The problem of the present in West Africa: Introducing a conceptual framework

The study and application of household coping have largely been confined to the problems of famine and food insecurity. Based on field insights from West Africa, this paper argues that understanding how households cope and allocate resources in times of crisis is of immense value to a broad array of development interventions. It also introduces a conceptual framework that evaluates household coping in exogenous and endogenous contexts. The application of this framework may provide a more informed approach to development intervention design, implementation and targeting that is sensitive to the differential needs and experiences of rural households and communities.

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The Appropriation of Bicycles in West Africa

Transfers ◽

10.3167/trans.2012.020204 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 2 (2) ◽

pp. 31-48 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Hans Peter Hahn

Keyword(s):

West Africa ◽

Conceptual Framework ◽

Consumer Goods ◽

Cultural Appropriation ◽

Vital Functions ◽

Wide Range ◽

Range Of Functions ◽

Specific Pathway

Bicycles have a wide range of functions and roles in West Africa. They have vital functions for everyday necessities, but they also constitute prestige objects. The appreciation of bicycles in Africa started very early, almost simultaneously with their diffusion as consumer goods in Europe. However, the adoption of bicycles followed a specific pathway, which is explained in this article within the conceptual framework of appropriation. Cultural appropriation highlights the significant modifications of bicycles in Africa and the abandonment of some functions like braking. In spite of the technical simplifications, modified bicycles are perceived as having higher value, by virtue of their fitness for the tough roads and their increased reliability. Appropriation results in a specific “Africanized“ bicycle, which makes possible a prolonged usage. This essay argues that the “Africanized“ bicycle constitutes a model of sustainability in matters of transport, one which is not sufficiently recognized in current debates about sustainable innovations.

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Bulk Exports, Trade Tiers, Regulation, and Development: An Economic Approach to the Study of West Africa's “Legitimate Trade”

The Journal of Economic History ◽

10.1017/s0022050700091592 ◽

1979 ◽

Vol 39 (2) ◽

pp. 419-438 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Christopher Chamberlin

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

West Africa ◽

Conceptual Framework ◽

The Political ◽

Economic Approach ◽

Political Implications ◽

Historical Origins ◽

Economic Character

During the nineteenth century the export of bulk commodities from West Africa expanded at the expense of slave exports. Research has focused on the political implications of the expansion of so-called “legitimate trade” rather than on its economic character. In the interests of an economic approach, new terminology and a conceptual framework are proposed, and then applied to a historical problem—the levels of competition prevailing in the African trader networks serving the coastal ports. The conclusions of this study are related to the issue of the historical origins of African underdevelopment.

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Replacing “Whole Limbs with Borrowed Ones”: Whiteness, Decolonization, and Early Nationalist Identification

KENTE - Cape Coast Journal of Literature and the Arts ◽

10.47963/jla.v1i1.83 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 01-14

Author(s):

Raquel Baker

Keyword(s):

West Africa ◽

Conceptual Framework ◽

Cultural Nationalism ◽

Gold Coast ◽

Subject Positions ◽

British Colonization ◽

Selection Of

In this essay, I center an examination of the satirical play “The Blinkards,” written by Kobina Sekyi in 1915 in the context of British colonization of the Gold Coast in West Africa, present-day Ghana. I show that postcolonial modes of identification emerged within the conceptual framework of cultural nationalism. As such, I argue that emergent postcolonial practices of identification are grounded in transnational modes of modernity. My examination of a selection of Sekyi’s texts shows how whiteness structures oppositional self-making practices within a colonial context, positioning whiteness itself as a key ground of transnational subject positions that develop in modernity.

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