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African Culture (african + culture)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences100%

Selected Abstracts

Racial Metaphors: Interpreting Sex and AIDS in Africa

DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 5 2003
Eileen Stillwaggon
Western preconceptions regarding African sexuality distorted early research on the social context of AIDS in Africa and limited the scope of preventive policies. Key works cited repeatedly in the social science and policy literature constructed a hypersexualized pan,African culture as the main reason for the high prevalence of HIV in sub,Saharan Africa. Africans were portrayed as the social ,Other' in works marked by sweeping generalizations and innuendo, rather than useful comparative data on sexual behaviour. Although biomedical studies demonstrate the role of numerous factors that influence HIV transmission among poor people, a narrowly behavioural explanation dominated the AIDS,in,Africa discourse for over a decade and still circumscribes preventive strategies in Africa and elsewhere. [source]

Associational links with home among Zimbabweans in the UK: reflections on long-distance nationalisms

GLOBAL NETWORKS, Issue 2 2009
JOANN MCGREGOR
Abstract In this article, I provide an overview of the character of associations formed in Britain by Zimbabweans in the context of the mass exodus that gathered pace from the late 1990s. I discuss the politicization of the Zimbabwe diaspora, which infuses many aspects of associational life beyond specifically political organizations, and also emphasize the importance of Zimbabwean church fellowships. I offer an historical explanation for the strength of nationalism expressed in the diaspora and the absence of ,translocal' associations characteristic of other African diaspora groups, such as hometown associations, and explore reasons why burial societies, which have been centrally important for Zimbabwean migrants in other periods and contexts, are less prevalent in Britain. I build my argument on an historical discussion of continuities and changes in the associational forms characteristic of labour migrancy and urbanization within the southern African region. I emphasize the legacies of a strong segregationist settler state, the mobilizations and international solidarities of the protracted struggle for independence, the Christianization of elite African culture in Zimbabwe's cities, and the international politics of the recent multifaceted crisis. My discussion of the associational expression of ,long distance nationalisms' is based on interviews conducted in 2004,5, participation in diaspora meetings and events, and reading of diaspora media and websites. In the article I aim to highlight the specific social histories of association and the political context of diaspora formation, which are essential for understanding the nature of institutions connecting with home, and ideas about home itself. [source]

Hope and Purification in the Writings of Ayi Kwei Armah and Ama Ata Aidoo

ORBIS LITERARUM, Issue 2 2010
Clayton G. MacKenzie
Taban Lo Liyong sees the task of the African writer as one of "reconstructing Africa from the imperial wreck of the last two thousand seasons" (Liyong 1990, 171). The erosion of the African culture by modernization and colonialism has deprived indigenous peoples of their religions, their traditions, their mores, and in some cases their languages. It is not clear, though, what form Liyong's "reconstruction" is to take. Other commentators, like the Nigerian poet Tanure Ojaide, seem more specific in demanding that the African artist should take a moral, political line in asserting that his/her active role is to "remedy a bad situation" (Ojaide 1994, 17). The object would be to purify an African way of life that has been tainted by invasive, self-gratifying, materialistic attitudes. But, again, what is that "remedy" to be? While recognition of Africa's postcolonial malaise is widespread, and its cause axiomatically and correctly assigned to the experience of colonialism, African writers have been somewhat tentative in suggesting what exactly it is that should be done. It is one thing to identify a problem, and to express it in the most forthright or damning terms, but quite another to locate and postulate the possible means for its resolution. The two Ghanaian artists whose work this paper addresses, Ayi Kwei Armah and Ama Ata Aidoo, have been all too frequently accused of the pessimistic recitation of African ills. Molly Mahood has spoken of the "almost total disillusionment" (Fraser 1980, 15) of Armah's The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born; and Liyong has described the work as one of those "tearing down exercises" (Liyong 1990, 176). Adeola James has identified a "certain somberness" (James 1990, 17) and Arlene Elder a "pessimism" (Elder 1987, 117) in Aidoo's short stories; and Femi Ojo-Ade has styled the Ghana of No Sweetness Here as "hell" (Oje-Ade 1987, 174). The optimistic dimensions of their work have often gone unnoticed. Even contemporary readings that have attempted to soften the gloom of the two texts have sought in some way to qualify their observations. Tsegaye Wodajo's excellent study of five Armah novels, Hope in the Midst of Despair: A Novelist's Cures for Africa (2005), perceives The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born as a literature of protest that finds a hopeful riposte in the later novels. And while Nanna Jane Opoku-Agyemang's fine 1999 essay brings a valuable comparative dimension to No Sweetness Here, her insights fail to lift the pall of despair that is customarily judged to hang over this collection of eleven stories. This paper will argue that Aidoo's No Sweetness Here and Armah's The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born offer greater scope for optimism than many critics have hitherto suggested; and that both articulate a process of purification that actively opposes the dystopian settings of their respective narratives. [source]

Een-Gonyama Gonyama!: Zulu Origins of the Boy Scout Movement and the Africanisation of Imperial Britain

PARLIAMENTARY HISTORY, Issue 1 2008
TIMOTHY PARSONS
British imperialists in the late 19th century denigrated non-western cultures in rationalising the partition of Africa, but they also had to assimilate African values and traditions to make the imperial system work. The partisans of empire also romanticised non-western cultures to convince the British public to support the imperial enterprise. In doing so, they introduced significant African and Asian elements into British popular culture, thereby refuting the assumption that the empire had little influence on the historical development of metropolitan Britain. Robert Baden-Powell conceived of the Boy Scout movement as a cure for the social instability and potential military weakness of Edwardian Britain. Influenced profoundly by his service as a colonial military officer, Africa loomed large in Baden-Powell's imagination. He was particularly taken with the Zulu. King Cetshwayo's crushing defeat of the British army at Isandhlawana in 1879 fixed their reputation as a ,martial tribe' in the imagination of the British public. Baden-Powell romanticised the Zulus' discipline, and courage, and adapted many of their cultural institutions to scouting. Baden-Powell's appropriation and reinterpretation of African culture illustrates the influence of subject peoples of the empire on metropolitan British politics and society. Scouting's romanticised trappings of African culture captured the imagination of tens of thousands of Edwardian boys and helped make Baden-Powell's organisation the premier uniformed youth movement in Britain. Although confident that they were superior to their African subjects, British politicians, educators, and social reformers agreed with Baden-Powell that ,tribal' Africans preserved many of the manly virtues that had been wiped by the industrial age. [source]