Africa Today articles from September 2003

Africa Today archives from September 2003

Preface.
September 22, 2003... The essays in this issue were first presented at the conference "African Dialogues: Oral Heritage and Indigenous Knowledge" organized by the Indiana University African Studies Program from May 10-12, 2002, and supported with funds from the Ford...

The back without which there is no front.
September 22, 2003... Using as its point of reference the principle of "continuity" fundamental to Ewe conception of development and of life itself, this paper draws on the author's personal experience and testimony to establish an organic relationship between Ewe...

Philosophy and indigenous knowledge: an African perspective.
September 22, 2003... Rooted in the 1940s, the debate on African ethnophilosophy foreshadowed and preempted what was to become a global debate, whose tenets have now brought the natural and social sciences close together. Mediated by philosophers' skepticism toward...

Whispers and silences: explorations in African oral history.
September 22, 2003... Western-trained historians have long employed a variety of methodological and theoretical approaches when analyzing African oral narratives. In almost all cases, they have emphasized recording and analyzing texts produced for official or public...

Orality and life histories: rethinking the social and political history of Senegal.
September 22, 2003... Life histories and other oral sources are an essential element of African historiography and ought to be integrated into the history curriculum of African institutions. Seeking to reorient the teaching of African history, history professors at...

Cultures of development and indigenous knowledge: the erosion of traditional boundaries.
September 22, 2003... In this article, I contest the view that there is a strong dichotomy between development and indigenousness and/or authenticity. From years of participation in development-related meetings and interviews in Zimbabwe, I examine how meetings and...

Adar, Korwa Gombe, and Rok Ajulu, eds. 2002. Globalization and Emerging Trends in African States' Foreign Policymaking Process: a Comparative Perspective of Southern Africa.
September 22, 2003... Aldershot, England, and Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate. 357 pp. $79.95. This excellent collection is the product of labors largely at Rhodes University in South Africa, with participation by scholars elsewhere, in South Africa and beyond. It...

Allman, Jean, Susan Geiger, and Nakanyike Musisi, eds. 2002. Women in African Colonial Histories.
September 22, 2003... Bloomington: Indiana University Press. xi + 388 pp. $24.95. In thirteen articles, this book discusses African women's experiences in colonial contexts. The book is divided into three thematic parts. The first three articles deal with the...

Amanor, Kojo Sebastian. 2001. Land, Labour and the Family in Southern Ghana: a Critique of Land Policy Under Neo-liberalisation.
September 22, 2003... Research Report 116. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet. 127 pp. $18.95. The author's aim, as stated in the introduction, is to assess the impact of recent global economic changes and national policy shifts in Ghana starting in the early...

Benjaminsen, Tor A., and Christian Lund, eds. 2001. Politics, Property and Production in the West African Sahel: Understanding Natural Resources Management.
September 22, 2003... Uppsala, Sweden: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet. 335 pp. $34.95. This volume arose from Scandinavian researchers' recognition that among them a significant body of research had been undertaken in the Sahel over the last decade or so. The editors...

Booth, Alan R. 2000. Historical Dictionary of Swaziland.
September 22, 2003... 2nd edition. Lanham, Md., and London: Scarecrow Press. xxxi + 403 pp. $85.00 Historical dictionaries are curious animals: they provide snapshots of the people, events, and places that make up the core of historical evidence for a given...

De Gruchy, John. ed. 2000. The London Missionary Society in Southern Africa, 1799-1999: Historical Essays in Celebration of the Bicentenary of the LMS in Southern Africa.
September 22, 2003... Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press. ix, 229 pp. $24.95 To celebrate the London Missionary Society's bicentennial, its lineal descendant, the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa, requested a scholarly critical reflection on the...

Dongala, Emmanuel. 2001. Little Boys Come From the Stars.
September 22, 2003... Translated by Joel Rejouis and Val Vinokurov. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 248 pp. $22.00 From the author of Un fusil dans la main, un poeme dans la poche (Paris: Albin Michel, 1973) and Feux des origines (Paris: Albin Michel,...

Herbert, Eugenia. 2002. Twilight on the Zambezi: Late Colonialism in Central Africa.
September 22, 2003... New York: Palgrave. 196 pp. $45.00. This study gives a series of snapshots of the final moments of colonial rule in Western Zambia, taken from multiple vantage points. The views of policymakers in London, settlers pushing for a united...

Joireman, Sandra Fullerton. 2000. Property Rights and Political Development in Ethiopia and Eritrea.
September 22, 2003... Oxford and Athens, Ohio: James Currey and Ohio University Press. 172 pp. $21.95 Property rights are a well-established domain within Ethiopian studies (Berhanou, Crummey, Hoben, Mantel-Niecko), yet it appears from this well-documented and...

Klug, Heinz. 2000. Constituting Democracy: Law, Globalism and South Africa's Political Reconstruction.
September 22, 2003... Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 270 pp. $23.00 Since the early 1990s, significant political revolutions have ended oppressive regimes and brought forth democratic governments. A standard explanation for this transformation is that it...

Maranz, David. 2001. African Friends and Money Matters.
September 22, 2003... Dallas: SIL International. 224 pp. $19.00. This book is a result of many observations anthropologist David Maranz made while living and working among Africans, in different parts of the continent over many years, starting in 1975. According...

Newson, David D. 2001. The Imperial Mantle: the United States, Decolonization, and the Third World.
September 22, 2003... Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 241 pp. $35.00. The colonial revolt in Asia and Africa, having built up pressure in the years just after World War I, reached a flood tide after World War II. The Belgian, British, Dutch, and French...

O'Brien, Anthony. 2001. Against Normalization: Writing Radical Democracy in South Africa.
September 22, 2003... Durham and London: Duke University Press. 333 pp. $21.95. Anthony O'Brien's view of the postapartheid situation in South Africa is clear: "the acceptance of neoclassical orthodoxy by the African National Congress (ANC) in its macroeconomic...

Books received.
September 22, 2003... Brooks, George E. 2003. Eurafricans in Western Africa: Commerce, Social Status, Gender, and Religious Observance From the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century. Athens: Ohio University Press. Elder, Glen S. 2003. Hostels, Sexuality, and the...