop and affirm indigenous knowledge and systems, whilst also making room for ideas that do not necessarily oppose IKS, but encourage the modernization (not Westernization) of Africa.