"This book remarkably analyses the development of recent Swahili prose narrative. The main thesis is that since the 90s, Swahili literature has developed to go beyond aspects that had hitherto conditioned literature in African languages (local, popular and didactic) and has opened itself to global, sophisticated and subversive perspectives. Remi Tchokothe uses the leitmotif of transgression as the unifying thread to render an account of this evolution of the Swahili narrative fiction towards the disruption of narrative linearity, an increase in intertextual references, an awareness of...

This book discusses the phenomenon of militarization in post-1986 Uganda. It takes a holistic approach to connect different facets of militarization: the social and political realms, the macro and micro levels, the disguised and explicit forms. On one hand, the book illustrates that the military remains a crucial factor of political processes, while on the other hand showing how military ethos, such as uniform and training, are a source of symbolic capital in both politics and social spheres. Ultimately, the book shows that militarization is a bi-directional process, where macro politics...

This book examines the determinants of financial performance of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Ghana and Uganda, against the backdrop of the public and academic debate over the financial and social implications of microfinance. In the absence of a conceptual model, the study chooses an inductive research approach with the objective of defining and developing a conceptual model with the capacity to explain, quantify, and compare the performance of MFIs. The research is particularly relevant in the African context where microloan interest rates regularly exceed 100% per annum and where the...

Via the idea of businification - a neologism describing the infiltration of business ideology into political and media texts - this book traces the shift towards neo-liberalism in post-apartheid South Africa through the rhetorical gestures of the country's political narrators. In an application of Critical Discourse and Content Analysis, it examines linguistic changes within the corpus of the annually recurring State-of-the-Nation-Address from 1994 to 2012. This analysis is a contribution to research on business language from a non-Western perspective. Its interdisciplinary approach is of...

Current debates on the transnational impact of world views (interpretive frameworks) often refer to the concepts of 'globalization' or 'travelling models, ' with an emphasis on domination or on a process of translation. This volume highlights situations where different world views are confronted with each other within Africa, and the question of how the actors mediate between the two. The conceptual chapters foster a critical view on the normative implications of agency itself, as well as how they reflect on the claim of interpretive hegemonony of human rights, concepts of law, democracy, or...

This book recounts the stories of 30 expectant mothers living with HIV in Lesotho, and how they made decisions during an uncertain time. Social concerns - such as poverty, familial disruption, limited opportunities, and early infant care - are present during a time "in between life and death." Medical and non-medical solutions are found to make this life-changing event a success. Familial care, medical counseling, and ritual practices were combined, yet there were often conflicting demands. In between Life and Death is about the navigation of such conflicts. (Series: Contributions to the...

This dissertation examines the construction of identity and different lifestyles of the Al-Baraka shantytown community. The concepts of lifestyle and localization process are used as basic tools of analysis to develop a theoretical model that can be applied elsewhere. The localization process reveals how Al-Baraka people adopt different kinds of behaviors, institutions and activities from various origins, and re-invent them locally to be their own. The author concludes that the social identity of Sudan today is not confined to a simplistic binary opposition (Arab vs. African), but is...

This book critically probes into the politics of nature conservation and commodification. Building on political ecology, the book argues that conservation is used by state and non-state actors as an instrument of controlling multidimensional spaces of indigenous communities. The study creates a nexus between the hegemonic discourse of wilderness conservation in colonial Africa and Ethiopia's appropriation of this narrative and how it internally exported it to its peripheries. It found out that the successive Ethiopian regimes (the imperial, military and developmental state) share...

The editorial cartoon, perhaps one the most enduring features of the African newspaper, carries perception of a less cerebral form of journalism consigned to laughter and flippancy. However, editorial cartoons' effectiveness goes beyond laughter. This book not only responds to the call for a broader debate on media and terrorism, but also examines how editorial cartoons in Kenya, between 1998 and 2008, contributed to the discursive construction of terrorism and the so-called war on terror. Drawing from events surrounding major terror attacks at the high noon of 'al-Qaida terrorism', this book...