African Politics

African Politics PDF Author: Ian Taylor
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192529242
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 174

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Book Description
Africa is a continent of 54 countries and over a billion people. However, despite the rich diversity of the African experience, it is striking that continuations and themes seem to be reflected across the continent, particularly south of the Sahara. Questions of underdevelopment, outside exploitation, and misrule are characteristic of many - if not most-states in Sub-Saharan Africa. In this Very Short Introduction Ian Taylor explores how politics is practiced on the African continent, considering the nature of the state in Sub-Saharan Africa and why its state structures are generally weaker than elsewhere in the world. Exploring the historical and contemporary factors which account for Africa's underdevelopment, he also analyses why some African countries suffer from high levels of political violence while others are spared. Unveilling the ways in which African state and society actually function beyond the formal institutional façade, Taylor discusses how external factors - both inherited and contemporary - act upon the continent. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

African Politics

African Politics PDF Author: Ian Taylor
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192529242
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 174

Get Book Here

Book Description
Africa is a continent of 54 countries and over a billion people. However, despite the rich diversity of the African experience, it is striking that continuations and themes seem to be reflected across the continent, particularly south of the Sahara. Questions of underdevelopment, outside exploitation, and misrule are characteristic of many - if not most-states in Sub-Saharan Africa. In this Very Short Introduction Ian Taylor explores how politics is practiced on the African continent, considering the nature of the state in Sub-Saharan Africa and why its state structures are generally weaker than elsewhere in the world. Exploring the historical and contemporary factors which account for Africa's underdevelopment, he also analyses why some African countries suffer from high levels of political violence while others are spared. Unveilling the ways in which African state and society actually function beyond the formal institutional façade, Taylor discusses how external factors - both inherited and contemporary - act upon the continent. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

AIDS, Sex, and Culture

AIDS, Sex, and Culture PDF Author: Ida Susser
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 144435910X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
AIDS, Sex, and Culture is a revealing examination of the impact the AIDS epidemic in Africa has had on women, based on the author's own extensive ethnographic research. based on the author's own story growing up in South Africa looks at the impact of social conservatism in the US on AIDS prevention programs discussion of the experiences of women in areas ranging from Durban in KwaZulu Natal to rural settlements in Namibia and Botswana includes a chapter written by Sibongile Mkhize at the University of KwaZulu Natal who tells the story of her own family’s struggle with AIDS

African Culture and Global Politics

African Culture and Global Politics PDF Author: Toyin Falola
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134674473
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
This volume attempts to insert itself within the larger discussion of Africa in the twenty-first century, especially within the realm of world politics. Despite the underwhelming amount of attention given to Africa's role in international politics in popular news sources, it is evident that Africa has a consistent record of participating in world politics- one that pre-dates colonization and continues today. In continuance of this legacy of active participation in global political exchanges, Africans today can be heard in dialogues that span the world and their roles are impossible to replace by other entities. It is evident that a vastly different Africa exists than ones that bolster images of starvation, corruption, and compliance. The essays in this volume center on Africa and Africans participating in international political discourses, but with an emphasis on various forms of expression and philosophies, as these factors heavily influence Africa's role as a participant in global politics. The reader will find a variety of essays that permeate surface discussions of politics and political activism by inserting African culture, rhetoric, philosophies into the larger discussion of international politics and Africa's role in worldwide political, social, and economic debates.

Reframing Contemporary Africa

Reframing Contemporary Africa PDF Author: Peyi Soyinka-Airewele
Publisher: CQ Press
ISBN: 9780872894075
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
It is impossible to study Africa without understanding the debate about how to study Africa. At last, a book showcases the complexities and paradoxes of Africa’s recent and more distant history, while avoiding simplistic, Eurocentric conceptualizations of “black Africa.” With this book, Peyi Soyinka-Aiwerele and Rita Kiki Edozie offer students the background and perspectives they need to comprehend the dynamics of the continent as well as a clear path through the current literature and scholarly debate. With a cross-disciplinary approach that features political, historical, and economic analysis as well as popular culture and sociological views on contemporary issues, Reframing Contemporary Africa provides an unparalleled breadth of coverage. Essays written by a distinguished and international group of scholars—including William Ackah, Pius Adesanmi, Susan Craddock, Caroline Elkins, Siba Grovogui, Mahmood Mamdani, Mutua Makau, Celestin Monga, Wole Soyinka, and Paul Tiyambe Zeleza—are designed to distill original scholarship for undergraduate readers. Each contribution helps students engage with the work and arguments of luminaries while exposing them to renowned African thinkers. Contributors deliver analysis that allows students to see beyond the clichés commonly presented in the media (and even in scholarship), and helpful section openers by Soyinka-Airewele and Edozie frame forthcoming chapters, giving important thematic and historical context. Reframing Contemporary Africa will certainly provoke new debate and reflection, not merely about African issues and politics, but also about the West and its framing of Africa.

Redefining the African Diaspora

Redefining the African Diaspora PDF Author: Toyin Falola
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781604979015
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
Tradition and modernity as they relate to African and diasporic cultures do not exist within a vacuum. They reflect the constantly changing relations and factors that define daily life in Africa and beyond. For example, one cannot consider Congolese fabric in the mid-twentieth century without thinking about the immense impact of the Second World War on ideas about French colonialism and trade relations within the French empire. African cultures are immensely significant in the larger histories and microhistories of Africa and the African diaspora because they often reflect the important nuances of race, class, and gender and how these factors intersect with politics and society on local, regional, national, and global levels. This book thus examines the important connections between African cultures and social and political movements in the African diaspora--from Brazil to the United States.

Youth and Popular Culture in Africa

Youth and Popular Culture in Africa PDF Author: Paul Ugor
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1648250246
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 419

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Book Description
"The edited collection focuses on the links between young people and African popular culture. It explores popular culture produced and consumed by young people in contemporary Africa. And by "culture," we mean all kinds of texts or representations-visual, oral, written, performative, fictional, social, and virtual-created by African youth, mostly about their lives and their immediate societies, and for themselves, but also consumed by the larger public, and shared locally and globally. We proceed from the premise that cultural texts not only function as "social facts" as Karin Barber argues, but that they double as "commentaries upon, and interpretations of, social facts. They are part of social reality, but they also take up an attitude to social reality" (2007, 04). So, the work focuses specifically on what African youth produce as popular culture, under what conditions or contexts they produce such work, how they produce those texts, why they produce them, the aesthetic dimensions of these texts as cultural artifacts, and why these textual practices matter as social facts, as interpretive acts, and as cultural symbols of the general cultural activism of young people in a rapidly changing world, a world where the global cultural economy is the prime terrain for the relentless struggles over the meanings that come to shape political-economic and social systems"--

African Culture and Global Politics

African Culture and Global Politics PDF Author: Toyin Falola
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134674406
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
This volume attempts to insert itself within the larger discussion of Africa in the twenty-first century, especially within the realm of world politics. Despite the underwhelming amount of attention given to Africa's role in international politics in popular news sources, it is evident that Africa has a consistent record of participating in world politics- one that pre-dates colonization and continues today. In continuance of this legacy of active participation in global political exchanges, Africans today can be heard in dialogues that span the world and their roles are impossible to replace by other entities. It is evident that a vastly different Africa exists than ones that bolster images of starvation, corruption, and compliance. The essays in this volume center on Africa and Africans participating in international political discourses, but with an emphasis on various forms of expression and philosophies, as these factors heavily influence Africa's role as a participant in global politics. The reader will find a variety of essays that permeate surface discussions of politics and political activism by inserting African culture, rhetoric, philosophies into the larger discussion of international politics and Africa's role in worldwide political, social, and economic debates.

The Culture of Politics in Modern Kenya

The Culture of Politics in Modern Kenya PDF Author: Angelique Haugerud
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521595902
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Once the major success story of a troubled continent,by the early 1990s Kenya came to be regarded as its fallen star. This book challenges such images of reversal and the analytical polarities which sustain them. The analysis ranges from telescopic to microscopic fields, and combining many disciplines and perspectives to give a rich and varied picture of the culture of politics in twentieth-century Kenya.'...a highly perceptive and interesting analysis, deconstruction is not too strong a term, of Kenya's politics....[A] well researched, documented and enlightening book' African Affairs

The Handbook of African Intelligence Cultures

The Handbook of African Intelligence Cultures PDF Author: Ryan Shaffer
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538159988
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 833

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Book Description
Bringing together a group of international scholars, The Handbook of African Intelligence Cultures provides the first review of intelligence cultures in every African country. It explores how intelligence cultures are influenced by a range of factors, including past and present societal, governmental and international dynamics. In doing so, the book examines the state’s role, civil society and foreign relations in shaping African countries’ intelligence norms, activities and oversight. It also explores the role intelligence services and cultures play in government and civil society.

Cooking Data

Cooking Data PDF Author: Cal (Crystal) Biruk
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822371820
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
In Cooking Data Crystal Biruk offers an ethnographic account of research into the demographics of HIV and AIDS in Malawi to rethink the production of quantitative health data. While research practices are often understood within a clean/dirty binary, Biruk shows that data are never clean; rather, they are always “cooked” during their production and inevitably entangled with the lives of those who produce them. Examining how the relationships among fieldworkers, supervisors, respondents, and foreign demographers shape data, Biruk examines the ways in which units of information—such as survey questions and numbers written onto questionnaires by fieldworkers—acquire value as statistics that go on to shape national AIDS policy. Her approach illustrates how on-the-ground dynamics and research cultures mediate the production of global health statistics in ways that impact local economies and formulations of power and expertise.