GMOs, Consumerism and the Global Politics of Biotechnology
GMOs, Consumerism and the Global Politics of Biotechnology

Author: Munyaradzi Mawere

Publisher: African Books Collective

Published: 2017-08-16

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 9956763217

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Despite sustained continental and national struggles for autonomy, sovereignty and independence in postcolonial Africa, the continent is increasingly embattled by the forces of globalisation which threaten African identity that is at the core of African struggles for continental and national unity. Situating the debates in the contemporary discourses on decoloniality, global consumerism, global food apartheid and the challenges and prospects of the emergent sharing economies, this book critically examines the importation, use and implications of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and other such non-food products on African bodies, institutions and cultures. The book poses questions about how Africa can be decolonised both politically and in terms of global food apartheid and the dehumanising importation and use of foreign non-food products, some of which militate against the ethos of [African] identity, Renaissance and indigeneity. On note, the book urges the African continent to ensure the safety of imports ensuing from the global flows and circulations that are mired in the resilient invisible global matrices of power.

Decolonisation of Materialities or Materialisation of (Re-)Colonisation
Decolonisation of Materialities or Materialisation of (Re-)Colonisation

Author: Nhemachena, Artwell

Publisher: Langaa RPCIG

Published: 2017-11-28

Total Pages: 339

ISBN-13: 9956763942

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Contemporary scholarly discourses about decolonising materialities are taking two noticeable trajectories, the first trajectory privileges establishing “connections”, “relationships” and “associations” between human beings and nature. The second trajectory privileges restoration, restitution, reparations for colonial dispossessions, lootings and disinheritance. While the first trajectory presupposes that colonialism was merely about “separation”, “alienation”, and “disconnections” between human beings and nature, the second trajectory stresses the colonialists’ dispossession, disinheritance and privations of Africans. Drawing on contemporary discourses about materialities in relation to semiotics, (non-)representationalism, rhetoric, ecocriticism, territorialisation, deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation, translation, animism, science and technology studies, this book teases out the intellectually rutted terrain of African materialities. It argues that in a world of increasing impoverishment, the significance of materialities cannot be overemphasised: more so for the continent of Africa where impoverishment “materialises” in the midst of resource opulence. The book is a pacesetter in no holds barred interrogation of African materialities.

Re-imagining Indigenous Knowledge and Practices in 21st Century Africa
Re-imagining Indigenous Knowledge and Practices in 21st Century Africa

Author: Tenson Muyambo

Publisher: African Books Collective

Published: 2022-02-14

Total Pages: 478

ISBN-13: 9956552550

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This book is on the re-imagination of Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) and practices in 21st century Africa. Framed from an anti-colonial perspective, the book critically interrogates epistemological erasures and injustices meted against African IKS and practices. It magnifies the different contexts where African IKS were and continue to be used effectively for collective and personal benefit. Beyond the legitimate frustration and disheartenment expressed by the contributors to this volume over the systematic colonial efforts to render inferior and delegitimate African systems of knowing and knowledge production, the book makes an important contribution to the quest to correct misconceptions and misrepresentations by Eurocentric thinkers and practitioners about African indigenous knowledges. The book makes an informed claim that the future and vibrancy of African indigenous knowledge and practices lie in how well scholars of knowledge studies and decoloniality in and on Africa are able to join hands in articulating, debating and fronting their vitality and relevance in varied real-life situations. More importantly, the book provides a re-invigorated overview and nuanced analyses of the important role and continued relevance of African IKS and practices in the understanding, interpreting and tackling of the social unfoldings of everyday life and dynamism. Without romanticising African IKS and practices, the book provides added insights and pointers on policy and trends. It is an important addition to critical debates on knowledge studies across fields.

Necroclimatism in a Spectral World (Dis)order?
Necroclimatism in a Spectral World (Dis)order?

Author: Artwell Nhemachena

Publisher: African Books Collective

Published: 2019-06-25

Total Pages: 417

ISBN-13: 9956550116

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Highlighting the problematiques of working with a narrow version of greenhouse effects or global warming, this book posits the theory of necroclimatism that encompasses broader versions of greenhouse effects and global warming. Conceiving cultures, societies, moral sensibilities, epistemologies, polities, economies, legal systems and religions of the formerly colonised peoples as greenhoused and entrapped in the heat of global apartheid and neo-colonialism, the book refuses to be confined to the pufferies of physical conceptualisations of greenhousing and global warming. Underlining the supposed disposability and dispensability of colonised peoples, the notion of necroclimatism explicates ways in which some people suffer various forms of death, which have increasingly become a feature of global apartheid and neo-colonialism that are cast in spectral sacrificial logics. Deemed to constitute disposable bodies, disposable cultures, disposable polities, disposable societies, disposable epistemologies, disposable religions, disposable laws and disposable economies, the sacrificed are, in the age of climate catastrophism, once again reminded that they have duties to die, to become extinct in order to save the global spaceship that is sinking due to climate change and global warming. This book therefore argues that in a sacrificial world (dis)order, binaries between humans and animals, good and evil, moral and immoral, the dead and the living necessarily vanish in the nefarious logic of what marks the era of climate catastrophism and the attendant necroclimatism. The book further argues that a sacrificial world (dis)order is necessarily a posthumanist and postanthropocentric world (dis)order, which should be never granted space in African worlds and even beyond. The book thus, raises fundamental questions for African anticipatory regimes, and for this reason it is handy for scholars in political science, sociology, social anthropology, development studies, environmental studies, agricultural studies, legal studies, food science, geography, religious studies and decolonial fields of studies.

The Political Economy of Poverty, Vulnerability and Disaster Risk Management
The Political Economy of Poverty, Vulnerability and Disaster Risk Management

Author: Munyaradzi Mawere

Publisher: African Books Collective

Published: 2017-11-29

Total Pages: 402

ISBN-13: 9956764337

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Poverty remains a thorny and topical challenge and research topic to scholars and researchers on African development. Scholars in the Global North have since the Second World War sought to research poverty and underdevelopment in Africa, postulating what they think are the major causes of insipid and abject poverty in the continent, but with little or no success on how to solve the poverty enigma. Sadly, little research and homework have been done by scholars in context (in Africa) on why there seems to be more production rather than eradication of poverty and vulnerability in Africa and among Africans. This book is born out of the realisation for the need for both scholars on the ground and outside Africa to earnestly interrogate and reflect on the poverty situation that continues to haunt the people of Africa and rattle the conscience of the world at large. With contributors from across the continent and beyond, the volume offers a balanced and rigorous, multi-faceted analysis of Africas poverty and vulnerability from a rich tapestry of perspectives. The volume is handy to scholars and students in the fields of African and development studies, as well as to students of Sociology, Anthropology, Political Science and Policy Studies.

Development Naivety and Emergent Insecurities in a Monopolised World
Development Naivety and Emergent Insecurities in a Monopolised World

Author: Mawere, Munyaradzi

Publisher: Langaa RPCIG

Published: 2018-09-17

Total Pages: 382

ISBN-13: 9956550981

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It is common knowledge that development without security is like a runaway horse. Yet, development in Africa has been plagued by insecurities since the extractive periods of slave trade and colonialism. In spite of political independence and the euphoria of sovereignty as states, Africa has failed to address insecurity, which continues to loom large and to threaten aspirations towards truly inclusive and sustainable development. A consequence has been Africa’s development naivety vis-à-vis the monopolisation of development by the predatory elite actors of the global North and their local facilitators. To salvage the continent from such predation and the insecurities engendered requires novel and innovative imagination and praxis. This book draws from both the haunted landscapes and bitter memories of past exploitations and from the feeding of the insatiable North with African resources and humanity. It brings together essays by a concerned generation of scholars driven by the urgent need for radical decolonisation of African development and its legacies of insecurities. It is handy to students and practitioners in economics, policy studies, political science, development studies, global and African studies.

How Berlin Conference Clung on Africa
How Berlin Conference Clung on Africa

Author: Nkwazi N. Mhango

Publisher: African Books Collective

Published: 2024-10-02

Total Pages: 480

ISBN-13: 9956554294

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The book How Berlin Conference Clung on Africa: What Africans Must Do aims to expose the root causes of Africa’s struggles, including colonialism, greed, and artificial national divisions. It examines the lasting impact of the Berlin Conference of 1884-85, where European powers divided Africa, leading to dependence and underdevelopment. The book also criticises the role of African leaders in perpetuating these divisions and hindering progress. It argues that the artificial borders created at the Berlin Conference have been detrimental to Africa, and calls for unity and a rejection of the colonial legacy to achieve true independence and prosperity.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution and the Recolonisation of Africa
The Fourth Industrial Revolution and the Recolonisation of Africa

Author: Everisto Benyera

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-04-29

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 1000396762

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This book argues that the fourth industrial revolution, the process of accelerated automation of traditional manufacturing and industrial practices via digital technology, will serve to further marginalise Africa within the international community. In this book, the author argues that the looting of Africa that started with human capital and then natural resources, now continues unabated via data and digital resources looting. Developing on the notion of "Coloniality of Data", the fourth industrial revolution is postulated as the final phase which will conclude Africa’s peregrination towards recolonisation. Global cartels, networks of coloniality, and tech multinational corporations have turned big data into capital, which is largely unregulated or poorly regulated in Africa as the continent lacks the strong institutions necessary to regulate the mining of data. Written from a decolonial perspective, this book employs three analytical pillars of coloniality of power, knowledge and being. Highlighting the crippling continuation of asymmetrical global power relations, this book will be an important read for researchers of African studies, politics and international political economy. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781003157731, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license

Rethinking Securities in an Emergent Technoscientific New World Order
Rethinking Securities in an Emergent Technoscientific New World Order

Author: Munyaradzi Mawere

Publisher: African Books Collective

Published: 2018-03-13

Total Pages: 428

ISBN-13: 9956764833

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The emergent technoscientific New World Order is being legitimised through discourses on openness and inclusivity. The paradox is that openness implies vulnerability and insecurities, particularly where closure would offer shelter. While some actors, including NGOs, preach openness of African societies, Africans clamour for protection, restitution and restoration. Africans struggle for ownership and access to housing, for national, cultural, religious, economic, and social belonging that would offer them the necessary security and protection, including protection from the global vicissitudes and matrices of power. In the presence of these struggles, to presuppose openness would be to celebrate vulnerability and insecurities. This book examines ways in which emergent technologies expose Africans and, more generally, peoples of the global south to political, economic, social, cultural and religious shocks occasioned by the coloniality of the global matrices of power. It notes that there is the use by global elites of technologies to incite postmodern revolutions designed to compound the vicissitudes and imponderables in the already unsettled lives of people north and south. Particularly targeted by these technologies are African and other governments that do not cooperate in the fulfilment of the interests of the hegemonic global elites. The book is handy to students and practitioners in security studies, African studies, development studies, global studies, policy studies, and political science.

Global Capital's 21st Century Repositioning
Global Capital's 21st Century Repositioning

Author: Rewai Makamani

Publisher: African Books Collective

Published: 2021-03-11

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 9956551465

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What happens at the interface between Afrocentricity and COVID-19 is cause for wonder in a world that is anxious to short circuit global solidarity by trampling Pan-Africanism. Revolutions, including the Fourth Industrial Revolution, are rarely contextualised within the framework of Pan-Africanism and Afrocentricity even when they are celebrated as beneficial to the world. Interfacing Afrocentricity, COVID-19, Pan-Africanism and the Fourth Industrial Revolution, this book teases out the profound challenges of the 21st century. Calling for African solutions premised on African solidarity, the book critically engages the contemporary technological solutionism and technological evangelism that undergirds the Fourth Industrial Revolution and efforts to find vaccines for COVID-19. Unflinchingly interrogating these issues, the book is useful for scholars and activists in education, African languages, sociology, social anthropology, political science, history, religious studies, development studies, communication, medical sciences and legal studies.