Books published by Langaa RPCID

Despite all the talk about African renaissance, much of the continent is plagued by poverty and instability. To break out of that cycle, the guardians of African heritage (the old independence freedom fighters turned political leaders and their successors) and much of Afrocentric literature rightly promote African ideas and solutions for African problems. While the idea in itself is noble, the danger is for Africa to close itself off and ignore 'outside' technical and intellectual innovations that it desperately needs to advance further. Africa through Structuration Theory - ntu joins the discourse by attempting to restore intellectual freedom and convincingly defends structuration theory not only as the way forward for Africa but also as a legitimate African concept. It is innovative, refreshing and deserves to be heard across the world and appreciated especially by African graduates, current and future leaders of various African institutions or businesses, non-Africans who might hesitate to refer to such a theory when trying to understand and deal with African problems and the wider public who constitute the audience for this book.

This book, the first of its kind on Anglophone Cameroon, brings significant local context into the practice of law particularly at a juncture when civil practice has been radically altered by Cameroon's ongoing effort at harmonization of both the substantive and procedural laws applicable in the courts. The book covers a wide spectrum of topics including: the commencement of civil actions, jurisdiction, simplified recovery procedures and measures of execution, provisional execution and stay of execution. It provides a detailed analysis of the relevant rules of court applicable in both the high court and court of appeal. One of its major strengths lies in its use of recent cases to demonstrate the way Cameroonian judges have dealt with local procedural laws, as well as how the differences between Cameroonian indigenous rules of practice and those imported particularly from Nigeria and England are reconciled.

"Poems from Abakwa in Cameroon Pidgin English is one patriotic rage. An anthology of sorts, this book of poems contains wisdom, inspirational reflections and witticisms for all. Through apt descriptions, illustrations, dialogues, interrogations and incisive phraseology, Peter Wuteh Vakunta creates an effective balance of colorful images that traces and documents disturbing accounts and evidences of corruption, greed, skewed values and life experiences that have assaulted his fatherland, betrayed political leaders and institutions, court judges, and parliamentarians as the police-cum-military continue to put their ambitions above the country's needs while forsaking future leaders-children. Vakunta describes how civil servants represent selfish interests and aspirations. Judges are intimidated as the nation's laws continue to be transgressed. The police and military continue to abuse the trust invested in them by civilians and misdirect their patriotism while virtually the entire nation continues to live shaky lives with a punctured integrity. Vakunta does this in popular lingos commonly used by musicians, business folks, and the common man under several labels-pidgin English, Camfranglais, Cam-tok, Camspeak, Majunga tok ..." Dr. Fidelis Achenjang, Union College, USA

Flashlight on Drama and Film succinctly describes how to use drama to afford target audiences opportunities to analyse environmental situations, presented through drama, with a view to enabling them to make informed decisions and take responsible actions in similar situations in the real world. This constitutes the guiding principle of Drama for Situation Analysis (DRASA), with Flashlight on Drama and Film as its training guide.in the drama effort. The guide is divided into three parts. Part One looks at the development of the play script from the research stage. Part Two describes the stages involved in interpreting a play, including the skills, techniques and terminology of acting, from a simple definition of drama. Part Three gives a rundown of the stages in rehearsing and presenting a play, either as stage drama or film production.

The Forest: An African Traditional Definition is aimed at providing the conservationist with some basic ideas as to which cultural areas to explore (using a few African cultures-from some ecologically and culturally rich forest zones of Cameroon that has earned the description of Africa in miniature due to its diversity and representativeness of ecological and cultural landscape that reflect the continent-for illustration) in order to direct him or her to the appropriate beliefs and customs that could be exploited in favour of conservation. There is no overemphasising that most, if not all, African cultures have at least some rudimentary aspects of conservation in the modern sense. These aspects constitute the strong colours that could be used to create an indelible picture of the importance of conservation on the continent.

Blot On The Landscape is John Ngong Kum Ngong's seventh collection of poetry. The central symbol here is 'blot' which takes on complex and fascinating meanings in this rich collection of 42 poems. At a time when concerns for the environment increasingly receive global attention, the collection expresses and problematises the way in which the environment in particular and the landscape in general are treated. The poet decries the fact that there is filth everywhere; in man's thoughts, psyche and behaviour and nobody seems to care. Seen from this angle, human beings themselves seem to constitute the major blot on the landscape.

The poems in this collection dissect and cut across psychological and cultural spaces as the poet reflects on the profundity of his experiences and encounters. The thoughtful reflections provide a snapshot of what it means to live in a world of where difference and sameness are never to be taken for granted. Though written from Africa, the poems transcend the geographical, cultural and emotional landscapes that have inspired the poet's creative genius. The poems reflect a wide gamut of themes such as love, anomy, hope, megalomania, treachery, education, vigilance and other tussles of everyday life. All those who cherish the moral rectitude of peace, culture, faithful questioning and critical thinking will find value in this enticing collection.

This is an eloquent, engaged and extremely well informed narrative of the environmental and natural resource conservation and management issues in Mozambique. While the topics in this volume are diverse, they are all explicitly designed to move beyond the routinized blame of natural resource mismanagement and environmental degradation on local communities, and to rethink ecosystem destruction, land degradation and natural resource over-exploitation in Africa and beyond. Never losing sight of the major causes of environment and resource mismanagement in Mozambique, the book advances the thesis that environment and resource problems are a result of compound factors such as poor governance, poverty, corruption, low education levels, and disregard of endogenous conservation epistemologies. A combination of all these factors makes the whole terrain of conservation even more complicated than ever; hence the need for urgent action by all social actors. This is a valuable book for environmental conservationists, land resource managers, social ecologists, environmental anthropologists, environmental field workers and technicians, practitioners and students of conservation sciences.

Eni kaleidoscopically unveils human intrigues, predicaments and woes. It brings into sharp focus the most dreaded products of cruel oppression, exploitation, and destruction—the worst forms of human degradation and sufferings. However, it also sheds beams of hope, celebrating optimism in the struggle and eventually opening the curtain to the stage of victory of the oppressed and impoverished under the shameless sky.

Representing research from east, central, west, and southern Africa, Engaging Children and Youth in Africa provides a well-balanced analysis of on-the-ground data with methodological and phenomenological issues that abound in much of research in Africa today. With an introduction that charts out some of the most critical approaches in African-centred research on children and youth, contributors to this volume give the reader a glimpse of the product of engaged research that places children and youth at the centre of analysis. The authors follow recent studies that have insisted on seeing African childhood and youth beyond constraining Western notions of vulnerability or innocence, to capture the ways in which recent advances in technology, the intensification of global processes, and continued weakening of the nation-state have not only contributed to new ways of being children and youth but how they have also provided a new lens through which to study social change.

"Using linguistic stylings as subversive as the messages nestled between the lines, Vakunta's Requiem for Ongola in Camfranglais: Cameroonian poetics presents a scathing critique of the corruption of democracy into "democraziness" running rampant in the "Sick Man of Africa". Written in Camfranglais, this is resistance poetry at its best: 'tokking' through the mouth of the voiceless", the author pulls no punches in condemning the country's roi fainéant, the perverted acceptance of feymania, the reduction of the national Constitution into toilet paper, and the general climate of impunity that has created an atmosphere of frustration and hopelessness. Calling upon the redeeming power of the Word - "Speak truth!" - these verses deftly navigate through the multilingual lexicon of a new, African hybrid language, providing an insider's account of the real stakes at hand in Ongola, the Ewondo word for Yaoundé."

In this volume Bill F. Ndi portrays life, death, and dying as one great adventure through which one would explore the limitless bounds of Life. At its best, the collection echoes the words of anthropologist Francis B. Nyamnjoh when he underlines that, 'one is only dead to particular context as a way of making oneself alive to prospective new contexts.' Ndi in this collection invites the reader to learn the art of living through the art of dying and accepting death.

Faith conversion experiences are first of all personal before being universal. While biblical history records relatively few conversion encounters as dramatic and as explosive as Saint Paul's on the road to Damascus, it is not rare for individuals in the throes of a religious conversion to fall prey to intensely agonizing confusion. That is what happened to Martin Jumbam when he marched for peace in his country alongside the charismatic and irrepressible Emeritus Archbishop of Douala in Cameroon, Christian Cardinal Tumi. He joined the prelate as a secular journalist but went back home more than ever conscious of his state as a fallen Christian, the first step in his journey of faith. Since then, all his writing, be it secular or religious, now bears the fruits of that encounter, characterized by intense empathy for the human person. This book recounts the myriad ways Jumbam's encounters with Christian Cardinal Tumi have activated, nourished and inspired his faith.