Africa Today articles from March 2000

Africa Today archives from March 2000

Ghana's Mixed Structural Adjustment Results: Explaining the Poor Private Sector Response.
March 22, 2000... The most worrisome aspect of Ghana's fifteen years of market liberalization reforms is the failure of domestic private business to respond enthusiastically with increased investment. Have domestic private entrepreneurs failed to respond because...

Imagining Architecture: The Structure of Nationalism in Accra, Ghana.
March 22, 2000... The architecture of the capital city of Ghana in the independence era suggests an identification between architecture and a consciously managed national ideal. This article examines the history of architecture and spatial organization in Accra,...

Structural Adjustment and Emerging Urban Form in Accra, Ghana.
March 22, 2000... Researchers have postulated the emergence of new urban forms in the Third World (TW), which are characterized by either a deconcentration of urban functions to peri-urban or smaller cities (polycentric), or a fusion of urban and rural functions...

The Reunification Question in Cameroon History: Was the Bride an Enthusiastic or a Reluctant One?
March 22, 2000... Reunification discourse has generated controversy in Cameroon since the 1990s and hinges on the issue of the degree of commitment of Anglophone and Francophone Cameroonians to its realization. This essay provides a chronological, comprehensive,...

Interpreting Language and Cultural Discourse: Internet Communication among Burundians in the Diaspora.
March 22, 2000... This study contributes to current research on computer-mediated communication (CMC), with a particular focus on Burundinet, an internet communication network that is comprised of Burundians in the diaspora and interested non-Burundians....

"Happy Days are Here Again": Cocoa Farmers, Middlemen Traders and the Structural Adjustment Program in Southwestern Nigeria, 1986-1990s.
March 22, 2000... This article examines the impact of the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) that was installed by the military regime of Ibrahim Babangida in 1986 on the cocoa economy of southwestern Nigeria. The structural adjustment program resulted in the...

COMPREHENDING AND MASTERING AFRICAN CONFLICTS: THE SEARCH FOR SUSTAINABLE PEACE AND GOOD GOVERNANCE.
March 22, 2000... Adedeji, Adebayo, ed. 1999. COMPREHENDING AND MASTERING AFRICAN CONFLICTS: THE SEARCH FOR SUSTAINABLE PEACE AND GOOD GOVERNANCE. London and New York: Zed Books. 377 pp. Nothing could be more appropriate at this time than a book on...

WEST AFRICANS IN BRITAIN 1900-1960: NATIONALISM, PAN-AFRICANISM AND COMMUNISM.
March 22, 2000... Adi, Hakim. 1998. WEST AFRICANS IN BRITAIN 1900-1960: NATIONALISM, PAN-AFRICANISM AND COMMUNISM. London: Lawrence and Wishart. 224 pp. This book examines the activities of West Africans, especially students, from the former British West...

THE MEDIA OF CONFLICT: WAR REPORTING AND REPRESENTATIONS OF ETHNIC VIOLENCE.
March 22, 2000... Allen, Tim and Jean Seaton, eds. 1999. THE MEDIA OF CONFLICT: WAR REPORTING AND REPRESENTATIONS OF ETHNIC VIOLENCE. London and New York: Zed Books. 312 pp. For some time now, Africa's image in Western news media has come under a good deal...

SUDAN IN CRISIS.
March 22, 2000... Anderson, G. Norman. 1999. SUDAN IN CRISIS. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. 277 pp. Scholars who write books about contemporary issues most often labor under the handicap of not having access to the first hand, vivid information...

GREAT IDEAS FOR TEACHING ABOUT AFRICA.
March 22, 2000... Bastian, Misty L. and Jane L. Parpart. 1999. GREAT IDEAS FOR TEACHING ABOUT AFRICA. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers. 243 pp. Great Ideas for Teaching about Africa is one of several books (see references) which have appeared in the last...

DEMOCRACY AND DECENTRALISATION IN SOUTH ASIA AND WEST AFRICA: PARTICIPATION, ACCOUNTABILITY AND PERFORMANCE.
March 22, 2000... Crook, Richard C., and James Manor. 1998. DEMOCRACY AND DECENTRALISATION IN SOUTH ASIA AND WEST AFRICA: PARTICIPATION, ACCOUNTABILITY AND PERFORMANCE. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. 335 pp. An impressive amount of work has...

CONTESTING APARTHEID: U.S. ACTIVISM, 1960-1987.
March 22, 2000... Culverson, Donald R. 1999. CONTESTING APARTHEID: U.S. ACTIVISM, 1960-1987. Boulder: Westview Press. 177 pp. Culverson's Contesting Apartheid joins a growing literature on the antiapartheid movement and its influence on US policy toward...

PSYCHOSES OF POWER: AFRICAN PERSONAL DICTATORSHIPS.
March 22, 2000... Decalo, Samuel. 1998. PSYCHOSES OF POWER: AFRICAN PERSONAL DICTATORSHIPS. 2d ed. Gainesville: Florida Academic Press. 320 pp. In the era when structural analyses based on dependency approaches to African politics were in vogue, Samuel...

CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS IN AFRICA.
March 22, 2000... Decalo, Samuel. 1998. CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS IN AFRICA. Gainesville: Florida Academic Press. 206 pp. In the era when structural analyses based on dependency approaches to African politics were in vogue, Samuel Decalo forcefully advocated...

NIGERIAN THEATRE IN ENGLISH: A CRITICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY. Vol. 5, BIBLIOGRAPHIC RESEARCH IN AFRICAN LITERATURES.
March 22, 2000... Dunton, Chris. 1988. NIGERIAN THEATRE IN ENGLISH: A CRITICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY. Vol. 5, BIBLIOGRAPHIC RESEARCH IN AFRICAN LITERATURES. London: Hans Zell. 366 pp. The reading of plays for general entertainment has declined in our society,...

SOUTH AFRICA'S DESTABILIZATION OF ZIMBABWE, 1980-1989.
March 22, 2000... Dzimba, John. 1988. SOUTH AFRICA'S DESTABILIZATION OF ZIMBABWE, 1980-1989. New York: St. Martin's Press. 225 pp. In 1987, I was browsing in a used paperback store in Durban, South Africa. The lady who waited on me was in her middle 60s and...

MAKING A LIVING IN RURAL SUDAN: PRODUCTION OF WOMEN, LABOUR MIGRATION OF MEN, AND POLICIES FOR PEASANTS' NEEDS.
March 22, 2000... Grawert, Elke. 1998. MAKING A LIVING IN RURAL SUDAN: PRODUCTION OF WOMEN, LABOUR MIGRATION OF MEN, AND POLICIES FOR PEASANTS' NEEDS. New York: St. Martin's Press. 239 pp. Elke Grawert's discussion of livelihood strategies appears at a time...

HOMETOWN ASSOCIATIONS: INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE AND DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA.
March 22, 2000... Honey, Rex, and Stanley I. Okafor, eds. 1998. HOMETOWN ASSOCIATIONS: INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE AND DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA. London: Intermediate Technology Publications. 168 pp. This book is an important addition to understanding the historical...

HISTORICAL DICTIONARY OF ERITREA.
March 22, 2000... Killion, Tom. 1998. HISTORICAL DICTIONARY OF ERITREA. Lanham, Md. and London: The Scarecrow Press, 534 pp. Tom Killion has produced a very useful guide for those seeking to understand the history of Africa's newest nation. The Historical...

AFRICA SINCE INDEPENDENCE.
March 22, 2000... Legum, Colin. 1999. AFRICA SINCE INDEPENDENCE. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 105 pp. This basic, well-informed, and elegantly concise book (less than 100 pages of text) sums up several decades of acute observation. Legum is widely...

AFRICA: DILEMMAS OF DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE.
March 22, 2000... Lewis, Peter. 1998. AFRICA: DILEMMAS OF DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE. Boulder: Westview Press. 456 pp. Peter Lewis presents a collection of classic essays on African economic and political development, along with works on emerging issues on the...

REGIONAL INTEGRATION AND TRADE LIBERALIZATION IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA.
March 22, 2000... Oyejide, Ademola, Ibrahim Elbadawi, and Stephen Yeo, eds. 1999. REGIONAL INTEGRATION AND TRADE LIBERALIZATION IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA. Vol. 3, REGIONAL CASE STUDIES. London: MacMillan; New York: St Martin's. 323 pp. These two volumes are the...

IN THE SHADOW OF SHARPEVILLE: APARTHEID AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE.
March 22, 2000... Parker, Peter and Joyce Mokhesi-Parker. 1998. IN THE SHADOW OF SHARPEVILLE: APARTHEID AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE. New York: New York University Press. 381 pp. The name of Sharpeville is deeply ingrained in the collective memory of those who...

KING KHAMA, EMPEROR JOE AND THE GREAT WHITE QUEEN: VICTORIAN BRITAIN THROUGH AFRICAN EYES.
March 22, 2000... Parson, Neil. 1998. KING KHAMA, EMPEROR JOE AND THE GREAT WHITE QUEEN: VICTORIAN BRITAIN THROUGH AFRICAN EYES. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 322 pp. Neil Parson's work King Khama, Emperor Joe, and the Great White Queen describes...

ACROSS BOUNDARIES: THE JOURNEY OF A SOUTH AFRICAN WOMAN LEADER.
March 22, 2000... Ramphele, Mamphele. 1999. ACROSS BOUNDARIES: THE JOURNEY OF A SOUTH AFRICAN WOMAN LEADER. New York: Feminist Press. 272 pp. The autobiography of Mamphela Ramphele portrays the remarkable experience of a black South African woman's early...

RESTRUCTURING OR DE-INDUSTRIALIZING?: ZIMBABWE'S TEXTILE AND METAL INDUSTRIES UNDER STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT.
March 22, 2000... Sachikonye, Lloyd M. RESTRUCTURING OR DE-INDUSTRIALIZING?: ZIMBABWE'S TEXTILE AND METAL INDUSTRIES UNDER STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT. Research Report No. 110. Uppsala, Sweden: Nordiska Afrikaninstitutet. 107 pp. These engaging research reports...

VOTING WITH THEIR FEET: MIGRANT ZIMBABWEAN NURSES AND DOCTORS IN THE ERA OF STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT.
March 22, 2000... Gaidzanwa, Rudo. VOTING WITH THEIR FEET: MIGRANT ZIMBABWEAN NURSES AND DOCTORS IN THE ERA OF STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT. Research Report No. 111. Uppsala, Sweden: Nordiska Afrikaninstitutet. 84 pp. These engaging research reports were...

THE HYENA PEOPLE: ETHIOPIAN JEWS IN CHRISTIAN ETHIOPIA.
March 22, 2000... Salamon, Hagar. 1999. THE HYENA PEOPLE: ETHIOPIAN JEWS IN CHRISTIAN ETHIOPIA. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 157 pp. This is a first-rate book. It makes an important contribution to Falasha studies and, beyond...

STORY.
March 22, 2000... Scheub, Harold. 1998. STORY. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press. 351 pp. "The trickster character," says Scheub, "is the personification of the story-telling process... not easily defined, not readily categorized, forever untamed,...

ELECTIONS AND CONFLICT MANAGEMENT IN AFRICA.
March 22, 2000... Sisk, Timothy D. and Andrew Reynolds, eds. 1998. ELECTIONS AND CONFLICT MANAGEMENT IN AFRICA. Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press. 224 pp. Sisk and Reynolds have assembled a number of thought-provoking articles that...

WHEN HENS BEGIN TO CROW: GENDER AND PARLIAMENTARY POLITICS IN UGANDA.
March 22, 2000... Tamale, Sylvia. 1999. WHEN HENS BEGIN TO CROW: GENDER AND PARLIAMENTARY POLITICS IN UGANDA. Boulder: Westview. 248 pp. Finally, a book that takes gender in parliamentary politics seriously. Sylvia Tamale's When Hens Begin to Crow moves...

THE KONGOLESE SAINT ANTHONY: DONA BEATRIZ KIMPA VITA AND THE ANTONIAN MOVEMENT, 1684-1706.
March 22, 2000... Thornton, John K. 1998. THE KONGOLESE SAINT ANTHONY: DONA BEATRIZ KIMPA VITA AND THE ANTONIAN MOVEMENT, 16841706. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 228 pp. John Thornton's objective in writing this book was to render a well-documented...

ETHNICITY AND NATIONALISM IN AFRICA: CONSTRUCTIVIST REFLECTIONS AND CONTEMPORARY POLITICS.
March 22, 2000... Yeros, Paris, ed. 1999. ETHNICITY AND NATIONALISM IN AFRICA: CONSTRUCTIVIST REFLECTIONS AND CONTEMPORARY POLITICS. New York: St. Martin's Press. 144 pp. Perhaps no subject has involved the interaction between scholarly and popular models...

BOOKS RECEIVED.
March 22, 2000... Alao, Abiodun, John Mackinlay, and `Funmi Olonisakin. 1999. Peacekeepers, Politicians, and Warlords: The Liberian Peace Process. New York: United Nations University. Amadiume, lfi. 2000. Daughters of the Goddess, Daughters of Imperialism:...