This study is a comparative analysis of the perception of HIV/AIDS in north eastern Nigeria - presented through both the Hausa language and English. Based on the cognitive linguistic view of language as a reflection of human experience, as well as the way we perceive and conceptualize our world, the book uses a variety of approaches to make analyses and comparisons at various levels. From these, the study concludes that language plays an important role in shaping the discourse of AIDS and its understanding or education via sensitization messages. Any meaningful improvement in HIV/AIDS...

"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...

Author Samuel Ndogo offers an understanding of the autobiographical genre in contemporary Kenyan literature. He draws attention to life-writing as a form of cultural re-imagination in post-colonial Africa. Taking into consideration contradictions and paradoxes of referentiality in life writing, this book examines the autobiographies of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Wangari Maathai, and Bethwell Ogot. The analysis dwells on self-representations in correlation with imaginations of the 'Kenyan nation' in these works. Thus, the study gives a critical account into the modern memoir:...