Political Culture and Nationalism in Malawi
Political Culture and Nationalism in Malawi

Author: Joey Power

Publisher: University Rochester Press

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 158046310X

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Inspired by the events leading up to the overthrow of Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda's Life Presidency, this book explores the deep logic of Malawi's political culture as it emerged in the colonial and early post-colonial periods. It draws on archival sources from three continents and oral testimonies gathered over a ten-year period provided by those who lived these events. Power narrates how anti-colonial protest was made relevant to the African majority through the painstaking engagement of politicians in local grievances and struggles, which they then linked to the fight against white settler domination in the guise of the Central African Federation. She also explores how Dr. Banda (leader of independent Malawi for thirty years), the Nyasaland African Congress, and its successor, the Malawi Congress Party, functioned within this political culture, and how the MCP became a formidable political machine. Central to this process was the deployment of women and youth to cut across parochial politics and consolidate a broad base of support. No less important was the deliberate manipulation of history and the use of rumor and innuendo, symbol and pageantry, persecution and reward. It was this mix that made people both accept and reject the MCP regime, sometimes simultaneously. Joey Power is Professor of History at Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario.

Dilemmas of Culture in African Schools
Dilemmas of Culture in African Schools

Author: Cati Coe

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2005-11

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 9780226111292

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In working to build a sense of nationhood, Ghana has focused on many social engineering projects, the most meaningful and fascinating of which has been the state's effort to create a national culture through its schools. As Cati Coe reveals in Dilemmas of Culture in African Schools, this effort has created an unusual paradox: while Ghana encourages its educators to teach about local cultural traditions, those traditions are transformed as they are taught in school classrooms. The state version of culture now taught by educators has become objectified and nationalized—vastly different from local traditions. Coe identifies the state's limitations in teaching cultural knowledge and discusses how Ghanaians negotiate the tensions raised by the competing visions of modernity that nationalism and Christianity have created. She reveals how cultural curricula affect authority relations in local social organizations—between teachers and students, between Christians and national elite, and between children and elders—and raises several questions about educational processes, state-society relations, the production of knowledge, and the making of Ghana's citizenry.

African Politics
African Politics

Author: Ian Taylor

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018-09-20

Total Pages: 174

ISBN-13: 0192529242

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Africa is a continent of 54 countries and over a billion people. However, despite the rich diversity of the African experience, it is striking that continuations and themes seem to be reflected across the continent, particularly south of the Sahara. Questions of underdevelopment, outside exploitation, and misrule are characteristic of many - if not most-states in Sub-Saharan Africa. In this Very Short Introduction Ian Taylor explores how politics is practiced on the African continent, considering the nature of the state in Sub-Saharan Africa and why its state structures are generally weaker than elsewhere in the world. Exploring the historical and contemporary factors which account for Africa's underdevelopment, he also analyses why some African countries suffer from high levels of political violence while others are spared. Unveilling the ways in which African state and society actually function beyond the formal institutional façade, Taylor discusses how external factors - both inherited and contemporary - act upon the continent. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

A Nation within a Nation
A Nation within a Nation

Author: Komozi Woodard

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press

Published: 2005-10-12

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 0807876178

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Poet and playwright Amiri Baraka is best known as one of the African American writers who helped ignite the Black Arts Movement. This book examines Baraka's cultural approach to Black Power politics and explores his role in the phenomenal spread of black nationalism in the urban centers of late-twentieth-century America, including his part in the election of black public officials, his leadership in the Modern Black Convention Movement, and his work in housing and community development. Komozi Woodard traces Baraka's transformation from poet to political activist, as the rise of the Black Arts Movement pulled him from political obscurity in the Beat circles of Greenwich Village, swept him into the center of the Black Power Movement, and ultimately propelled him into the ranks of black national political leadership. Moving outward from Baraka's personal story, Woodard illuminates the dynamics and remarkable rise of black cultural nationalism with an eye toward the movement's broader context, including the impact of black migrations on urban ethos, the importance of increasing population concentrations of African Americans in the cities, and the effect of the 1965 Voting Rights Act on the nature of black political mobilization.

Nationalism and the State
Nationalism and the State

Author: John Breuilly

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 1994-02

Total Pages: 488

ISBN-13: 0226074145

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Since its publication this important study has become established as a central work on the vast and contested subject of modern nationalism. Placing historical evidence within a general theoretical framework, John Breuilly argues that nationalism should be understood as a form of politics that arises in opposition to the modern state. In this updated and revised edition, he extends his analysis to the most recent developments in central Europe and the former Soviet Union. He also addresses the current debates over the meaning of nationalism and their implications for his position. Breuilly challenges the conventional view that nationalism emerges from a sense of cultural identity. Rather, he shows how elites, social groups, and foreign governments use nationalist appeals to mobilize popular support against the state. Nationalism, then, is a means of creating a sense of identity. This provocative argument is supported with a wide-ranging analysis of pertinent examples—national opposition in early modern Europe; the unification movement in Germany, Italy, and Poland; separatism under the Hapsburg and Ottoman empires; fascism in Germany, Italy, and Romania; post-war anti-colonialism and the nationalist resurgence following the breakdown of Soviet power. Still the most comprehensive and systematic historical comparison of nationalist politics, Nationalism and the State is an indispensable book for anyone seeking to understand modern politics.

The Pan-African Nation
The Pan-African Nation

Author: Andrew Apter

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2008-10-01

Total Pages: 345

ISBN-13: 0226023567

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When Nigeria hosted the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC) in 1977, it celebrated a global vision of black nationhood and citizenship animated by the exuberance of its recent oil boom. Andrew Apter's The Pan-African Nation tells the full story of this cultural extravaganza, from Nigeria's spectacular rebirth as a rapidly developing petro-state to its dramatic demise when the boom went bust. According to Apter, FESTAC expanded the horizons of blackness in Nigeria to mirror the global circuits of its economy. By showcasing masks, dances, images, and souvenirs from its many diverse ethnic groups, Nigeria forged a new national culture. In the grandeur of this oil-fed confidence, the nation subsumed all black and African cultures within its empire of cultural signs and erased its colonial legacies from collective memory. As the oil economy collapsed, however, cultural signs became unstable, contributing to rampant violence and dissimulation. The Pan-African Nation unpacks FESTAC as a historically situated mirror of production in Nigeria. More broadly, it points towards a critique of the political economy of the sign in postcolonial Africa.

Performing the Nation
Performing the Nation

Author: Kelly Askew

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2002-07-28

Total Pages: 436

ISBN-13: 0226029816

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Since its founding in 1964, the United Republic of Tanzania has used music, dance, and other cultural productions as ways of imagining and legitimizing the new nation. Focusing on the politics surrounding Swahili musical performance, Kelly Askew demonstrates the crucial role of popular culture in Tanzania's colonial and postcolonial history. As Askew shows, the genres of ngoma (traditional dance), dansi (urban jazz), and taarab (sung Swahili poetry) have played prominent parts in official articulations of "Tanzanian National Culture" over the years. Drawing on over a decade of research, including extensive experience as a taarab and dansi performer, Askew explores the intimate relations among musical practice, political ideology, and economic change. She reveals the processes and agents involved in the creation of Tanzania's national culture, from government elites to local musicians, poets, wedding participants, and traffic police. Throughout, Askew focuses on performance itself—musical and otherwise—as key to understanding both nation-building and interpersonal power dynamics.