Trends In African Studies

This book Trends in African Studies is a response to the challenge of the paucity of materials on the history and the development of African Studies in a global context. The available substantive materials on the subject are limited, thus creating a gap in related literature. Yet, the field of African Studies continues to generate global interest, academic recognition and respectability. This book documents the current state of African Studies and emerging trends in the field. It covers the development of African Studies in a global context: African Studies in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, Europe, Australia, the United States of America and Canada, South America and the Caribbean, and it analyses the trends present in each continent. An important contribution of this book to the field of African Studies is the development of an African Studies index designed for measuring the quality of African Studies and ranking. Useful information, suggested multidisciplinary research methods in African Studies and an appendix which includes a researched list of African Studies journals and organisations related to African Studies are found within its pages.

Global interest in African studies has been rapidly growing as researchers realize the importance of understanding the impact African communities can have on the economy, development, education, and more. As the use, acceptance, and popularity of African knowledge increases, it is crucial to explore how this community-based knowledge provides deeper insights, understanding, and influence on such things as decision making and problem solving. African Studies: Breakthroughs in Research and Practice examines the politics, culture, language, history, socio-economic development, methodologies, and contemporary experiences of African peoples from around the world. Highlighting a range of topics such as indigenous knowledge, developing countries, and public administration, this publication is an ideal reference source for sociologists, policymakers, anthropologists, government officials, economists, instructors, researchers, academicians, and graduate-level students in a variety of fields.

In recent years, Africa has undergone the longest period of sustained economic growth in the continent’s history, drawing the attention of the international media and academics alike. This book analyses the Africa Rising narrative from multidisciplinary perspectives, offering a critical assessment of the explanations given for the poor economic growth and development performance in Africa prior to the millennium and the dramatic shift towards the new Africa. Bringing in perspectives from African intellectuals and scholars, many of whom have previously been overlooked in this debate, the book examines the construction of Africa’s economic growth and development portraits over the years. It looks at two institutions that play a vital role in African development, providing a detailed explanation of how the World Bank and the IMF have interpreted and dealt with the African challenges and experiences. The insightful analysis reveals that if Africa is rising, only 20-30 per cent of Africans are aboard the rising ship, and the main challenge facing the continent today is to bring on board the majority of Africans who have been excluded from growth. This book makes the complex, and sometimes confusing debates on Africa’s economic growth experience more accessible to a wide range of readers interested in the Africa story. It is essential reading for students and researchers in African Studies, and will be of great interest to scholars in Development Studies, Political Economy, and Development Economics.

This book offers an in-depth African perspective to the major issues in demographic discourse in sub-Saharan Africa. It provides comprehensive analysis of sub-Saharan African censuses, profiling demographic changes, trends, patterns and consequences in the region. Interdisciplinary, comprehensive, accessible, simple and topical, this volume is perfectly suited to researchers, students and lecturers who are interested in understanding sub-Saharan African population dynamics and issues.

Awarded 'Special Commendation' in the Noma Award for Publishing in Africa 1998. The intellectual liberation of the study of Africa is the battle cry of this forceful book. The author is one of Africa's younger scholars, in the forefront of research and thinking about the role of African scholars, and the ownership and state of African Studies; and winner of The Noma Award for Publishing in Africa 1994. He describes this book as an interrogation of African Studies, its formulations and fetishes, theories and trends, possibilities and pitfalls. He argues that, as a discursiveformation, African Studies is immersed in the contexts and configurations of the western epistemological order; and the crisis in African Studies in North America and Britain reflects changing cultural policies as a result of the shifting ethnic and gender composition o fclassrooms, tansformations in the global positions of these countries, and the crisis of liberal values. The study has been highly recommended by such distinguished African scholars as Professors Mahmood Mamdani, Ali Mazrui, V.Y. Mudimbeand Adebayo Olikosh.

In Comparative Area Studies, the editors and contributors are motivated by two basic convictions: first, that intensive regional research remains indispensable to the social sciences; and second, that this research risks becoming marginalized in the absence of concerted efforts to link it to disciplinary concepts and theories that have relevance beyond a single region.