Francis Nyamnjoh Research Articles

Centering Africa as context and driver for Global Health Ethics: incompleteness, conviviality and the limits of Ubuntu

Silences exist in global health ethics scholarship because of the particular caricatures of Africa that abound in the world, and these silences profoundly impact scholarship in this field. In this paper, I outline three such silences. The first concerns the consequences of representations of Africa as a place of theoretical scarcity, where the only theory seemingly worth mentioning is relational ontology. The second issue I highlight is the impact of dehumanization on global health and ethics. The third concerns the expectation that African science should serve the goal of development, which limits not only the scientific imagination but also the range of ethical questions that are engaged with. Finally, I turn to Francis Nyamnjoh’s theory of incompleteness and conviviality to propose a shift in bioethics scholarship towards increased focus on the interconnections, encounters and mutual dependency of people and places elsewhere. Incompleteness requires epistemic humility and a curiosity about the views and experiences of others; conviviality is the predisposition required to allow for meaningful exchanges and mutual learning in global health ethics. As a theoretical framework, incompleteness and conviviality are part of a rich African intellectual tradition to help articulate opportunities for a transformative research agenda that helps us understand our world, and its crises, better.

Future Frontiers: Ontological Osmosis and Africanfuturist Cyborgs in Nnedi Okorafor's Lagoon

This article will examine Nnedi Okorafor's Lagoon (2014) - a tale of shapeshifting aliens arriving off the coast of Lagos, Nigeria - as a quintessential Africanfuturist novel replete with disruptions of traditional science fiction tropes, transcorporeal mutations and endogenous African epistemologies. Our theoretical framework brings together two seemingly disparate thinkers whose work challenges essentialist identity politics: American ecocritical feminist, Donna Haraway, and Cameroonian anthropologist, Francis Nyamnjoh. Haraway's (1985) myth of the cyborg resonates with Okorafor's aliens and their dissolution of the boundaries separating human/machine, man/woman, and self/other. Nyamnjoh (2015:6-7) presents a similarly liminal figure in the 'frontier African' to whom 'everyone and everything is malleable, flexible and blendable, from humans and their anatomies, to animals and plants, gods, ghosts and spirits'. Okorafor's counter-hegemonic representations of gender and selfhood are inextricably interwoven into a decolonising literary project of 'ontological osmosis' that transforms superficially 'fixed' markers of difference into permeable thresholds of becoming. These concepts reflect Okorafor's Africanfuturist goals, as we show through a detailed analysis of the alien ambassador, Ayodele, and other key characters. This article will also consider Okorafor's allusions to Mami Wata (a feminine west African water deity or witch) in relation to the protean Ayodele. This analysis will underline Okorafor's thematic concerns with the question of gender and its relationship with the broader ecological and cultural forces of this society.

A philosophical appraisal of Nyamnjoh’s social theory and Whitehead’s process ontology in the context of epistemic decoloniality

ABSTRACTThis essay examines the philosophical underpinnings of Nyamnjoh's social theory of incompleteness and conviviality and Whitehead's process ontology in the context of intellectual decoloniality. The theory of incompleteness and convivial scholarship is spearheaded by Francis Nyamnjoh as a strategy for intellectual decoloniality and a substitute for the rigid alternatives prevalent in the decoloniality clamour in Africa. This idea also finds expression in Whitehead's process and relational ontology. Although Whitehead's process ontology has been widely studied, one hardly comes across works studying in detail the profound ontological richness underpinning Nyamnjoh's social theory in conversation with Whitehead. In this essay, I examine the ontological assumptions underlying Nyamnjoh's theory of incompleteness, on the one hand, and the ethical assumptions underpinning his theory of convivial scholarship, on the other. These two analyses combined are expected to shed light on Nyamnjoh's social theory of epistemic decoloniality and help clarify some philosophical conundrums that underpin it.

The Negative Portrayal of Women in Francis Nyamnjoh’s A Nose for Money as a Challenge to Male Oppression

African female critics in general oppose negative portrayals of female characters in African literature and advocate for more positive depictions of these characters. Even though women’s rights are more widely recognised today, patriarchy still adversely affects women’s lives. It is therefore not surprising that African male-authored texts would reflect this situation. This article thus draws on African feminist theory to examine Francis Nyamnjoh’s negative portrayal of female characters in his novel A Nose for Money (2006). It focuses on the protagonist’s four wives and their relationships with their husband and each other. It argues that African male writers can use negative portrayals of female characters to highlight women’s predicaments in order to stir change in society. The article concludes that the negative portrayal of female characters in the novel serves a positive purpose given that it challenges male oppression.

The Paradox of the Self in A Nose for Money (2006) by Francis Nyamnjoh: Between Searched and Fractured Self

The Paradox of the Self in A Nose for Money (2006) by Francis Nyamnjoh: Between Searched and Fractured Self

The Incompleteness of Knowledge Production: An Interview with Francis Nyamnjoh

The Incompleteness of Knowledge Production: An Interview with Francis Nyamnjoh

The tyranny of normative hedonism in postcolonial Cameroon: literary explorations

This paper explores the tyranny of normative hedonism in postcolonial Cameroon literature and argues that pleasure-seeking is tyrannical when the master’s pleasure translates into the marginalization of the subaltern population. It borrows critical perspectives from Achille Mbembe’s notion of the chaotic plurality of the postcolony. It contends that normative hedonism is a pervasive feature of Cameroonian anti-dictatorial literature. It focuses on Francis Nyamnjoh’s The Travail of Dieudonné, A Nose for Money, and Married but Available. The story in all the novels is set in the fictional land of Mimbo, ruled by a power-drunk elite, characterized by political corruption, kleptomania, and sexual excess, discussed here as examples of tyrannical normative hedonism. In Mimboland, the pleasures of power and the pain of domination are multidirectional and status-less. Reading these texts from this perspective allows the reader to explore the links between power and tyrannical pleasure-seeking as well as powerlessness.

Geopolitics of China's Rising Media and Soft Power in Africa: Eating and Being Eaten

China is part of a group of countries rapidly projecting their geopolitical power in an expanded engagement with Africa. The extent to which this is imperialism is debatable among Africans, with some arguing that China is actually Africa's best ally when it comes to trade and development. Using Zimbabwe as a case study of local responses to China's expansionist geopolitics, the article contributes to debates on international development based new forms of imperialism and dependency perpetrated by rising economic powers in the Global South. The article innovatively analyses China's rapidly rising media and soft power in Africa as evidence of a new scramble for the continent and South-South imperialism. This is done in terms of what the Cameroonian anthropologist Francis Nyamnjoh regards as “eating and being eaten”, a form of dog-eat-dog “cannibalism” at the heart of global capitalism that has been evident in past enslavement, extractive colonialism and in today's exploitative neoliberal economic arrangements. The findings from the current Zimbabwean study build on the author's previous research on the media coverage of China in Zimbabwe that showed how for smaller and less powerful states, when dealing with China, there are mixed and complex responses within the emerging Sino-African relations. Using research from 2011–2020, including interviews and findings from the media, the Sino-Zimbabwean relations illustrate acceptance, resistance and negotiation as pragmatic strategies, in an attempt to “eat” whilst trying not be “eaten”. The current study contributes to work on media and geopolitical relations from the theoretical lens of new imperialism and dependency.

Falling out of love? A response to Francis Nyamnjoh's ‘Beyond an evangelizing public anthropology: science, theory, and commitment’

It is often said that when married couples fight, most of the time they wake up the next day to fulfil the routines they have grown used to. The routines might mask a bitter silence, and the conver...

A rainbow, prophets and the vortex: The state of South Africa, circa 2012–2013

New South African review 3: The second phase - tragedy or farce? By Devan Pillay, John Daniel, Prishani Naidoo and Roger Southall State of the Nation. South Africa 2012-2013: Addressing inequality and poverty, Udesh Pillay, Gerald Hagg, Francis Nyamnjoh, with Jonathan Jansen (Eds.)

Not Studying White, Up or Down, but around Southern Africa: A Response to Francis Nyamnjoh

Not Studying White, Up or Down, but around Southern Africa: A Response to Francis Nyamnjoh

15 - Recognitions: Francis Nyamnjoh: African Hero of the Year

15 - Recognitions: Francis Nyamnjoh: African Hero of the Year

On Gaining Access: A Response to Francis Nyamnjoh's “Blinded by Sight: Divining the Future of Anthropology in Africa”

On Gaining Access: A Response to Francis Nyamnjoh's “Blinded by Sight: Divining the Future of Anthropology in Africa”

Rehearsals of genocide in South Africa: thinking with and beyond Francis Nyamnjoh and Michael Neocosmos

How do we know when a state is rehearsing genocide? This question has been answered in spectacular fashion in contemporary Africa: the veiled language of the Biafran war in Nigeria, which masked mass murder; the state-sponsored near-annihilation of the Tutsis within 100 days in Rwanda; the unbridled love for power by Islamic militias in Somalia that has rendered the country stateless; and the violation of Darfurians with impunity in Sudan. Such obvious cases make Africa appear to be a place where anything that can go wrong will destroy social norms overnight. Such instances also mask the violations of humanity occurring in neoliberal democracies such as South Africa. For example, the xenophobic attacks on resident black Africans from elsewhere are the product of the revived neurosis of separate development in the aftermath of 1994. South Africa's black middle class condones xenophobia and colludes in the state's failure to deliver real independence to the masses of unemployed South African blacks. Many of South Africa's black academics collude in the popular discourse that accuses black foreigners of taking their jobs and their women. The persecution of black foreigners, derisively known as Makwerekwere in South African official and local parlance, is also a consequence of the contradiction of globalisation and its bounded citizenship. Some have suggested ordinary South Africans have their own parochial biases, even though both local and national leaders have inspired them to assault and berate black foreigners. I draw on Francis Nyamnjoh's book, Insiders and Outsiders: Citizenship and Xenophobia in Contemporary Southern Africa (2006), and Michael Neocosmos' work, From ‘Foreign Natives’ to ‘Native Foreigners’, Explaining Xenophobia in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Citizen and Nationalism, Identity and Politics (2006), to discuss how xenophobia choreographs everyday life in South Africa. The paper argues that beyond the role that South African leaders and the masses continue to play in persecuting individual and black foreigners, other African countries have not stood up against South Africa's chauvinistic behaviour and its crimes against humanity. Whatever the source of this silence from the rest of the continent, the South African state and a significant portion of the country's population has felt free to deploy its resources to persecute, undermine and exploit foreign blacks without censure either from the African Union or from the United Nations.

The Mosaic of Violence – An Introduction

Bakonyi, J., Bliesemann DeGuevara, B. (2011). The Mosaic of Violence: An Introduction. In B. Bliesemann de Guevara, & J. Bakonyi (Eds.), A Micro-Sociology of Violence: Deciphering patterns and dynamics of collective violence. (pp. 1-17). Routledge.

“What's Love” in an Interconnected World? Ghanaian Market Literature for Youth Responds1

This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as “social `shifters'” and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the “interconnectedness” of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing “domesticated” forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of “straddling”, this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Who owns the media?: global trends and local resistances

* Foreword - Peter Golding * Editors' Preface * PART I: Theory and Policies ** 1. The Political Economy of International Communications - Robert McChesney ** 2. Global Institutions and the Democratisation of the Media - Se n a Siochr ** 3. Intellectual Property Rights - Cees J Hamelink * PART II: Regional and Country Case Studies ** 4. Privatisation: The Cost of Media Democratisation in East and Central Europe? - Slavko Splichal ** 5. The Politics of the Media in the English Speaking Caribbean - Hopeton S Dunn ** 6. The Political Economy of Media in Southern Africa, 1990-2001 - William Hueva, Keyan Tomaselli and Ruth Teer-Tomaselli ** 7. Media Ownership and Control in Africa in the Age of Globalisation - Francis Nyamnjoh ** 8. Media and Neoliberalism in Latin America - Ana Fiol ** 9. Communications and the Crisis: From Neo-Liberalism to Authoritarian Development? - Dan Schiller ** 10. The State, the Market, and Media Control in China - Zhao Yuezhi ** 11. Media Ownership and Communication Rights in India - Pradip N. Thomas ** 12. The Political Economy of Media Ownership in Nigeria - Mohammed Musa and Jibril Mohammed ** 13 Ownership, Control and the Malaysian Media - Zaharom Nain and Wang Lay Kim * PART III: Democratic Communication Futures ** 14. The Whole World Is Watching: Online Surveillance of Social Movement Organisations - Sasha Constanza-Chock ** 15. Agendas for Research and Strategies for Intervention - Pradip N. Thomas

Capitalism and Autochthony: The Seesaw of Mobility and Belonging

Research Article| May 01 2000 Capitalism and Autochthony: The Seesaw of Mobility and Belonging Peter Geschiere; Peter Geschiere Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Francis Nyamnjoh Francis Nyamnjoh Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Public Culture (2000) 12 (2): 423–452. https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-12-2-423 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Peter Geschiere, Francis Nyamnjoh; Capitalism and Autochthony: The Seesaw of Mobility and Belonging. Public Culture 1 May 2000; 12 (2): 423–452. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-12-2-423 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsPublic Culture Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2000 by Duke University Press2000 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.