DEVELOPMENT AND ADMINISTRATIVE NORMS: THE OFFICE DU NIGER AND DECENTRALIZATION IN FRENCH SUDAN AND MALI

Africa ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 81 (3) ◽  
pp. 434-454 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mamadou Diawara
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Third World ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Trace Back ◽  
Office Du Niger ◽  
French Colonial

ABSTRACTThis article analyses the historical roots of decentralization, a policy which is presented in the development world as the miracle cure to Third World evils. The text is based on the current literature on the topic as well as field research carried out in Mali in the Office du Niger region, which, already in the colonial period, represented a particular decentralization challenge. It offers a critical perspective on the concept of decentralization, which some trace back to the Middle Ages, and examines colonial experiences. How can the Malian state, inherited from the colonial state, decentralize everything whilst adopting the policy according to which the lands of the central delta of the Niger have been state-owned property since 1935? The aim is to show the analogy between problems encountered by the French colonial state and those that plague the Malian post-colonial state, whilst guarding against the sirens of a false authenticity reeking of neo-traditionalism.

The Story of Storyboards from East Sepik, Papua New Guinea

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-74
Author(s):  
Martin Soukup ◽  
Dušan Lužný
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Field Research ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Cultural Continuity ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Global Tourism ◽  
The Village

This study analyzes and interprets East Sepik storyboards, which the authors regard as a form of cultural continuity and instrument of cultural memory in the post-colonial period. The study draws on field research conducted by the authors in the village of Kambot in East Sepik. The authors divide the storyboards into two groups based on content. The first includes storyboards describing daily life in the community, while the other links the daily life to pre-Christian religious beliefs and views. The aim of the study is to analyze one of the forms of contemporary material culture in East Sepik in the context of cultural changes triggered by Christianization, colonial administration in the former Territory of New Guinea and global tourism.

scholarly journals Post-Colonial State and Bureaucracy in Bangladesh: Theoretical Understanding

2013 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 43-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanif Miah
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Military Rule ◽  
Theoretical Understanding ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
State Administration ◽  
State Bureaucracy ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Personal Interests

Bureaucracy is the management apparatus of a state administration. Even in private sector, bureaucratic organization is very much essential for its smooth functioning and betterment. A legalized domination of bureaucracy only can ensure highest efficiency of an organization in a country. But the state bureaucracy of Bangladesh not developed legally from Pre-colonial period to post-colonial phase as well as an independent Bangladesh eventually. The state bureaucracy of Bangladesh is patrimonial in nature based on personal interests. The politicians and bureaucrats are interdependent in various manners for the fulfillment of their purpose illegally in Democratic Bangladesh. Simultaneously, the impact of militarism still exists in state bureaucracy of Bangladesh as it faced military rule in several times.

scholarly journals Colonial State Formation Without Integration: Tax Capacity and Labour Regimes in Portuguese Mozambique (1890s–1970s)

2017 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kleoniki Alexopoulou ◽  
Dácil Juif
Keyword(s):  
Colonial Period ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
Economic Systems ◽  
Government Revenue ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Single Colony ◽  
Forced Labour ◽  
Tax Capacity

AbstractSamir Amin (1972) divided the African continent into three “macro-regions of colonial influence” with distinct socio-economic systems and labour practices: Africa of the colonial trade or peasant economy, Africa of the concession-owning companies, and Africa of the labour reserves. We argue that Mozambique encompassed all three different “macro-regions” in a single colony. We reconstruct government revenue (direct/indirect taxes) raised at a district level between 1930 and 1973 and find persisting differences in the “tax capacity” of the three regions throughout the colonial period. The tax systems, we claim, developed in response to existing local geographic and economic conditions, particularly to labour practices. Portuguese colonial rule adapted to and promoted labour practices such as migration and forced labour to maximize revenue. The extent to which the lack of integration played a role in the post-colonial state and fiscal failure should be studied further.

A Demon with Ruby Eyes

2013 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 335-369
Author(s):  
Manan Ahmed Asif
Keyword(s):  
Built Environment ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Religious Difference ◽  
The Past ◽  
Textual Production

This essay takes a longitudinal look at how different communities dealt with political and theological difference in the same space. It examines accounts of Uch Sharif, in contemporary Pakistan, from the thirteenth century to the present. It specifically traces a motif of ‘ruby eyes’ in Arabic and Persian historiography in an effort to delineate how difference was represented and assimilated. It argues that until the late colonial period, religious difference was mutually comprehensible, even if incommensurate. The rupture of meaning in recognising difference continued in different ways in the post-colonial state of Pakistan. The study provides a methodological argument for reshaping the ways in which we look at landscape, built environment and community, in contemporary South Asia. By situating the textual production of the past alongside the material remnants of the past, this essay reads simultaneously ethnographic and textual understandings of difference in Uch Sharif.

Francophone Africa at fifty

2013 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Comparative Perspective ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Francophone Africa ◽  
French West Africa ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
French Colonial ◽  
Sub Saharan

2010 marked the 50th anniversary of the ‘Year of Africa’. All France’s colonies in sub-Saharan Africa gained their independence in that year. This book brings together leading scholars from across the globe to review ‘Francophone Africa at Fifty’. It examines continuities from the colonial to the post-colonial period and analyses the diverse and multi-faceted legacy of French colonial rule in sub-Saharan Africa. It also reviews the decolonization of French West Africa in comparative perspective and observes how independence is remembered and commemorated fifty years on.

What Was the Late Colonial State?

Itinerario ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 23 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 73-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Darwin
Keyword(s):  
Colonial Period ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Ruling Elite ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Popular Resistance ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
Subaltern History

The historiography of the late colonial era has had a love-hate relationship with the colonial state. In the early years of post-colonial independence, much history was written to record and celebrate the achievements of ‘nation-building’. The founding fathers of independence had defeated the colonial state in their struggle against its oppressions. The old state, now under new management, but with the same boundaries, language and (usually) administrative structure, had become a nation, with an undisputed claim to the loyalty of its former colonial subjects. The task of the historian was to show how a national identity had emerged ineluctably from the bundle of districts cellotaped together by colonialism into a dependency, and how it had been mobilised to throw off colonial rule and create a sovereign nation. Subsequently, as this version of the recent colonial past was undermined by the difficulties and divisions of the independent present, and, in some cases, by disillusionment with its ruling elite, the focus shifted towards the sources of popular resistance in the colonial period. In this ‘subaltern’ history, the emphasis was upon uncovering rural struggles, local solidarities, and ‘hidden’ communities of belief that colonial rulers had ignored, or suppressed but which had played a key part in destroying the legitimacy and exercise of their power. The implication here was that the colonial state was an alien coercive force whose continuation into the post-colonial era (even with a change of crew) had frustrated social justice and the achievement of an authentic post-colonial identity.

(Re)examination of the Aspects of African Cultural Production through Different Epochs

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 151-161
Author(s):  
Vincent Odhiambo Oduor
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Production ◽  
Third World ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
African Culture ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Literature And Society ◽  
Production Development ◽  
Stuart Hall ◽  
Colonial Theory ◽  
Cultural Worker

This paper sought to examine how African Culture has undergone the processes of production, development and change through four different epochs, namely: pre-colonial period, colonial period, independent period and post-independent period. The study applies the post-colonial theory, which broadly deals with the study of the effects of colonialism on cultures and societies, to interrogate the (un)changing perceptions of Africans across different epochs. Post-colonial theory is often said to commence with the work of Edward Said, Stuart Hall and Homi K. Bhabha. The approach looks at literature and society from two broad angles: how the writer, artist, cultural worker, and his or her context imitates a colonial past, and how they survive and carve out a new way of creating and understanding the world. It is anxious with both how European nations conquered and controlled “Third world” cultures and how these groups have since responded to and resisted those encroachments. The study is qualitative, employing discourse data obtained from a close reading of the text.  The paper contributes knowledge on how various factors such as slavery, colonialism; migration, technology and globalization have contributed to cultural production, development and change.

Regulation of Religion and Granting of Public Holidays

2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 524-548
Author(s):  
George Radics ◽  
Vineeta Sinha
Keyword(s):  
Attorney General ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Sensitive Issue ◽  
Religious Festivals ◽  
Hindu Community ◽  
Public Holidays ◽  
Discriminatory Practice

Abstract During the colonial period, the Straits Settlements government formalised through law the declaration of public holidays marking religious festivals for the different communities. This practice was continued by the post-colonial state, apportioning public holidays “equally” amongst its citizenry. Adopting a historical perspective, this paper theorises the Singapore state’s allocation of public holidays for its citizens with a specific focus on the Singaporean Hindu community. The paper traces the journey of Tai Pucam as a declared public holiday in colonial Singapore to the 1950s when the Hindu community had two gazetted public holidays to 1968 when Tai Pucam was removed from the list of public holidays, a situation which persists into the present. The “making and unmaking of Tai Pucam as a public holiday” remains a controversial issue for Singaporean Hindus who express unhappiness over the fact that their religious community is granted only one religious holiday, when the norm in Singapore is such that each ethnic community has two holidays. This inequality is cited by Hindus and Indians in Singapore as a discriminatory practice. In 2015, a recent case, Vijaya Kumar s/o Rajendran and Others v. Attorney General, the controversial ban on musical instruments during a Tai Pucam celebration triggered yet again the sensitive issue of Tai Pucam as a “non holiday”.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document