Archive for the ‘Africa’ Category
The Zimbabwean phenomenon briefly touched upon in the post “Second Thoughts on Land Seizures in Southern Africa” is certainly a complex issue. Two important recent studies on the topic have surfaced in recent months. Ben Cousins and Ian Scoones, “Contested Paradigms of ‘Viability’ in Redistributive Land Reform: Perspectives from Southern Africa”, Journal of Peasant Studies, […]
Filed under: Africa, law, Political developments, Scholarship and insights, Southern Africa | Closed
One small, Cape Town property, once owned by whites but later transferred to the Zimbabwean state in a compensatory transaction, was yesterday returned to white ownership. The ruling is pretty important, not just for the touchy matter of postcolonial ethics, but also for the jurisdictional dilemmas now facing Zimbabwe and South Africa. The ruling emanates […]
Filed under: Africa, law, Political developments | Closed
“Natives and the Vanished Dignity”, From New Era, flashed via AllAfricaNews: For us to achieve the notion of ‘all people are equal’, the colonised must first be deliberately allowed to come at the same socio-economic level as the colonisers and their children, then we can start talking about equality as there can never be equality […]
Filed under: Africa, Political developments, postcolonialism | Closed
In a recent editorial for Vanguard (which also flashed up on AllAfrica News), Nigeria is called “A country of settlers”: The arguments are not about who settlers are and who are the indigenes, they are about the fact that Nigerians are now grappling with issues of citizenship. It is an issue that deserves handling with […]
Filed under: Africa, Political developments | Closed
Federico Settler, ‘Indigenous Authorities and the post-colonial state: the domestication of indigeneity and African nationalism in South Africa’, Social Dynamics 36, 1, 2010. Abstract: Since the advent of the African Union, confidence in Africa’s renaissance has been high, but a number of state-civil society anxieties continue to challenge stable social relations. One area of anxiety […]
Filed under: Africa, law, postcolonialism, Scholarship and insights, Southern Africa | Closed
From Douglas H. Johnson, “Mamdani’s ‘Settlers’, ‘Natives’, and the War on Terror”, African Affairs 108, 433 (2009): Mamdani extends his South African paradigm, first proposed in his award-winning Citizen and Subject and further elaborated in When Victims Become Killers, to Sudan, whereby the colonial power is said to have imposed a divide between ‘settlers’ and ‘natives’ […]
Filed under: Africa, Genocide, Political developments, Scholarship and insights | Closed
Provocative scholar of government and race in colonial and postcolonial Africa, Mahmood Mamdani, has recently published a new book, entitled Saviours and Survivors: Darfur, Politics and the War on Terror. Writes Verso Press: Saviours and Survivors is the first account of the Darfur crisis to consider recent events within the broad context of Sudan’s history, […]
Filed under: Africa, Genocide, Political developments, Scholarship and insights | Closed
Ewout Frankema, “The Colonial Roots of Land Inequality: Geography, Factor Endowments, or Institutions?”, The Economic History Review, 2009. ABSTRACT Land inequality is one of the crucial underpinnings of long-run persistent wealth and asset inequality. This article assesses the colonial roots of land inequality from a comparative perspective. The evolution of land inequality is analysed in […]
Filed under: Africa, Scholarship and insights | Closed
what self-legislated indigeneity looks like (defined from inside-out, rather than outside-in)
A Bill has been framed in Nigeria to uphold the rights of Indigenous people there, amid a “Settler, Indigene squabble”, writes Onwuka Nzeshi of AllAfricaNews. The Bill reads in parts: “A person is an indigene of a local government area or area council in Nigeria, if – (a) he or she or any of his […]
Filed under: Africa, Political developments | Closed
settler colonial studies blog 