Books in the Africa in Development series

This book aims to understand how the nineteenth century African agent of mission appropriated change without losing cultural integrity, using the example of Samuel Johnson, 1846-1901. Drawing on multiple contexts, the book shows him as embodying the opportunities and the ambivalence of the time in the people's war-weary century of change.

Examines some of the key critical areas on which African countries need to focus their attention: poverty eradication; combating corruption; peace, security and development; democracy and constitutionalism; good governance; social justice; globalization and empowerment.

Focuses on how development-oriented non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and microfinance institutions (MFIs) are suited to the dual development process of improving the wellbeing and empowerment of the poor and other marginalized people (especially women) in Africa and other developing countries, focusing on Uganda.

It is no longer a matter of debate to state that the practice of 'democracy' in different African nations is almost always experienced through violence or something near to it. The principal question addressed by this work is, 'Why are many African countries finding it difficult to practise democracy without tears Though this unique work recognises a number of factors as contributing to the pitiable democratic experience of many African states, the liberal party model of democracy is identified as a major political obstacle which not only impedes democratisation, but also fails to address significant national questions in plural societies. Instead of acting as an attenuating force, the liberal party system tends to intensify the negative roles of other dependent socio-political variables in instituting and consolidating democracy in multi-ethnic societies. In light of this, this work recommends a cooperative, instead of a competitive method of government formation - a 'Cooperative Collegial Democracy' - for African societies and any multi-ethnic society. This is a party-less, peaceful and overtly fair political system which is imbued with the qualities needed to resolve national questions and which constrains the incompetent and corrupt from emerging as political leaders, thus ensuring competent leadership and establishing functional and non-destabilising democracies in African or other multi-ethnic states.

The Griqua people are commonly misunderstood. Today, they do not figure in the South African imagination as other peoples do, nor have they for over a century. This book argues that their comparative invisibility is a result of their place in the national narrative. In this revisionist analysis of South African historiography, the author analyses over a century's worth of historical studies and identifies a number of narrative frameworks that have proven resilient to change over this time. The Griqua, in particular, have fared poorly compared to other peoples. They appear in, and disappear from, this body of work in a number of consistent ways, almost as though scholars have avoided re-imagining their history in ways relevant to the present. This book questions why that might be the case.

This book investigates the social construction and reconstruction of Tokunbo meanings and how these impact on the second-hand economy in Nigeria. The Tokunbo second-hand economy enables access to goods that consumers consider essential for the transmission of modernity through the consumption of Western material culture.

Confronting the Challenge

The book is an intellectual and political response to Thomas Sankara's challenge to the African people to dare to invent their own future, an echo of Patrice Lumumba's challenge to them to write their own history.

This book focuses on investigating the contribution of women's self-employed work in the informal sector in reducing household poverty in the city of Fez. This is done through the medium of specific framework objectives and identifies the various challenges for the development of their businesses in the city.