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Author: Mawere, Munyaradzi
Publisher: Langaa RPCIG
ISBN: 9956764744
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 205
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Book Description
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 perspective of Africans persists in urgency. The present volume is an attempt to theorise Africa’s [under-]development with a view to provide a sustainable enduring framework of operations that will arrest the elusive predicament of the continent while taking it forward from its current position of passivity. It rethinks and re-imagines a number of externally imposed problematic mechanisms used (un-)consciously in Africa, with the intention to raise awareness and foster critical thinking in scholars and scholarship on African development. With its predicament-oriented theorising, the book is a pacesetter on how to think and research Africa’s [under-]development. It is also an invaluable asset for social scientists, policy makers, development practitioners, civil society activists and politicians.
Author: Mawere, Munyaradzi
Publisher: Langaa RPCIG
ISBN: 9956764744
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 205
Get Book Here
Book Description
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 perspective of Africans persists in urgency. The present volume is an attempt to theorise Africa’s [under-]development with a view to provide a sustainable enduring framework of operations that will arrest the elusive predicament of the continent while taking it forward from its current position of passivity. It rethinks and re-imagines a number of externally imposed problematic mechanisms used (un-)consciously in Africa, with the intention to raise awareness and foster critical thinking in scholars and scholarship on African development. With its predicament-oriented theorising, the book is a pacesetter on how to think and research Africa’s [under-]development. It is also an invaluable asset for social scientists, policy makers, development practitioners, civil society activists and politicians.
Author: Mawere, Munyaradzi
Publisher: Langaa RPCIG
ISBN: 9956763640
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 377
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Book Description
This volume interrogates the popularity of problematic theories in the study of Africa and Africans in the 21st century. The book provides ethnographic and intellectual material for scholars seeking to rethink and reimagine a number of externally imposed theories used (un-)consciously in Africa, with the intention of raising awareness and fostering critical thinking amongst scholars theorising Africa. With its theorising focus and contributors drawn from diverse disciplines and geographical locations, the book is both a pacesetter on how to think, research and theorise Africa, and an invaluable asset for social scientists, development practitioners, civil society activists and leaders in the politics and economy of everyday life on the continent. It poses an invitation to those seeking to re-embrace and reconnect with theory as an indispensable ingredient and determinant of quality in critical production and consumption of knowledge on Africa and of relevance to Africans.
Author: Lansana Keita
Publisher: African Books Collective
ISBN: 2869784465
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 276
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Book Description
Philosophy and African Development: Theory and Practice appraises development in a holistic manner. It goes beyond the usual measurement in terms of economic achievement and widens the scope to include the impact that history of ideas, political theory, sociology, social and political philosophy, and political economy have had on development in Africa. It is a departure from the traditional treatment of development by economists who point towards the so-called time-tested assertions and recommendations for 'sustainable development', but which are yet bring about significant change in the economies of the so-called 'developing' societies. It is on account of the failures of the economic development theory, with its tepid prescriptions for 'sustainable development' and 'poverty reduction' that theories of development have now been expanded from mere economic analysis to include considerations of history, sociology, political economy and anthropology, as could be discovered in this book. Most of the contributions in this book have been prepared by philosophers across Africa and the United States who implicitly practise their discipline as one whose most effective modern function would be to appraise the human experience in all its dimensions from the standpoints of modern social and natural sciences, all disciplinary offspring of philosophy itself. With chapters ranging from issues of modernity and religious interpretations, the human right to development, the idea of 'African time', the primacy of mental decolonisation, and the type of education offered in Africa today and as a tool for development, to development planning, science, technology and globalisation, as well as issues of post coloniality among others. The tenor of the contributions is not only proportional, but also engaged in the meta-analysis of the theories on which the concept of development is founded and practised. This book is strongly recommended as a useful text in the hands of scholars, researchers and students of development studies. It approaches the important issue of African development from the broad perspective of the social sciences in general, and buttresses this with the keen analytical approach of its contributors.
Author: A.S.A.U.K. Conference
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
Author: Peter Westoby
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317010981
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 220
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Book Description
Based on 25 years of community development practice, six of which have been lived in South Africa, Peter Westoby’s ground-breaking monograph moves away from dominant normative accounts of community development to provide an appreciative and critical analysis of concrete examples of community development theory and practice. By examining community development stories as experienced on the ground, Westoby is able to show how the poor are organising themselves using various forms of community development as well as demonstrating how the state and non-state actors are attempting to organise, engage or accompany the poor through community development. The book also breaks new ground in theorising the practice of community development, drawing inductively from the stories analysed. The diversity of South African contexts and the proliferation of different kinds of community practice, make this a hugely difficult task. Despite this, Westoby argues it is one worth undertaking given the seriousness of the challenges facing the poor and progressive social change agents within South Africa. In this undertaking, Westoby draws upon a unique analytical framework to help illuminate current community development policy and programme challenges, along with practice dilemmas and wisdom.
Author: Almaz Zewde
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 0761849076
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 275
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Book Description
Sorting Africa's Development Puzzle: The Participatory Social Learning Theory as an Alternative Approach is a comprehensive exploration of why Africa has not managed to achieve a sustainable and self-regenerating development over the past half-century of effort. The work situates the problems of Africa's persistent underdevelopment in the practices employed by national political elites, donors, and lenders to African development that played roles in determinant policy and planning. Unlike many newly developed countries and regions, and contrary to the historical experiences of developed countries where ordinary people were full stakeholders and drivers of development, Africa's development has been top-down, expert and capital driven, mechanical, and typically externally designed. Ordinary Africans were made marginal to development. This approach to Africa's development was devoid of building the people and their institutions as the legitimate means of development. The entrusting of Africa's development to local and international elites to the exclusion of the people from decision-making and full participation, has led to grievous deficits in the formation of human and social capital, and legitimate economic, social, and political institutions for development. The book offers a studied alternative that can positively change Africa's development direction-The Participatory Social Learning Approach. The philosophical, theoretical, historical and heuristic origins of this alternative are offered in detail within this book. Book jacket.
Author: Ulf Himmelstrand
Publisher: James Currey Publishers
ISBN: 9780852552216
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 356
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Book Description
Theoretical perspectives on the crisis of development theories.
Author: Jean Comaroff
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317250621
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274
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Book Description
As nation-states in the Northern Hemisphere experience economic crisis, political corruption and racial tension, it seems as though they might be 'evolving' into the kind of societies normally associated with the 'Global South'. Anthropologists Jean and John Comaroff draw on their long experience of living in Africa to address a range of familiar themes - democracy, national borders, labour and capital and multiculturalism. They consider how we might understand these issues by using theory developed in the Global South. Challenging our ideas about 'developed' and 'developing' nations, Theory from the South provides new insights into key problems of our time.
Author: Siyabonga Lushaba
Publisher: African Books Collective
ISBN: 2869783930
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 80
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Book Description
This book analyses the impact of the Western idea of 'modernity' on development and underdevelopment in Africa. It traces the genealogy of the Western idea of modernity from European Enlightenment concepts of the universal nature of human history and development, and shows how this idea was used to justify the Western exploitation and oppression of Africa. It argues that contemporary development, theory and practice is a continuation of the Enlightenment project and that Africa can only achieve real development by rejecting Western modernity and inventing its own forms of modernity. The book is divided into four sections. The first section provides an outline of the theory of modernity in the Enlightenment project. In the second section, an attempt is made to trace the genealogy of the idea of development as modernity and how the African development process gets entangled with it. Here, its evolution is mapped through three periods: early modernity, capitalist modernity and late modernity. Zeroing in on the current era of late or hypermodernity, the book contests the idea that there is something new in globalisation and its neo-liberal development paradigm. The third section turns to the complex but pertinent question of how, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, Africa can transcend the impasse of modernity. The fourth and final section sums up the argument and points the way forward.
Author: Katie Willis
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 0415300525
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 254
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Book Description
Throughout the twentieth century, governments sought to achieve 'development' not only in their own countries, but also in other regions of the world; particularly in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. This focus on 'development' as a goal has continued into the twenty-first century, for example through the United Nations Millennium Development Targets. While development is often viewed as something very positive, it is also very important to consider the possible detrimental effects it may have on the natural environment, different social groups and on the cohesion and stability of societies. In this important book, Katie Willis investigates and places in a historical context, the development theories behind contemporary debates such as globalization and transnationalism. The main definitions of 'development' and 'development theory' are outlined with a description and explanation of how approaches have changed over time. The differing explanations of inequalities in development, both spatially and socially, and the reasoning behind different development policies are also considered. By drawing on pre-twentieth century European development theories and examining current policies in Europe and the USA, the book not only stresses commonalities in development theorizing over time and space, but also the importance of context in theory construction. This topical book provides an ideal introduction to development theories for students in geography, development studies, area studies, anthropology and sociology. It contains student-friendly features, including boxed case studies with examples, definitions, summary sections, suggestions for further reading, discussion questions and website information.
