Authors:Lynn Schler, Yonatan Nissim Gez Abstract: Communities that were once the target of postcolonial development schemes still contend with the legacies of these interventions, long after such projects have been abandoned. This article looks at the afterlife of Israeli-led agricultural cooperatives that were initiated in the Zambian Copperbelt during the 1960s. Although these schemes collapsed in the decade following their establishment, local communities are still coping with the history of their rise and fall. In the Kafubu Block and Kafulafuta, the physical, social, and economic landscapes resonate with the successes and failures of this modernist planning. The schemes continue to provide a fundamental and contentious point of reference in both individual and community lives. A long-term perspective on the communities’ continued engagement with the legacies of the abandoned schemes deepens our understanding of development’s complex “afterlife,” and demonstrates how the past retains its relevance by taking on different meanings over time. PubDate: 2019-01-31 Issue No:Vol. 53 (2019)
Authors:Enrico Ille Abstract: Violent conflicts in Sudan, especially those in Darfur in the early years of the new century, led state and non-state actors in the United States to exert heightened pressure on companies to divest from Sudan, or to prove that their activities in that country do not contribute to the conflicts. In this case study of La Mancha, a company involved in a gold mining joint venture in Sudan from 2006 to 2015, I examine whether and how it reacted publicly to this pressure. I trace how corporate social responsibility (CSR) for the continuation of harm-production was treated in its public statements, what conceptual gaps are perceptible in these statements, and how they were (re)produced in US-based activist circles. On this basis, I highlight the selective acknowledgement of responsibility which is based on assessments of harm-production by external actors excluding those directly affected by it. More generally, the case study relates to debates on CSR in Africa’s extractive industries, especially within the frame of complex business structures involving both state actors and foreign investors that make it difficult and nonetheless urgent to identify units of responsibility. I suggest that a communication disconnect during the process of identification can be adequately approached through a conceptualisation of this process as an “arena” of actors who relate to a common issue but not necessarily to each other. PubDate: 2019-01-31 Issue No:Vol. 53 (2019)
Authors:Ato Kwamena Onoma Abstract: Burial in cemeteries created by and on the orders of Cheikh Amadou Bamba, the founder of the Mouride Sufi order in Senegal, is said to guarantee passage to paradise. While many Mourides, understand¬ably, prefer to have their corpses transported for burial in these cemeter¬ies, others opt to be interred elsewhere. Focusing on the commune of Joal-Fadiouth in Senegal, I argue that the choices of Mourides concerning place of burial are influenced by histories of migration in the commune and the processes through which people develop ties to the area. In explaining Mourides’ divergent preferences, the paper sheds light on broader questions of identity and rootedness, evolving conceptions of “place of origin” – as well as illuminating interactions between the reli-gious and non-religious spheres in the lives of many Africans. I draw mainly on ethnographic research in the Thies and Diourbel Regions of Senegal. PubDate: 2019-01-31 Issue No:Vol. 53 (2019)
Authors:Victor Chidubem Iwuoha Abstract: Applications of Information and Communications Technology (ICT)-driven innovations are profound in the electoral cycle. Among them, biometric technology is currently sweeping across developing countries. It is, however, only poorly adopted among rural voters. Does the use of biometric technology in the conduct of elections reconstruct rural voters’ behaviour, amid prevailing social challenges' The links between these realities and their consequences are currently less understood, and lacking in supporting literature. I argue that the public perception of biometric technology, the availability of proper infrastructure, and the distance between polling stations and the dwellings of rural voters all affect the latter’s level of adoption of biometric technology. These interactions combine to produce specific modalities that shape voting behaviour and general political culture. I elicit primary data from voters in Nigeria’s remote villages, so as to predict the implications and consequences of glossing over the dimensions and magnitude of the biometric technology adaptation challenge by policymakers. I conclude by reflecting on how these interplays and interactions create “spatial differentials” in electoral outcomes/credibility, and proffer possible strategies for institutional intervention. PubDate: 2019-01-31 Issue No:Vol. 53 (2019)
Authors:Sören Scholvin Abstract: Regional integration via the Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) re-ceived a significant boost when the South African parliament signed the corresponding agreement in October 2018. This article uncovers the convictions and objectives that drive South Africa’s commitment to the TFTA. It reveals that South Africa sees the TFTA as a means of “de-velopmental regionalism,” which is expected to facilitate region-wide industrialisation based on value addition in regional value chains (RVCs). For this purpose, South Africa seeks to coordinate industrial policies within the TFTA and rehabilitate infrastructure jointly with the regional states. In addition to explaining the logic behind these goals, and analysing how far they have already been achieved, the article also highlights important challenges to South Africa’s vision for the TFTA. It calls the prospects of developmental regionalism into question, being particularly sceptical about the way in which RVCs are conceived. PubDate: 2019-01-31 Issue No:Vol. 53 (2019)
Authors:Natalie Tarr Abstract: Review of a monograph: Roth, Claudia (2012)†, Willemijn de Jong, Manfred Perlik, Noemi Steuer, and Heinzpeter Znoj (eds) (2018), Urban Dreams. Transformations of Family Life in Burkina Faso, New York, Oxford: Berghahn, ISBN 978-1-78533-376-7 (hardback), 208 pages PubDate: 2019-01-31 Issue No:Vol. 53 (2019)
Authors:Markus Virgil Höhne Abstract: Review of a monograph: Maruf, Harun, and Dan Joseph (2018), Inside Al-Shabaab. The Secret History of Al-Qaeda’s Most Powerful Ally , Bloomington: Indiana University Press, ISBN 978-0253037497 (paperback), xiii+323 pages PubDate: 2019-01-31 Issue No:Vol. 53 (2019)
Authors:Ismail Shina Alimi Abstract: Review of a monograph: Livsey, Tim (2017), Nigeria’s University Age: Reframing Decolonisation and Development, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 978-1-137-5650-1, viii+285 pages PubDate: 2019-01-31 Issue No:Vol. 53 (2019)
Authors:Hagan Sibiri Abstract: Review of a monograph: Langan, Mark Langan (2018), Neo-Colonialism and the Poverty of ‘Development’ in Africa, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 978-3-319-58570-3 (hardcover), ISBN 978-3-319-58571-0 (ebook), XV+253 pages PubDate: 2019-01-31 Issue No:Vol. 53 (2019)
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