Africana Cultures And Policy Studies

This book introduces Africana Cultures and Policy Studies as an interdisciplinary field of study, rooted in the historical experience of people of African descent and focusing on policy development, anlaysis, and practical application.

This volume attempts to insert itself within the larger discussion of Africa in the twenty-first century, especially within the realm of world politics. Despite the underwhelming amount of attention given to Africa's role in international politics in popular news sources, it is evident that Africa has a consistent record of participating in world politics- one that pre-dates colonization and continues today. In continuance of this legacy of active participation in global political exchanges, Africans today can be heard in dialogues that span the world and their roles are impossible to replace by other entities. It is evident that a vastly different Africa exists than ones that bolster images of starvation, corruption, and compliance. The essays in this volume center on Africa and Africans participating in international political discourses, but with an emphasis on various forms of expression and philosophies, as these factors heavily influence Africa's role as a participant in global politics. The reader will find a variety of essays that permeate surface discussions of politics and political activism by inserting African culture, rhetoric, philosophies into the larger discussion of international politics and Africa's role in worldwide political, social, and economic debates.

African Cultures, Memory and Space is an impeccable volume that powerfully grapples with a gamut of cultural heritage issues, challenges and problems from a vista of inter- and multi-disciplinary approach. The book, which is designed as a foundational text to the study of culture in ever-changing environments, makes an important argument that the dynamism of culture in highly globalised societies such as that of Zimbabwe can be studied from any perspective, but most importantly through careful examination of cultural elements such as memory, oral history and space, among others. While the book makes special reference to Zimbabwe, it profoundly and audaciously dissect and cut across different geographical and cultural spaces through its penetrating interrogation and scrutiny of different issues commonplace in many African contexts and even beyond. The book, written by scholars from different backgrounds and orientations, should appeal to scholars, researchers and students from various disciplines which include but not limited to Cultural Heritage Studies, Policy Studies, Social-Cultural Anthropology, Sociology, Development Studies and African Studies.

Ever since the first contacts between Europe and Africa, African people have been confined to the fringes of Eurocentric experience in the Western mind. Much of what we have studied in African history and culture, or literature and linguistics, or politics and economics, has been orchestrated from the standpoint of Europe's interests. Whether it is a matter of economics, history, politics, geographical concepts, or art, Africans have been seen as peripheral. This volume reviews the past in order to evaluate the present and move ahead with appropriate policies for the future. The authors focus on issues of affirmative action, legal culture, theories of black culture, and methodologies of scholarly work in Africana studies. Contents include: Cecil Blake, "The Culture Nexus Construct in Africana Studies," Ronald Turner, "On Palatable, Palliative, and Paralytic Affirmative Action, Grutter-Style," Winston A. Van Horne, "Three Concepts of Legitimacy," Robert E. Weems, Jr., "Africana Studies and the Quest for Black Economic Empowerment: What Can be Done," Ula Y. Taylor, "Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam: Separatism, Regendering, and a Secular Approach to Black Power after Malcolm X," Lewis R. Gordon, "Must Revolutionaries Sing the Blues? Thinking through Fanon and the Leitmotif of the Black Arts Movement," Delores P. Aldridge, "Race, Gender, and Africana Theorizing," and James L. Conyers, "Biography and Africology: Method and Interpretation." The volume concludes with reviews of significant recent scholarship on black history and culture. Law, Culture, and Africana Studies will have particular interest for scholars in the fields of American and European studies, cultural studies, history, sociology, and specialists in African-American studies.

The poor economic performance of some African countries since independence has been a major concern to both African leaders and policy makers. This volume, which draws together contributions from academics based in Africa and its diaspora, situates the continent within its historic and socio-political background: from the 1960s, the decade of independence, through to its development outlook as the new millennium unfolds. It examines a broad range of contemporary issues -- from development and culture to linguistics and is unique in identifying and examining issues that are common both to Africa and the diaspora.

An analysis of the ties between culture and every aspect of African life, using Africa's past to explain present situations.