Africa Today articles from March 2009

Africa Today archives from March 2009

Krobo queen mothers: gender, power, and contemporary female traditional authority in Ghana.(Report)
March 22, 2009... Introduction In southern Ghana, queen mothers play an important role in traditional politics. In the literature about matrilineal Akan chiefdoms in Ghana, especially with reference to the Asante, a distinction is made between "chiefs" or...

Sarkin, Jeremy, ed. 2008. Human Rights in African Prisons.(Book review)
March 22, 2009... Sarkin, Jeremy, ed. 2008. HUMAN RIGHTS IN AFRICAN PRISONS. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press (first published in South Africa by HSRC Press, Cape Town). 254 pp Jeremy Sarkin, editor of Human Rights in African Prisons, is a visiting...

Harrow, Kenneth W. 2007. Postcolonial African Cinema: From Political Engagement to Postmodernism.(Book review)
March 22, 2009... Harrow, Kenneth W. 2007. POSTCOLONIAL AFRICAN CINEMA: FROM POLITICAL ENGAGEMENT TO POSTMODERNISM. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 268 pp. In Postcolonial African Cinema, Michigan State University Professor Kenneth W. Harrow provides...

Lund, Christian. 2008. Local Politics and the Dynamics of Property in Africa.(Book review)
March 22, 2009... Lund, Christian. 2008. LOCAL PARTIES AND THE DYNAMICS OF PROPERTY IN AFRICA. New York: Cambridge University Press. 200 pp. Christian Lund's book, Local Parties and the Dynamics of Property in Africa, makes a significant contribution to the...

Collins, Robert O. 2008. A History of Modern Sudan.(Book review)
March 22, 2009... Collins, Robert O. 2008. A HISTORY OF MODERN SUDAN. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. xxii; 338 pp. A History of Modern Sudan is a 338-page book authored by Robert O. Collins, professor emeritus of history at University of...

Books received.
March 22, 2009... Aaron, Kiikpoye K. 2006. Can a Privatized State Privatize? Insights and Experiences from Nigeria's Privatization Programme. Port Harcourt, Nigeria: Kemuela Publications. Adebajo, Adekeye, and Abdul Raufu Mustapha, eds. 2008. Gullivers...

Candles in the wind: resisting repression in Liberia (1979-2003).(Report)
March 22, 2009... Introduction Liberian human-rights attorney Tiawan Gongloe had little idea that people in his country were paying attention to legal challenges to Charles Taylor's regime until April of 2002, when he was seized by police. A large crowd of...

Crimes against the future: Zambian teachers' alternative income generation and the undermining of education.(Report)
March 22, 2009... Introduction Gideon Mwiinga, (1) a veteran teacher and deputy headmaster of a well-established secondary school in Southern Province of Zambia, sat in his office, stacked from floor to ceiling with aging hardbacks, frayed exercise books, and...

Landmines and recovery in Sudan's Nuba mountains.
March 22, 2009... Introduction Traditionally, many of the Nuba people of the Kordofan region of Sudan have located their homes and village communities on the face of rugged mountains, collectively known as the Nuba Mountains. Their choice of this architectural...

Who is the true bearer? The visible and hidden private cost of senior secondary education and equity in Ghana.(Report)
March 22, 2009... Introduction The Government of Ghana initiated educational reform in October 2007. The areas of reform are widespread: on the one hand, the government announced that the period of free compulsory basic education will be extended from six to...

State failure and governance in vulnerable states: an assessment of forest law compliance and enforcement in Cameroon.(Report)
March 22, 2009... Introduction Literature on the collapse of state structures has been published only recently (McGillivray 2006). To understand better the spread of conflicts within some states in the 1990s, tapes on a search for peace led to the birth of...