The footprints of North Korean influence can be found all over Africa, most clearly in the form of monuments, museums, and government buildings constructed using forced labour. Such prominent... Show moreThe footprints of North Korean influence can be found all over Africa, most clearly in the form of monuments, museums, and government buildings constructed using forced labour. Such prominent projects, which are potent symbols of African nationalism, simultaneously adopt the socialist-realist visual style that is predominant in Pyongyang, the DPRK capital. It makes them highly recognisable markers. Less visible, however, is the forced labour that precedes the joyful opening of a new monument, museum, or government building. The main objective of this chapter is to provoke ideas about a framework to study North Korean forced labour in Africa, and stimulate further work in this field. First, the chapter provides a historical context of North Korean activities in Africa. The seeds of the fruitful cooperation between the DPRK and African countries were sown during the liberation struggles that raged across the continent between the 1960s and 1990s. The subsequent section focuses on a single case study, namely Zimbabwe, to highlight this relationship. Finally, the foundations for a research framework are laid out in the third part, with special attention to methodology and sources. A number of preliminary findings serve as a conclusion. Show less
Revisiting South Africa's land and agrarian questions / Grasian Mkodzongi and Femke Brandt -- Broadening conceptions of democracy and citizenship : the subaltern histories of rural resistance in... Show moreRevisiting South Africa's land and agrarian questions / Grasian Mkodzongi and Femke Brandt -- Broadening conceptions of democracy and citizenship : the subaltern histories of rural resistance in Mpondoland and Marikana / Sarah Bruchhausen and Camalita Naicker -- From material to cultural : historiographic approaches to the Eastern Cape's agrarian past / Elene Cloete -- South Africa's dangerous game : re-configuring power and belonging on Karoo trophy-hunting farms / Femke Brandt -- Gendered nationhood and the land question in South Africa 20 years after democracy / Kezia Batisai -- Farm worker 'development' agendas : what does sports have to do with it? / Tarminder Kaur -- Intricacies of game farming and outstanding land restitution claims in the Gongolo area of Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa / Tariro Kamuti -- Inclusive business models in South African land restitution : great expectations and ambiguous outcomes explored / Nerhene Davis -- 'We won't have Zim-style land grabs' : what can South Africa learn from Zimbabwe's fast-track land reforms? / Grasian Mkodzongi -- Khoisan revivalism and land question in post-apartheid South Africa / Chizuko Sato -- The land-reform programme and its contribution to the livelihoods of poor people / Fani Ncapayi -- 'Disrupting spatial legacies' : dismantled game farms as success stories of land reform? / Mnqobi Ngubane -- Agency and state planning in South Africa's land-reform process / Femke Brandt and Grasian Mkodzongi. Abstract: "Land Reform Revisited' engages with contemporary debates on land reform and agrarian transformation in South Africa. The volume offers insights into post-apartheid transformation dynamics through the lens of agency and state making. The chapters written by emerging scholars are based on extensive qualitative research and their analysis highlights the ways in which people negotiate and contest land reform realities and politics. By focusing on the diverse meanings of land and competing interpretations of what constitutes success and failure in land reform Brandt and Mkodzongi insist on looking beyond the productivity discourses guiding research and policy making in the field towards an informed view from below". Show less
Previous analyses of the formation and composition of community-based organizations (CBOs) have used cross section data. So, causal inference has been compromised. We obviate this problem by using... Show morePrevious analyses of the formation and composition of community-based organizations (CBOs) have used cross section data. So, causal inference has been compromised. We obviate this problem by using data from a quasi-experiment in which villages were formed by government officials selecting and clustering households. Our findings are as follows: CBO co-memberships are more likely between geographically proximate households and less likely between early and late settlers, members of female-headed households are not excluded, in poorer villages CBO co-membership networks are denser and, while wealthier households may have been instrumental in setting up CBOs, poorer households engage shortly afterward. Show less
This book is based on iterative multi-sited ethnography at Merrivale farm, Tavaka village, and various sites in South Africa. The author reveals how the dynamics generated by fast-track potentially... Show moreThis book is based on iterative multi-sited ethnography at Merrivale farm, Tavaka village, and various sites in South Africa. The author reveals how the dynamics generated by fast-track potentially offer new development opportunities - specifically for women. The findings challenge existing expert notions and opinions about women's rural land use, livelihoods, and rural development. The book examines how negotiations and bargaining by women with family, state, and traditional actors have proved useful in accessing land in Mwenezi district, Zimbabwe. The hidden, complex, and innovative ways adopted by women to access land and shape livelihoods based on transitory mobility are examined. The role of collective action, conflicts, conflict resolution, and women's agency in overcoming the challenges associated with trading in South Africa are examined within the ambit of the sustainable livelihoods framework, a gendered approach to land reform and social networks Show less
This article explores financial strategies used by smallholder farmers in the face of the challenging conditions following the economic crisis in the early 2000s in Zimbabwe. It considers the... Show moreThis article explores financial strategies used by smallholder farmers in the face of the challenging conditions following the economic crisis in the early 2000s in Zimbabwe. It considers the sources, circulation and importance of cash among farmers in the cash-scarce society that emerged with hyperinflation and subsequent dollarization and that rendered farmers' savings worthless. The article is based on transaction diaries from 20 farmers in two different rural communities in Zimbabwe. These diaries provided details of expenditures in a three-week period in November/December 2010 and intend to provide insight into the day-to-day realities that affects many in Zimbabwe. These diaries show the very limited inflow of cash and that many households did not have any cash at their disposal. Contrary to other sources, our data suggest that the importance of remittances in these villages is far less than expected. Furthermore, in contrast with standard economic thinking, farmers rarely reverted to 'instantaneous barter'. Instead, the shortage of cash resulted in an intensification of gift-giving in kind in which small gifts were exchanged between family members, neighbours and other close relations and that were especially important to meet daily household needs of farmers and their families. Show less
Ordinary social violence, - i.e. recurrent mental or physical aggression occurring between closely related people - structures social relationships in Africa, and in the world. Studies of violence... Show moreOrdinary social violence, - i.e. recurrent mental or physical aggression occurring between closely related people - structures social relationships in Africa, and in the world. Studies of violence in Africa often refer to ethnic wars and explicit conflicts and do not enter the hidden domain of violence that this book reveals through in-depth anthropological studies from different parts and contexts in Africa. Ordinary violence has its distinctive forms embedded in specific histories and cultures. It is gendered, implicates witchcraft accusations, varies in rural and urban contexts, relates to demographic and socio-economic changes of the past decades and is embedded in the everyday life of many African citizens. The experience of ordinary violence goes beyond the simple notion of victimhood; instead it structures social life and should therefore be a compelling part of the study of social change. Show less
The voices of orphans and other vulnerable children and young people and of their carers and professional development workers are documented and analysed to both criticise the inadequacies of... Show moreThe voices of orphans and other vulnerable children and young people and of their carers and professional development workers are documented and analysed to both criticise the inadequacies of current social development work and to create a new, alternative theory and practice of project management in Zimbabwe and southern Africa. This is the first extensive and intensive empirical study of Zimbabwean orphans and other vulnerable children and young people. Chronically poor children and their carers can be corrupted or silenced by management systems which fail to recognise their basic human needs. Resilience in the face of such adversity is celebrated by the dominant project management ideology and practice but is a major barrier to achieve genuine sustainable improvements in the lives of vulnerable children. We propose a new person-centred project management approach aimed at delivering comprehensive services for orphans, which explicitly recognises the needs of orphans and other poor children to be fully socially, politically and economically included within their communities and which avoids the reinforcement of power based inequalities and their unacceptable consequences. The moral bankruptcy of much social development work in Zimbabwe and elsewhere in Southern Africa is described and we delineate an alternative project management policy and practice. Show less
The Zimbabwean issue has often divided opinion. President Robert Mugabe's domination of the country__s political and media landscapes has attracted scrutiny and criticism from the West. The ... Show moreThe Zimbabwean issue has often divided opinion. President Robert Mugabe's domination of the country__s political and media landscapes has attracted scrutiny and criticism from the West. The "oppressed" people of Zimbabwe are said to have not had an alternative to state-sponsored TV or daily media outlets. The availability of new media vices including the Internet is being seen as offering a new platform to fight these perceived forms of dictatorships. This PhD employed qualitative methods to probe the potential of new media in sustaining democracy in Zimbabwe. Show less
In "The Objects of Life in Central Africa" the history of consumption and social change from 1840 until 1980 is explored. By taking consumption as a vantage point, the contributions deviate from... Show moreIn "The Objects of Life in Central Africa" the history of consumption and social change from 1840 until 1980 is explored. By taking consumption as a vantage point, the contributions deviate from and add to previous works which have mainly analysed issues of production from an economic and political perspective. The chapters are broad-ranging in temporal and geographical focus, including contributions on Congo, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Angola. Topics range from the social history of firearms to the perception of the railway and include contributions on sewing machines, traders and advertising. By looking at the socio-economic, political and cultural meaning and impact of goods the history of Central Africa is reassessed. Show less
This publication provides a set of guiding principles for constitutional reform on the basis of practical experiences of constitutional reform processes in selected countries: Bolivia, Ghana,... Show moreThis publication provides a set of guiding principles for constitutional reform on the basis of practical experiences of constitutional reform processes in selected countries: Bolivia, Ghana, Indonesia, Iraq, Kenya, Malawi, Zimbabwe and South Africa. The focus is on the role of political parties in constitution-building processes. The publication shows that although country-specific reform processes may be unique in terms of objectives, context, popular involvement, and achievements, they go through similar phases: preparatory, consultative, drafting, and implementation. All cases illustrate the political nature of constitutional reform and the central role of political parties in the process. [ASC Leiden abstract] Show less
