African Studies Quarterly articles from September 2003

African Studies Quarterly archives from September 2003

The Post-Apartheid Constitutions: Perspectives on South Africa's Basic Law.(Book Review)
September 22, 2003... The Post-Apartheid Constitutions: Perspectives on South Africa's Basic Law. Penelope Andrews and Stephen Ellmann (eds.). Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 2001. 606 pp. Few constitutions in the world have generated as much...

The dualities of contemporary Zimbabwean politics: constitutionalism versus the law of power and the land, 1999-2002.
September 22, 2003... ABSTRACT: This paper explores the dualities in the coexistence within Zimbabwean politics of constitutionalism and legality versus a complex combination of paralegal, supralegal, oppressive and brutal political action, especially as this...

Protestant Churches and the Formation of Political Consciousness in Southern Mozambique (1930-1974).(Book Review)
September 22, 2003... Protestant Churches and the Formation of Political Consciousness in Southern Mozambique (1930-1974). Teresa Cruz E Silva. Basel, Switzerland: P. Schlettwein Publishing, 2001. Pp. 210. This study presents an analysis of the role of the Swiss...

Why Peacekeeping Fails.(Book Review)
September 22, 2003... Why Peacekeeping Fails. Dennis C. Jett. New Rork: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000. 240 pp. Former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt once described the United Nations as "the sandbox for the Third World." This humorous image expresses the...

Eyes wide shut: Africanists and the moral problematics of postcolonial societies.(AT ISSUE)
September 22, 2003... I welcome the message of Gavin Kitching's article 'Why I Gave Up African Studies', because I think some of it is substantially true and important, despite the protests of some scholars, generally unsaid in either formal or informal writing by...

Industry and the urban sector in Zimbabwe's political economy.
September 22, 2003... Abstract: The land question and Zimbabwe's current crisis of governance appear to be intimately related. However, an extensive survey of the population in the mid-1990s ranked land access very low on the list of priorities when compared to...

The Bang Bang Club: Snapshots From a Hidden War.(Book Review)
September 22, 2003... The Bang Bang Club: Snapshots From a Hidden War. Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva. (Foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu). New York: Basic Books, 2000. 253 pp. South Africa was, for all intents and purposes, a war zone in the period from 1990...

The London Missionary Society in Southern Africa, 1799-1999: Historical Essays in Celebration of the Bicentenary of the LMS in Southern Africa.(Book Review)
September 22, 2003... The London Missionary Society in Southern Africa, 1799-1999: Historical Essays in Celebration of the Bicentenary of the LMS in Southern Africa. John de Gruchy, ed. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2000. 229 pp. As the title suggested,...

The experience of resettled farmers in Zimbabwe.
September 22, 2003... Abstract: This study assesses the relative productivity of smallholder farmers in zimbabwe's land reform and resettlement programme. We use a panel of survey data collected in 1992, 1993, 1996, and 1997 from up to 400 resettled households, who...

Editor's note.(Editorial)
September 22, 2003... The articles featured in this special issue were originally presented as part of the annual Gwendolen M. Carter Lectures on Africa held at the University of Florida on March 21-24, 2002. The Carter Lectures on Africa were established in 1986 to...

Africanists and responsibility: some reflections.(AT ISSUE)
September 22, 2003... INTRODUCTION Afro-pessimism is a widespread sentiment in the corporate media and in universities in the West. Even among those who research and teach African Studies, feelings of doubt about the value of our work and lack of confidence in...

Understanding African Philosophy: A Cross Cultural Approach to Classical and Contemporary Issues.(Book Review)
September 22, 2003... Understanding African Philosophy: A Cross Cultural Approach to Classical and Contemporary Issues. Richard Bell. New York: Routledge, 2002. 189 pp. Understanding African Philosophy reflects on the pain and pleasure of understanding an...

Media and Resistance Politics in Namibia: The Alternative Press in Namibia, 1960-1990.(Book Review)
September 22, 2003... Media and Resistance Politics in Namibia: The Alternative Press in Namibia, 1960-1990. Heuva, William. Basel, Switzerland: Schlettwein Publishing, 2001. 166 pp. William Heuva's 2001 publication is part of The Basel Namibia Studies Series...

Jagged fragments: imperialism, racism, hurt, and honesty.(AT ISSUE)
September 22, 2003... I make no attempt in this 'reply' to write a smoothly integrated disquisition of any kind. I found that in reading all the responses to my original piece--not only the formal responses to it commissioned by the ASQ, but the many emails and...

Workers, War and the Origins of Apartheid: Labour and Politics in South Africa, 1939-48.(Book Review)
September 22, 2003... Workers, War and the Origins of Apartheid: Labour and Politics in South Africa, 1939-48. Peter Alexander. Ohio University Press, 2000. 214 pp. In his book, Workers, War and the Origins of Apartheid, Peter Alexander illustrates the...

War veterans: continuities between the past and the present.(armed forces political relationship)
September 22, 2003... Abstract: This article makes the case for strong parallels in the collaborative relationship between veterans and the party in the first seven years of independence and in the extended election campaign period from February 2000 to the...

Opposition politics in independent Zimbabwe.
September 22, 2003... Abstract: Zimbabwe has implemented a multi-party system on a universal franchise for more than two decades. This era has witnessed consolidation of power into the hands of the ruling ZANU party and its leader Robert Mugabe, and a gradual...

Academic melancholy, romantic cynicism and the road not taken.(African Literature)
September 22, 2003... Depression, Gavin Kitching writes, made him abandon African Studies for more fruitful terrains. Afro-pessimism and other forms of depression related to on-going African crises beset many academics in the field, for they, like Kitching, wonder...

Zimbabwe's triple crisis: primitive accumulation, nation-state formation and democratization in the age of neo-liberal globalization.
September 22, 2003... Abstract: This paper utilizes classical and 'modernization' theoretical perspectives on primitive accumulation, nation-state formation and democratization to analyze the 'conjunctural' aspects of the current Zimbabwean crisis. Taking a...

Press and politics in Zimbabwe.
September 22, 2003... Abstract: This paper provides a historical background to the development of the press in Zimbabwe and identifies the political, social and economic interventions that have shaped the editorial policies and directions of the press. The...

Money Struggles and City Life: Devaluation in Ibadan and Other Urban Centers in Southern Nigeria, 1986-1996.(Book Review)
September 22, 2003... Money Struggles and City Life: Devaluation in Ibadan and Other Urban Centers in Southern Nigeria, 1986-1996. Jane Guyer, LaRay Denzer and Adigun Agbaje (eds.). Portsmouth NH: Heineman, 2002. 269 pp. In the past decade, popular life in...

Crisis in the state and the family: violence against women in Zimbabwe [1].(economic and political conditions)
September 22, 2003... ABSTRACT: Since the early 1990's, Zimbabwe has been enmeshed in a major economic crisis that has seriously eroded the status of women in that country. For the past three years, the economic crisis has been joined by a political crisis which...

Beyond blame?(social and political conditions of Africa)
September 22, 2003... The rhetoric Africanist scholars bring to bear on their work is insupportable. There may be little or no good news on this vast continent, but it is hard to see where else there is good news today. Is scholarship about bringing good tidings?...

The Root Causes of Sudan's Civil Wars.(Book Review)
September 22, 2003... The Root Causes of Sudan's Civil Wars. Douglas Johnson, Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press 2003. 234 pp. Drawing on his own research as one of the foremost historians on the Sudan, as well as first-hand experience working in the...

Colonial and post-colonial Latin America.(AT ISSUE)
September 22, 2003... A decade ago, the historian Forencia Mallon connected the relatively new field of subaltern studies to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Until then, scholars working on Latin America had stressed class in their Marxist methodological approaches...

Narratives on land: state-peasant relations over fast track land reform in Zimbabwe.
September 22, 2003... ABSTRACT: In the last few years, slogans have become more elaborate and fervent with regards to promises of delivering land to peasants in Zimbabwean communal areas. Conditions in communal areas suggest that peasants should be highly receptive...

The African Stakes of the Congo War.(Book Review)
September 22, 2003... The African Stakes of the Congo War. John F. Clark (Ed.), New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. 249 pp. 'The African Stakes of the Congo War' is an edited volume based on papers presented at a conference on 'Conflict and Peace-Making in the...

Africa Since 1935 (General History of Africa. Volume 8).(Book Review)
September 22, 2003... Africa Since 1935 (General History of Africa. Volume 8). Ali. A. Mazrui ed. California: University of California Press 1999. 1072 pp. Persons familiar with UNESCO's History of Africa series would welcome this final volume, which deals with...

Globalizing land and food in Zimbabwe: implications for Southern Africa.(agricultural and economic reform)
September 22, 2003... Abstract: For political and economic crises as severe as Zimbabwe, domestic causes are central, but the conflict in Zimbabwe is not simply internal; it is regional and international and in that sense, it is a post (political) apartheid...

Why I love African studies.(African political and social conditions)
September 22, 2003... There is much to be frustrated, heartbroken, and angry about in recent African history. The fact that scholars have sometimes been complicit by legitimizing abusive and corrupt elites on the continent is an undeniable part of this history that...