Environmental Change and African Societies

Environmental Change and African Societies
Author: Ingo Haltermann
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2020
Genre: History
ISBN: 9789004410831

The volume Environmental Change and African Societies contributes to current debates on global climate change from the perspectives of the social sciences and the humanities. It charts past and present environmental change in different African settings and also discusses policies and scenarios for the future. The first section, "Ideas", enquires into local perceptions of the environment, followed by contributions on historical cases of environmental change and state regulation. The section "Present" addresses decision-making and agenda-setting processes related to current representations and/or predicted effects of climate change. The section "Prospects" is concerned with contemporary African megatrends. The authors move across different scales of investigation, from locally-grounded ethnographic analyses to discussions on continental trends and international policy. Contributors are: Daniel Callo-Concha, Joy Clancy, Manfred Denich, Sara de Wit, Ton Dietz, Irit Eguavoen, Ben Fanstone, Ingo Haltermann, Laura Jeffrey, Emmanuel Kreike, Vimbai Kwashirai, James C. McCann, Bertrand F. Nero, Jonas Ø. Nielsen, Erick G. Tambo, Julia Tischler.

Handbook of Quality of Life in African Societies

Handbook of Quality of Life in African Societies
Author: Irma Eloff
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 456
Release: 2019-08-09
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3030153673

This handbook reflects on quality-of-life in societies on the continent of Africa. It provides a widely interdisciplinary text with insights on quality-of-life from a variety of scientific perspectives. The handbook is structured into sections covering themes of social context, culture and community; the environment and technology; health; education; and family. It is aimed at scholars who are working towards sustainable development at the intersections of multiple scientific fields and it provides measures of both objective and subjective quality-of-life. The scholarly contributions in the text are based on original research and it spans fields of research such as cultures of positivity, wellbeing, literacy and multilinguism, digital and mobile technologies, economic growth, food and nutrition, health promotion, community development, teacher education and family life. Some chapters take a broad approach and report on research findings involving thousands, and in one case millions, of participants. Other chapters zoom in and illustrate the importance of specificity in quality-of-life studies. Collectively, the handbook illuminates the particularity of quality-of-life in Africa, the unique contextual challenges and the resourcefulness with which challenges are being mediated. This handbook provides empirically grounded conceptualizations about life in Africa that also encapsulate the dynamic, ingenious ways in which we, as Africans, enhance our quality-of-life.

How Societies Are Born

How Societies Are Born
Author: Jan Vansina
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
Total Pages: 582
Release: 2012-10-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 0813934184

Like stars, societies are born, and this story deals with such a birth. It asks a fundamental and compelling question: How did societies first coalesce from the small foraging communities that had roamed in West Central Africa for many thousands of years? Jan Vansina continues a career-long effort to reconstruct the history of African societies before European contact in How Societies Are Born. In this complement to his previous study Paths in the Rainforests, Vansina employs a provocative combination of archaeology and historical linguistics to turn his scholarly focus to governance, studying the creation of relatively large societies extending beyond the foraging groups that characterized west central Africa from the beginning of human habitation to around 500 BCE, and the institutions that bridged their constituent local communities and made large-scale cooperation possible. The increasing reliance on cereal crops, iron tools, large herds of cattle, and overarching institutions such as corporate matrilineages and dispersed matriclans lead up to the developments treated in the second part of the book. From about 900 BCE until European contact, different societies chose different developmental paths. Interestingly, these proceeded well beyond environmental constraints and were characterized by "major differences in the subjects which enthralled people," whether these were cattle, initiations and social position, or "the splendors of sacralized leaders and the possibilities of participating in them."

Monetary Transitions

Monetary Transitions
Author: Karin Pallaver
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2021-11-16
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3030834611

This book uses money as a lens through which to analyze the social and economic impact of colonialism on African societies and institutions. It is the first book to address the monetary history of the colonial period in a comprehensive way, covering several areas of the continent and different periods, with the ultimate aim of understanding the long-term impact of colonial monetary policies on African societies. While grounding an understanding of money in terms of its circulation, acceptance and impact, this book shows first and foremost how the monetary systems that resulted from the imposition of colonial rule on African societies were not a replacement of the old currency systems with entirely new ones, but were rather the result of the convergence of different orders of value and monetary practices. By putting histories of people using money at the heart of the story, and connecting them to larger imperial policies, the volume provides a new and fresh perspective on the history of the establishment of colonial rule in Africa. This book is the result of a collaborative and interdisciplinary research project that has received funding by the Gerda Henkel Foundation. The contributors are both junior and senior scholars, based at universities in Europe, Africa, Asia and the US, who are all specialists on the history of money in Africa. It will appeal to an international audience of scholars and educators interested in African Studies and History, Economic History, Imperial and Colonial History, Development Studies, Monetary Studies.

North African Societies after the Arab Spring

North African Societies after the Arab Spring
Author: Massimiliano Cricco
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2016-06-22
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1443896578

No attempt to define the Mediterranean as a region can overlook the multiplicity of political, religious and social forces at work along its shores. Responding to changes in the global and regional environment these forces have interacted in complex ways, as evidenced by their impact on the social, cultural, and political life of the states comprised between the covers of this collaborative volume. The peculiarity of the Mediterranean, as has been noted time and again, lies in its geographical position as a “sea in the middle of the land”, where different religions and cultures vie for recognition and self-expression. In the wake of the popular uprisings that have inflamed the region, beginning in Tunisia in December 2010, a drastic reorganisation of their respective state systems is coming into focus in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya. Though their paths do not run along parallel lines, they share a common denominator: the determination of their people to become the masters of their destinies, and to do so by grappling with new forms of democracy. Almost five years later, after their rulers became the target of violent mass protests, Tunisia, Egypt and Libya are going through an exceptionally difficult transition, trying to accommodate their nascent constitutional forms to the new forces inspired by the Arab Spring.

A History of African Societies to 1870

A History of African Societies to 1870
Author: Elizabeth Isichei
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 596
Release: 1997-04-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780521455992

This comprehensive and detailed exploration of the African past, from prehistory to approximately 1870, is intended to provide a fully up-to-date complement to the Cambridge History of Africa. Reflecting several emphases in recent scholarship, it focusses on the changing modes of production, on gender relations and on ecology, laying particular stress on viewing 'history from below'. A distinctive theme is to be found in its analyses of cognitive history. The work falls into three sections. The first comprises a historiographic analysis, and covers the period from the dawn of prehistory to the end of the Early Iron Age. The second and third sections are, for the most part, organised on regional lines; the second section ends in the sixteenth century; the third carries the story on to 1870. A second volume, now in preparation, will cover the period from 1870 to 1995. This book attempts a more rounded view of African history than most of the other textbooks on the subject addressed to a (largely) undergraduate level student. Earlier histories have tended to ignore some of the current foci in the scholarly literature on Africa, generally not reflected in the textbooks: these include discussions of topical issues like ecology and gender. Isichei's book is also more radical.

Muslim Societies in African History

Muslim Societies in African History
Author: David Robinson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2004-01-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780521533669

Examining a series of processes (Islamization, Arabization, Africanization) and case studies from North, West and East Africa, this book gives snapshots of Muslim societies in Africa over the last millennium. In contrast to traditions which suggest that Islam did not take root in Africa, author David Robinson shows the complex struggles of Muslims in the Muslim state of Morocco and in the Hausaland region of Nigeria. He portrays the ways in which Islam was practiced in the 'pagan' societies of Ashanti (Ghana) and Buganda (Uganda) and in the ostensibly Christian state of Ethiopia - beginning with the first emigration of Muslims from Mecca in 615 CE, well before the foundational hijra to Medina in 622. He concludes with chapters on the Mahdi and Khalifa of the Sudan and the Murid Sufi movement that originated in Senegal, and reflections in the wake of the events of September 11, 2001.

Language in Contemporary African Cultures and Societies

Language in Contemporary African Cultures and Societies
Author: Leonard Muaka
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2018-12-03
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1498572286

Language in Contemporary African Cultures and Societies examines language in contemporary Africa by positioning language at the center of interrelationships between individuals, society, and culture. Because of how language permeates every aspect of human existence within each society, this book has assembled contributions by researchers and scholars who focus on different topics within African languages and cultures. By presenting African languages as resources and subject and subject of the study, this book discusses Africa’s multilingualism, language policy, preservation, and their uses in development, security, liberation, and identity formation in the diaspora. Based on empirical research and analysis of texts, this book takes a closer look at the continent and the diaspora by situating African languages, cultures, and literatures at the center, and shows how African languages are used in the liberation, transfer of knowledge, and promotion of literacy among Africans globally. It is a book that seeks to bridge the gap between the continent and the diaspora. All contributors are experienced scholars of language, literature, education and linguistics. The chapters provide a major means for examining the interplay of language, literature, and education.

Decolonization and African Society

Decolonization and African Society
Author: Frederick Cooper
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 702
Release: 1996-08-28
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780521566001

This detailed and authoritative volume changes our conceptions of 'imperial' and 'African' history. Frederick Cooper gathers a vast range of archival sources in French and English to achieve a truly comparative study of colonial policy toward the recruitment, control, and institutionalization of African labor forces from the mid 1930s, when the labor question was first posed, to the late 1950s, when decolonization was well under way. Professor Cooper explores colonial conceptions of the African worker and shows how African trade union and political leaders used the new language of social change to claim equality and a share of power. This helped to persuade European officials that the 'modern' Africa they imagined was unaffordable. Britain and France could not reshape African society. As they left the continent, the question was how they had affected the ways in which Africans could reorganize society themselves.