Ordinary Violence and Social Change in Africa PDF Download

Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004272569
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 190

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Book Description
Ordinary social violence, - recurrent mental or physical aggression occurring between closely related people - structures social relationships. This book presents anthropological case studies from different parts of Africa to show how this ‘hidden’ violence is essential to understand social change.

Author: Marie Muschalek
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501742868
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
Slaps in the face, kicks, beatings, and other forms of run-of-the-mill violence were a quotidian part of life in German Southwest Africa at the beginning of the twentieth century. Unearthing this culture of normalized violence in a settler colony, Violence as Usual uncovers the workings of a powerful state that was built in an improvised fashion by low-level state representatives. Marie A. Muschalek's fascinating portrayal of the daily deeds of African and German men enrolled in the colonial police force called the Landespolizei is a historical anthropology of police practice and the normalization of imperial power. Replete with anecdotes of everyday experiences both of the policemen and of colonized people and settlers, Violence as Usual re-examines fundamental questions about the relationship between power and violence. Muschalek gives us a new perspective on violence beyond the solely destructive and the instrumental. She overcomes, too, the notion that modern states operate exclusively according to modes of rationalized functionality. Violence as Usual offers an unusual assessment of the history of rule in settler colonialism and an alternative to dominant narratives of an ostensibly weak colonial state.

Author: Munyaradzi Mawere
Publisher: African Books Collective
ISBN: 9956764485
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
This volume critically interrogates, from different angles and dimensions, the resilience of conflict and violence into 21st century Africa. The demise of European colonial administration in Africa in the 1960s wielded fervent hope for enduring peace for the people of Africa. Regrettably, conflict alongside violence in all its dimensions physical, religious, political, psychological and structural remain unabated and occupy central stage in contemporary Africa. The resilience of conflict and violence on the continental scene invokes unsettling memories of the past while negatively influencing the present and future of crafting inclusive citizenship and statehood. The book provides fresh insightful ethnographic and intellectual material for rethinking violence and conflict, and for fostering long-lasting peace and political justice on the continent and beyond. With its penetrating focus on conflict and associated trajectories of violence in Africa, the book is an inestimable asset for conflict management practitioners, political scientists, historians, civil society activists and leaders in economics and politics as well as all those interested in the affairs of Africa.

Author: Sonja Gierse-Arsten
Publisher: African Books Collective
ISBN: 3906927555
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 508

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Book Description
Worldwide, Namibia ranks high regarding gender equality. However, many women are intimidated by violence perpetrated by men. This book is based on a social anthropological field research in the small town of Outjo, situated in Northern Central Namibia, over a period of 14 months. Gender is learnt, lived and reproduced in a societal frame. Violence against women, too, is perpetrated by men in a societal context. By using mainly qualitative research methods, Sonja Gierse-Arsten looks at male and female perspectives to reach a holistic understanding and to provide a basis for sustainable changes towards equal gender relations. She traces the transition from a hierarchical gender system during colonial times to the aspired equal gender relations in present Namibia. Current challenges characterised by poverty and great economic inequalities form the framework in which gender is performed and violence perpetrated. This study offers inspirations to re-think gender to reach substantive gender equality and to overcome the normalisation of violence.

Author: Dariusz Dziewanski
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
ISBN: 1839097329
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
Joint Winner of the 2023 ASSAf Humanities Book Award in the Emerging Researcher Category This book showcases a practical starting point for changing how criminologists think about gangs and street culture – offering hope to those trying to exit gang life, as well as those trying to help them do so.

Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004306056
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
This book analyses the various cultural, social, economic and historical aspects that are formative in African societies’ experiences of being in transit on the road to prosperity. It gives insight into transformations that took place in African societies in the past century.

Author: Inge Butter
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110714809
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
A focus on the everyday has produced this ethnography, which hopes to give a nuanced voice to an extended family of semi-sedentary nomads, living at the centre of a country and region known for its political turmoil, ecological insecurities, and socio-economic hardship. The everyday of the Chadian Walad Djifir is one in which sedentarity and mobility are approached as two entwined parts of a whole, and where economic and geographical boundaries do not necessarily form constrictions. The ferīkh (nomadic camp) is where all of the Walad Djifir’s networks meet, and often also begin— a physical place embodying various networks and connections, which span time and geographical space. This analytical and methodological approach gives insight in how regional trends can be understood in light of the Walad Djifir’s daily lives. Over time, the Walad Djifir have developed ways of coping and dealing with insecurities, interacting with infrastructural, technological, and socio-political developments in specific ways. In exploring how such insecurities and crises become anchored into the everyday, the ferīkh provides answers. It is precisely the mundane elements of daily life which anchor disruption.

Author: Mariano Pavanello
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1315439913
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
Ethiopian and Eritrean Pentecostalism and the Habesha church in Rome -- Breaking with the past, healing history -- Conclusion -- References -- 7 "I went out into the street ... and now I am fighting for my life.": Street children, witchcraft accusations, and the collapse of the household in Bangui (Central African Republic) -- A history of oppression and dispossession -- The streets of Bangui -- Witchcraft violence:Children, adults and religious leaders in the streets of Bangui -- Etiological crisis and the collapse of the household -- Conclusion: The dialectic of enclosure and freedom -- References -- 8 Fields of experience: In between healing and harming. On conversation between Dogon healers and sorcerers -- Healing powers, sacrifice and sorcery on the Dogon plateau -- Archives of disorder, secret and rebellion -- To accuse, to heal, to envision -- Epistemological debris and 'hierarchies of credibility'. Conclusions -- References -- Index

Author: Meredeth Turshen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317636554
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
Violence affects the economy of production and the ecology of reproduction— the production of economic goods and services and the generational reproduction of workers, the regeneration of the capacity to work and maintenance of workers on a daily basis, and the renewal of culture and society through community relations and the education of children Gender and the Political Economy of Conflict in Africa explores the persistence of violence in conflict zones in Africa using a political economy framework. This framework employs an analysis of violence on both edges of the spectrum—a macro-economic analysis of violence against workers and a micro-political analysis of the violence in women’s reproductive lives. These analyses come together to create a new explanation of why violence persists, a new political economy of violence against women, and a new theoretical understanding of the relation between production and reproduction. Three case studies are discussed: the Democratic Republic of the Congo (violence in an era of conflict), Sierra Leone (violence post-conflict), and Tanzania (which has not seen armed conflict on the mainland). This book fills a significant gap on the political economy of war and women/gender for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as researchers in African Studies, Gender Studies, and Peace and Conflict Studies.

Author: Marie-Claire Foblets
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040031714
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
This book draws on concrete cases of collaboration between anthropologists and legal practitioners to critically assess the use of anthropological expertise in a variety of legal contexts from the point of view of the anthropologist as well as of the decision-maker or legal practitioner. The contributions, several of which are co-authored by anthropologist–legal practitioner tandems, deal with the roles of and relationships between anthropologists and legal professionals, which are often collaborative, interdisciplinary, and complementary. Such interactions go far beyond courts and litigation into areas of law that might be called ‘social justice activism’. They also entail close collaboration with the people –often subjects of violence and dispossession –with whom the anthropologists and legal practitioners are working. The aim of this collection is to draw on past experiences to come up with practical methodological suggestions for facilitating this interaction and collaboration and for enhancing the efficacy of the use of anthropological expertise in legal contexts. Explicitly designed to bridge the gap between theory and practice, and between scholarship and practical application, the book will appeal to scholars and researchers engaged in anthropology, legal anthropology, socio-legal studies, and asylum and migration law. It will also be of interest to legal practitioners and applied social scientists, who can glean valuable lessons regarding the challenges and rewards of genuine collaboration between legal practitioners and social scientists.