Alabi's World


Book Description

In the early 18th century, the Dutch colony of Suriname was the envy of all others in the Americas. There, seven hundred Europeans lived off the labor of over four thousand enslaved Africans. Owned by men hell-bent for quick prosperity, the rich plantations on the Suriname river became known for their heights of planter comfort and opulence--and for their depths of slave misery. Slaves who tried to escape were hunted by the planter militia. If found they were publicly tortured. Gradually slaves began to form outlaw communities until nearly one out of every ten Africans in Suriname was helping to build rebel villages in the jungle. This book relates the history of a nation founded by escaped slaves deep in the Latin American rain forest. It tells of their battles for independence, their uneasy truce with the colonial government, and the attempt of their leader, Alabi, to reconcile his people with white law and a white God.




The 'air of Liberty'


Book Description

The Caribbean imagination as framed within a Dutch historical setting has deep Portuguese-African roots. The Seven Provinces were the first European power, in the first half of the 17th century, to challenge the Iberian countries directly for a share in the slave trade. This book analyzes the philosophy underlying this transoceanic link, when contacts with Africa started to be developed. The ambiguous morality of the `air of liberty? governing the Afro-Portuguese past had its impact on the creole cultures (white, black, Jewish) of the Dutch territories of Suriname and Curacao. Although this influence is gradually disappearing, it is astonishing to witness the engagement with which writers and visual artists have interpreted this heritage in their different ways. Recent narratives from Angola and Brazil offer an appropriate starting-point for an examination of strategies of self-representation and national consolidation in works by authors from the Dutch Caribbean. In order to reveal this complex historical pattern, the (formerly) Dutch-related port communities are conceived of as cultural agents whose `lettered cities? (Angel Rama) have engaged in critical dialogue with the heritage of the South Atlantic trade in human lives.Artists and writers discussed include (colonial period): Caspar Barlaeus, David Nassy, Frans Post, and John Gabriel Stedman; (modern period): Frank Martinus Arion, Cola Debrot, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Albert Helman, Francisco Herrera Luque, Boeli van Leeuwen, Tip Marugg, Alberto Mussa, Pepetela, Julio Perrenal, and Mario Pinto de Andrade.'This is a notable achievement, for it both draws attention to the region and challenges critics and historians to engage in cross-regional and `trans-disciplinary' research and analysis? ? Saul Sosnowski.




Telling Our Stories


Book Description

Telling Our Stories investigates the continuities and divergences in selected Black autobiographies from Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States. The stories of slaves, creative writers, and political activists are discussed both as texts produced by individuals who are products of specific societies and as interconnected books. The book identifies influences of environmental and cultural differences on the texts while it adopts cross-cultural and postcolonial reading approaches to examine the continuities and divergences in them.




Against Heaven


Book Description

Winner of the Academy of American Poets First Book Award, selected by Claudia Rankine. Kemi Alabi’s transcendent debut reimagines the poetic and cultural traditions from which it is born, troubling the waters of some of our country’s central and ordained fictions—those mythic politics of respectability, resilience, and redemption. Instead of turning to a salvation that has been forced upon them, Alabi turns to the body and the earth as sites of paradise defined by the pleasure and possibility of Black, queer fugitivity. Through tender love poems, righteous prayers, and vital provocations, we see the colonizers we carry within ourselves being laid to rest. Against Heaven is a praise song made for the flames of a burning empire—a freedom dream that shapeshifts into boundless multiplicities for the wounds made in the name of White supremacy and its gods. Alabi has written an astonishing collection of magnificent range, commanding the full spectrum of the Black, queer spirit’s capacity for magic, love, and ferocity in service of healing—the highest power there is.




Just Sustainabilities


Book Description

An examination of the links between environmental sustainability and human equality and the implications for domestic and international policy.




Leadership Makes the Difference but Leaders Matter


Book Description

ABOUT LEADERSHIP MAKES THE DIFFERENCE BUT LEADERS MATTER The book “Leadership Makes the Difference but Leaders Matter” is a 367-page book written by Prof. Goski Alabi, one of Africa’s leading Full Professor in total quality management, and a scholar in leadership who serves on several public, corporate and international boards and committees. Prof. Goski is President of the African Council Distance Education (ACDE), Chair of the African Network for internationalization of Education (ANIE), Founder and Consulting President of Laweh University College, Founding Dean of the School of Graduate Studies University of the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), Member of the ISO Committee on Consumer Policy, four times national delegate to the World Health Assembly, Member of the National Codex Committee, a certified member of the Europe – Africa- Caribbean Liaison Committee (COLEACP) Inter Professional Association who served as a framework consultant to the EU-COLEACP for Good Company Practices on the Pesticides Initiative Program (PIP). She also consulted for the Ministry of Trade and Industry on the National Quality Awareness Project as a lead consultant. She has offered training and consultancy services on quality management and strategic planning to the Bank of Ghana, the Public Services Commission, the Architects Registration Council. of Ghana and the Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building Construction and City Development (EiABC). She also offered several other consultancy services to the Association of African Universities, (AAU), the African Union Commission, as well as the European Union Commission among a few to mention. Prof. Goski has also led and participated in several Work Bank, DFID and EU Commission Projects successfully. As a regulator, who worked with the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) of Ghana she audited several organizations from micro-to multinational level and also audited several national and international public and private universities for the then National Accreditation Board and the African Union Commission’s Quality Rating Mechanism. Prof Goski was “The Lecturer”, Keynote speaker at the prestigious Oxford University’s Sir David Watson Memorial Lecture at the Human Welfare Conference (https://www.gtc.ox.ac.uk/news-and-events/events-series/human-welfare-conference/human-welfare-conference-2019/2019-david-watson-memorial-lecturer-professor-mrs-goski-alabi/). She is also author of the seminal book “Managing for Excellence in the 21st Century, the Total Quality Approach” which appeared in the New York Times in August 2017. Prof Goski has taught leadership at the Graduate level (Masters level) for 12 years and has condensed the knowledge and experiences gathered into the book, “Leadership Makes the Difference but leaders Matter”. The must-read book presents both practical and theoretical perspectives about how we can use leadership to create and deliver value for both the individual and common good in the twenty-first century. The book also challenges our thoughts about leadership to provide a key insight for today’s leaders. The aim of Leadership Makes the Difference but Leaders Matter is to bring us to question our held assumptions about leadership to improve our leadership skills. It shows striking differences between the concept of leader and leadership and argues that though leaders’ matter, leadership makes the difference in bringing about necessary and constructive change, which is the ultimate goal of leadership. Leadership Makes the Difference but Leaders Matter explains that being in a leader’ s position does not guarantee leadership, and that leadership itself is a concept of shared influence which begins not with influence but ideas and vision, and centers around communication and actions, with trust, power, influence, commitment and competence as core pillars. It also discusses trust and the sources of power as the main avenues for negotiating power in leadership. Are you driven to lead or driven to leadership? Leadership Makes the Difference but Leaders Matter is for Scholars, Practitioners, Governments and Trainers.




Achieving a nutrition revolution for Africa


Book Description

Focusing the 2015 Annual Trends and Outlook Report (ATOR) on nutrition will contribute to a broader understanding of the critical role of nutrition in achieving international, continental, and national economic growth targets through agriculture, food security, and nutrition. This report presents information and analysis in support of evidence-based policy making that should inform the second generation of CAADP national investment plans now being developed. This is an important moment for shaping the region’s future and ensuring that the much-needed agriculture-led growth and development agenda can simultaneously deliver on improving nutrition, saving lives, improving productivity and health, and curbing nutrition-related diseases and the associated public health expenditures. These investment plans should address not only the usual elements of undernutrition but also widespread micronutrient deficiencies (termed “hidden hunger”) and the growing problem of overweight and obesity that is associated with economic growth.




Handbook of Research on Revisioning and Reconstructing Higher Education After Global Crises


Book Description

Global challenges, in a chaotic context, are ever in play, emerging and receding in time. At the present moment, the global challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic have resulted in several years of mass-scale challenges and lost learning and socialization from K-12 to higher education for many. The pandemic has been a high consequence and continuing event. Universities and colleges have been under unprecedented budgetary strain. Despite all the immense and irreparable human losses, humanity is moving forward with lessons from the past several years. The Handbook of Research on Revisioning and Reconstructing Higher Education After Global Crises explores how global higher education will recover from the global pandemic at the micro-, meso-, and macro-levels, and how they will re-establish their relevance for teaching and learning, research and innovation, and social contributions. Covering topics such as campus life, online library services, and Indigenous students, this major reference work is an essential resource for educators and administrators of higher education, government officials, students of higher education, librarians, researchers, and academicians.




Decolonizing African Knowledge


Book Description

Uses textual and visual materials on the 'Self' to understand how African ways of thinking shape the nature of societies.




The COVID-19 - Health Systems Nexus


Book Description

This contributed volume, based on papers presented at a conference held in Zimbabwe in mid-2021, examines the nexus between Zimbabwe’s health systems and the COVID-19 pandemic. The collection of papers contained here is diverse and covers topics from how health systems handled (or didn’t handle) surges to health communication during a global pandemic to economic and environmental impacts of the pandemic in Zimbabwe. Editors Drs. Edward Kunonga, Lazarus Chapungu, and David Chikodzi set the stage for these pieces with an introductory chapter that describes the health systems in Zimbabwe and offers an overview of the effects of the pandemic felt in the country. Their concluding chapter synthesizes trends and issues emerging from the chapters and recommends policy directions regarding health management systems in Zimbabwe and elsewhere in the face of this and future pandemics.