Hadija's Story

Hadija's Story
Author: Harmony O'Rourke
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2017-02-13
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0253023890

In 1952, a woman named Hadija was brought to trial in an Islamic courtroom in the Cameroon Grassfields on a charge of bigamy. Quickly, however, the court proceedings turned to the question of whether she had been the wife or the slave-concubine of her deceased husband. In tandem with other court cases of the day, Harmony O'Rourke illuminates a set of contestations in which marriage, slavery, morality, memory, inheritance, status, and identity were at stake for Muslim Hausa migrants, especially women. As she tells Hadija's story, O'Rourke disrupts dominant patriarchal and colonial narratives that have emphasized male activities and projects to assert cultural distinctiveness, and she brings forward a new set of women's issues involving concerns for personal prosperity, the continuation of generations, and Islamic religious expectations in communities separated by long distances.

Women Wielding the Hoe

Women Wielding the Hoe
Author: Deborah Bryceson
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2020-08-29
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1000325598

How effective is western aid-agency intervention in Africa? What can African women do to manage the AIDS crisis? Can western feminist theory be applied to the rural African context?These vital issues, and many others, are considered in this topical book by eminent scholars and development consultants. The book aims to increase awareness of the importance of women agricultural producers to African material development and to expose the western biases that have traditionally pervaded the study of rural African women. The authors' critical analyses of conventional research methodology and key 'women and development' debates over the last three decades will stimulate new research perspectives. Students and scholars of development, development workers and policymakers will all find this book fascinating reading.

Diversification and Accumulation in Rural Tanzania

Diversification and Accumulation in Rural Tanzania
Author: Pekka Seppälä
Publisher: Nordic Africa Institute
Total Pages: 250
Release: 1998
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9789171064271

Recent studies on rural Africa increasingly reveal a pattern of development which is more complex than that proposed in earlier unilinear theories. The researchers have recently located intricate systems of patronage, local networks of cooperation, indigenous social safety nets but also alarming rates of differentiation. This study extends the analysis of local complexity to the labour sphere, showing how rural producers tend to diversify into multiple sources of income resulting in innovative straddling between them. The diversification which is a necessity for the poorest households provides the means for risk aversion and accumulation for the wealthier ones. Diversification and Accumulation in Rural Tanzania is a thought-provoking and theoretically challenging work showing how cultural issues penetrate economic practices and modify the outcome of any economic interventions.

Baghdad Believer

Baghdad Believer
Author: Jay Nealson
Publisher: Jay Nealson
Total Pages: 105
Release: 2007-03
Genre: Christianity
ISBN: 0979235200

"This book adresses many myths and assumptions about Muslims and about how Muslims can follow Jesus while maintaining many of their cultural values."--Preface

Silent Violence

Silent Violence
Author: Vinay R. Kamat
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2013-12-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0816599203

Silent Violence engages the harsh reality of malaria and its effects on marginalized communities in Tanzania. Vinay R. Kamat presents an ethnographic analysis of the shifting global discourses and practices surrounding malaria control and their impact on the people of Tanzania, especially mothers of children sickened by malaria. Malaria control, according to Kamat, has become increasingly medicalized, a trend that overemphasizes biomedical and pharmaceutical interventions while neglecting the social, political, and economic conditions he maintains are central to Africa’s malaria problem. Kamat offers recent findings on global health governance, neoliberal economic and health policies, and their impact on local communities. Seeking to link wider social, economic, and political forces to local experiences of sickness and suffering, Kamat analyzes the lived experiences and practices of people most seriously affected by malaria—infants and children. The persistence of childhood malaria is a form of structural violence, he contends, and the resultant social suffering in poor communities is closely tied to social inequalities. Silent Violence illustrates the evolving nature of local responses to the global discourse on malaria control. It advocates for the close study of disease treatment in poor communities as an integral component of global health funding. This ethnography combines a decade of fieldwork with critical review and a rare anthropological perspective on the limitations of the bureaucratic, technological, institutional, medical, and political practices that currently determine malaria interventions in Africa.

Crisscrossing Through Afro-Asian Literature

Crisscrossing Through Afro-Asian Literature
Author: Rustica C. Carpio
Publisher: Anvil Publishing, Inc.
Total Pages: 505
Release: 2017-10-02
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9712729192

Crisscrossing Through Afro-Asian Literature is intended to give the reader varied views of life in the Afro-Asian sphere. It hopes to help the reader capture the nuances of the human experience that well from the vast wealth of wisdom and culture in these countries.

The Palgrave Handbook of Global Slavery throughout History

The Palgrave Handbook of Global Slavery throughout History
Author: Damian A. Pargas
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 714
Release: 2023-06-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 3031132602

This open access handbook takes a comparative and global approach to analyse the practice of slavery throughout history. To understand slavery - why it developed, and how it functioned in various societies – is to understand an important and widespread practice in world civilisations. With research traditionally being dominated by the Atlantic world, this collection aims to illuminate slavery that existed in not only the Americas but also ancient, medieval, North and sub-Saharan African, Near Eastern, and Asian societies. Connecting civilisations through migration, warfare, trade routes and economic expansion, the practice of slavery integrated countries and regions through power-based relationships, whilst simultaneously dividing societies by class, race, ethnicity and cultural group. Uncovering slavery as a globalising phenomenon, the authors highlight the slave-trading routes that crisscrossed Africa, helped integrate the Mediterranean world, connected Indian Ocean societies and fused the Atlantic world. Split into five parts, the handbook portrays the evolution of slavery from antiquity to the contemporary era and encourages readers to realise similarities and differences between various manifestations of slavery throughout history. Providing a truly global coverage of slavery, and including thematic injections within each chronological part, this handbook is a comprehensive and transnational resource for all researchers interested in slavery, the history of labour, and anthropology.

River Spirit

River Spirit
Author: Leila Aboulela
Publisher: Saqi Books
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2023-03-07
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0863569226

When Akuany and her brother are orphaned in a village raid, they're taken in by a young merchant Yaseen who promises to care for them, a vow that tethers him to Akuany through their adulthood. As revolution begins to brew, led by the self-proclaimed Mahdi, Sudan begins to prise itself from Ottoman rule, and everyone must choose a side. Yaseen feels beholden to stand against this false Mahdi, a decision that threatens to splinter his family. Meanwhile, Akuany moves through her young adulthood and across the country alone, sold and traded from house to house, with only Yaseen as her intermittent lifeline. Their struggle mirrors the increasingly bloody struggle for Sudan itself - for freedom, safety and the possibility of love. River Spirit illuminates a fraught and bloody reckoning with the history of a people caught in the crosshairs of imperialism. This is a powerful tale of corruption, coming of age and unshakeable devotion - to a cause, to one's faith and to the people who become family.

Grassfields Stories from Cameroon

Grassfields Stories from Cameroon
Author: W. Vakunta
Publisher: African Books Collective
Total Pages: 105
Release: 2008-01-15
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9956715077

Grassfields Stories from Cameroon is an anthology of short stories. It comprises animal trickster tales, bird survival tales, and human-interest stories. The compendium is a reflection of the mores, cultures, and value systems of the indigenous peoples of the Northwest Province of Cameroon. It is motivated by the author's keen interest in the preservation of Cameroonian oral traditions in written form. These stories deal with the day-to-day life of the sedentary and the globe-trotter. Each story is sufficient onto itself. The author has intentionally avoided chronology in the order of presentation of the stories. Whether you read the stories in the order in which they are presented or dart about as your fancy dictates, you will feel the abundance of richness and entertainment the book contains. The didactic value of this collection of short stories resides in its suitability to readers of all age groups. The uniqueness of the volume lies in its universal appeal. Peter Wuteh Vakunta was born and raised in the village of Bamunka-Ndop in Cameroon where he worked as senior translator at the Presidency of the Republic before immigrating to America. He is an alumnus of Sacred Heart College-Mankon. Vakunta obtained his Bachelor degrees in Cameroon and Nigeria; MA and MSE degrees in Cameroon and the U.S.A. At present, Vakunta and his family live in Madison, U.S.A. He teaches in the Department of French and Italian at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he is also completing his PhD dissertation titled: Translation in Literature: Indigenization in the Francophone Text. Vakunta is poet, storyteller and essayist. His published works include Better English: Mind Your P's and Q's, Lion Man and Other Stories (short stories), Brainwaves (poems), Pandora's Box (poems). African Time and Pidgin Verses (poems), Square Pegs in Round Holes (essays) and It Takes Guts (essays). Vakunta's literary works have earned him several awards in the U.S.A, U.K and Africa.