From Citizenship to Négritude: “Making a Difference” in Elite Ideologies of Colonized Francophone West Africa

1993 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael C. Lambert

By examining three historical stages between 1914 and the late 1950s in the development of African political ideology in Francophone West Africa, this essay will explore the problem represented by the category of the colonized.1 This category, first formulated in 1961 by Frantz Fanon, has increasingly been used to revise understandings of African ideologies formed before 1960 in terms of political economy. Indeed, ever since Fanon published his polemical, The Wretched of the Earth (1968), the rage of the colonized has been naturalized in academic literature as the reaction to colonization. Yet in arguing that the rage of the peasants did not characterize the reaction of the “most completely” colonized (the elites and merchants), Fanon acknowledged that rage did not define the position of his elite predecessors. Fanon's work appeared in the twilight of the colonial era not as a dispassionate analysis but as a call to action. He intended to awaken the peasant's rage, which he considered the legitimate and local reaction to colonialism, within the elites, who did not share this attitude towards the colonizer.

2020 ◽  

This book explores some of the risks associated with sustainable peace in Colombia. The book intentionally steers away from the emphasis on the drug trade as the main resource fueling Colombian conflicts and violence, a topic that has dominated scholarly attention. Instead, it focuses on the links that have been configured over decades of armed conflict between legal resources (such as bananas, coffee, coal, flowers, gold, ferronickel, emeralds, and oil), conflict dynamics, and crime in several regions of Colombia. The book thus contributes to a growing trend in the academic literature focusing on the subnational level of armed conflict behavior. It also illustrates how the social and economic context of these resources can operate as deterrents or as drivers of violence. The book thus provides important lessons for policymakers and scholars alike: Just as resources have been linked to outbreaks and transformations of violence, peacebuilding too needs to take into account their impacts, legacies, and potential


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ibrahim Kawuley Mikail

The book analyses the background of corrupt practices in the annals of Nigerian political history from pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial era down to the fourth democratic dispensation. The book also establishes a nexus between corruption and political economy in the Nigerian political theatre. Indeed, corruption undermines the rules of law, equity, transparency democratization and national development which breed poverty, insecurity and general underdevelopment among the populace.Meanwhile, the political economy approach and the theories of corruption and their application on Nigerian political economy is highlighted.The role of policy-makers and stakeholders with their policies and programmes on combating corruption is also analysed. Furthermore, the giant efforts of international organizations, civil society organizations (CSOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on combating the menace of corruption are also pointed out. The book serves as a guide to researchers on the subject matter and the freedom fighters with their anti-corruption crusade or mandates so as to proffer solutions to corrupt practices and scandals in Nigeria and beyond.


2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-63
Author(s):  
Peter O. O. Ottuh ◽  

The popular edible fruit called kola nut that is found all over the Earth is native to the people of West Africa. In Idjerhe (Jesse) culture, the kola nut is part of the people’s traditional religious activities and spirituality. The presentation, breaking, and eating of the kola nut signifies hospitality, friendship, love, mutual trust, manliness, peace, acceptance, happiness, fellowship, and communion with the gods and spirits. These socio-religious values of the kola nut among the Idjerhe people are not well documented,however, and this paper aims to fill the lacuna. It employs participatory observation and oral interviews, supported by a critical review of scholarly literature on the subject. The research posits that churches can use the kola nut as a Eucharistic element that would be meaningful and indigenous to the Idjerhe people.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peyman Hekmatpour

The Anthropocene age is marked by increased human impacts on the natural environment. As social beings, humans interact with each other, and with their surrounding environments, often through organizations and institutions. Religion and the polity are among the most influential human institutions, and they tend to impact the natural environment in several ways. For instance, several thinkers have claimed that some of the central ideas of the Abrahamic traditions, such as the concept of “Domination of men over the earth,” are among the causes of several anthropogenic environmental problems. By contrast, some of the ideas of non-Abrahamic, particularly animistic, religions are found to be associated with environmental conservation and stewardship. The polity can also contribute to environmental problems. The relationship between political organizations and environmental degradation, at any level of analysis from local to global, is well studied and established in the literature. Politicizing the natural environment, however, is not without tradeoffs. Environmentalism, by certain groups of people, is considered as a “stigma,” while it is a central concept in the political ideology of another part of the population. This antagonism is harmful to the environmental protection cause. I make the case that religion, or at least a number of religious ideas, can be conducive to the process of depoliticizing the natural environment. In this paper, I strive to draw a theoretical framework to explain how religion and the polity can mutually impact the natural environment.


2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-387
Author(s):  
Sanghamitra Misra

The article is an inquiry into the elision of an image—that of the cotton-producing Garo—in the colonial archive. It situates this inquiry within the pre- and early colonial era where it is still possible to uncover elements of the irrefutable sovereign presence of Garos in eastern India as well as of the regional economic and political system through which the Garo social being makes itself historically visible. Parsing together a narrative of the Garo political order in this period, the article will discuss the ways in which the sovereignty of a people was pivoted around the production and trade in cotton. Rescuing the image of the cotton-producing Garo from the colonial archive is also a retracing of the seamless becoming of the Garo peasant, as adept at working with the hoe as with the plough, into a cotton trader who embarked on long journeys on foot and on boats every cotton season to the lowlands. The article will also probe into the germaneness of the concept of the ‘hill/forest tribe’ with the sedentary plainsman as its oppositional image and the embedding of ethnicity in circumscribed ‘natural’ habitats in eastern India by the colonial state.


Art Scents ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 307-314
Author(s):  
Larry Shiner

There are certain places on California’s Central Coast where the scent from stands of eucalyptus can penetrate your car even with the windows closed, although the smell is so inviting you are tempted to open them a bit.1 You can have equally interesting scent experiences driving east through the California and Nevada deserts after a rain when you can inhale the pungent smell of sage and creosote bush. Or consider the fact that sometimes you can smell rain before it comes, first from the ozone in the air produced by electrical discharges, and then, especially if you are in arid regions, from the smell of geosmin released from the earth. As Cynthia Barnett points out, you can inhale an especially intense version of earth odors in some rural areas of India, West Africa, or Australia that experience the climatic extremes of months of no rain followed by stretches of monsoon. Back in 1964 two Australian scientists discovered that a major source of this odor were geosmin, a soil-dwelling bacteria, and terpenes secreted by plants. These kinds of molecules are absorbed by rock and clay during hot dry periods, building up great quantities that are then released by the sudden rise in humidity. The scientists nicknamed the smell “petrichor,” from ...


2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (1/2) ◽  
pp. 121-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marwa M. El-Ashmouni ◽  
Ashraf M. Salama

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop an analytical account on the contemporary architecture of Cairo with emphasis on the past three decades, from the early 1990s to the present. The paper critically analyses narratives of the plurality of “isms”, within architectural vocabulary and discourse, that resulted from the contextual particularities that shaped it. Design/methodology/approach Three lines of inquiry are envisioned as overarching aspects of architecture: the chronological, the interventional and the representational. These discussions are underpinned by the discourse of decolonialisation and cosmopolitanism, posited sequentially by Frantz Fanon in The Wretched of the Earth (1961), and Ulrich Beck in The Cosmopolitan Vision (2004). The analysis expands to interrogate these two notions as prelude for reflecting on representations of selected projects: The Smart Village (2001); the Great Egyptian Museum (2002), Al-Azhar Park (2005), American University in Cairo New Campus (2008/2009), and the New Administrative Capital (2018). Findings The investigation on the interventional and the representational levels via aspects of discursivity and contradictions highlights that decolonisation and cosmopolitanism are two inseparable facets in the architectural practice in Egypt’s 21st century. These indivisible notions are based on idiosyncratic core to human experience, which emerged from concurrent overturning historical and secular everyday life striving to suppress ideological supremacy. Research limitations/implications Further detailed examples can be developed to offer discerning elucidations relevant to both notions of cosmopolitanism and decolonialisation. Originality/value The paper offers novel theoretical analysis of Cairo’s most recent architecture. The reflection on the notions of decolonialisation and cosmopolitanism is a timely example of the complex cultural encounters that have shaped the Egyptian architecture, given the recent interventions by the “Modern State” that legitimised such notions.


1998 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 711
Author(s):  
Toyin Falola ◽  
Basil Davidson
Keyword(s):  

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document