This book analyses the ethnic conflict that engulfed Kenya's Rift Valley Province at the turn of the nineties when multi-party democratic politics were being reintroduced in the country. Its central thesis is that ethnic conflict in the country then was a function of several issues, among them ethnocentrism, politics, the land question and criminal behaviour in certain circles. Both its determinants and consequences are demographic, economic, political and socio-cultural, implying the risks involved in oversimplifying issues.

This volume deals with crisis and renewal in African development policy and management. It digs deep into, takes stock of, and thoroughly analyzes the nature, impact, and future of development policy and management on the continent. It demonstrates the failure of post-independence policy and management in most of Africa, traces the emergence and results of reform measures, and advocates the lessons of success for the rest of Africa derived from Botswana's approach to sustainable development and its achievement of economic prosperity and the maintenance of political stability and good...

This book looks at the encounter between dress and the body. In the social sciences, dress tends to be viewed as a form of communication, a way in which the wearer gives expression to his or her ideas or situation. 'Bodywork', rather than looking at what people do with their clothes, looks at what clothes do with the wearers. In the context of three small West African communities - Muslim, Christian and Animist - the book describes the dress styles and dress practices of the villagers and shows how a particular way of dressing influences the body's demeanour and habit. It considers thereby...

Studies of populations affected by large dams are usually about physically displaced and resettled communities. This book on the Volta River Project breaks with the mould and tackles the long term environmental and socio-economic impacts of the Akosombo and Kpong Dams and the livelihood responses of two neglected groups-downstream and lakeside communities. In a detailed study which takes a gendered political economy of livelihoods approach, the book examines livelihoods in downstream and lakeside communities from a historical perspective. The study takes into account the contribution of...

Colonized in the late 15th century, Sao Tome and Principe were ruled by Portugal for 500 years, one of the longest periods of European domination in colonial history. In fact, during this period the Portuguese colonized the islands twice. Both colonizations were driven by the production of tropical cash crops; however, they occurred under rather different circumstances. Its long history as a plantation colony has made this African archipelago in many aspects more akin to the small Caribbean states. Since its decolonization in 1975 the small and impoverished country has experienced two...

Recognizing that land rights are ambiguous, negotiable and politically embedded, these case studies explore the long-term processes and recent changes in contemporary rural West Africa affecting the conversion of control over land into social and political capital and vice versa. They point to the colonial origins of what came to be viewed as 'customary' tenure and to the legal pluralism characterizing pre-colonial tenure arrangements. Furthermore, they show the spiritual and ritual importance of land that can be converted into political power and economic prerogatives, a dimension neglected...

The king of Mankon, in the western highlands of Cameroon, is an agricultural engineer by training, a businessman, and a prominent politician on the national stage. He partakes in the "return of the kings" in the forefront of an African public space. This book analyses the principles of the sacred kingship which lie at the core of the king's different roles. While showing that the king's body acts as a container of bodily substances transformed into unifying ancestral life-essence by appropriate means, and bestowed upon its subjects, it develops an innovative approach to bodily and material...

This detailed ethnography follows trajectories the controversial stimulant khat takes from Kenya's Nyambene Hills to consumers spread throughout the world, and highlights the great economic, social and cultural significance of this transnational commodity for those animating its 'social life'

Who belongs to the nation? How is citizenship defined? And why have such identities become so politically explosive in recent years? This book explores the instrumental manipulation of citizenship and narrowing definitions of national-belonging which refract recent political struggles in Zimbabwe, Cote d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Somalia, Tanzania, and South Africa. Conflicts which have arisen over the resources of the post-colonial state are increasingly legitimated through recourse to claims of nationhood and citizenship. The contributors address the historical roots of national and ethnic...

Using a focus on the trajectory of commoditisation of gin in West Africa, this book investigates how imported goods acquire specific local meanings. It shows that local consumers, not foreign advertisers, produced the importance of schnapps gin for African ritual