This book captures the intriguing stories of different generations of women within the Eritrean nation building process. Theoretical analyses of political and social change are combined with extensive field research to provide a comprehensive picture of modernisation processes in Eritrea.
The history of Eritrea is told in this reference through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and over 500 cross-referenced dictionary entries on significant persons, events, places, organizations, and other aspects of Eritrea's history from the earliest times to the present. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Eritrea.
Why Women Rebel presents a global analysis of the extent to which women are engaged in armed, organized rebellions, and why they choose to join such rebellions. Henshaw has collected and analyzed data on women’s participation in over 70 post-Cold War rebel groups. The book provides a theoretical analysis drawing upon both mainstream literature in the social sciences and critical, feminist inquiry on women and political violence to offer a new gendered theory on why women rebel. The book reveals that women are active in over half of all rebel groups sampled and that, while the majority of rebel groups have women serving in support roles away from direct combat, approximately a third of these groups employ women in the conduct of armed attacks, and just over a quarter have women in a leadership capacity. Henshaw reaffirms the idea that women are more likely to be engaged in left-wing political organizations, but does suggest that more conservative or traditional movements may also successfully incorporate women by appealing to concerns about community rights. Addressing several gaps in the current literature on this topic, this book will be of interest to academics in the fields of political science, international relations, security studies, and gender and women’s studies.
This book addresses the different ways in which armed forces around the world respond to the cultural diversity of their parent societies, ethnicity and gender in particular, in order to enhance their quality and legitimacy.
Twenty-three countries currently allow women to serve in front-line combat positions and others with a high likelihood of direct enemy contact. This book examines how these decisions did or did not evolve in 47 countries. This timely and fascinating book explores how different countries have determined to allow women in the military to take on combat roles—whether out of a need for personnel, a desire for the military to reflect the values of the society, or the opinion that women improve military effectiveness—or, in contrast, have disallowed such a move on behalf of the state. In addition, many countries have insurgent or dissident factions, in that have led armed resistance to state authority in which women have been present, requiring national militaries and peacekeepers to engage them, incorporate them, or disarm and deradicalize them. This country-by country analysis of the role of women in conflicts includes insightful essays on such countries as Afghanistan, China, Germany, Iraq, Israel, Russia, and the United States. Each essay provides important background information to help readers to understand the cultural and political contexts in which women have been integrated into their countries' militaries, have engaged in combat during the course of conflict, and have come to positions of political power that affect military decisions.
More than twenty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, this book looks afresh at some of the lasting legacies of that period in history. It does so by focusing on individual life trajectories of a group of people whose adolescence was shaped by the politics of socialism and the transitions within it. Through their life histories, Legacies of Socialist Solidarity offers an alternative reading of Mozambique’s socialist past with important repercussions for the present. At the center of the book are the life histories of a group of then youth who attended one of the largest educational exchange projects between two socialist countries, Mozambique and former East Germany, in the 1980s. Having been educated in East Germany to become part of a future socialist elite back home, the book’s protagonists returned to a Mozambique that had meanwhile embarked on the new path of capitalist development. Their qualifications and skills were of little relevance, and the new Mozambican government regarded them as a threat rather than an asset. The book analyzes the life courses of some of those who spent their adolescence in East Germany with a focus on personal aspirations, political orientation, collective memories, and shared horizons. It shows lasting legacies of socialist beliefs and practices. In placing those into the context of the broader political developments in Mozambique, the book explores an important dimension for the understanding of contemporary Mozambique. In addition, it makes a significant contribution to the comprehension of socialist cosmopolitanism and resulting patterns of identity and belonging, and to the wider literature on post-socialist change, the decentering of Cold War histories, and the pervasiveness of the political in everyday lives.
State-Building In Post-Liberation Eritrea explores the potentials, achievements and challenges facing Eritrea in its efforts to construct a viable state after it became independent in 1991(de facto) and 1993 (de jure). It also examines the post-liberation experience of state building focusing on the institutionalisation, bureaucratisation and democratisation of state organs. The Eritrean state's legitimacy and popularity initially rested on the track record of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front's (EPLF), its efficiency, organisational skill, and capacity to mobilise the population; which spawned hopes and optimism about the future. The book also analyses what happened to those great hopes and optimisms by examining its achievements and failures in this regard. It equally analyses the role played by external factors, particularly the second war with Ethiopia, and its implications for state building in Eritrea.
This authoritative overview serves as a comprehensive resource on Eritrea's history, politics, economy, society, and culture. Located in eastern Africa, bordering the Red Sea between Djibouti and Sudan, Eritrea is a poor but developing East African country, the capital of which is Asmara. Formerly a province of Ethiopia, Eritrea became independent on May 24, 1993, following a 30-year struggle that culminated in a referendum vote for independence. Written materials on most aspects of Eritrean history and culture are quite scarce. Eritrea fills that gap with an exhaustive, thematically organized overview. It examines Eritrean geography, the history of Eritrea since the ancient period, and the government, politics, economy, society, cultures, and people of the modern nation. Though based largely on the documentary record, the book also recognizes the value of oral history among the people of Eritrea and incorporates that history as well. Leading sources are quoted at length to provide analysis and perspective.
The scope and complexity of child migration have only recently emerged as a critical factors in global migration. This volume assembles for the first time a richly interdisciplinary body of work, drawing on contributions from renowned scholars, eminent practitioners and prominent civil society advocates from across the globe and from a wide range of different mobility contexts. Their invaluable pedagogical tools and research documents demonstrate the urgency and breadth of this important new aspect of international human mobility in our global age.
Across Africa, a burgeoning middle class has become the poster child for the 'Africa rising' narrative. Ambitious, aspirational and increasingly affluent, this group is said to embody the values and hopes of the new Africa, with international bodies ranging from the United Nations Development Programme to the World Bank regarding them as important agents of both economic development and democratic change. This narrative, however, obscures the complex and often ambiguous role that this group actually plays in African societies. Bringing together economists, political scientists, anthropologists and development experts, and spanning a variety of case studies from across the continent, this collection provides a much-needed corrective to the received wisdom within development circles, and provides a fresh perspective on social transformations in contemporary Africa.