African Studies Commons^™

Mapping Xenophobic Violence In South Africa: Modeling Spatial Relationships Between Group Grievances And Opportunities To Measure The Propensity For Xenophobic Violence, Eric Holder

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Xenophobia can be defined as the hatred or fear of foreigners or strangers or of their politics or culture (Ngwane et al., 2008). This sentiment reached its tipping point in urban areas across the Republic of South Africa in May 2008 when mass, widespread and systematic attacks against African non-nationals took place across the country. Although previous research agrees on who played the various roles during this crisis event (Everatt, 2010), little research has been carried out to create a predictive model to assess where future violence could occur based on a set of conflict indicators. The purpose of this …

From Building Evaluation Capacity To Supporting Evaluation Capacity Development: The Cases Of Democratic Republic Of Congo, Niger, And South Africa, Michele Tarsilla

Dissertations

Building on both the current thinking among international development practitioners and the on-going scholarly debate on evaluation capacity development (ECD), this study aims to identify strategies that might help to strengthen national evaluation capacity in a variety of countries in a more inclusive and sustainable fashion in the future. Based on a case study design featuring an extensive literature review of specialized literature (both within and outside the evaluation field), a series of semi-structured interviews and three rounds of online validation sessions held with ECD researchers, funders and implementers; this study aims at three main objectives. First, in an attempt …

Africa And The Perversities Of International Capital Flows, Howard Stein

Distinguished Lectures on Africa

Dr. Howard Stein is a professor in the University of Michigan’s Department of Afro-American and African Studies and he also teaches in the Department of Epidemiology in the School of Public Health.

A development economist educated in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, Dr. Stein has taught in both Asia and Africa. His research has focused on foreign aid, finance and development, structural adjustment, health and development and industrial policy.

The Impact Of Water On Girls' Formal Education: A Study Of Kenyan Secondary Schools, Jennifer Emick

Master's Theses

This study applies a human rights lens to view how the lack of access to potable water in Kenya’s rural areas impacts girls’ education. This research is intended to serve as a baseline for iteration and expansion, with the long-term goal of developing a greater understanding of the ways in which water development projects and the smarter provision of basic resources can be used as strategies for achieving gender equality in both education and civic participation.

Book Review: Fragile States, Lohar Brock, Hans-Henrik Holm, Georg Sorensen, Michael Stohl, Hakim Mohandas Amani Williams

Africana Studies Faculty Publications

In an era when good governance features prominently on the global development agenda, there seems to be a corollary spotlight on state fragility. In this book - a quick read that covers much ground - the authors wade into the conceptual waters of state fragility with the following aims: (i) sketching more clearly its conceptual parameters, including its core characteristics; (ii) dissecting its connection to violent conflict; (iii) analyzing the role that international society has played in relation to fragile statehood; and (iv) laying out two proposals for tackling its intractability. These analyses are conducted through the prism of three …

East Versus West: Chinese And American Development Efforts And Perceptions In Cameroon, Grace Perkins

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Every year, donor countries pour billions of dollars of foreign aid into developing recipient countries. Humanitarian and “win-win” rhetoric generally accompanies the grant, hospital, school, or sports stadium. To a realist international relations scholar, it is highly unlikely that powerful nations like the United States and China donate anything without political or economic strategic interests in mind. How do American and Chinese strategic interests affect the quality of development aid? This paper seeks to answer this question in the context of Cameroon, a Central African state rich in resources and young minds but whose growth is hampered by its colonial …

A Geographical Analysis Of Hiv/Aids Infection In Nigeria, 1991-2001, Chinekwu Azuka Obidoa, Robert G. Cromley

Journal of Social, Behavioral, and Health Sciences

Abstract

Objectives: Within the gradually accumulating literature on the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in Nigeria, investigations concerning the spatial dimensions of the infection are virtually non-existent. An understanding of the spatial dimensions of the epidemic is central in the development and implementation of appropriate intervention strategies. This study is a geographic analysis of HIV/AIDS infection in Nigeria from 1991 – 2001. The three objectives of this study were: 1) to examine the geographic pattern of the epidemic, 2) to examine the spatial-temporal trend and diffusion pattern of the epidemic, and 3) to explore the factors associated with the spatial …

Complementary And Adversarial Stances In State-Civil Society Relationships And Their Implications For Democratization And Development: The Case Of Ethiopia, Teshome Tadesse

International Conference on African Development Archives

State-society relations in Ethiopia have throughout history been one of cooperation rather than competition and destruction at least when it comes to the defense of the motherland. This short paper, attempts to examine the place of civil society vis-a-vis the all-powerful position of the state in Ethiopia and its behaviors in times of national danger or war where both complement each other and defeat the enemy. The states , during these times of national threats, go to a point where it literally begs national communities through traditional associations or civil societal groups and successfully repulses the aggressor. But once the …

Moving Forward In Sierra Leone: Community-Based Factors For Post Conflict Development, Whitney Mcintyre Miller

Education Faculty Articles and Research

War and conflict, while not manifested as economic or natural disaster, often bring the same consequences and damages and require similar capacity building. This article discusses the following four community-based factors, which contributed to the postconflict development of two communities in Sierra Leone, West Africa: (a) the inclusive involvement of community members for development and construction projects, (b) the use of culturally responsive practices in community building, (c) leadership that is directly connected with the community, and (d) the combination of traditional and local development practices with western and governmental practices. These factors were derived from an intensive five-week qualitative …

Racial Disparities In Sentencing In The U.S. And Georgia, Kamal Rattray, Nicole Lee

Georgia Journal of Public Policy

Incarceration represents the ultimate use of coercive power, and in the state of Georgia, that power is being disproportionately levied upon people of color, particularly African Americans.1 According to 2011 statistics from the Georgia Department of Corrections, the total prison population statewide was approximately 53,341 inmates. The majority of that number were Blacks (33,069 inmates), followed by Whites (17,752 inmates), Hispanics (2,306 inmates) and other ethnic groups.

Dental Microwear Texture Analysis Of Pliocene Bovids From Four Early Hominin Sites In Eastern Africa: Implications For Paleoenvironmental Dynamics And Human Evolution, Jessica Renee Scott

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Many researchers have suggested that Plio-Pleistocene climate change was a motive force for human evolution. The basic idea was that a shift toward drier, more open settings, led to adaptations for bipedality and the consumption of savanna resources, including large grazing mammals. However, more recent paleoenvironmental reconstructions suggest that Pliocene hominins occupied variable or mosaic habitats including both open and closed settings. Many techniques have been used to refine our understanding of the paleoenvironments of eastern Africa; however these have not led to consensus reconstructions. At Kanapoi, ecological diversity analysis indicates that at least part of the site was composed …

Securing South Africa's Future Grandmothers Against Poverty And Aids As A Model For Social Development Change, Savannah Lynn Eck

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Focusing on the role of elder women in South Africa as a lens to understand the central connections among HIV/ AIDS, poverty and Human Security provides a distinct approach to analyze women's contributions to community development and social change. Drawing from the theories of Gender and Development and Human Security, this research aims to highlight HIV/ AIDS as a social and political security issue, while underscoring the vitality of the inclusion of women in the processes of peace building, reconciliation, education and social development. Furthermore, the influential role of elder women in South Africa will serve as a model in …

The Power To Say Who’S Human: Politics Of Dehumanization In The Four-Hundred-Year War Between The White Supremacist Caste System And Afrocentrism, Sam Chernikoff Frunkin

Africana Studies

No abstract provided.

The Hegemony Of English In South African Education, Kelsey E. Figone

Scripps Senior Theses

The South African Constitution recognizes 11 official languages and protects an individual’s right to use their mother-tongue freely. Despite this recognition, the majority of South African schools use English as the language of learning and teaching (LOLT). Learning in English is a struggle for many students who speak indigenous African languages, rather than English, as a mother-tongue, and the educational system is failing its students. This perpetuates inequality between different South African communities in a way that has roots in the divisions of South Africa’s past. An examination of the power of language and South Africa’s experience with colonialism and …

Africa After 9/11: Rethinking U.S. Definitions And Policies, David Wiley

Distinguished Lectures on Africa

David Wiley (Ph.D. Princeton) is a professor of sociology and African studies at Michigan State University. He served as director of the African Studies Centers at Michigan State University (1978-08) and University of Wisconsin-Madison (1972-77). His research has focused on Zambia (urban housing and development); Zimbabwe (race relations, religious movements); Kenya (participatory fisheries management); South Africa (urban environment) as a Fulbright-Hays Senior Fellow at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, as well as internationalization and less commonly taught languages in the U.S. and, currently, militarization in Africa. His most recent publication is “International and Language Education for a Global Future: Fifty Years …

New Approaches To The Green Revolution: Successes, Failures And New Rice For Africa, Maia S. Woluchem

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The nature of worldwide food insecurity is staggering, with thirteen percent of the world’s population currently malnourished. The situation is particularly dire in Sub- Saharan Africa, where 265 million people face hunger daily, with 30 to 50 million dying yearly. Solutions to the problem are often unsustainable, save a select few. Once such attempt, coined the Green Revolution, garnered both praise and notoriety through its relatively successful transformation of Southeast Asia in the 1960’s. Aimed at increasing food production, the project focused on small-holder farmers and their acquisition of more productive inputs such as high-yield seeds, fertilizers and pesticides. African …

No. 27: Migration And Development In Contemporary Mauritius, David Lincoln

Southern African Migration Programme

Mauritius is a society descended of involuntary and voluntary migrants. After two-and-a-half centuries of settlement as a plantation colony and by the time of its independence from colonial rule in 1968 the island nation’s population had grown to seemingly insupportable levels. But having faced the afflictions of overpopulation, social division and economic despair (and sizeable emigration) at the dawn of its independence, it took just a decade and-a-half for despondency to fade and for Mauritius to begin resembling a tropical idyll of sorts. Though poverty persisted as the small island successfully transformed its economy from colonial plantation to mostly industrial …

Whose Gay Town Is Cape Town? An Examination Of Cape Town’S Gay Village And The Production Of A Queer White Patriarchy., Mollie Beebe

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

My ISP works to illuminate the diversity of LGBTQI experiences and lives in Cape Town. I do this through discussing the privilege necessary to "come out" in Cape Town and, subsequently, have access to The Pink Village, Cape Town's gay district. By Bringing in theory on "coming out" as a white experience and the queer movement as re-centering white normativity, I work to openly discuss how a history of exclusion has lived on in Cape Town's gay district and pushed the more marginalized gay communities out of the city center. Through academic research, participant observation in both the gay village …

Distinguished Lectures On Africa-Spring 2012, Center For African Development Policy Research

Distinguished Lectures on Africa

Poster for Distinguished Lectures on Africa

Dr. Bilinda Straight, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Western Michigan University

Dr. Theodore Vestal, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Oklahoma State University

Dr. David Wiley, Professor of Sociology, Former Director of African Studies Center, Michigan State University

The Social And Economic Impact Of Mpesa On The Lives Of Women In The Fishing Industry On Lake Victoria, Danielle White

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This study will examine the social and economic impact of the mobile banking system, MPESA, in the lives of women in the fishing industry on Lake Victoria in Kenya. The study aims to discover what MPESA is being used for and how its use is affecting the lives of its female users. It will not only study the immediate impact on women, but also the impact on the interactions with their families and communities, as well as the fishing industry. The study aims to determine whether or not MPESA is beneficial to these women and if it is, how the …