Africa Today articles from March 2002

Africa Today archives from March 2002

Introduction to special issue: women, language, and law in Africa (1).
March 22, 2002... A powerful woman warrior, an exotic female dancer, a wealthy market trader, a farmer with a hoe, or an elusive signifier? A11 these images of African women have been the subject of scholarly works over the past several decades in an effort to...

The power of language in the discourse on women's rights: some examples from Tanzania.
March 22, 2002... The primary object of this paper is to contribute to the work of living-Jaw scholars by adding an element of language to their research agenda. It is argued that language as a means of social interaction constitutes a powerful medium for the...

Women's voices in Akan juridical discourse.
March 22, 2002... Close attention to juridical discourses from the queen mothers of Asante and Akyem-Asuom courts suggests that Akan customary juridical discourse is influenced by the sociopolitical and cultural contexts in which it takes place, as well as...

Market association leaders' strategic use of language and narrative in market disputes and negotiations in Kumasi, Ghana.
March 22, 2002... Contemporary market traders in Kumasi, Ghana, rely on the leaders of their market groups, which unite those who trade in a specific commodity, to settle daily disputes within the market and to negotiate with outside authorities during times of...

Women's worlds, siblings in dispute over inheritance: a view from Botswana.
March 22, 2002... The relationship between women, language, and law in the context of two inheritance disputes that took place in the village of Molepolole, in Botswana, southern Africa, (1) features siblings jockeying for control over their deceased parents'...

"Stealing our heritage?": women's folksongs, copyright law, and the public domain in Algeria.
March 22, 2002... World music inspired by folklore poses complex issues of authorship, remuneration, and belonging. In Algeria, discussions about the world music genre called new Kabyle song frequently question whether new singers have adequately represented a...

Allman, Jean, and Victoria Tashjian. 2000. "I Will Not Eat Stone": A Women's History of Colonial Asante.
March 22, 2002... Portsmouth: Heinemann. xviii+255 pp. (paper). Jean Allman and Victoria Tashjian have published an incisive disquisition on the gendered nature of Asante's colonial history. They argue that their study was shaped by the substantive richness...

Bigsten, Arne, and Steve Kayizzi-Mugerwa. 2001. Is Uganda an Emerging Economy?
March 22, 2002... Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet. 105 pp. This is one of six studies for the OECD/DAC project Emerging Africa, which seeks to identify the best practices in economic adjustment for replication by lower-achieving nations, so that African...

Desai, Gaurav. 2001. Subject to Colonialism: African Self-Fashioning and the Colonial Library.
March 22, 2002... Durham and London: Duke University Press. 197 pp. Gaurav Desai proposes to reevaluate the archive of Africanist discourse from a literary critic's perspective, in order to destabilize the divide between colonial and postcolonial, which...

McCaskie, T. C. 2000. Asante Identities: History and Modernity in an African village 1850-1950.
March 22, 2002... Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 277 pp. $49.95 (cloth); $22.95 (paper). As the precolonial capital of the Asante Kingdom and the economic trading center of modern Ghana, few cities in Africa evoke a greater sense of the changing...

Obi, Cyril I. 2001. The Changing Forms of Identity Politics in Nigeria Under Economic Adjustment: The Case of the Oil Minorities Movement of the Niger Delta.
March 22, 2002... Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet. Research Report No. 119. 125 pp. This work is one of the most recent of the Nordic Africa Institute's research report series which dates back to 1967. It offers a detailed descriptive account of the...

Rwomire, Apollo. 2001. African Women and Children: Crisis and Response.
March 22, 2002... Westport, Conn: Praeger Publishers. 267pp. $69.95 (cloth). During the past two decades, scholarship on the status of women in sub-Saharan Africa has flourished, particularly as a result of the work of feminist social scientists. Rwomire's...

Simatei, Tirop Peter. 2001. The Nation and the Politics of Nation Building in East Africa.
March 22, 2002... Bayreuth African Studies 55, Bayreuth, Germany: Eckhard Breitinger. 189 pp. Narrowly imagined national communities exclude from the collective imagination those with inconvenient historical roles, ideologies, ethnicities, or genders....

Trager, Lillian. 2001. Yoruba Hometowns: Community, Identity, and Development in Nigeria.
March 22, 2002... Boulder: Lynne Rienner. 299 pp. $23.50 (cloth). This book examines nongovernmental development efforts in selected Ijesha, Yoruba (southwest Nigeria) communities. By combining fieldwork with archival, life-history, and interview-research...

Wall, Irwin M. 2001. France, the United States, and the Algerian War.
March 22, 2002... Berkeley: University of California Press. 335 pp. Professor Irwin Wall has written a stimulating and useful study about an important crisis during the earlier stages of the Cold War. While other studies have been produced, none has had...

Wilson, Richard. 2001. The Politics of Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa: Legitimizing the Post-Apartheid State.
March 22, 2002... Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 271 pp. Richard Wilson's book on the politics of truth and reconciliation in South Africa is a refreshing addition to the literature on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in South Africa....

Books received.
March 22, 2002... Adar, Korwa Gombe, and Rok Ajulu, eds. 2002. Globalization and Emerging Trends in African States' Foreign Policy-Making Process: A Comparative Perspective of Southern Africa. Aldershot, England: Ashgate. Adebajo, Adekeye. 2002. Building...