Matricide in Ghana: Victims, Offenders, and Offense Characteristics

2017 ◽  
Vol 62 (7) ◽  
pp. 1925-1946 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mensah Adinkrah
Keyword(s):  
West African ◽  
Western World ◽  
Physical Force ◽  
The West ◽  
Modus Operandi ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
Lethal Violence ◽  
The Past ◽  
Temporal And Spatial ◽  
Media Reports

At present, scholarship on matricide across many regions of the non-Western world is lacking. For instance, in Ghana, despite the intermittent, yet recurrent, availability of media reports describing matricidal acts over the past quarter century, no existing study has systematically analyzed matricidal killings in the West African nation. To contribute to the literature and extend knowledge about matricide and other forms of lethal violence in Ghana, this article presents the results of an analysis of 21 matricidal acts that occurred in Ghana from 1990 to 2016. Issues studied include demographic characteristics of assailants and victims, modus operandi, temporal and spatial aspects, as well as the motives and circumstances surrounding the crime. The results show that sons were substantially more likely than daughters to kill their mothers, matricide offenders were more likely to suffer from serious psychiatric disorders, matricide offenses generally occurred in the victim’s home, and all cases of matricide were characterized by massive physical force and extreme violence. Matricide offenses in Ghana differed from matricides in Western nations in four important respects: (a) none of the 21 matricides was perpetrated with a firearm, (b) in none of the cases did the offender act with a co-offender (accomplice or accessory), (c) none of the matricide offenses was perpetrated by a juvenile or adolescent offender, and (d) suspicion that the mother-victim was a maleficent witch was an important trigger in matricide perpetration.

scholarly journals Has Akira Always Been a Cyberpunk Comic?

Arts ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin de la Iglesia
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
The United States ◽  
Western World ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Blade Runner ◽  
Genre Awareness

Between the late 1980s and early 1990s, interest in the cyberpunk genre peaked in the Western world, perhaps most evidently when Terminator 2: Judgment Day became the highest-grossing film of 1991. It has been argued that the translation of Katsuhiro Ōtomo’s manga Akira into several European languages at just that time (into English beginning in 1988, into French, Italian, and Spanish beginning in 1990, and into German beginning in 1991) was no coincidence. In hindsight, cyberpunk tropes are easily identified in Akira to the extent that it is nowadays widely regarded as a classic cyberpunk comic. But has this always been the case? When Akira was first published in America and Europe, did readers see it as part of a wave of cyberpunk fiction? Did they draw the connections to previous works of the cyberpunk genre across different media that today seem obvious? In this paper, magazine reviews of Akira in English and German from the time when it first came out in these languages will be analysed in order to gauge the past readers’ genre awareness. The attribution of the cyberpunk label to Akira competed with others such as the post-apocalyptic, or science fiction in general. Alternatively, Akira was sometimes regarded as an exceptional, novel work that transcended genre boundaries. In contrast, reviewers of the Akira anime adaptation, which was released at roughly the same time as the manga in the West (1989 in Germany and the United States), more readily drew comparisons to other cyberpunk films such as Blade Runner.

Systematics of Irvingiaceae and Ixonanthaceae (Malpighiales): phylogenetic analysis based on three plastid DNA loci

Phytotaxa ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 260 (2) ◽  
pp. 157 ◽  
Author(s):  
JAMES W. BYNG ◽  
BENEDETTA BERNARDINI ◽  
MAARTEN J. M. CHRISTENHUSZ ◽  
MARK W. CHASE
Keyword(s):  
Phylogenetic Analysis ◽  
Maximum Likelihood ◽  
Plastid Dna ◽  
Morphological Characters ◽  
West African ◽  
The West ◽  
Old World ◽  
The Past

Relationships of Ixonanthaceae and Irvingiaceae have been poorly known in the past. We therefore investigate the relationships of these families here. Plastid atpB, rbcL and ndhF sequences from taxa representing all genera were analysed using maximum likelihood. Allantospermum was found as sister to Irvingiaceae and does not belong to Ixonanthaceae where it was often traditionally placed. This position of Allantospermum in Irvingiaceae is further supported by numerous putative synapomorphic characters. Expanded species sampling in Ixonanthaceae found that African Phyllocosmus was embedded within a strongly supported clade containing American Ochthocosmus. A re-evaluation of morphological characters of the two supports an enlarged concept of Ochthocosmus. Within Irvingiaceae, the West African monotypic Desbordesia was embedded within a strongly supported clade of Old World Irvingia. These findings change circumscriptions of both Ixonanthaceae and Irvingiaceae.

scholarly journals SPATIO-TEMPORAL VARIATION OF PM<sub>2.5</sub> CONCENTRATION IN CHINA FROM 1998 TO 2016 AND ITS RESPONSE TO ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

2020 ◽  
Vol XLII-3/W10 ◽  
pp. 49-55
Author(s):  
H. Z. Zhang ◽  
J. J. Chen ◽  
X. N. Zhao ◽  
J. Liu
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Inner Mongolia ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
Spatial Distribution Characteristics ◽  
Temporal And Spatial ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
Pm2.5 Concentration ◽  
China’S Economy

Abstract. China's economy has experienced rapid development in the past few decades, and economic development has also brought serious pollution problems, which has attracted wide attention of scholars at home and abroad. Based on the data of global PM2.5 remote sensing products and China's economic development from 1998 to 2016, the temporal and spatial variations of PM2.5 concentration in China from 1998 to 2016 were analyzed, and the response of PM2.5 concentration in China to economic development was studied. The results showed that the average annual PM2.5 concentration in 1998–2016 showed the spatial distribution characteristics of high in the East and low in the west; during 1998–2016, PM2.5 increased significantly in most regions, but decreased significantly in Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Ningxia and Gansu, while PM2.5 did not change significantly in some parts of the central region; during 1998–2007, PM2.5 concentration in most regions of China experienced rapid economic development. The concentration of PM2.5 in a few areas such as Inner Mongolia decreased significantly, while that in Yunnan, Sichuan and Inner Mongolia did not change significantly. During the 10 years of economic slowdown in China (2008–2016), the downward trend of PM2.5 concentration in China was expanding. The concentration of PM2.5 in the central and southern regions decreased or did not change significantly, except in the northwest and a few northeast regions. The change of PM2.5 concentration responds obviously to economic development, but the response of different regional economic development to the change of PM2.5 concentration is different.

Shadow Elites

2021 ◽  
pp. 62-90
Author(s):  
Janine R. Wedel
Keyword(s):  
Multidisciplinary Approach ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
Power Elite ◽  
Social Anthropology ◽  
Modus Operandi ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Private Power ◽  
The Impact

Seismic transformational developments over the past several decades have reorganized governance, spawned new spaces of policy and governance, and weakened impartial government and accountability. Systemic, structural corruption, in which activities are mostly legal but violate an official institution’s public, impartial mission has arisen, along with a new breed of influencers. “Shadow elites” are the most insidious of these influencers. This chapter, grounded in social anthropology, examines the organization and modus operandi of shadow elites as compared with their “power elite” forebears and evaluates theories of institutional corruption in light of shadow elite practices and their merging of state and private power. International anticorruption regimes have emerged over the same time frame (the past quarter century) as shadow elites. Hence we ask why these regimes have largely failed to recognize the impact of the transformational developments and the forms of corruption they forge. A wide-ranging, multidisciplinary approach to studying shadow elite practices, ecosystems, and implications is urgently needed.

Re-Islamization of the West African Ummah A Model for Tajdid?

1987 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-228
Author(s):  
Abdur Rahman I. Doi
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Personal Development ◽  
West African ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Sahara Desert ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
Islamic Civilization

IntroductionHuman development, from the Islamic point of view, can be achieved onlyby following the footsteps of the Prophet (SAAS). The nearer one comes toimbibing the Message of the Quran, Sunnah, and Shari’ah in one’s life, themore humanly developed one becomes, because personal development in Islamis measured by one’s refinement in living this Message. The more refinedand developed are the persons in a community, the better will be their cultureand civilization.As long as Muslims continued moulding their life according to the Shari‘ah,their civilization in Medina, Baghdad, Andullis, Constantinople, and Delhiflourished. The decline and fall of Islamic civilization came when Muslimsstarted paying mere lip service to the formula of faith and departing fromthe spirit and purposes of the Shari‘ah. This was the unfortunate phenomenonthroughout the Muslim world. Fortunately, the rightly inspired people roseto bring back the erring Muslims to the path of the Shari’ah. This paper seeksto present an assessment of the dynamics used by a Mujaddid (a promoterof Tajdid or revival) of West Africa to re-Islamize a society that had sunkinto the abyss of confusion.Islam in West AfricaWest Africa, situated south of the Sahara desert, and which the Arabhistorians called Bilad al Sudan, has witnessed in the past, many Islamicempires, e.g., Ghana, Mali, Songhai, and Bornu, the last of which was theSokoto Caliphate. It emerged from the process of Tajdid (renewal or revival inaccordance with the Quran and Sunnah)’ which was started by Shehu(Shaikh) ‘Uthman Danfodio (1754-1817) in 1774, and which culminated in ...

scholarly journals What’s In the Manuscripts of Timbuktu? A Survey of the Contents of 31 Private Libraries

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Charles C. Stewart
Keyword(s):  
West African ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past

Abstract The Arabic manuscripts of Timbuktu have received considerable publicity during the past 25 years, yet their contents remain largely unknown. Since 2012, an inventory of nearly 350,000 Timbuktu manuscripts in private libraries has been underway, and the contents of those libraries are now accessible in the West African Arabic Manuscript Database (WAAMD). This analysis examines 31 of the 35 libraries and in addition to reporting on their contents, notes challenges in accessing incompletely identified works, and compares the manuscripts with other West African collections.

Rock art in sub-Saharan Mali

Antiquity ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 75 (290) ◽  
pp. 799-800
Author(s):  
Cornelia Kleinitz
Keyword(s):  
Rock Art ◽  
West African ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Blank Space ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
West African Sahel ◽  
African Sahel

Sub-Saharan West Africa has remained largely a blank space on the world rock-art map, in spite of a steady trickle of reports during the past century on pictograph and petroglyph sites in the West African sahel and savanna belts. It seems that the nature of the rock art reported, predominantly ‘geometric’ and saurian motifs, and ‘stick figures’, as well as its apparent recent age, formed little incentive for in-depth studies of rock art in this region. From sub-Saharan Mali, for example, only two sites have been published to a satisfactory standard (Huysecom 1990; Huysecom et al. 1996). The richness of the region in rock art, as indicated by several authors (e.g. Griaule 1938; Huysecom & Mayor 1991/92; Togola et al. 1995), has been confirmed by on-going research on rock art in the Boucle du Baoulé region (map, FIGURE 5) in the southwest of the country (Kleinitz 2000). In three field seasons, 14 known and 38 newly identified rock-shelters and open-air sites with pictographs and peboglyphs have been recorded.

Recalcitrant Geographies: National Claims, Transnationalism, and the Institutionalization of Contemporary Art

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kitty Zijlmans
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Art History ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Art Museums ◽  
Western World ◽  
The West ◽  
International Scope ◽  
The Past ◽  
Museum Displays ◽  
Globalizing World

The time is ripe for modern and contemporary art museums in the West to reconsider their position in a globalizing world, to engage with such questions as how their collections have been formed and presented in the past fifty years or more, and what they represent. Modern art is said to have an international scope, but in reality this generally means Euro-American. Consequently, its origins, which lie in part in art from Africa, the Pacific and the Americas, are denied. Contemporary art as a global phenomenon is making a somewhat hesitant entry into museums in the Western world and into art history. It may be making its entry and may also be included in the discourse of art history, but in many cases this move is problematic. Throughout the past twenty-five years, Third Text founder Rasheen Araeen has fulminated against the “West’s” appropriation of modern art and the concept of Modernism.[1] Third Text has persistently argued that the Western analytical paradigm of the arts is distorted in its history and imposes its values and aesthetics without acknowledging the contribution of artists “from elsewhere,” as Okwui Enwezor terms it. This has had a number of consequences, not least the neglect in art historical textbooks and by modern art museums in the West of crucial Modernist work produced by non-Euro-American artists. Not having been written into the mainstream of art history, or seen as foundational for the formation of the canon of modern art and displays in modern art museums, this neglect results in a distorted view and calls for a thorough rewriting of modern art history, as well as a reconsideration of the layout of art museums. This urge is felt even more in the present-day globalization of art and the art world. “Art from elsewhere,” which is abundant, cannot simply be added to the existing canons or inserted into prevalent discourses; rather, we need to critically assess the foundations of art historical writing, canon formation, and museum displays.

French Lexicography in Africa: a Three-Dimensional Project

1982 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 353-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Conrad Max Benedict Brann
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Ford Foundation ◽  
West African ◽  
The West ◽  
African Languages ◽  
The Past ◽  
English Speaking

Few English-speaking scholars realise that a francophone network of scholars has powerfully developed the study of contact between French and African languages over the past decade, and that this is currently being synthesised in the form of an Inventaire des particularités lexicales du français en Afrique noire. This corporate work, sponsored by the Association des universités partiellement ou entièrement de langue française (A.U.P.E.L.F.) and the Agence de coopération culturelle et technique (A.C.C.T.),1 is of considerable linguistic, educational, and sociopolitical significance, and deserves to be widely known in Africa. Indeed, it will be remembered that at the founding of the West African Linguistic Society in 1961 two surveys were mooted: West African languages and, later, English in West Africa, of which the former was accomplished with the help of the International African Institute and the Ford Foundation, while the latter was forgotten. With the ‘Inventory of French in Africa’, the francophone network of scholars has certainly stolen a march on English-speaking Africa.

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