African Studies Commons^™

Peace Agreements And International Peace Operations: The Case Of Sierra Leone, Haruyuki Irie

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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The Violences Of Capitalism: Privatization And Land Tenure In Uganda, Minnesota, And Mexico, Nicole S. Kligerman

Latin American Studies Honors Projects

This project analyzes the relationship between land privatization and violence in societies that previously employed non-capitalist land tenure systems. Exploring the cases of the Dakota in Minnesota, the Acholi in Northern Uganda, and indigenous communities in southern Mexico, I examine how the state forcibly incorporated collective land systems into capitalism through a combination of physical, structural, and intra-community violences. This results in the disintegration of previous means of agricultural production and the accompanying community-based cultural systems. Communities resist this process, however, as they battle for natural resource sovereignty and sustainable peace in their homelands.

Diasporas From States In Crisis: A Case Study Of The Zimbabwean Diaspora And Its Role In The Homeland, Leigh Ann Detwiler

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Diasporas are important transnational actors with significant potential to influence their homeland. However, when crisis drives migration, certain limitations and opportunities are created, affecting their role in their homeland. The Zimbabwean diaspora provides an interesting case study for a diaspora from a state in crisis since nearly one-quarter of its population lives outside its borders. In a crisis characterized by political oppression, near economic collapse, and a breakdown of social institutions, one of the population's few options for survival has been migration. The diaspora that has resulted has played a political, economic and social role in Zimbabwe, but the crisis …

No. 23: Labour Migration Trends And Policies In Southern Africa, Jonathan Crush, Vincent Williams

Southern African Migration Programme

Since 1990, there have been major changes to longstanding patterns of intra-regional labour migration within the Southern African Development Community (SADC). At the same time, new channels of migration to and from the region have opened. Labour migration is now more voluminous, dynamic and complex than it has ever been. This presents policy-makers with considerable opportunities and challenges. In order to understand the exact nature of these challenges, it is important to have a good grasp of current labour migration characteristics and trends. Unfortunately, reliable, accurate and comprehensive data on labour migration is not available. The quality and currency of …

Can The Icc Ever Get It Right?, Richard Burchill

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Nesrine Malik makes clear with her title, “The ICC’s Blunder on Sudan,” that something has gone amiss with the efforts of Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo to ensure the ICC statute is applied to those circumstances it was meant to address. But why is something amiss in this situation? The Prosecutor has a mandate and the legal regime for the ICC is relatively clear (at least procedurally); the crimes it covers can always be debated, but there is a degree of clarity present as to what acts are addressed; so what has gone wrong? The difficulty lies in expectations about justice and …

March Roundtable: Icc And Darfur Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“The ICC's Blunder on Sudan” by Nesrine Malik. The Guardian. February 4, 2010.

Confronting The Politics And Law Behind Battles Over The Icc’S Bashir Indictment, Anthony Chase

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Nesrine Malik points in the wrong direction in arguing that charges of genocide embarrass the ICC more than they do Omar al-Bashir. The embarrassment here should come from those, such as Malik, who snidely downplay the level of war crimes committed in Darfur, who discuss genocide as if it is a cultural rather than political matter (does Malik seriously think genocide ever has anything to do with a country’s cultural traditions, as she says in defending Sudan?), or who naively give credence to predictable political push-back from Sudan and its allies. The ICC faces serious legal and political obstacles, some …

Politics And The Law: Enforcing Judicial Integrity, Anna Talbot

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The ruling by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in early February concerning the arrest warrant for Omar al-Bashir provoked controversy. The role of the Court has been called into question, with Nesrine Malik’s piece surmising that the ruling has shown that the Court is out of touch with political reality. She argues that the decision plays into the hands of authorities who are using it to their own political ends; that the charge of genocide is unjustified; and that the practicalities of enforcement undermine the Court.

Bashir And The Icc, Kurt Mills

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Nesrine Malik argues that the International Criminal Court (ICC) made a mistake when it declared that it might charge Omar al Bashir with genocide, in addition to the existing charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. She argues that the court’s ruling will contribute to Bashir's propaganda efforts and that the current charges have had no appreciable effect. Given the extreme duplicity of Bashir and the other crimes he has quite clearly committed, it is unclear how the genocide charge would make a big difference.

No. 52: Migration, Remittances And ‘Development’ In Lesotho, Jonathan Crush, Belinda Dodson, John Gay, Thuso Green, Clement Leduka

Southern African Migration Programme

Lesotho is one of the most migration dependent countries in the world. Migrant remittances are the country’s major source of foreign exchange, accounting for 25% of GDP in 2006. Lesotho is also one of the poorest countries in the world due to high domestic unemployment, declining agricultural production, falling life expectancy, rising child mortality and half the population living below the poverty line. The majority of households and rural communities are dependent on remittances for their livelihood. Households without access to migrant remittances are significantly worse off than those that do have such access.

Since 1990, patterns of migration from …

Smes And Poverty Alleviation In Nigeria: Marketing Resources And Capabilities Implications, Olalekan U. Asikhia

New England Journal of Entrepreneurship

This article seeks to identify the mediating role of marketing resources and capabilities in small and medium enterprises (SMEs)—poverty alleviation relationship. A qualitative approach of conceptualization of the interconnectedness of the major variables of the study is undertaken. Despite several development programs of SMEs and poverty alleviation, the poverty level of Nigerian SMEs has dragged with incidence of high SMEs failure. Marketing resources and capabilities are suggested as probable missing links between SMEs and profitable exchanges that lead to wealth creation, thus alleviating and eradicating poverty. While empirical study in this direction is vital, the current conceptual model shows that …

Globalization And Economic Growth In Sub-Saharan Africa, Hadiatou Barry

Gettysburg Economic Review

This study analyzes Sub-Saharan Africa through the framework of globalization. The study‘s objective is to determine whether globalization is a significant factor when associated with economic growth in the region. Using panel data from 1995-2005 for 41 countries and the KOF globalization index, an Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) model was employed to examine the relationship between globalization and other traditional factors of economic growth such as trade, foreign direct investment, loans, aid, natural resources, corruption, and rule of law. The study shows that globalization has a positive, though statistically insignificant impact on the economic growth of Sub-Saharan Africa. However, globalization …

Locating Xenophobia: Debate, Discourse, And Everyday Experience In Cape Town, South Africa, Belinda Dodson

Geography & Environment Publications

In May 2008, South Africa experienced an outbreak of violence

against foreign Africans living in the country. Political

leaders expressed shock and surprise, but there has in reality

been long-standing and well-documented hostility toward

African immigrants in South Africa. Several competing explanations

have been put forward, with debate gaining urgency

and polarization since the xenophobic attacks of 2008. After

a selective review of the relevant literature to sketch the

contours of that debate, this paper presents findings from

research conducted with African immigrants living in Cape

Town. Their experiences provide further evidence that antiimmigrant

attitudes and behaviors on the part …

No. 53: Migration-Induced Hiv And Aids In Rural Mozambique And Swaziland, Jonathan Crush, Inês Raimundo, Hamilton Simelane, Bonaventura Cau, David Dorey

Southern African Migration Programme

South Africa’s gold mining workforce has the highest prevalence rates of tuberculosis and HIV infection of any industrial sector in the country. The contract migrant labour system, which has long outlived apartheid, is responsible for this unacceptable situation. The spread of HIV to rural communities in Southern Africa is not well understood. The accepted wisdom is that migrants leave for the mines, engage in high-risk behaviour, contract the virus and return to infect their rural partners. This model fails to deal with the phenomenon of rural-rural transmission and cases of HIV discordance (when the female migrant is infected and the …

Amazigh Legitimacy Through Language In Morocco, Sarah R. Fischer

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Contemporary Morocco rests at a geographic and developmental crossroads. Uniquely positioned on the Northwestern tip of Africa, Morocco is a short distance away from continental Europe, cradled between North African tradition and identity, and Western embrace. The landscape is varied: craggy mountains trail into desert oases; cobbled streets of the medina anchor the urban centers; mud homes dot the rural countryside. Obscured from the outside observer, behind the walls of the Imperial cities and between the footpaths of village olive groves, Morocco’s rich and diverse Arab and Amazigh cultures and languages circle one another in a contested dance. Morocco’s identity …

Tunisia–The Imprisonment Of Fahem Boukadous (Part One Of A Series), Rob Prince

Human Rights & Human Welfare

To most Americans with the exception of those few who, for whatever reason, have an attachment to the North African country of Tunisia, the name Fahem Boukadous, foreign to American ears, means nothing. It means a good deal more to "Reporters Without Borders” and to the US State Department that actually issued a statement (half way down the page) on his behalf, to the US intelligence agencies and military that have carefully followed the Spring, 2008 uprising in the Tunisian region of Gafsa–deemed the most extensive and militant social protest in that country’s history in the past quarter century.

© …

Paul Okojie On Darfur And The Crisis Of Governance In Sudan: A Critical Reader. Edited By Salah M. Hassan And Carina E. Ray. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009. 528pp., Paul Okojie

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Darfur and the Crisis of Governance in Sudan: A Critical Reader. Edited by Salah M. Hassan and Carina E. Ray. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009. 528pp.

Introduction: Human Rights In The Middle East And North Africa (Mena), Raslan Ibrahim

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The wave of revolutions and popular uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) at the dawn of 2011 highlights the inescapable relevance and impact of human rights on the region’s politics and security. The Arab regimes’ violations of human rights and lack of respect to the human dignity of their citizens are in fact the seeds of the Jasmine revolution in Tunisia, the rebellion of the Egyptian people against Mubarak regime, as well as the ongoing uprisings across the rest of MENA. The women and men who are protesting in the streets of Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, Syria, Yemen, …

The Abuse Of Child Domestic Workers: Petites Bonnes In Morocco, Joanna Miller

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The International Labor Organization (ILO) classifies child domestic labor as a “worst form of child labor” for a very good reason. Driven by dire poverty and lack of access to education, children are sent away from their homes, often moving to large and unfamiliar cities to work for wealthier families. Morocco has one of the worst child domestic labor problems in Northern Africa with an ILO estimated 66,000-88,000 children between the ages of 7 and 15, 70% of whom are under age 12, working in Morocco today (Rinehart 2007). Many of these child laborers are young girls working as maids, …

Persecution Of Coptic Christians In Modern Egypt, Alla Rubinstein

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The Christian community of Egypt dates back to the seventeenth century and comprises 12 per cent of the population today. As one of the oldest churches of the world, the Coptic Christian Church, first formed in Alexandria, has stood resilient and faithful to its traditions against intolerance, siege and persecutions. Having been present in most institutions of the state among the overwhelmingly Sunni-Muslim population, Copts are not new to the slow process of Islamization that Egypt has been undergoing for the last twenty years. What has been unique to the recent Coptic experience is the forced integration of Shari’a law …