African Studies Quarterly articles from September 2008

African Studies Quarterly archives from September 2008

Political Liberation and Decolonization in Africa: Lessons from Country Experiences.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Political Liberation and Decolonization in Africa: Lessons from Country Experiences. Julius Omozuanvbo Ihonvbere and John Mukum Mbaku. Westport CT: Praeger, 2003. 373 pp. African scholars who have first hand experience of political...

The challenge of globalization, labor market restructuring and union democracy in Ghana.(Report)
September 22, 2008... Introduction Studies on trade unions, especially those of the political economy approach, reiterate the importance of trade unions in arresting the excesses of globalization, such as the threat to the environment and increasing global...

Stakeholder participatory processes and dialogue platforms in the Mazowe river catchment, Zimbabwe.(Report)
September 22, 2008... Introduction At the global level, issues of water scarcity and shifting natural resources management paradigms have helped to push water onto the priority list of international development agencies. In response to increasing water demand...

Medicine and anthropology in twentieth century Africa: Akan medicine and encounters with (medical) anthropology.(Report)
September 22, 2008... Introduction In twentieth century southern and eastern Africa, "traditional" medicine was the dominant healing system and often regarded as the more appropriate mode of treatment by specialists and recipients. [1] Stretching from Ethiopia,...

Who ruled by the spear? Rethinking the form of governance in the Ndebele state.(Report)
September 22, 2008... INTRODUCTION One of the earliest attempts to understand the ontology of African political systems and the forms of African governance is the collaborative anthropological work of M. Fortes and E. E. Evans-Pritchard. In this work, sweeping...

Colonialism within colonialism: the Hausa-Caliphate imaginary and the British colonial administration of the Nigerian Middle Belt.(Report)
September 22, 2008... Introduction This paper explores three interrelated issues; the origins and development of a Hausa-Caliphate imaginary in the intertwinements of caliphate and British discourses and its subtle entry into official British colonial policy in...

The 5th Francophonie Sports and Arts Festival: Niamey, Niger hosts a global community.(Report)
September 22, 2008... THE FRANCOPHONIE COMMUNITY SEEKS SOLIDARITY THROUGH THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGES OF SPORTS AND ARTS This paper explores transnational and local cultural, political, and economic dimensions of the 5th Jeux de la Francophonie ("Francophonie...

Beyond Words: Discourse and Critical Agency in Africa.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Beyond Words: Discourse and Critical Agency in Africa. Andrew Apter. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. 169 pp. When in 1976, Wole Soyinka presented us with Myth, Literature and the African World, and in 1986, Ngugi wa Thiong'o...

Brown Water of Africa: Portuguese Riverine Warfare 1961-1974.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Brown Water of Africa: Portuguese Riverine Warfare 1961-1974. John P. Cann. St. Petersburg, FL: Hailer Publishing, 2007. 248 pp. Brown Waters of Africa is the second volume in John P. Cann's planned trilogy of works that examine the...

Women's Organizations and Democracy in South Africa: Contesting Authority.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Women's Organizations and Democracy in South Africa: Contesting Authority. Shareen Hassim. University of Wisconsin Press, 2006. 355 pp. Shireen Hassim analyzes women's political participation in South Africa during a dramatic period of...

w.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... One Hundred Days of Silence: America and the Rwanda Genocide. Jared A. Cohen. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2006. 232 pp. During its colonial rule of ethnically diverse Rwanda, Belgium supported the minority governing Tutsi, which...

Masquerades of Modernity: Power and Secrecy in Casamance, Senegal.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Masquerades of Modernity: Power and Secrecy in Casamance, Senegal. Ferdinand De Jong. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 2005. 216 pp. It is always a pleasure to find insightful Anglophone treatises on the Casamance region of...

Makishi: Mask Characters of Zambia.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Makishi: Mask Characters of Zambia. Manuel Jordan. Los Angeles: Fowler Museum at UCLA, 2006. 84 pp. From the art historical perspective of traditional African art, the distinction between the systems of thought and the supporting visual...

Internet and the Construction of the Immigrant Public Sphere: The Case of the Cameroonian Diaspora.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Internet and the Construction of the Immigrant Public Sphere: The Case of the Cameroonian Diaspora. Kehbuma Langmia. University Press of America, Inc., 2007. 100 pp. Langmia's book is a contribution to the rapidly emerging literature on...

Intimate Enemy: Images and Voices of the Rwandan Genocide.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Intimate Enemy: Images and Voices of the Rwandan Genocide. Scott Straus and Robert Lyons. Brooklyn, NY: Zone Books, 2006. 192 pp. The genocide in Rwanda was unparalleled in its transparency, expediency and brutal intimacy. Neighbors...

The African Manufacturing Firm: An Analysis based on Firm Surveys in Seven Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... The African Manufacturing Firm: An Analysis based on Firm Surveys in Seven Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Dipak Mazumdar and Ata Mazaheri. New York: Routledge, 2003. 451 pp. Spanned over thirteen key chapters, besides two introductory and...

Schooling and Difference in Africa: Democratic Challenges in a Contemporary Context.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Schooling and Difference in Africa: Democratic Challenges in a Contemporary Context. George Sefa Dei, Alireza Asgharzadeh, Sharon Bahador and Riyad Shahjahan. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 2006. 331 pp. Five decades after...

Law and Disorder in the Postcolony.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Law and Disorder in the Postcolony. Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. 357 pp. The collection of essays being reviewed consists of seven case studies of local patterns of violence drawn from...

Performance and Politics in Tanzania: The Nation on Stage.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Performance and Politics in Tanzania: The Nation on Stage. Laura Edmondson. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2007. 175 pp. This fascinating book adds to an ever-growing literature on contemporary identity in Tanzania, tracing the...

Vanguard or Vandals: Youth, Politics and Conflict in Africa.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Vanguard or Vandals: Youth, Politics and Conflict in Africa. Jon Abbink and Ineke van Kessel. Leiden, Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill, 2005. 300 pp. This diverse collection contributed by NGO activists and academics revolve around the very...

Transforming Museums: Mounting Queen Victoria in a Democratic South Africa.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Transforming Museums: Mounting Queen Victoria in a Democratic South Africa.Dubin, Steven C. . New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. 339 pp. A very rich book that tells so much more than what its title announces, Transforming Museums: Mounting...

The Oral and Beyond: Doing Things with Words in Africa.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... The Oral and Beyond. Doing Things with Words in Africa. Ruth Finnegan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. 320 pp. Ruth Finnegan's body of work in the field of African oral literature is foundational, and this book stands as another...

African Art and the Colonial Encounter: Inventing a Global Commodity.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... African Art and the Colonial Encounter: Inventing a Global Commodity Sidney Littlefield Kasfir. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2007. 381 pp. This study is a complex comparative history of how colonialism affected warriorhood and...

Colonial Madness: Psychiatry in French North Africa.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Colonial Madness: Psychiatry in French North Africa. Richard C. Keller. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. 294 pp. In July 2008, the French President Nicolas Sarkozy implemented the next stage in his pet project to build a...

Yoruba Bata Goes Global: Artists, Culture Brokers, and Fans.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Yoruba Bata Goes Global: Artists, Culture Brokers, and Fans. Debra L. Klein. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2007. 220 pp. the 1980s, Yorubaland (Southwestern Nigeria), like most African societies, continue to experience a mixture...

The Pan-African Nation: Oil and the Spectacle of Culture in Nigeria.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... The Pan-African Nation: Oil and the Spectacle of Culture in Nigeria. Andrew Apter. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2005. 334 pp. FESTAC 1977 and indeed, the entire gamut of Pan-Africanism or Negritude stem from the experience of...

Africa: A Guide to Reference Material (2nd edition).(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Africa: A Guide to Reference Material (2nd edition). John McIlwaine. Lochcarron, Scotland: Hans Zell Publishing, 2007. Is reviewing a print-only research guide in an online-only journal anachronistic? It shouldn't be. As an Africanist...

Domesticating the World: African Consumerism and the Genealogies of Consumerism.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Domesticating the World: African Consumerism and the Genealogies of Consumerism. Jeremy Prestholdt. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. 272 pp. This elegant investigation of consumption in Zanzibar in the nineteenth century...

An Economic History of South Africa: Conquest, Discrimination and Development.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... An Economic History of South Africa: Conquest, Discrimination and Development. Charles Feinstein. London: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 326 pp. This book seeks to "... provide a broad overview of the character, transformation, initial...

States of Violence: Politics, Youth, and Memory in Contemporary Africa.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... States of Violence: Politics, Youth, and Memory in Contemporary Africa. Edna G. Ray and Donald L. Donham, eds. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press. 268 pp. Watching a documentary on the siege of Leningrad, a friend (of...

Xhosa Beer Drinking Rituals: Power, Practice and Performance in the South African Rural Periphery.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Xhosa Beer Drinking Rituals: Power, Practice and Performance in the South African Rural Periphery. Patrick A. McAllister. Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press, 2006. 355 pp. Patrick McAllister's latest book draws on over twenty years of...

Dreams of Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Dreams of Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America. Sylviane A. Diouf. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. 340 pp. In July 1860, the schooner Clotilda carried to Mobile, Alabama,...

Slavery and the Birth of an African City: Lagos, 1760-1900.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Slavery and the Birth of an African City: Lagos, 1760-1900. Kristin Mann. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2007. 473 pp. Professor Mann is a well known scholar across the Atlantic. Her lat-est volume about Lagos (Nigeria) is no...

The Silence of Great Zimbabwe: Contested Landscapes and the Power of Heritage.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... The Silence of Great Zimbabwe: Contested Landscapes and the Power of Heritage. Joost Fontein. New York, NY: UCL Press, 2006. 246 pp. In The Silence of Great Zimbabwe Joost Fontein fashions a learned narrative about contested heritage....