Gender, Entrepreneurship, and Informal Markets in Africa

2015 ◽  
pp. 19-49
Author(s):  
Janet D. Kwami
Keyword(s):  
Emerging Economies ◽  
Technology Use ◽  
Informal Markets ◽  
Social And Economic Development ◽  
Community Ties ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
Global North ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Dominant Paradigm

Mainstream scholarship on entrepreneurship focuses on firms in the global north as the dominant paradigm, neglecting potential lessons to be found in the informal sector, in the global south, particularly in Africa, and among women. Local entrepreneurship practices present a valuable case study for understanding the nature of entrepreneurship in emerging economies and their contribution to social and economic development. Drawing on ethnographic data, this chapter examines gender and information and communication technology use in the Ghanaian marketplace. Market women's entrepreneurship is influenced by social capital derived from social networks drawn from strong community ties. The study found that ICTs such as mobile phone, while gendered, are central to organizing and managing these micro-enterprises. This chapter contributes to studies on entrepreneurship by drawing attention to the under-researched intersections of female entrepreneurship in the Ghanaian marketplace and ICTs in emerging economies.

scholarly journals Gender, Entrepreneurship, and Informal Markets in Africa

Economics ◽  
2015 ◽  
pp. 776-805
Author(s):  
Janet D. Kwami
Keyword(s):  
Emerging Economies ◽  
Technology Use ◽  
Informal Markets ◽  
Social And Economic Development ◽  
Community Ties ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
Global North ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Dominant Paradigm

Mainstream scholarship on entrepreneurship focuses on firms in the global north as the dominant paradigm, neglecting potential lessons to be found in the informal sector, in the global south, particularly in Africa, and among women. Local entrepreneurship practices present a valuable case study for understanding the nature of entrepreneurship in emerging economies and their contribution to social and economic development. Drawing on ethnographic data, this chapter examines gender and information and communication technology use in the Ghanaian marketplace. Market women's entrepreneurship is influenced by social capital derived from social networks drawn from strong community ties. The study found that ICTs such as mobile phone, while gendered, are central to organizing and managing these micro-enterprises. This chapter contributes to studies on entrepreneurship by drawing attention to the under-researched intersections of female entrepreneurship in the Ghanaian marketplace and ICTs in emerging economies.

Blood Economy: The Failure of the Developed World to End Conflict Minerals in the Congo

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Andrew Guest
Keyword(s):  
Emerging Economies ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Conflict Minerals ◽  
Kimberley Process ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Republic Of The Congo ◽  
Global North ◽  
Causes Of Violence ◽  
Developed World

Conflict minerals have long been among the leading causes of violence in part of the Global South. For many years there was little attention to the issue despite an enormous dependence on conflict minerals by advanced and emerging economies. In recent years however it seems that countries of the Global North have finally begun to take notice. Despite this attention efforts rarely equal success and the attempts by the developed world to end or reduce the trade in conflict minerals are no exception. The Kimberley Process, arguably the most successful effort so far, has generally been decried as ineffective and unproductive by several NGOs and some governments. This paper examines the issue of conflict minerals, their relationship with war and violence, and their role in the global economy in order to explain the failure of the developed world to end the trade of conflict minerals. The paper seeks to understand the lack of international attention to some of the worst atrocities since the holocaust and explores recently attempted solutions and the obstacles therein. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is used as a case study as the Second Congo War and the continuing violence in the country illuminate the murky complexities of the conflict mineral trade, from raw minerals to finished products.

Manajemen Stratejik Pemanfaatan Teknologi Informasi dan Komunikasi untuk Peningkatan Mutu Pembelajaran SMK Ciledug Al Musaddadiyah dan SMKN 1 Garut

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-119
Author(s):  
Partono Partono
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Strategic Management ◽  
Information And Communication Technology ◽  
Communication Technology ◽  
General Description ◽  
Vocational High School ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
School Learning

So far, in implementing school strategies, they tend not to utilize Information and Communication Technology (ICT), despite the availability of ICT resources available. Stages of strategic management are needed to generate the vision, mission, objectives, policy, program, budget, and procedures as well as control and evaluation process as an effort to utilize ICT to improve school quality. Based on the interpretation and the results of the study, it is concluded that schools have organized stages in strategic management that enable schools to have a quality profile. The impact of effective utilization of ICTs for schools is the achievement of effective school management, as per the National Education Standards, which is characterized by effective planning, implementation, control, and evaluation of school ICTs.The purpose of this study is to get a general description, describe, and reveal the Strategic Management of Information and Communication Technology Utilization to Improve the Quality of School Learning in Ciledug Al Musaddadiyah Vocational High School and Garut 1 Vocational High School, both on environmental analysis, strategic formulation, implementation and strategic evaluation. The research method used in this research is the case study method, because the problems studied occur in the place and situation of Ciledug Al Musaddadiyah Vocational School and Vocational High School 1 Garut. The use of case study models in this study is based on the consideration that to provide an overview of the strategic management activities of the use of ICTs carried out at vocational high schools with the ultimate goal of being able to improve the quality of school learning. Based on observations in the field of SMK 1 Garut and SMK Al Musaddadiyah Ciledug Garut is one of the public schools and private schools that have these advantages.

ICT-ENABLED BOTTOM-UP ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Burak Pak
Keyword(s):  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Architectural Design ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
Self Organization ◽  
Literature Study ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
Ict Tools

This paper aims at discussing the potentials of bottom-up design practices in relation to the latest developments in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) by making an in-depth review of inaugural cases. The first part of the study involves a literature study and the elaboration of basic strategies from the case study. The second part reframes the existing ICT tools and strategies and elaborates on their potentials to support the modes of participation performed in these cases. As a result, by distilling the created knowledge, the study reveals the potentials of novel modes of ICT-enabled design participation which exploit a set of collective action tools to support sustainable ways of self-organization and bottom-up design. The final part explains the relevance of these with solid examples and presents a hypothetical case for future implementation. The paper concludes with a brief reflection on the implications of the findings for the future of architectural design education.

Promoting Autonomous Learning through Self-, Peer-, and Co-assessment to Ensure High Quality in Georgian Higher Education (a case study of International Black Sea University, Georgia)

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Irma MESIRIDZE ◽  
Nino TVALTCHRELIDZE
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Black Sea ◽  
Communication Technology ◽  
Bologna Process ◽  
Education Quality ◽  
Education Students ◽  
Higher Education Quality ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
The Bologna Process

The Bologna Process, Information and Communication Technology, and market forces have brought manyinnovations and great changes to higher education systems throughout Europe. Reforms in higher educationhave taken a new direction, towards making higher education students more autonomous. However, manycountries have not really adopted this innovative way of teaching and still maintain an old ‘transmission’ stylewhich often entails teachers trying to pour knowledge into the minds of their students. Promoting autonomouslearning (the ability of students to manage their own learning) in higher education is crucial both for theindividual and society, as the idea of an academic student comprises critical reflective thinking and theimportance of becoming an independent learner. This article will discuss the importance of promotingautonomous learning throughout self, peer and co-assessment for higher education quality enhancement. Thepaper will examine the case of International Black Sea University’s MA students enrolled in the Higher EducationManagement program. The analyses of a survey will be used to discuss the significance of autonomous learningfor students and their readiness for self, peer and co-assessment.

The transfer of European intercultural discourse towards Latin American educational actors: a Mexican case study

2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Mateos
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Indigenous Education ◽  
The State ◽  
Intercultural Education ◽  
Bilingual Teachers ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Intellectual Networks ◽  
State Educational ◽  
Intercultural Discourse

This paper analyses the ways transfer of the discourse on interculturality and intercultural education, as it has been coined and shaped by European anthropologists and pedagogues, towards educational actors and institutions in Latin America. My ethnographic data illustrate how this intercultural discourse is currently transferred through intellectual networks to different kinds of Mexican actors who are actively “translating” this discourse into the post-indigenismo situation of “indigenous education” and ethnic claims making in Mexico. On the basis of fieldwork conducted in two different institutions in the state of Veracruz, the appropriation and re-interpretation of, as well as the resistance against, the European discourse of interculturality are studied by comparing the training of “intercultural and bilingual” teachers through the state educational authorities and the notion of intercultural education, as applied within the so-called “Intercultural University of Veracruz”.

scholarly journals Dimensions of Urban Blight in Emerging Southern Cities: A Case Study of Accra-Ghana

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 8399
Author(s):  
Sally Adofowaa Mireku ◽  
Zaid Abubakari ◽  
Javier Martinez
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Global South ◽  
Economic Decline ◽  
City Development ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
Population Loss ◽  
Land Transfer ◽  
Urban Blight ◽  
Global North

Urban blight functions inversely to city development and often leads to cities’ deterioration in terms of physical beauty and functionality. While the underlying causes of urban blight in the context of the global north are mainly known in the literature to be population loss, economic decline, deindustrialisation and suburbanisation, there is a research gap regarding the root causes of urban blight in the global south, specifically in prime areas. Given the differences in the property rights regimes and economic growth trajectories between the global north and south, the underlying reasons for urban blight cannot be assumed to be the same. This study, thus, employed a qualitative method and case study approach to ascertain in-depth contextual reasons and effects for urban blight in a prime area, East Legon, Accra-Ghana. Beyond economic reasons, the study found that socio-cultural practices of landholding and land transfer in Ghana play an essential role in how blighted properties emerge. In the quest to preserve cultural heritage/identity, successors of old family houses (the ancestral roots) do their best to stay in them without selling or redeveloping them. The findings highlight the less obvious but relevant functions that blighted properties play in the city core at the micro level of individual families in fostering social cohesion and alleviating the need to pay higher rents. Thus, in the global south, we conclude that there is a need to pay attention to the less obvious roles that so-called blighted properties perform and to move beyond the default negative perception that blighted properties are entirely problematic.

scholarly journals Forging Political Cadres for Re-Peasantization: Escuela de Acción Campesina (Spain)

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 4061
Author(s):  
David Gallar-Hernández
Keyword(s):  
Food Sovereignty ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Training Process ◽  
Ethnographic Interviews ◽  
Participatory Workshop ◽  
Global North ◽  
Training Schools ◽  
Ethnographic Methodology ◽  
La Via Campesina

Bolstering the political formation of agrarian organizations has become a priority for La Vía Campesina and the Food Sovereignty Movement. This paper addresses the Spanish case study of the Escuela de Acción Campesina (EAC)—(Peasant Action School), which is a tool for political formation in the Global North in which the philosophical and pedagogical principles of the “peasant pedagogies” of the Training Schools proposed by La Vía Campesina are put into practice within an agrarian organization in Spain and in alliance with the rest of the Spanish Food Sovereignty Movement. The study was carried out over the course of the 10 years of activist research, spanning the entire process for the construction and development of the EAC. Employing an ethnographic methodology, information was collected through participant observation, ethnographic interviews, a participatory workshop, and reviews of internal documents. The paper presents the context in which the EAC arose, its pedagogical dynamics, the structure and the ideological contents implemented for the training of new cadres, and how there are three key areas in the training process: (1) the strengthening of collective union and peasant identity, (2) training in the “peasant” ideological proposal, and (3) the integration of students as new cadres into the organizations’ structures. It is concluded that the EAC is a useful tool in the ideological re-peasantization process of these organizations.

Decolonising a landscape architecture studio: Spatial modelling of student narratives

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-47
Author(s):  
Christine Price
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Model ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Spatial Modelling ◽  
First Year ◽  
Spatial Form ◽  
Public Park ◽  
New Meanings ◽  
Global North

This paper problematises the dominance of global north perspectives in landscape architectural education, in South Africa where there are urgent calls to decolonise education and make visible indigenous and vernacular meaning-making practices. In grappling with these concerns, this research finds resonance with a multimodal social semiotic approach that acknowledges the interest, agency and resourcefulness of students as meaning-makers in both accessing and challenging dominant educational discourses. This research involves a case study of a design project in a first-year landscape architectural studio. The project requires students to choose a narrative and to represent it as a spatial model: a scaled, 3D maquette of a spatial experience that could be installed in a public park. This practitioner reflection closely analyses the spatial model of one student, Malibongwe, focusing on his interest in meaning-making; the innovative meaning-making practices and diverse resources he draws on; and his expression of spatial signifiers of the Black experiences portrayed in his narrative. This reflection shows how Malibongwe’s narrative is not only reproduced in the spatial model, it is remade: the transformation of resources into three-dimensional spatial form results in new understandings and the production of new meanings.

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