Development In Postcolonial Africa Research Articles

The Impact of (Un)Ethical Survival Mode Duality and Choices of the Educational Elite on the African Renaissance

In postcolonial Africa, education has always been perceived as pivotal for national and continental progress. For many Africans pursuing education abroad, the intent was to contribute to their countries' development upon their return. However, the anticipated positive outcomes have often not materialised. Many faced a dilemma: conform to unethical systems or resist them, leading to either self-imposed exile, pursuing brain-drain channels, or compromising with corrupt systems. Using Edward T. Hall's Cultural Context method, this study analyses novels depicting African realities. It critically explores individual duality and its impact on the African renaissance by emphasising the challenge of reconciling personal ideals and integrity with the harsh realities of political power dynamics. The struggle against corrupt systems hampers postcolonial progress, hindering education's potential for sustainable development. The study confirms that the potential of education cannot materialise as a catalyst for positive change and sustainable development in postcolonial Africa without an ethical transformation.

The State and Development in Africa

Colonisation obstructed the internal process of state formation and development in Africa and left legacies of authoritarianism, corruption and political instability. Embodied in the post-colonial state and sustained by foreign aid, these colonial legacies constitute the main obstacles to development in postcolonial Africa. The only way to liberate Africa and ensure its progress is athree-stage process involving the repudiation of foreign aid, the restructuring of territorial boundaries in accordance with African realities, and the formation of an African continental government. The African academia should be in the vanguard of African liberation by educating and mobilising the populace.

The Business of Development in Post-Colonial Africa

The Business of Development in Post-Colonial Africa

Creolizing Development in Postcolonial Africa

This paper outlines a cursory argument for creolizing development studies in postcolonial Africa and why Gordon’s call to creolize the human sciences should go as far as this. I argue that a concept like creolization offers a crucial analysis of the implied heterogeneity and static notion of “Africaness” and a supposed fluidity in what it means to “develop.” When, in fact, it is the inverse that rings true: “Africaness” is the product of various cultural symbols and historical experiences, which are in constant flux; while development, in its current hegemonic state, does not allow for genuine dynamism and variation.

BETWEEN DOMESTIC AND GLOBAL POLITICS: THE DETERMINANTS OF ERITREA’S SUCCESSFUL SECESSION

Contrariamente à vasta maioria de Estados africanos, que adquiriram independência por meio de processos de descolonização de potências coloniais europeias, a Eritreia obteve a condição de Estado independente ao se retirar formalmente de um Estado africano soberano já estabelecido. Tal evento representa um desenvolvimento político memorável na África pós-colonial devido a ao menos duas razões: (i) foi a primeira vez que um movimento de secessão obteve sucesso na sua busca por independência; (ii) a luta por independência ocorreu em meio a um contexto continental particularmente hostil ao surgimento de novos Estados. Baseando-se em fontes de dados qualitativos secundários, o presente estudo examina a secessão da Eritreia contra o pano de fundo acadêmico que enfatiza o contexto social, político e econômico no qual as lutas secessionistas ocorrem. Argumenta-se que a secessão bem-sucedida da Eritreia se baseia na intersecção entre a política doméstica e a política global, combinando fatores como as históricas e legais reivindicações por autodeterminação territorial da região, as políticas de alienação do Estado de origem, a efetividade das estratégias operadas pelos movimentos de secessão, o fim da Guerra Fria, bem como o papel de apoio desempenhado pela superpotência vitoriosa do referido conflito. O estudo também adiciona novas e sistemáticas contribuições ao debate acerca dos determinantes para a secessão bem-sucedida na África pós-colonial.

Indigenous Languages and the Question of Development in Postcolonial Africa: Focus on Nigeria

Indigenous Languages and the Question of Development in Postcolonial Africa: Focus on Nigeria

Leadership and Development in Postcolonial Africa: The cases of Botswana, Somalia and Somaliland

Scholars have routinely identified weak and ineffective institutions as the root cause of underdevelopment across Africa. Such findings, which place emphasis on ‘institutional systems’ and ‘state mechanisms’, too often neglect the critical leadership dimensions of development challenges. Whilst the scientific study of leadership is commonly associated with organisational behaviour, a venture beyond scholarly guidelines reveals how leadership finds relevance at all levels of social interaction. The study of postcolonial nation building is amongst the finest ways to assess the interconnectedness of leadership and development. At government infancy, where there are no systems or state institutions to speak of, a group of elite individuals occupy a space to which the process of leadership is enacted to its greatest potential. In order to interrogate this further, this article focuses primarily on Botswana and Somalia; two countries conveniently positioned on either end of Africa’s development spectrum.

The Anthropology and the Social Construction of Development in Post-colonial Africa

The Anthropology and the Social Construction of Development in Post-colonial Africa

Seamen and the Nigerianization of Shipping in the Postcolonial Era

AbstractThis article examines the impact that indigenization policies had on labor and on the cultures of work in postcolonial Nigeria. Scholars have studied indigenization in the context of nationalist politics, statecraft, and development in postcolonial Africa. However, we have little knowledge of how working classes experienced and interpreted indigenization schemes. Focusing on the indigenization of shipping, this article discusses both how Nigerian seamen anticipated the establishment of the Nigerian National Shipping Line and the actual impact of Nigerianization on their working lives. By taking a close look at changes in shipboard hierarchies, labor relations, and the culture of work on NNSL vessels, we can gain a deeper understanding of how broader political processes associated with decolonization and postindependence shaped working-class lives in postcolonial Nigeria.

The Incarnation of Max Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism in Post-Colonial Sub-Saharan African Economic Discourse: The Quest for an African Economic Ethic

Max Weber's thesis that there was an early connection between the Protestant ethic and the ascendance of Western capitalism has been integral to contemporary scholarly efforts to explain why capitalism has failed in Africa while succeeding in the Western world. The failure of Western capitalistic development in post-colonial Africa is construed as evidence of the absence of the spirit of capitalism. The argument of this article is that African traditional religion and ethics are incompatible with the spirit of capitalism, and that it would be fallacious to expect the spirit of capitalism to incarnate in all social contexts when opposed by the values of that particular society. Contemporary attempts by African scholars to devise a modified system of economic philosophy that would incorporate traditional African indigenous values are aimed at making capitalism contextually relevant to African cultural realities.

Ethnic Identity, Democratization, and the Future of the African State: Lessons from Nigeria

The issues of ethnicity and democratization and the prospects for development in postcolonial Africa have long preoccupied scholars. When most African countries gained independence from the colonialists in the 1960s, the ruling elites who inherited state power insisted that Africa could not afford the luxury of democracy because of its potential for exacerbating ethnic pluralism and political conflict, which would be detrimental to the more pertinent projects of development and integration/nation building. The ideology of development and national integration in postcolonial Africa thus became the justification for one-party rule, autocracy, and military dictatorship.