Beyond Territoriality: A Geography of Africa from Below

Ben Arrous, Michel

Codesria

Hitherto the human rights debate in Africa has concentrated on the legal and philosophical. The author, Professor of Law at the University of Dar es Salaam, here moves the debate to the social and political planes. He attempts to reconceptualise human rights ideology from the standpoint of the working people in Africa. He defines the approach as avoiding the pitfalls of the liberal perspective as being absolutist in viewing human rights as a central question and the rights struggle as the backbone of democratic struggles. The author maintains that such a study cannot be politically neutral or intellectually uncommitted. Both the critique of dominant discourse and the reconceptualisation are located within the current social science and jurisprudential debates.

The Concept of Human Rights in Africa (Codesria Book Series)

History

Shivji, Issa G.

Africa

The State, Development and Politics in Ghana

<p>This collection of ten essays focuses and analyses Ghana's political, economic, agrarian and social development. The authors are all Ghanaian scholars, and they reflect on their country's experience from different perspectives, providing an indigenous voice to the debate about the country's development. The subjects covered are the state, capital and labour relations 1961-1987; from GTP to Assene: aspects of industrial working class struggles 1982-1986; women's political organizations 1951-1987; changing relations between the IMF and the Government of Ghana 1960-1987; financial intermediation and economic development; trends in foreign policy after Nkrumah; the land question since the 1950s; the state and food agriculture; policies and politics of export agriculture; and the problems of the health care delivery system.</p>

The State, Development and Politics in Ghana (Codesria Book Series)

Business & Money

Hansen, Emmanuel

Ninsin, Kwame A.

Economics

Where did the fabled riches of the Congo go, and what happened to all the capital accumulated by colonial history? Why is Zaire still underdeveloped, while the Belgian economy now thrives? Tapping many and varied sources, this book challenges dominant historiographical assumptions and practice while analysing the past and present impact of Belgian joint stock companies on the Zairean economy. The author, an academic and specialist on African historiography and methodology, argues that colonialism paved the way for the triumphant return of other colonizers - the multinational corporations under the hegemony of the WorldBank and the International Monetary Fund, with structural adjustment replacing pacification. The author's contention is that his investigation of the Zairean economic history overturns colonial assumptions, rooting its analyses in the people's own history, raising questions both about the colonial past, but also about the framework underlying previous analyses.

From the Congo Free State to Zaire (1885-1974). Towards a Demystification of Economic and Political History

Depelchin, Jacques

International

A Nigerian woman scholar addresses three main areas of literature in gender and women's studies, a discipline which has become a vast field of research, teaching and activism in Africa and beyond. She situates African women's studies in the context ofinternational feminism, regional political and institutional conditions. The study addresses recent publications in the general field of state and politics, from precolonial times to the present; reviews a range of material grouped under the heading of cultural studies; and considers the historical and contempoary literature on all aspects of women's involvement in various sphers of work and the economy. Finally, the author questions the relationship between women's studies and the women's movement in Africa.

Women's Studies and Studies of Women in Africa During the 1990's (Working Paper S)

Mama, Amina

Two hypothesis form the basis of this study. First, that development in African countries follows many models, on many time-scales; and secondly that private indirect government is taking the place of the state in controlling individual conduct. The author concludes that a new form of the organisation of power is emerging based on the control of the means of coercion - in effect, privatisation of public violence.

On Private Indirect Government (State of the Literature)

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

La Culture du développement (Série des livres du Codesria) (French Edition)

Reference

Foreign Language Study & Reference

<p>Winner of the Noma Award for Publishing in Africa 1994. The jury cited the book as "an ambitious, skilfully written, and exhaustively researched synthesis of African economic history in the 19th century." The citation goes on to say that "the book is an exercise in convincing challenge to hitherto accepted orthodoxies, terminologies, and interpretations, outstanding, pioneering work, destined to become highly influential, and providing such a wealth of information and details as to elevate the study of African economic history to a new pedestal."</p>

A Modern Economic History of Africa. Vol. 1: The Ninteenth Century (Codesria Book Series)

Zeleza, Paul Tiyambe

Uncovering the wealth of traditional African knowledge and techniques has direct implications for the future development of the continent. This book is written against the background of the tragedy that most Africans are profoundly ignorant of the achievements of the past, let alone the traditions that are still upheld today. It is an exploration and analysis of Africa's historical roots, and the editor is one of Africa's most distinguished philosophers. Rich in detailed and original field research, the volume covers a wide variety of topics, from the probability theory of cowry shell diviners, to hydrology and rainmaking, and the links between sorcery and psychosomatic medicine. Chapters include the use of number systems, ingredients used in pharmaceutical practice, and the mysterious phenomena of foreign objects projected into human bodies.

Endogenous Knowledge: Research Tra (Codesria Book Series)

Arts & Photography

An Economic History of Ethiopia: The Imperian Era 1941-74

When Emporer Haile Selassie led Ethiopia out of Italian occupation, he promised much - liberalisation, land reform, greater prosperity, a modern army, and a modern bureaucracy. Thirty years later, resistance, radical movements and dissent were to rock the foundation of his fragile new society into revolution. The economic history of modern Ethiopia has not attracted sufficient scholarly attention, and there has been no publication of note since Pankhurst in 1968. In recent years, Ethiopian scholars themselves have begun to undertake serious research; but there has been a lack of detail and up-to-date analysis, making it difficult to understand the nature of the immense transformations the country went through during its imperial age. Written by Ethiopians, this work fills that gap. Agriculture, industrialisation, monetary policy and demography are investigated; and topics range from drought, the radical land protests of the 1960s, industrialisation and manufacturing, to migration and t

An Economic History of Ethiopia (Collection Intersections Europeennes,)

Bekele, Shiferaw

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Books by Codesria