Contemporary Issues In African Society

This book examines the twin critical processes of state-building and nation-building in Africa and the confluence of major domestic and global issues that shape them. The book covers topics such as the expansive role of non-governmental organizations, the growing influence of charismatic Pentecostalism, ethnic conflicts in East Africa, the failure of the African Union’s peacekeeping efforts in Sudan’s Darfur region, and Africa's expanding relations with the European Union. It combines discussion of these frontier issues shaping contemporary African society with analysis from leading policy experts.

This volume reports on the state of crisis in Africa in the early twenty-first century. Africa, on the eve of the ‘independence revolution’, was the continent of hope and high expectations. By the third decade of independence, optimism had been replaced by dismality. African states had been beset by ethno-political squabbles, military rule, civil wars, Islamic and insurgent movements, extreme poverty and disease. With the ascent of redemocratization in the 1990s and of ‘new’ pan-Africanism derived from the formation of the African Union, Africa appeared set to claim its vaunted destiny. This book asks, with hindsight to the first decade of the twenty-first century: how real was the renaissance in African life? If the dismal African condition is a phase in the historical development of Africa, this volume does not see any golden age in the past to which Africa aspires to return. There is clearly a continuation and persistence of crisis, with an absence of good governance, personalisation of state power, widespread disease, and policy failure in education, economy and infrastructural development. Although endowed with abundant human and natural resources, Africa remains the least developed and most indebted continent. Whither then the African Renaissance? The methodologies that underpin the contributions in this book are as diverse as the specialisations of the contributors. The collection questions ideologically protected assumptions and presumptions, presenting Africa as it is, because it is only by knowing where Africa truly stands that a proper direction can be charted for it.

This book is a compilation of articles and essays on African history, culture, and politics, written by prominent scholars and activists. It covers a wide range of topics, including the legacy of colonialism, the struggle for independence, and contemporary issues facing the continent. A valuable resource for anyone interested in African studies. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This volume is a collection of chapters about contemporary issues within African philosophy. They are issues African philosophy must grapple with to demonstrate its readiness to make a stand against some of the challenges society faces in the coming decade such as xenophobia, Afro-phobia, extreme poverty, democratic failure and migration. The text covers new methodical directions and there is focus on the conversationalist, complementarist and consolationist movements within the field as well as the place of the Indigenous Knowledge System.The collection speaks to African philosophy’s place in intellectual history with coverage of African Ethics and African socio-political philosophy. Contributors come from a variety of different backgrounds, institutions and countries. Through their innovative ideas, they provide fresh insight and intellectual energy. The book appeals to philosophy students and researchers.

Religions in Contemporary Africa is an accessible and comprehensive introduction to the three main religious traditions on the African continent, African indigenous religions, Christianity and Islam. The book provides a historical overview of these important traditions and focuses on the roles they play in African societies today. It includes social, cultural and political case studies from across the continent on the following topical issues: Witchcraft and modernity Power and politics Conflict and peace Media and popular culture Development Human rights Illness and health Gender and sexuality With suggestions for further reading, discussion questions, illustrations and a list of glossary terms this is the ideal textbook for students in religion, African studies and adjacent fields approaching this subject area for the first time.

In this careful articulation of science, the editors provide an intellectual marriage of Indigenous science and science education in the African context as a way of revising schooling and education. They define science broadly to include both the science of the natural/physical/biological and the ‘science of the social’. It is noted that the current policy direction of African education continues to be a subject of intense intellectual discussion. Science education is very much at the heart of much current debates about reforming African schooling. Among the ways to counter-vision contemporary African education this book points to how we promote Indigenous science education to improve upon African science and technology development in general. The book also notes a long-standing push to re-examine local cultural resource knowings in order to appreciate and understand the nature, content and context of Indigenous knowledge science as a starting foundation for promoting African science and technology studies in general. It is argued that these interests and concerns are not mutually exclusive of each other but as a matter of fact interwoven and interdependent. The breadth of coverage of the collection reflect papers in science, Indigeneity, identity and knowledge production and the possibilities of creating a truly African-centred education. It is argued that such extensive coverage will engage and excite readers on the path of what has been termed ‘African educational recovery’. While the book is careful in avoiding stale debates about the ‘Eurocentricity of Western scientific knowledge’ and the positing of ‘Eurocentric science’ as the only science worthy of engagement, it nonetheless caution against constructing a binary between Indigenous/local science and knowledges and Western ‘scientific’ knowledge. After all, Western scientific knowledge is itself a form of local knowledge, born out of a particular social and historical context. Engaging science in a more global context will bring to the fore critical questions of how we create spaces for the study of Indigenous science knowledge in our schools. How is Indigenous science to be read, understood and theorized? And, how do educators gather/collect and interpret Indigenous science knowledges for the purposes of teaching young learners. These are critical questions for contemporary African education?

Contemporary Issues in Sociology and Social Work: An Africanist Perspective is a publication of the Department of Social Work, University of Ilorin, Nigeria. In this book, the writers have advanced constructive and enduring global narratives, with particular emphasis on Africa, about the core issues and concerns in both Sociology and Social Work that are devoid of mischief and corruption. This book is timely as more and more departments of Social Work are being mounted across Africa, particularly, in Nigeria. The book is written with the aim of making researchers, academics and other stakeholders, including students, in the field of human behavioural sciences who are interested in the subject matters of Sociology and Social Work to become familiar with salient issues relating to the subjects of discourse. It is further intended to familiarise the readers of the text with important and cogent contemporary topical issues as related to the society at large. The book is particularly targeted at researchers, academics and students who are members of the Faculty of the Social Sciences or ancillary faculties that are interested in understanding human behaviours and lend helping hand to different clients that come across their paths in the process of carrying out their duties. The structure of the book is centred on the principle of human behaviour and humanitarian assistance in the context of different environmental situations in which the reader finds him/herself. The serialisation of the 39 chapters shows three sections with contributions in core Sociology, core Social Work and the inter-twin of both subjects. In core Sociology, the following topics are discussed: the Foundation of Sociology, Contemporary Sociological Theories from an Africanist perspective, Sociology of Social Problems, Contemporary Issues in Gender Studies, The Sociology of Formal Organisations, the Foundation of Development Sociology, the Scope and Trends in Urban Sociology, Basic Discourse in Rural Sociology, Crime, Deviance and Social Control, Cybercrime and Criminality, Issues in Medical Sociology, Discourses in Social Epidemiology, Social Epidemiology of Mental Illness, Basic Issues in Comparative Health Care Systems, Issues in Social Gerontology, the Nexus between Politics and Sociology, Social Differentiation, Social Inequality and Social Stratification, an African perspective to Industrial Sociology and an Afrocentric Sociological Thought. In core Social Work, the discussed issues are the Foundation of Social Work, The Fundamentals of School Social Work, the Concepts, Typology and Classifications of Social Security Systems, the Theory and Application of Forensic Psychology, Industrial Social Work, The Dynamics of Human Social Functioning, Social Workers and the Military, Social Workers and Mental Health, Community Organisation and Rural Development, Social Workers and Community Development, Social Workers and Child Protective Services, Social Workers in the Hospital Settings, an examination of the concept of Human Sexuality and its implications on Social Work and the roles of Social Workers in Global Terrorism. It is not untrue, therefore, that this book is a comprehensive textbook of Sociology and Social Work for African students. However, it needs to be mentioned and emphasised that the text does not and could not have covered all the areas in the two disciplines, but has tried to accommodate and touch on the major areas that are germane to academic excellence with the hope of stimulating, sustaining and making the acquired knowledge from the book a relevant aspect in human behavioural sciences. The text will be useful to students and staff of social sciences, particularly Sociology and Social Work, across Africa. The writing is pragmatic and reader-friendly and the editorial work is fantastic.