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Blog: ALMA Reviews

 

About this blog series 

The ABI is one of many institutions working together with partners across regional boundaries, in the Global South and between the Global South and Global North, to undertake joint projects, and to co-produce knowledge. Yet even those partnerships that explicitly seek to challenge cross-regional inequalities exist within, and are thus themselves often structured by, the same power relations that they might seek to undermine. These inequalities can include opportunities to seek funding, control over resources, access to existing knowledge, divisions of roles and responsibilities, and academic authorship, as well as interpersonal hierarchies that run along intersecting lines of gender, race, location and citizenship, among others.

One persistent problem within this broader issue is that scholarship from the Global South is often not cited or engaged with in debates based in, or dominated by, research in the privileged Global North. This is in addition, of course, to the multiple barriers to publication that many scholars in the Global South face. This blog series aims to discuss, highlight, and engage with scholarship from the regions of Africa, Latin America, Middle East, and Asia (ALMA) that ABI staff and associates have particularly enjoyed reading. With this blog they aim to start new conversations, explore interesting themes and topics as well as highlight excellent scholarship.

The reviews are written in recognition of the (differentiated) forms of privilege that many of the contributors may hold, but with a determination to both challenge the hierarchies of academia in the Global North, and create more equal partnerships with our colleagues in the Global South.

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Mémoire, Paix et Développement en Afrique: Réflexions autour d’une éthique de la souvenance en contexte post-colonial [Memory, Peace and Development in Africa: Reflections on an Ethics of Remembrance in a Post-colonial Context]

By: Albert Gouaffo, Colbert Akieudji & Diderot Djiala Mellie (eds); Université de Dschang, Cameroon

Published in 2022 by Editions CLE

Available at: ABI Library

While the field of memory studies is now an internationally well-established interdisciplinary area of research, it is not yet so strongly anchored in Africa. Nonetheless, memory currently plays a particularly crucial role with regard to topics of peace and development in countries such as the Ivory Coast, Cameroon and Mali. The need to take stock of studies on African memory in various disciplines and to suggest an “ethics of remembrance” is thus the underlying reasoning behind the publication of this book. Read more.

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Litio en América Latina. Demanda global contra daño socioambiental (Lithium in Latin America. Global demand vs. socio-environmental harm)

By: Aleida Azamar Alonso

Published in December 2022 in Mexico City with the financial support of the Mexican Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources and the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana.

Available at:  CD007830.pdf (semarnat.gob.mx)(link is external)

The book offers an important perspective on current debates surrounding the global energy transition, where the external costs and harms associated with the transition, which are mostly borne by the global South, are often overlooked in the imperative to find much-needed solutions to climate change. The case studies of six Latin American countries (Mexico, Bolivia, Peru, Chile, Argentina and Brazil) presented in the book enrich the discussion by providing detailed insights from the regions where these harms are most severe. Read more.

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The Godfather and the Heirs: A Sociology of Islamism in Morocco (Le Parrain et les Héritiers:  Une Sociologie de l’Islamisme au Maroc)

By Dr Mohamed Fadil

Published in 2022 by Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal

Available at: https://www.pum.umontreal.ca/catalogue/parrain_et_les_heritiers_le

In 1975 Omar Benjelloun, an official of the Moroccan leftist Social Union of the Forces of Progress, and Abderrahim Meniaoui, from the secretariat of the Moroccan leftist Party for Progress and Socialism, were assassinated. The Palace-oriented political establishment in Morocco, known as the makhzen, blamed the killings on the Islamic Youth (al-Shabiba al-Islamiyya, henceforth al-Shabiba), the first Muslim Brotherhood–oriented Islamist organisation in Morocco. A widespread crackdown on al-Shabiba promptly followed, and its leaders, including its founder, Abdelkarim Mouti, were arrested or forced into exile. Read more.

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African Feminism in the 21st Century: A reflection on Uganda’s victories, battles and reversals

By Josephine Ahikire

Published in 2014 in Feminist Africa, Issue 19: Pan-Africanism and Feminism, pp. 7–23.

Available at: https://feministafrica.net/feminist-africa-19-2014-pan-africanism-and-feminism

With her feature article in Feminist Africa, Women’s and Gender Studies scholar Josephine Ahikire of Uganda’s Makarere University provides valuable insight into the development of African feminist movements and knowledge production. Using broad categories of “victories and pitfalls” she explains what she considers some key aspects of African Feminism of the last thirty years (also beyond the borders of Uganda, despite the title of the article). Read more.

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Levantados de la Selva. Vidas y Legitimidades en los Territorios Cocaleros [Raised from the jungle: lives and legitimacies in the coca-growing territories]

By Estefanía Ciro Rodríguez; researcher Centro de Pensamiento AlaOrillaDelRío, Colombia

Published in 2020 by Los Andes University

Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.30778/2019.83

Who are the people that live and grow coca in the territories of the Colombian Amazon? Whose lives are directly affected by the substitution, eradication and legalisation policies? These are some of the questions that Estefanía Ciro Rodríguez formulates in the introduction to her book, Levantados de la Selva. Departing from the predominant economical and criminological approaches, she explores the coca economy from the angle of the life trajectories and experiences of rural producers of coca in the Caquetá department in Colombia. Ciro presents a detailed account of the coca/cocaine economy and its complex entanglements with state formation processes, the agrarian question, violence and contemporary capitalism. However, more than explaining the workings of the coca economy, the author’s interest lies in better understanding the complexities of an exclusionary capitalist accumulation model and the crucial role that the prohibitionist paradigm plays in its reproduction. Ciro challenges the narratives, or, in her words, myths, upon which the “War on Drugs” is anchored. Notably, she challenges the idea that drug economies and, more generally, illegal markets exist in a parallel, unruly and lawless sphere, independent from the legal economies and far from the state’s radar, as well as the assumption that drug economies go hand in hand with violence and disorder. Read more.

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Making Climate Services Actionable for Farmers in Ghana: The Value of Co-Production and Knowledge Integration

By Emmanuel Nyadzi (Wageningen University), Andy B. Nyamekye (FAO) and Fulco Ludwig (Wageningen University) 

Published in 2022 in Indigenous Knowledge and Climate Governance: A Sub-Saharan Perspective, eds. Eromose E. Ebhuoma and Llewellyn Leonard, Springer, Cham, 97–110.

Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Emmanuel-Attoh-3/publication/361097667_Making_Climate_Services_Actionable_for_Farmers_in_Ghana_The_Value_of_Co-Production_and_Knowledge_Integration/links/62c2d204be9e947a47ab8e0c/Making-Climate-Services-Actionable-for-Farmers-in-Ghana-The-Value-of-Co-Production-and-Knowledge-Integration.pdf

“Western” climate science and especially its techno-scientific framing, as well as its evocation of objective factuality, have long been a focal point of critique in academic debates on global climate policy. In seeking to learn more about factors that prevent alternative modes of knowledge production from featuring prominently in discourses on climate governance, as well as in possible solutions to the problem, we came across the recently published volume Indigenous Knowledge and Climate Governance: A Sub-Saharan African Perspective (2022), which investigates indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) in sub-Saharan Africa and assesses their potential for promoting adaptation to climate variability. Read more.

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Forthcoming working paper: ‘Withdrawn’/‘Retreatist’ Salafism: A Radically ‘Different’ Type – the case of Tunisia. (“Le Salafisme ‘retraitiste’ : Un type radicalement « autre » Étude de cas en Tunisie”)

By Dr Soufiane Jaballah, Lecturer in Sociology, Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences, University of Sfax, Tunisia

Salafism is one of the most influential contemporary Islamic ideologies (Bano 2021, p. 3). It can be described as a scripturalist, literalist, fundamentalist, transnational Sunni Islamic movement centred on an orthodox theology (or ‘aqīda) stressing a return to the authentic beliefs and practices of the first three generations of Muslims – al-Salaf al-Sāliḥ (“pious ancestors”) – and a particular conception of tawhīd, or God’s oneness and thus complete submission to God. A growing scholarship now analyses the basic tenets of Salafi doctrine, Salafism’s popular appeal, its relationship with politics and violence, and its nature as both a transnational and local phenomenon. Read more.

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Women’s political inclusion in Kenya’s devolved political system

By Yolande Bouka, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University, USA; Marie E. Berry, Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver, USA; and Marilyn Muthoni Kamuru, Gender Expert, Consultant and Legal Analyst, Kenya.

Published in 2019 in the Journal of Eastern African Studies

Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2019.1592294

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Factors impeding political participation and representation of women in Kenya

By Douglas Lucas Kivoi, Kenya Institute for Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA), Governance Division, Nairobi, Kenya.

Published in 2014 in the Journal for Humanities and Social Sciences

Available at: 10.11648/j.hss.20140206.15

The two articles, by Yolande Bouka et al. and Douglas Kivoi, assess the structural barriers to women’s inclusion in Kenyan politics. They note that, despite the Constitution of Kenya of 2010 that introduced two reforms – devolution and the gender principle to promote gender equity – nonetheless the prevailing norms that hinder women’s political inclusion persist. These include the political parties’ structures, financial capabilities, societal norms and gendered violence, despite the fact that devolution created a more localised and highly competitive political system. The articles highlight the reasons for the introduction of devolution: to promote vertical inclusivity and curb the politics of “winner-takes-all”. This opened up leadership positions to previously underrepresented groups, such as women. In 2013, Kenya implemented the gender principle for the first time and recorded the highest number of women in Kenyan history in both the legislature and the cabinet (at 21% and 22% respectively). In 2017, the results improved further, with the legislature and cabinet including 22% and 31% women respectively. Read more.

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The Social and Economic Origins of Monarchy in Jordan

Tariq Moraiwed Tell; American University of Beirut, Lebanon 

Published in 2013 by Palgrave MacMillan

Available at: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9781137015655

Within a short period of six weeks in 2021, the government of Jordan celebrated two historical anniversaries: 11 April 2021 marked the centennial of the country’s foundation as a state in the year 1921, when the so-called Emirate of Transjordan was established as a post-World War I British Mandate in the Middle East. A short time later, on 25 May 2021, the Jordanian government celebrated the 75th anniversary of the state’s formal independence from British tutelage in the year 1946 and the country’s transition from Emirate to Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (still the official name today). 
Jordan’s double jubilees in 2021 brought back one of the central scholarly debates among historians, sociologists and political scientists of the country and of the Middle East more broadly: what have been the dominant sources and central dynamics enabling Jordan’s survival as a state over the last hundred years, overcoming the country’s alleged status as “political anomaly and geographical nonsense” (Shlaim 1988) or “epitome of artificiality” (Krämer 1994)? And, relatedly, what have been the dominant sources and central dynamics enabling the survival of the Hashemite monarchy that has dominated the Jordanian state over the same century – a royal family that hails not from the area of (Trans )Jordan itself from the Hijaz in Western Arabia? Read more.

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Minería del Platino y el Oro en Chocó: Pobreza, riqueza natural e informalidad [Platinum and Gold Mining in Chocó: Poverty, Natural Wealth and Informality]

Juan Sebastián Lara-Rodríguez; University of Lisbon, Portugal; André Tosi Furtado; State University of Campinas, Brazil; Aleix Altimiras-Martin, State University of Campinas, Brazil 

Published in 2020 in Revista de Economía Institucional, Volume 22, Nº. 42.

Available at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3495556.

For some years now I have been seeking to understand the different conflicts and problems surrounding artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) and why its formalisation (broadly defined as the integration of informal activities into formal regulatory frameworks (Ankenbrand, 2021)) has been so hotly debated in academia. The article by Lara-Rodríguez et al. is a thorough effort that aims to explain why ASM has not translated into sustainable development outcomes, specifically in the Chocó department, a region located in the northwest of Colombia. The authors touch upon a crucial aspect concerning the governance of mining resources, namely the role of mining institutions in generating sustainable development. This is especially relevant in Colombia’s present context, where the mining sector is seen as one of the five development “locomotives” that will support social and economic development, as well as peacebuilding processes. Read more.

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Piecing up Peace in Kashmir: Feminist Perspectives on Education for Peace

Dr Shweta Singh (South Asian University) and Diksha Poddar (Jawaharlal Nehru University)

Published in Feminist Solutions for Ending War, ed. Megan MacKenzie and Nicole Wegner. London: Pluto Press, 2021.

Available at: https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745342863/feminist-solutions-for-ending-war/

This chapter introduces the potential of feminist peace education to bring positive, long-term and transformative changes in conflict situations. The two authors of the chapter are based in Delhi: Dr Shweta Singh is a senior assistant professor in the Department of International Relations, South Asian University and Diksha Poddar is a research scholar at the Jawaharlal Nehru University and junior fellow at Women in Security, Conflict Management and Peace (WISCOMP), India. Read more.

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"The new ‘diaspora trap’ framework: Explaining return migration from South Africa to Zimbabwe beyond the ‘failure-success’ framework"

by Dr Divane Nzima (University of the Free State, South Africa) and Philani Moyo (University of Fort Hare, South Africa).

Published in 2017 by Migration Letters, 14(3), 355–370.

Available at: https://doi.org/10.33182/ml.v14i3.349

The authors of this paper are based in South Africa: Dr Divane Nzima is a Sociology lecturer at the University of the Free State and Prof. Philani Moyo is the director of the Fort Hare Institute of Social & Economic Research (FHISER) at the University of Fort Hare. The paper introduces the concept of the “new diaspora trap”, which is a phenomenon arising from the long history of labour migration from Zimbabwe to South Africa. Nzima and Moyo argue that the dominant theories of return migration – namely, the New Economics of Labour Migration and the Neo-Classical Economic theory of migration – have largely adopted the “failure-success” hypothesis, which posits a binary between failure and success as determinants of return migration. In this case, migrants return either after having achieved a successful migration experience as perceived by their home community or after a failed experience that left them unable to continue living in the diaspora. Nzima and Moyo are critical of these narratives, which they see as limiting the extent and depth of understanding the migration experiences of immigrants from Zimbabwe to South Africa. They argue that the failure-success notion indexes success or failure in economic terms and ignores other factors that may influence a decision not to return, such as marriage with a South African spouse, which enhances social integration in the country of destination. In their article, the authors adopt a structuralist approach that highlights the contextual factors that may influence the decision by Zimbabwean migrants either to return or stay put in South Africa. They argue that due to circumstances beyond their control, most Zimbabwean migrants in South Africa are subject to the “diaspora trap” and do not return to Zimbabwe, in contrast to the conception of the dominant theories of return migration. The “new diaspora trap framework” of the authors considers differing contexts in explaining (non)return migration and note that permanent settlement is not always voluntary. Read more.

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"The geopolitics of COVID-19: US-China rivalry and the imminent Kindleberger trap"

by Riham Bahi, Professor of Political Science, Cairo University, Egypt

Published in Review of Economics and Political Science, 2021, Volume 6, Issue 1, 76-94.

Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/REPS-10-2020-0153

Riham Bahi's article “The geopolitics of COVID-19: US-China rivalry and the imminent Kindleberger trap” discusses aspects of how the worldwide health crisis has affected the competition for global leadership between China and the United States. She observes that the world “seems to be falling into a ‘Kindleberger Trap,’ in which the established power is unable to lead while the rising power is unwilling to assume responsibility” (p. 76). Noting the complete absence of US leadership during the pandemic, which in the long run could lead to a “breakdown of the international order” (ibid.), Bahi asks whether this can be compared to Charles Kindleberger’s original observation that the Great Depression of 1929 also resulted from the global power shift from the UK towards the US: while the former could no longer provide sufficient support to the world economy, the latter was not (yet) willing to do so. Read more.

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"Sumak Kawsay is not Buen Vivir"

by Javier Cuestas-Caza; Escuela Politécnica Nacional, Ecuador

Published in Alternautas 5 (1), pp. 51–66.

Available at: www.alternautas.net/s/journalv5i1_2018_final.pdf

Sumak Kawsay, commonly translated as Buen Vivir (Good Living), has become a central topic in development studies and environmental justice debates. The concept originates in the Indigenous Kichwa language and its Andean cosmovision, which aspires to build a community-oriented and ecologically balanced relationship between society and nature. After decades of Indigenous and environmentalist struggles, Sumak Kawsay became a pillar of the Ecuadorian Constitution in 2008. This historical event was matched by unusual levels of attention from scholars across the globe calling for the abolition of Eurocentric notions of “development”. However, the political auspices of Buen Vivir remain largely unfulfilled. The idea includes the protection of Indigenous rights as well as the recognition of nature as a rights-holder entitled to legal defence against the harmful effects of exploitative economic activities. By drawing on Indigenous principles and practices, Sumak Kawsay – rather than Buen Vivir – offers a unique epistemic point of departure to reflect (and act) upon the colonial legacies of capitalocentric modernity and “green” versions thereof. Read more.

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"(Un)Doing rights: Adivasi participation in governance discourses in an area of civil unrest in India"

by Gunjan Wadhwa, Brunel University London, Uxbridge, UK

Published in THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMAN RIGHTS, 2021, VOL. 25, NO. 7, 1168–1183

Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/13642987.2021.1884852

India is considered to be the largest democracy in the world. Yet at the same time, criticism of the country’s human rights record has increased in recent years. Civil society organisations in particular have pointed out the shrinking space for civil society and the increasing repression against human rights defenders (Amnesty et al. 2021, Chaney 2021). This development also affects disadvantaged groups in India as they struggle for their rights. One of these groups is the Adivasi, an indigenous community, referred to in India as the “Scheduled Tribes”. Since India’s independence, the Indian Constitution has contained a principle of positive discrimination for “Scheduled Tribes” (as well as “Scheduled Castes”) and the country employs a political reservation system, meaning that these groups have a reserved share of seats in the state legislative assemblies. Nonetheless, like many other indigenous groups worldwide, the Adivasi face numerous challenges in terms of political, social and economic exclusion. Read more.

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“Peacekeeping experiences as triggers of introspection in the Ghanaian military barracks”

by Humphrey Asamoah Agyekum, University of Copenhagen

Published in 2020 in Africa Spectrum

Available at:  doi.org/10.1177/0002039720922868

The return of German soldiers of the Bundeswehr from Afghanistan in summer 2021 has triggered a new wave of media articles and interest in the broader implications for society as well as the potential trauma within the ranks of the deployed. But German soldiers abroad are still a rare occurrence. In most peacekeeping operations and therefore on a global scale the main troop-contributing countries are in fact located in what is called the Global South, frequently in Africa. But we know little about the assessment of missions by the peacekeepers themselves and most of this evidence is based solely on anecdotes. One striking exception is Humphrey Asamoah Agyekum’s contribution, reviewed in this ALMA blog. In his article the author develops “a post-deployment perspective” showing “how Ghanaian soldiers upon return to the safety and relative quiet of the barracks introspect on these experiences and observations, and translate these into narratives that are shared with others”. Read more.

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Conflict model of migration and perception of human insecurity

Deniz Eroğlu-Utku and Pınar Yazgan; Trakya University in Edirne & Sakarya University, Turkey

Published in 2021 in Handbook of Culture and Migration by Edward Elgar Publishing

Available at:  https://doi.org/10.4337/9781789903461.00010              

In this book chapter, Deniz Eroğlu-Utku and Pınar Yazgan examine the Conflict Model of Migration as a social theory for migration scholars. Eroğlu-Utku, who is a lecturer on Political Science and Public Administration at the Trakya University in Edirne, Turkey, and Yazgan, who is an associate professor of Sociology at Sakarya University, Turkey, dissect the ways in which conflict and migration are linked, lead to or even cause each other. They draw on earlier writings by Sirkeci (2006) and Cohen & Sirkeci (2011), who established the so-called “Conflict Model of Migration”, which seeks to explain human mobility and the motivations behind it. The model argues that “people tend to migrate when conflicts reach intolerable levels for them and their perception of insecurity becomes high” (p. 22). Read more.

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Gendered Geographies of Elimination: Decolonial Feminist Geographies in Latin American Settler Contexts

Sofia Zaragocin, Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador

Published in 2018 in Antipode – A Radical Journal of Geography

Available at: doi: 10.1111/anti.12454

The paper is both refreshing and shocking. Refreshing, because it is written from the perspective of actors (Epera women) facing territorial changes and thus fulfils claims of decolonial feminist geography. Via different ethnographic methods built on the involvement of precisely these actors, Zaragocin explores how women of the Epera describe the space they live in. For instance, she considers maps the women had drawn, which clearly show how Epera women perceive their surroundings and how they demarcate violent spaces; the omnipresence of pollution and contamination of the land and river from oil palm trees, mining activities, and rubbish; disease (e.g., dengue fever); the encroachment of agribusiness; the related delinquency and the presence of armed forces (state and non-state); and the places where the youth migrate to the cities. Read more.

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Looking Back, Moving Forward: Philippine Migration Issues, Policies and Narratives

Jean Encinas-Franco (ed.): Looking back, Moving Forward. Philippine Migration Issues, Politics, and Narratives. Department of Political Science, College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of the Philippines

Published in 2021, Philippine Migration Research Network, Quezon City/Manila

Available at: https://pssc.org.ph/product/looking-back-moving-forward-philippine-migrations-issues-policies-and-narratives/?fbclid=IwAR0uQSojXmAR2Gxh_rm_3tcLoibQoiFvnAaVmEI6wp9HFK1rrFLj1MND9e8(link is external)

In labour migration research, the Philippines have been established as a prime case study, being a major country of origin. The very active role of the government in migration policies is evident in characterisations that go beyond the common term “sending state” – such as “major labour exporter” or “labour brokerage state” (see Rodriguez 2010). International institutions and global processes often refer to the Philippines as a case of “best practice” and many politicians in the country wholeheartedly agree, characterising their country’s migration policies as the “gold standard”. Read more.

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Valeurs républicaines et vivre-ensemble au Tchad. Appartenances religieuses

Ladiba Gondeu; University of N´Djamena, Chad

Published in 2020 by  L’Harmattan, Paris

Available at: https://www.editions-harmattan.fr/livre-valeurs_republicaines_et_vivre_ensemble_au_tchad_appartenances_religieuses_ladiba_gondeu-9782343189024-65940.html(link is external)

Sozialwissenschaftliche Analysen von Historikern und Anthropologen beziehen sich in der Regel auf Vergangenes. Bedingt durch die Dringlichkeit ihres Themas verlieren manche Veröffentlichungen allerdings nie ihre ihren aktuellen Bezug, sondern werden gleichermaßen noch von der Aktualität überholt. Das Buch von Ladiba Gondeu gehört zu ihnen. Wie sein von ihm als Essay herausgegebenes Werk „Republikanische Werte und Zusammenleben im Tschad“ zeigt, drehen sich in diesem zentralafrikanischen Land seit der Unabhängigkeit wesentliche politische Debatten um Kohabitation und friedliches Zusammenleben. Gondeu beschreibt, dass das Zusammenleben in den vergangenen 61 Jahren allerdings alles andere als friedlich war. Den überraschenden Tod des langjährigen Präsidenten Idriss Déby Itno und den darauffolgenden Militärputsch sowie die Machtübernahme durch eine militärische Übergangsregierung im April 2021 konnte Gondeu mit seinem 2020 veröffentlichten Werk natürlich nicht vorhersehen. Aber genau wegen dieser Dynamik sind die Themen „Zusammenleben und Republik“ sowie die zukünftige politische Ordnung des Landes derzeit an Aktualität nicht zu überbieten. Opposition und Zivilgesellschaft diskutieren seit dem Putsch über die Wiederherstellung einer demokratischen Ordnung in einem religiös und ethnisch vielfältig stratifizierten Staat, im dem sich eine kleine Machtelite seit Jahrzehnten bereichert hat und die Bevölkerung völlig verarmt ist. All diese Punkte führt Gondeu, social anthropologist an der Universität von N’Djamena, auf und diskutiert sie für den Tschad. Mehr.

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“Europe” from “Here”: Syrian Migrants/Refugees in Istanbul and Imagined Migrations into and within “Europe”

Souad Osseiran; Migration Research Center at Koç University, Turkey

Published in 2017 by Duke University Press

Available at: https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822372660-008(link is external)

In this book chapter, Souad Osseiran explores the processes of constructing specific understandings and perceptions of Europe and the EU by Syrian “migrants/refugees” located in Istanbul, Turkey in 2012 and 2013. Osseiran, who is an anthropologist and migration researcher at the Migration Research Center at Koç University, shows how these understandings and perceptions are “discrepant” (pp. 185, 187) from the officially “established political boundaries” (p. 185) of Europe and the EU, and how they are fundamentally shaped by the knowledge shared over social networks and as a reaction to the heterogeneous and fragmented asylum policies of the EU and its member states. Read more.

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De la antropologización del derecho a la recaída dogmática. Balance de los estudios sobre pluralismo jurídico y administración de justicia en el Perú (1964–2013)

[From the anthropologisation of law to dogmatic relapse. A review of studies on legal pluralism and the administration of justice in Peru (1964–2013)]

Gálvez Rivas, Aníbal

Published by: Law Faculty, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 2016, 230 pages, Language: Spanish

Available at: https://cutt.ly/rbWPb8C

For several years in the Global North, there has been an interesting debate on legal pluralism, basically understood as the possibility of more than one legal system coexisting in a given geopolitical space (e.g., Griffiths, 1986; Benda-Beckmann, 2002). For their part, scholars on Latin America have also participated extensively in these discussions (Guevara Gil & Thome, 1992; Sánchez Botero, 2014; Wolkmer, 2017 among others). The explanatory power of legal pluralism has made it possible to generate interpretations that embrace not only the cultural, and in particular the legal, diversity of the societies of the Global South but also the limitations of states established under the violent foundations of the nation-state and the state monopoly on legitimate violence. The theory has had particular trajectories in each academy, but what is the trajectory of legal pluralism in the Global South, specifically in Peru? Read more.

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Challenging Assumptions in Intercultural Collaborations: Perspectives from India and the UK

Ruhi Jhunjhunwala (Advisor for The Performance Theatre, UK/Norway) and Amy Walker (Associate Consultant for BOP, an international consultancy specialising in culture and the creative economy, UK)

Published in: Durrer, Victoria and Henze, Raphaela (eds.) (2020): Managing Culture: Reflecting On Exchange In Global Times. Sociology of the Arts. Palgrave Macmillan (Part II: Practice, article no. 7)

Available at: https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030246457

Processes of internationalisation, globalisation and increasing global migration also present challenges and opportunities for the arts and cultural sector. According to authors Ruhi Jhunjhunwala and Amy Walker, “we now inhabit a world where people of different cultures meet and mix freely […], creating dynamic spaces for exchange and enabling the arts to […] be truly reflecting the societies […]” (p. 166). In this “new” world, managers of arts and culture – defined as intercultural brokers – have a significant role to play in directing, administering and mediating intercultural understanding. At the same time, the authors say, these brokers must challenge biased assumptions as well as power disparities, both of which repeatedly result in one-sided selections of topics and actors and imbalanced structures and processes when it comes to intercultural collaborations. Jhunjhunwala and Walker, both cultural practitioners based in the UK, though Jhunjhunwala’s experience was mainly gained when she was working in India, reflect and conduct research in their field of activity, analysing international “partnerships” in the arts between the so-called Global North and Global South. They use the example of India-UK collaborative art productions and programmes that they themselves work in and for. Read more.

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Frontiers of Ethnic Brutality in an African City: Explaining the Spread and Recurrence of Violent Conflict in Jos, Nigeria

Kingsley L. Madueke and Floris F. Vermeulen, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands

Published 2018 in Africa Spectrum, 53, 2. 37-63

Available at: https://journals.sub.uni-hamburg.de/giga/afsp/article/view/1133/1140.html

The article by Madueke and Vermeulen analyses the violence and ethno-religious riots that took place in the city of Jos, Nigeria during the period 2001–2010. The authors catalogue hostilities and atrocities that occurred during this time. They argue that whilst indigenous rights and political representation are considered as the primary factors behind the violence, the ethnic divide can be seen as erupting along religious lines, namely between the Muslim and Christian communities/ethnicities. Religion is considered as offering a “wider base for mobilising political support” (p. 39). Additionally, the authors refer to other factors with effects beyond the superficial religious divide that explain violence among local criminals, ethno-political activists, party loyalists, vigilantes, etc. (p. 39). The introduction situates the article in the discourse of demography and ethnic violence, more specifically between literatures arguing that violence increases in mixed demographic settlements vs. literatures positing that segregated demographic settlements result in “deepening sectarian animosity” (p. 40). Read more.

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The Refugees’ Right to the Center of the City and Spatial Justice: Gentrification vs Commoning Practices in Tarlabaşı-Istanbul

Charalampos Tsavdaroglou; University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Published in 2020 in Urban Planning

Available at: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/urbanplanning/article/view/3098

Istanbul has been experiencing a redevelopment frenzy since the early 2000s. Most of these projects of urban renewal and regeneration first targeted run-down old neighbourhoods that had experienced an increase in their potential land value. Tarlabaşı is one of these historical neighbourhoods located in Beyoglu district, Istanbul. The paper “The Refugees’ Right to the Center of the City and Spatial Justice: Gentrification vs Commoning Practices in Tarlabaşı-Istanbul”, written by Charalampos Tsavdaroglou, looks at this neighbourhood in particular: by the 2000s, Tarlabaşı had become a neighbourhood populated by the most disadvantaged segments of the population, including Kurdish people from the southeast, Roma, foreign immigrants and refugees, as well as a transsexual community. Under Law 5366 enacted in 2005, which enables regeneration in historic areas, nine lots in Tarlabaşı were declared as “urban renewal” areas in 2006, with the intention to convert the buildings into hotels, shopping spaces and residences. This initial stimulus was expected to trigger a complete physical change and gentrification of the area. In 2007, Gap Insaat (a construction company) won the tender to prepare a project for the area. Read more.

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The new Brazilian conservatism: from Reagan to Bolsonaro

Marina Basso Lacerda; Post-doctoral researcher at the Center for the Study of Citizenship Rights (Cenedic), University of São Paulo (USP)

Editora Zouk

Available at: https://www.editorazouk.com.br/pd-6892e4-o-novo-conservadorismo-brasileiro-de-reagan-a-bolsonaro.html

The recent political rise of the far right in Brazil and the election of Jair Bolsonaro as president in 2018 has mobilised researchers from different areas of the social sciences to understand these phenomena. Why now, decades after the 1988 Constitution – which sought the formation of a Democratic State under the rule of law and the implementation of social welfare policies – and, more recently, after governments led by the Workers’ Party – which sought to overcome social inequality by implementing redistributive policies – has a force that expresses an antagonistic stance obtained an electoral majority and come to govern the country? The excellent book “O novo conservadorismo brasileiro: de Reagan a Bolsonaro” (The new Brazilian conservatism: from Reagan to Bolsonaro), written by the researcher Marina Basso Lacerda, points out some ways to answer this question. Read more.

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Family-mediated migration infrastructure: Chinese international students and parents navigating (im)mobilities during the COVID-19 pandemic

Yang Hu, Lancaster University, Cora Lingling Xu, Durham University, Mengwei Tu, East China University of Science and Technology

Published in 2020 in Chinese Sociological Review

Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21620555.2020.1838271

Over the last three decades, the steadily increasing enrolment of incoming international students has contributed immensely to the economies of the receiving countries, which are first and foremost English-speaking countries in the Global North. Unfortunately, earlier this year the global spread of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic put a spanner in the works of this business model. Border closures, internal movement restrictions, social distancing and mandated confinement have severely impacted international students, for whom mobility is essential. How have universities mitigated their huge losses in revenues while balancing the interests of the international students enrolled in those institutions? Read more.

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Learning from Student Dissertations: Lessons from Kenya

Rather than reviewing one academic piece for the ALMA Reviews Blog, in this post I wish to draw attention to the value of university dissertations written by African students at African universities. I propose that engaging with such underused literature offers scholars access to precious local perspectives while also supporting African students by helping them to develop their international visibility. Read more.

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Egyptian Environmentalism and Urban Grassroots Mobilization

Noura Wahby, American University in Cairo

Published in 2019 in The Right to Nature: Social Movements, Environmental Justice and Neoliberal Natures

Available at: https://www.routledge.com/The-Right-to-Nature-Social-Movements-Environmental-Justice-and-Neoliberal/Apostolopoulou-Cortes-Vazquez/p/book/9781138385375

Noura Wahby’s chapter on “Egyptian environmentalism and urban grassroots mobilization” provides an exciting discussion of the fragmented environmental scene in Egypt and the Egyptian state’s role in this. All those interested in a counter-hegemonic re-thinking of environmental politics will find the edited volume, which this chapter is a part of, of immense value. In her chapter, Wahby argues that “localized grassroots forms of contention against state damage and negligence in Egypt are undermined by a particular definition of nature put forth by the new bourgeois classes and co-opted civil society movements”. Read more.

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Kuxlejal Politics. Indigenous Autonomy, Race, and Decolonizing Research in Zapatista Communities

Mariana Mora; Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS)

University of Texas Press

Available at: https://utpress.utexas.edu/books/mora-kuxlejal-politics

At first glance, Mariana Mora’s book may seem to be a conventional anthropological study of a highly popular movement: the Zapatista movement in Chiapas, Southern Mexico. From 1994 onwards this movement, as an example of indigenous organising practices and their success in pressing for autonomy, has been the object of much anthropological enquiry. The Zapatista uprising occupied several towns in 1994 and later established autonomous municipalities with their own education and health services. Mora’s book differs from most, however, because of her decolonial and historicised approach. Read more.

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Deviant Destinations: Zimbabwe and North to South Migration

Rose Jaji, Harare University, Zimbabwe

Published in 2019 by Rowman & Littlefield

Available at: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781793604460/Deviant-Destinations-Zimbabwe-and-North-to-South-Migration

In her recent book “Deviant Destinations: Zimbabwe and North to South Migration,” Rose Jaji, senior lecturer in Sociology at Harare University, pays attention to an unusual type of migration journey. Unusual not necessarily in the frequency it occurs, but regarding the attention received in academic studies: she analyses journeys from the Global North to Zimbabwe, a country which has experienced “political violence, poverty, suffering and despondency” (p.60) in the last two decades. Zimbabwe has long become an archetype of a country from where people emigrate. To illustrate, Crush and Tevera note that “given the ruinous state of the country’s economy, it remains a puzzle as to who, why, and indeed how, anyone could stay” (p.2) in their edited volume aptly named “Zimbabwe’s Exodus.” Rose Jaji`s book gives an entirely new reading of Zimbabwe, showing how studying migration from the Global North to the Global South can give new insights into the common elements of migration motivations, the place of migrants in a host society and the pitfalls of a containerized understanding of the nation-state. She interviewed 35 people between 2015 and 2017 – most from Germany and the US – moving to Zimbabwe both in the pre-crisis period (1980-1996) and in the crisis period (1997-present). The group includes expats, spouses of expats and Zimbabweans as well as missionaries who live in Harare and a rural field hospital (see Introduction). Read more.

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Writing/righting Palestine studies: settler colonialism, indigenous sovereignty and resisting the ghost(s) of history

Rana Barakat, Birzeit University, Palestine

Published in 2018 in Settler Colonial Studies 8(3), pp. 349-363

Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/2201473X.2017.1300048?journalCode=rset20

In this excellent and thought-provoking article, Rana Barakat interrogates the application of a settler colonial framework to understand Palestinian history. Settler colonialism is a form of colonialism that - as a structure, not an event - seeks to disavow the presence of indigenous ‘others,’ and to “ultimately supersede the conditions of its operation” through (a combination of) the erasure, expulsion, elimination, and assimilation of the native population (Veracini, 2011:3). Bringing an insistence that scholarship is, and must be, part of a broader political project, she asks “how can a settler-colonial analysis be part of a deeply political scholarly mode of indigenous resistance in Palestine?” (p.350) In this piece, Barakat argues that, the “writing/righting” of Palestinian narratives demands that an analysis and understanding of settler colonialism must be embedded within an indigenous framework. Read more.

Editor of this blog series: Franzisca Zanker

Foto: ©Cynthia Matonhodze, Harare, Zimbabwe