Francophone Africa 1905-2005


Book Description

The book analyses in width and depth the evolution and growth of the economies and the economic institutions of the eighteen states of Francophone Africa since the beginning of the twentieth century. It identifies the main milestones in the development of the vital sectors of agriculture, industry and foreign trade. A few chapters carry a special section on the individual country studies to focus attention on the pressing problems facing the country concerned.




Routledge Handbook of Francophone Africa


Book Description

The Routledge Handbook of Francophone Africa brings together a multidisciplinary team of international experts to reflect on the history, politics, societies, and cultures of French-speaking parts of Africa. Consisting of approximately 35% of Africa’s territory, Francophone Africa is a shifting concept, with its roots in French and Belgian colonial rule. This handbook develops and problematizes the term, with thematic sections covering: Colonial and post-colonial ties between France and sub-Saharan Africa Belgium, Belgian colonialism and Africa The Maghreb African Francophones in France Francophone African literature and film ‘Francophone’ and ‘Anglophone’ Africa Beyond national boundaries and ‘colonial partners’ The chapters demonstrate the evolution of "Francophone Africa" into a multi-dimensional construct, with both a material and an imagined reality. Materially, it defines a regional territorial space that coexists with other conceptualisations of African space and borders. Conceptually, Francophone Africa constitutes a shared linguistic and cultural space within which collective memories are shared, not least through their connection to the French imperial imagination. Overall, the Handbook demonstrates that as global power structures and relations evolve, African agency is increasingly assertive in shaping French-African relations. Bringing this important debate together into a single volume, this Handbook will be an essential resource for students and scholars interested in Francophone Africa.




Historical Dictionary of Gabon


Book Description

This new fourth edition of the Historical Dictionary of Gabon brings up to date the political affairs of the country, since the accession to power of Ali Bongo, eldest son of Omar Bongo, the former president-for-life, who died in 2009 after the publication of the third edition. Themes of “continuity” and “change” are present throughout the entries, not only as the Bongo family continues its half century of dynastic rule (there are a dozen Bongos in this new edition), but as the rare primeval tropical rainforests continue to dominate the landscape yet are menaced by destructive logging and palm oil plantations, and as this former French colony after independence continues to collaborate with the French African sphere of influence yet seeks new partners from America and Asia (China, Singapore), and as the country’s numerous ethnic groups perpetuate a multicultural mosaic that is nevertheless threatened by globalization of communications and cultural convergence. This fourth edition of Historical Dictionary of Gabon contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Gabon.




African Studies Centres Around the World


Book Description

The book “African Studies Centres Around the World – A Network-Based Inventory” compiles a selection of contributions by the directors of eleven African Studies centres from four continents. They comprise Africa’s oldest centre on the continent, at the University of Cape Town, the European centres in Bordeaux, Lisbon and Hradec Králové and the two North American Universities of Florida and Indiana. Central and South America’s contributions to African Studies is represented by the centres in San José, Costa Rica, Santiago de Cuba and Salvador da Bahia, Brazil. The Asian centres are located at Jawaharlal University in Mumbai, India, and at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul, South Korea. The eleven chapters show the very diverse history of the centres, explaining their different structures, underpinning the need for more exchange and collaborative research. The volume presents some aspects of the ongoing critical reflections on the historical and political development of African Studies in various parts of the world, disseminating first-hand knowledge while the chapters encourage to open the exchange and collaboration across regional, disciplinary and academic boundaries. With contributions from: Akintunde Akinyemi, Carlos Almeida, Aparajita Biswas, Rina Caceres, Yongkyu Chang, Marta E. Cordies Jackson, Ute Fendler, John H. Hanson, Doris Löhr, Lungisile Ntsebeza, Livio Sansone, Jose da Silva Horta, Petr Skalnik, Celine Thiriot




Oil Wealth in Central Africa


Book Description

Despite its vast oil wealth, central Africa still struggles to sustain strong, inclusive economic growth and to generate sufficient employment opportunities, particularly for its fast-growing youth population. Drawing on new research, Oil Wealth in Central Africa lays out the macroeconomic and growth challenges facing the region; examines oil wealth management and its implications for poverty reduction; and includes four case studies that exemplify lessons learned.




Natural Resource-Based Development in Africa


Book Description

There is no question that Africa is endowed with abundant natural resources of different magnitudes. However, more than a decade of high commodity prices and new hydrocarbon discoveries across the continent has led countless international organizations, donor agencies, and non-governmental organizations to devote considerable attention to the potential of natural resource–based development. Natural Resource–Based Development in Africa places a particular emphasis on the actors that help us understand the extent to which resources could be transformed into broader developmental outcomes. Based on a wide variety of primary sources and fieldwork, including in-person interviews and participant observations, this collection contributes to both scholarly and policy discussions around the governance and economic development roles of local entrepreneurs, transnational firms, civil society groups, local communities, and government agencies in Africa’s natural resource sectors. Natural Resource–Based Development in Africa explores the impact that these actors have on regional trends such as resource nationalism and local procurement policies as well as grassroots-related issues such as poverty, livelihoods, gender equity, development, and human security.




Blood, Sweat and Earth


Book Description

A sweeping history of our enduring passion for diamonds—and the exploitative industry that fuels it. Blood, Sweat and Earth is a hard-hitting historical exposé of the diamond industry, focusing on the exploitation of workers and the environment, the monopolization of uncut diamonds, and how little this has changed over time. It describes the use of forced labor and political oppression by Indian sultans, Portuguese colonizers in Brazil, and Western industrialists in many parts of Africa—as well as the hoarding of diamonds to maintain high prices, from the English East India Company to De Beers. While recent discoveries of diamond deposits in Siberia, Canada, and Australia have brought an end to monopolization, the book shows that advances in the production of synthetic diamonds have not yet been able to eradicate the exploitation caused by the world’s unquenchable thirst for sparkle.




Globalizing Linkages


Book Description

One of the important contemporary but unexplored themes for Christianity in Africa today is its ongoing connections to a broader Christian and non-Christian world. This is quite apart from the idea of mission connections or reverse mission from Africa to elsewhere, or any mission-themed global connection. In much existing scholarship, Africa seems to only have recently been drawn into the orbit of global relations, but there is a long-standing relationship with the wider world, people linking from different regions at different times for varied reasons. This volume explores the theme of two thousand years of connections--and how the global sensibility has shaped Christianity on the continent for two thousand years.




Conspiracy Narratives from Postcolonial Africa


Book Description

Decoding conspiracy thinking at the nexus of sexuality, Freemasonry, and the occult. In this book, anthropologists Rogers Orock and Peter Geschiere examine the moral panic over a perceived rise in homosexuality that engulfed Cameroon and Gabon beginning in the early twenty-first century. As they uncover the origins of the conspiratorial narratives that fed this obsession, they argue that the public’s fears were grounded in historically situated assumptions about the entanglement of same-sex practices, Freemasonry, and illicit enrichment. This specific panic in postcolonial Central Africa fixated on high-ranking Masonic figures thought to lure younger men into sex in exchange for professional advancement. The authors’ thorough account shows how attacks on elites as homosexual predators corrupting the nation became a powerful outlet for mounting populist anger against the excesses and corruption of the national regimes. Unraveling these tensions, Orock and Geschiere present a genealogy of Freemasonry, taking readers from London through Paris to francophone Africa and revealing along the way how the colonial past shapes present-day anxieties linking same-sex practices to enrichment.




Francophone African Poetry and Drama


Book Description

Scholars examining literature from former French colonies sometimes view it wrongly as simply an outgrowth of colonial literature. By suggesting new ways to understand the multiple voices present, this book explores how Francophone African poetry and theatre in particular, since the 1960s, constitute both an organic cultural product and a reflection of the diverse African cultures in which they originate. Themes explored in five chapters include the many kinds of African identity formation, the resistance to former notions of literary composition as art, a remapping of social responsibility, and the impact of globalization on Francophone Africa's participation in world economics, politics and culture. This study highlights the inner workings of Francophone African literature and suggests a canonization of modern Francophone works from a world perspective.