Books published by Langaa RPCID

In the village of Fakulum, a very special child is born - Njemucharr - in a time when the white man's grip on Africa hasn't quite loosened. Groomed and nurtured in typical African fashion by the entire village, Njemucharr aspires to bring change. With like-minded friends, he undertakes the task of trying to thwart the sell-outs of the nation and implement his vision of a truly independent country.

This project come out from our need to harness voices in Africa and Latin America, giving these voices an opportunity to converse, argue, synthesize, agree, and share ideas on the craft of writing, on life, on being and on thinking for the benefit of all. It was also an opportunity to create literary friendships and contacts between these two great regions. Generally, Latin America and Africa still have a lot of stories to share among themselves and with the rest of the world. There are still very strong untapped storytelling traditions in these continents. The stories in this volume are selected from an amazing range of entries to a call for contributions to an anthology on experimentation. It is hoped this robust selection will serve a wide variety of tastes in both Spanish and English, and that the book will open dialogue and the sharing of ideas between the two regions and the whole world. This is an invaluable contribution on many fronts.

This book questions the politicisation/depoliticisation of women's and feminists' organisations in the context of globalization, and introduces new directions for feminist epistemology. It explores some African pathways, in particular those of South Africa and Senegal. Extending beyond the notions of neoliberalism and "gender digital divide", the author is searching, through the ICT use of those organisations, the inhibiting factors or the genesis of political action, and particularly the mechanisms of institutionalisation. Palmieri shows that the impact of ICT and gender inequality combine to worsen and accelerate social hierarchies and may paradoxically create spaces where non-dominated gendered knowledge emerges. She dissociates domination and power. Contemporary societies, strongly foot-printed by digital connection, are mixing the coloniality of power and patriarchy, and this dual system of domination can produce epistemic creation.

The author carried out work 1994 to 2013 in three fields of communication and societal change namely: media communication of health-related policies; the use and appropriation of the internet and ICTs; and the media, politics and public space in a society in crisis. Communication mediated in Ivory Coast (mainly Abidjan) finds itself at the heart of this research, a society still "anthropologised" (Balandier) and in motion, a place of concrete change, contrast and multi-faceted crises where daily life goes on and where the contradictions of modernity are seen. Then, based on a broad view of communication, he invites us to critically reflect on the teaching and research methods in Communication Science in Ivory Coast. In effect, communication with the Other, being necessarily a political act, is inevitably translated in the "anthropo-logiques" to a composition in all societies. It is thus a question of rooting one's research more firmly in communicational anthropology in order to give an account of the abounding social change and the post-colonial social instability. A communication based anthropology, ambitious but cautiously so, bold yet measured, removed from all naive mimicry, should contribute to the development of Ivorian Information and Communication Sciences by focusing them on the construction of authentic objects.

The myths of peace and democracy in Africa are at the heart of this volume. Democracy and peace have become buzz words across postcolonial Africa. The gospel of democracy and peace is preached by national governments and by civil society and international organisations alike. But to what extent are the ongoing sideshows and charades of quasi-oligarchies in Africa really democracy? What do ordinary Africans mean when they hunger and thirst for democracy and peace? Positive and noble as the loud sounding rhetoric about democracy and peace in Africa might seem, the reality of propaganda and dissemblance and of multi-dimensional violence are simply too overwhelming not to be disillusioning. This book interrogates the rampant violence, enduring conflicts, autocratic governance, and facades of democracy amidst claims and calls for enduring peace on the continent. This is a monumental resource book for human rights activists, conflict management practitioners, civil society activists, political scientists, statesmen and development practitioners. It poses a challenge to those African governments who claim to embrace principles of democracy and respect for human rights to rethink and reconsider their role as ambassadors of peace, hope, transformation, and good governance.

Using expibasketical theory and findings, this book attempts to understand and explain some of the wonders of love and the impacts these have on the other human institutions (such as marriage and family) that are supposed to be erected on love and understanding. Love is a phenomenon that is hard to correctly master, most probably because it is loaded with a lot of uncertainties. This simple fact must be the reason behind the commonplace saying that love is blind; a statement that can have several interpretations, one of which being that it is hard to read or know exactly what is on the other party's mind. Love thus becomes not only an intriguing feeling but also potentially full of intrigues. Can love be so blind to realities and still be love? The book answers many of such queries by expanding and delineating the frontiers of love, and thence marriage and family.

Zimbabwean history is rooted in ethnic and cultural identities, inequalities, and injustices which the post-colonial government has sought to address since national independence in 1980. Marginalisation of some ethnic groups has been one of the persistent problems in contemporary Zimbabwe. Of particular significance to this book is the marginalisation of the BaTonga people of north-western Zimbabwe - a marginalisation whose roots are right back to the colonial era. Post-colonial Zimbabwe's emphasis on cultural identity and confirmation has, however, prompted the establishment of community museums such as the BaTonga Community Museum (BCM), to promote cultures of the ethnic minorities. This book critically examines the effects and socio-economic contribution of the BCM to the local communities and other sectors of the economy. It draws extensively on and problematizes prevalent debates on the biography of things to surface out the primacy of agency in heritage and sustainability.

Pride Aside and Other Poems rattles the brain as it blurs thematic boundaries. Even though Bill F. Ndi's poems seem to clearly draw inspiration from everyday life, almost all the poems are structured as sonnets. Through the lines of the various poems in this collection, influences of poets from different schools of poetic creativity and streams of inspiration resonate. They bring to mind the metaphysical poets, the Romantics, the Symbolists, the Confessionalists, poets of the Beat Generation, Committed poetry, etc. As such reading the collection places the reader before a multifaceted and intriguing cultural document imbued with literary influences from Chaucer to W.B Yeats and beyond. However, their insight and the richness of their humanity transform the poems essentially into meditations on the soul of our civilization. This poetic work is vibrant and thought provoking.