Book Description
Unique and current study of the role of the media in Zimbabwe's political life from the colonial era to the present. ... Read more

Book Description
This book is an ethnographic account of the work of transnational, Christian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Zimbabwe.Religious NGOs are one of the voices of pluralism in southern Africa, sometimes challenging the state and at others collaborating with it. The tensions of such engagement are key to understanding the successes and failures of transnational, humanitarian endeavors to foster democratic governance in Zimbabwe.While much scholarship has been focused, theoretically, on the role of NGOs in democratization in Africa regarding international foreign policy, few studies offer empirically grounded insights into how transnational NGOs operate.Even fewer factor in the role of religious discourse in their analysis.The Spirit of Development addresses, ethnographically, how an American discourse of Christian humanitarianism transforms, and is transformed by, local settings. The book builds on scholarship on Christian missionaries in Africa to interrogate the religious dimensions of economic change.Situated in Zimbabwe of the late 1990s, the project engages with scholarship on a range of intersecting topics, including:development studies, the politics of transnational foreign aid, the politics of neoliberal economic discourse, recent debates on civil societies and states in Africa, the global politics of religion, and classical anthropological research on religious conversion.In the late 1990s, religious NGOs were on the forefront of reconfiguring humanitarian aid in Africa - entering where the welfare programs of African states were unable to provide basic services for citizens.Today, religious NGOs occupy a peculiar structural and ideological position in contemporary Africa, working in collaboration with African states and simultaneously providing moral critique. ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is an article from African Studies Quarterly, published by Thomson Gale on September 22, 2003. The length of the article is 8040 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Narratives on land: state-peasant relations over fast track land reform in Zimbabwe.
Author: Bevlyne Sithole
Publication: African Studies Quarterly (Magazine/Journal)
Date: September 22, 2003
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 7Issue: 2-3Page: NA

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Book Description
From Enslavement to Environmentalismtakes a challenging ethnographic and historical look at the politics of ecodevelopment in the Zimbabwe-Mozambiqueborder zone. David Hughes argues that European colonization in southern Africa has profoundly reshaped rural politics and culture and continues to do so, as neoliberal developers commoditize the lands of African peasants in the name of conservation and economic progress.

Hughes builds his engaging analysis around a sort of natural experiment: in the past, whites colonized British Zimbabwe but avoided Portuguese Mozambique almost entirely. In Zimbabwe, chiefdoms that had historically focused on controlling people began to follow the English example of consolidating political power by dividing and controlling land. Meanwhile, in Mozambique, Portugal perpetuated traditional practices of recruiting and distributing forced labor as the primary means of securing power. For almost the entire twentieth century, a sharp disjuncture in the politics of land, leadership, labor, and resource use marked the border zone.

In the late 1990s, white South Africans began to establish timber plantations in Mozambique, and that difference began to be effaced. Under the banner of environmentalism and economic progress, tourism firms were allowed to claim peasant farmland. Likewise, southern African policymakers supported this new form of colonization as a form of racial integration between white investors and black peasants, paving the way for an ironic and contentious situation in which ethnic tolerance, gentrification, and land-grabbing have gone hand in hand. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Anthropology, development policy and cultural challenges
Ecodevelopment on the Zimbabwe-Mozambique border area takes on social, political and cultural challenges - and David Hughes argues here that European colonization in Southern Africa has attempted to reshape the area into another Western entity, changing culture and politics in its efforts, which continue to modern day. Using a natural experiment in the region as an example, Hughes chronicles evolving politics in the region in an area where tourism firms were allowed to claim peasant farmlands: chapters delve into anthropology, development policy and cultural challenges in the course of exploring causes and effects.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
... Read more

Product Description
Guide for an exhibition touring Gardens & Sculpture Parks in the United States. The 67 sculptures of the exhibition are hewn from hard stone monoliths, primarily serpentine stone, found in the landscape of Zimbabwe, but also from verdite and opal in variegated shades. While the sculptures are representational, the artists drew inspiration from a wide range of influences - religious, rites, mythology and Zimbabwe's history. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Amazing Zimbabwe sculpture
I am a sculptor, and find the tons of photographs inspiring and instructive.These stone sculptors from Zimbabwe are truly masters of texture and its effect on placing focus in the work.The work is predominantly figurative or animalistic, representing the spirits of their ancestors.The themes represented are both ancient and modern, and more than one generation of sculptors is included. I only wish I had seen these works when some toured the U.S.
Sculptors:You want this.
It also makes a wonderful coffee table book. ... Read more

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Review on "Islands of White"
In his study, "Islands of White," Dane Kennedy offers a novel perspective on the social dynamics of white settler colonies in imperialist Africa.Kennedy convincingly illustrates how these white societies wereable to create a distinct and unified culture.Presenting a newinterpretation of white settler society, Kennedy analytically demonstrateshow the social identity of white colonists was radically recast toaccommodate their special circumstances.Kennedy's study is of longlasting importance to the field of African history because it reveals thepowerful dynamics of solidarity within colonial societies whichconsequently enabled them to create and maintain a system of dominationover the indigenous African population.While the majority ofhistorians have primarily focused on the social divisions within thesettler populations, Kennedy asserts that economic, ethnic, and social differences were secondary to the overriding need for unification.Kennedyremains balanced in his approach by conceding that a certain amount ofsocial friction within the colonies cannot be denied.Yet, he alsosustains that the preoccupation of Marxist historians with the internalfissures of white society neglects to appreciate the external strength ofthe community. Through an analysis of the particular experiences faced bywhite settlers, Kennedy portrays how white settler society was not simply atransfer or replication of European national traits onto colonial societyin Africa.He holds, "this was the distinguishing feature of the settlerculture: not in the cherished values of the settlers' European heritage,but in the centripetal forces that distorted that heritage by securing itagainst all change."(192)To further establish this claim, the authoreffectively applies knowledge of social psychology to interpret and explainthe pathological behavior of the white settlers. Kennedy's compelling argument is fully supported through his analyticalutilization of many sources and statistical evidence.The extensive use ofwell documented private and official manuscripts further validate Kennedy'spersuasive argument.Unlike many documents on colonialism, the volumeappears to be written without prejudice and without reference to apreconceived view of determents. While historically solid, Kennedy's workbrings a fresh, unbiased insight to the inner workings and far-reachingimpact of white settler colonists. As Kennedy has firmly established inhis study, "Islands of White," settler culture was the expressionof the white community's delicately held position of dominance in the orderof imperial Africa.In order to maintain this dominance, white settlersexerted strong social power to shape and control their identity andposition.The significance of Kennedy's book is in its illustration of thepower group solidarity can have in shaping a community and its neighbors. ... Read more

Book Description
This book traces how black people's culture - ideas, beliefs and struggles - has expressed itself through song theatre, poetry, film, TV, and other oral cultural modes. It assesses to what extent orality has been subverted to serve dominant colonial and conservative culture, and conversely, the role it has played in resisting these interests. Some individual studies are on: oral forms in Ndebele's poetry; orality in Shona religious rituals; theatre in post-independence Zimbabwe; popular songs and social realities in Africa and images of black women in these songs; the development of unwritten ethical and moral values; film making in Zimbabwe; TV representation of blacks in post-independence Zimbabwe; and the role of orature in the nationalist struggle in Zimbabwe. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Future holds much promise for the sculptors of Zimbabwe
*****Celia Winter-Irving writes that Zimbabwe's stone sculpture is unique, not only because of its individual form and content, which is highly valued and acclaimed in the art centers of the world, but because it springs from the indigenous talents that lay hidden until the 1960's. How could such creativity and craftsmanship suddenly flower? What is the inspiration that guides the Shona, Chewa, Yao and Mbunda artists who have produced it? Who are the actual individuals who fashion stone that is unlike anything produced anywhere else in the world? Her book answers these fascinating questions and has become the standard work on the subject. She believes that contemporary African stone sculpture from Zimbabwe is perhaps the most important new art form to emerge from Africa in the 20th century.
*****Although Zimbabwe stone sculpture is argued to be firmly located within a modernist discourse, its content and form are informed by traditional spiritual beliefs, myths, legends, oral history, customs, and rituals, which impart a new function and modernist aesthetic for creative expression in stone. Prestigious galleries around the world have been honored to exhibit the work of many of Zimbabwe's finest stone sculptors, such as the Paris Rodin Museum and the New York Museum of Modern Art. The larger pieces have been exhibited at the Kirstenbosch Gardens in Cape Town, the Kew Gardens in London, the Parlmengarten in Frankfurt, the Berlin and Hamburg Botanical Gardens, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in Yorkshire, the Hannover Expo 2000, and the Missouri Botanical Gardens in St. Louis.
*****Celia Winter-Irving is the Writer and Documentalist in Residence at the Chapungu Sculpture Park. She is also the lead writer on art for the Zimbabwe Herald with her own column in the Herald ýArt and Leisureý each Saturday. At the park she writes books on sculptors, produces the newsletter, compiles and writes essay/biographies on sculptors represented by Chapungu, and organizes media relations. A listing of her more recent books includes Lazarus Takawira (Lazarus Takawira June 2000), Anderson Mukomberanwa (Anderson Mukomberanwa June 2000), Tengenenge Art Sculpture and Painting (World Art Foundation, Eerbeek, The Netherlands, April 2001), and Soottie the Cat at Tengenenge (Tengenenge Pvt Ltd, April 2001). In 2002, she finished a book concerning the successful Zimbabwe sculptor, Agnes Nyanhongo. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An absolute "must-read" for any health care or other professionals seeking to learn lessons from tragic failures of the past
Written by anthropologist and former missionary working in Zimbabwe Alexander Rodlach , Witches, Westerners, and HIV: Aids & Cultures of Blame in Africa is a serious-minded examination of cultural and social beliefs that give rise to harmful conspiracy theories and sometimes pose seemingly intractable barriers against attempts to prevent HIV/AIDS in the nation of Zimbabwe. Though Zimbabwe culture is the primary focus, the general insights of Witches, Westerners, and HIV are no doubt applicable to most if not all African nations suffering from the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Witches, Westerners, and HIV dissects cultural misunderstandings at length, from cultural beliefs in sorcery (including the idea that sorcerers use the power to spread HIV/AIDS) that provide an explanation for why the terrible disease afflicts good people; to the history of harm caused by colonialism as motivation for conspiracy theories that Western institutions are withholding a cure for HIV/AIDS or actually spreading HIV/AIDS by "distributing infected condoms" and the like; to the massacres the government carried out against perceived dissidents that have left lingering fear against speaking freely; to the need for receptive listening when interviewing Zimbabweans due to cultural tendencies to speak in metaphorical terms. An absolute "must-read" for any health care or other professionals seeking to learn lessons from tragic failures of the past and better understand how to be effective in African nations in general and Zimbabwe in particular. Highly recommended. ... Read more