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"East African Community History."
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Economic Integration in Africa : the East African Community in comparative perspective
\"In this work Richard E. Mshomba offers an in-depth analysis of economic integration in Africa with a focus on the East African Community (EAC), arguably the most ambitious of all the regional economic blocs currently in existence in Africa. Economic Integration in Africa provides more than just an overview of regional economic blocs in Africa. It also offers a rich historical discussion on the birth and death of the first EAC, starting with the onset of colonialism in the 1890s, and a systematic analysis of the birth, growth, and aspirations of the current EAC. Those aspirations include forming a monetary union and eventually an East African political federation. This book also examines the African Union's aspirations for continent-wide integration as envisioned by the Abuja Treaty. Mshomba carefully argues that maturity of democracy and good governance in each country are prerequisites for the formation of a viable and sustainable East African federation and genuine continentwide integration.\"--Publisher's summary.
Book
Melancholia of freedom
The end of apartheid in 1994 signaled a moment of freedom and a promise of a nonracial future. With this promise came an injunction: define yourself as you truly are, as an individual, and as a community. Almost two decades later it is clear that it was less the prospect of that future than the habits and horizons of anxious life in racially defined enclaves that determined postapartheid freedom. In this book, Thomas Blom Hansen offers an in-depth analysis of the uncertainties, dreams, and anxieties that have accompanied postapartheid freedoms in Chatsworth, a formerly Indian township in Durban. Exploring five decades of township life, Hansen tells the stories of ordinary Indians whose lives were racialized and framed by the township, and how these residents domesticated and inhabited this urban space and its institutions, during apartheid and after.
Hansen demonstrates the complex and ambivalent nature of ordinary township life. While the ideology of apartheid was widely rejected, its practical institutions, from urban planning to houses, schools, and religious spaces, were embraced in order to remake the community. Hansen describes how the racial segmentation of South African society still informs daily life, notions of race, personhood, morality, and religious ethics. He also demonstrates the force of global religious imaginings that promise a universal and inclusive community amid uncertain lives and futures in the postapartheid nation-state.
eBook
Africa’s Trade Agency in a Fragmented Landscape: The Promise and Limits of the AfCFTA in Africa–EU Trade
Regional economic integration has long been recognized as a key strategy for enhancing trade, fostering economic development, and strengthening the bargaining power of developing regions. In this context, the establishment of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) marks a critical juncture in Africa’s economic trajectory. Beyond its aim to expand intra-African trade by harmonizing trade and economic policies across the continent, the AfCFTA also holds the potential of bolstering Africa’s negotiating position with external partners such as the European Union. At present, Africa–EU trade is governed by an overlapping network of bilateral and regional agreements with individual African countries or regional economic communities. The advent of the AfCFTA thus raises a critical question: to what extent can the agreement serve as a platform for a unified, inter-continent trade agreement with external partners such as the EU? Drawing on theories of regionalism, case studies of the EAC, ECOWAS, and Kenya—whose unilateral actions exemplify tensions between national and regional policies—and the history of Africa-EU trade, this article examines whether the AfCFTA can serve as a foundation for a unified African trade policy position. It concludes that while the AfCFTA creates a unique opportunity to consolidate Africa’s voice in global trade, major hurdles must be overcome, including divergent economic interests among member states, the need for deeper policy harmonization, and the complex challenges involved in establishing a unified customs framework.
Journal Article
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY IN EAST AFRICA: PAST PRACTICE AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS
This forum article explores the major intellectual trajectories in the historical archaeology of Eastern Africa over the last sixty years. Two primary perspectives are identified in historical archaeology: one that emphasizes precolonial history and oral traditions with associated archaeology, and another that focuses mostly on the era of European contact with Africa. The latter is followed by most North American practice, to the point of excluding approaches that privilege the internal dynamics of African societies. African practice today has many hybrids using both approaches. Increasingly, precolonial historical archaeology is waning in the face of a dominant focus on the modern era, much like the trend in African history. New approaches that incorporate community participation are gaining favor, with positive examples of collaboration between historical archaeologists and communities members desiring to preserve and revitalize local histories.
Journal Article
Oral Literature in Africa
Ruth Finnegan’s Oral Literature in Africa was first published in 1970, and since then has been widely praised as one of the most important books in its field. Based on years of fieldwork, the study traces the history of storytelling across the continent of Africa. This revised edition makes Finnegan’s ground-breaking research available to the next generation of scholars. It includes a new introduction, additional images and an updated bibliography, as well as its original chapters on poetry, prose, \"drum language\" and drama, and an overview of the social, linguistic and historical background of oral literature in Africa. Oral Literature in Africa has been accessed by hundreds of readers in over 60 different countries, including Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda and numerous other African countries. The digital editions of this book are free to download thanks to the generous support of interested readers and organisations, who made donations using the crowd-funding website Unglue.it. Oral Literature in Africa is part of our World Oral Literature Series in conjunction with the World Oral Literature Project.
eBook
Migration Patterns and Economic Interconnections in the Indian Ocean during the Nineteenth Century
The Indian Ocean acted as a central hub, facilitating relationships between the South-Central Asian littorals, the main coasts of Oman, and the Swahili coasts of East Africa from Mogadishu to Kilwa. The focus of this paper is to reevaluate the migration patterns that shaped East African-Swahili societies during the nineteenth century. However, the available literature on this topic has been limited. Specifically, the Baloch in East Africa during the 1800s have often been viewed as a monolithic presence, associated only with defense military squadrons. Nevertheless, it is crucial to recognize the roles played by Asian communities in East Africa, which challenges the conventional belief that Asian groups only arrived in East Africa as military squads between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Journal Article
Zimbabwe’s Failing Re-Engagement and Continuity with the Look East Policy: An Afrocentric Perspective
Zimbabwe-China relations particularly the Asian giant’s trade with the Southern African country in the context of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation and the Look East Policy has elicited considerable scholarly debate and critics. Mnangagwa’s ascendency to Zimbabwe’s Presidency ushered in a re-engagement policy with the Euro-American developed countries which had strained relations with Mugabe’s administration. The said re-engagement effort has however been undermined by a lack of political reforms tied to Western development assistance, trade and investment. As such, the unchanging political atmosphere inhibits Zimbabwe’s effort at re-engaging with the West and has further triggered the renewal of the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act by the United States of America in 2018. While these developments drive Zimbabwe back to the Look East Policy, the continuity of the Look East Policy in the post-Mugabe era has received little attention from scholarly literature. Leaning on Afrocentricity, the article adopted a desktop qualitative approach and employed document analysis. It concludes that Mnangagwa-led Zimbabwe is silently pursuing the Look East Policy as her re-engagement with the West is dashed out by the unchanging political atmosphere at home. Because of his pronouncement to break away from the previous regime of Mugabe and the public resentment over the Chinese and the lack of reforms which could be attributed to the nationalist military backing of his government, Mnangagwa is silently pursuing the Look East Policy. The Look East Policy becomes a suitable option, while the re-engagement with the West remains a mere slogan which is accompanied by no action to meet the requirements set by the West.
Journal Article
Growing up an orphan: vulnerability of adolescent girls to HIV in Malawi
Based on a qualitative study conducted in the township of Chibavi in Mzuzu City, Malawi, this paper seeks to contribute to the emerging debate as to why orphans may be more vulnerable to the AIDS epidemic through the lens of an informal labour relation locally known as ganyu. The paper argues that although ganyu has deep roots in the country's history and has served as an escape from extreme poverty in rural areas, its transition to the urban landscape is associated with an emergent practice of sexual exchange between those who seek ganyu and those who recruit the workers. While youth in Chibavi generally work ganyu, the particularly oversized domestic roles of encumbered orphans against a backdrop of extremely deprived material circumstances and weak kin ties propelled them into prolonged ganyu contracts and compelled them to more readily concede to sexual demands 'imposed' by those who offered them ganyu. Drawing on geographic perspectives from political ecology of health and tracing the historical and geographic interconnections of ganyu, this study adds to the understanding of how the spatial transformation of this enduring ad hoc labour makes it a relation that potentially shapes vulnerability to HIV in Malawi. This study also wrestles with the question of why current policy debates do not reflect these realities in a country with one of worst AIDS epidemics, and in turn, makes relevant policy recommendations.
Journal Article
“The Virtual Genizah”: Emerging North African Jewish and Muslim Identities Online
After the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist narrative dominated the histories and historiographies of Middle Eastern and North African Jewries. Accordingly, Jews and Arabs were largely kept as distinct binaries divided by the intellectual walls that separated Middle East studies and Jewish studies programs. Local North African and Middle Eastern scholars also silenced or overlooked the Jewish dimension of Middle Eastern societies in the same manner that Israeli scholars ignored the historical connections between Arabs and Jews that existed both before and after 1948. The exclusive, sacred yet ebbing, nationalist paradigm has been plagued with historiographical fissures in recent decades, allowing a new wave of intellectual engagement by a young generation of Jewish and Muslim scholars who began to put the Jew and the Arab back into local and global histories formed through complex social, cultural, economic, and political networks.
Journal Article
Origins of the Palestinian refugee problem: Changes in the historical memory of Israelis/Jews 1949-2004
The major historical issue in the Israeli-Arab/Palestinian conflict is the causes for the 1948 Palestinian exodus. Among the Israelis/Jews there are two main narratives regarding this issue: the Zionist one — the refugees fled, for various reasons; and the critical one — some fled while others were expelled by the Jewish/Israeli security forces. This article explores the way the Israeli/Jewish historical memory (i.e. the Israeli/Jewish research community) related to this historical issue from 1949 until 2004. According to the findings, until 1957 this memory exclusively presented the Zionist narrative. However, from 1958 to 1976 this Zionist trend largely continued but was accompanied by considerable critical studies. Later, from 1977 to 2004, this memory was characterized by the almost exclusive adoption of the critical narrative (with major increase in its significance since 1988). These findings contradict the way the literature relates to this memory as almost exclusively Zionist until the late-1980s. Other aspects of this memory are also discussed, such as the explanations for its characteristics, the significance of non-academic scholars, the contribution of scholars who reside externally to the given country, state—research community relations, the influence of present interests on the portrayal of the past, and gender issues. The findings have theoretical implications for collective and historical memories.
Journal Article