Post-colonial Policies Research Articles

The Development of Construction Education in Singapore

In an earlier study, learning by doing (LBD) was found to be insignificant in the Singapore construction industry. This paper examines the development of the formal education system to uncover some of the reasons why so little learning by doing occurs in the construction industry. Under the colonial authorities, construction education was neglected. But after political independence, it developed slowly despite a massive public housing program. Much of the labor supply comes from low-wage unskilled and semi-skilled foreign workers. In the case of local construction workers, skills training takes place within the context of a deliberate general education policy of streaming to reduce the high attrition rate that resulted from the colonial and post-colonial bilingual policy. Screening channels the bulk of weaker students towards the construction sector. At the tertiary level, the rapid expansion of polytechnic education to support high economic growth raises the issue of education quality and limited opportunities for upgrading. The result is a distinctive fourtier system of production based on foreign workers, local semi-skilled workers, technicians and professionals. The stark subclass consciousness is likely to impede learning.

Uncoupling the Articulation Between Girls' Education and Tradition in Tanzania

This article explores theoretical and historical problems associated with representations of gender and race in the Third World. Using a feminist cultural studies approach, the author examines representations associated with the concept of African tradition that have shaped colonial and post-colonial education policy for girls in Tanzania. Archival materials from missionary, colonial, and African sources reveal the multiple and often conflicting views of tradition conveyed through programmes intended to increase African girls' participation in school. The uses of tradition in colonial policy making are compared with its meanings in contemporary educational programmes for girls in an attempt to further feminist scholarship and action around the issue of girls' education.

Critical Imperatives of the French Language in the Francophone World: Colonial Legacy – Postcolonial Policy

French has been maintained in many of its former colonies, especially in Africa. In post-independence Africa, there has developed a sharp rivalry between Arabic and French and ongoing competition between one of these two languages and national/ ethnic languages for the position of official language. The fact that it has been used in politically independent French-speaking countries as a medium of administration, education and literature means that the language has become a national heritage for individual countries. However, the role of the French language in the Francophone world must be set in the context of the preoccupations that Francophones themselves have about the importance of their own languages, in their relationship to France and post-independence governments, not only from a postcolonial point of view but also from the standpoint of an understanding that national/ethnic languages are also an essential dimension of their development. French has become a language of communication between cultures, not simply a vehicle for transmitting French culture.

Evolution of land policies and legislation in Malawi and Zimbabwe: implications for forestry development

This paper describes the effects of the colonial and post-colonial land policies and legislation on the management and utilisation of natural woodlands in Malawi and Zimbabwe. The two countries share similar patterns of land ownership; customary or tribal trust land designated by colonial governments for settlement and cultivation by the indigenous populations; private land mostly alienated from local communities for commercial farming and ranching, initially by white settlers and later officially sanctioned by post-colonial governments; and public land appropriated by government for purposes of establishing national parks and forest reserves. The private and public land tenure, did not only reduce the size of land available to indigenous communities for agricultural and non-agricultural activities, but also compromised the roles and power of traditional authorities in controlling and managing natural resources including miombo woodlands. The major factors, which appear to have contributed to rapid deforestation and land degradation, include increases in population pressure, poverty and failure by governments to urgently provide effective policy guidelines on land management and administration regarding the utilisation of forests and natural resources. The Zimbabwe Science News Volume 36 (1+ 2) 2002, pp. 18-27

Language Policy in Sudan

The study and analysis in this paper is presented in three parts. Part one opens with a brief survey of the language policy followed by the colonial rule. Part two traces the post-colonial language policy and the question of Arabicization. Part three offers a critical conclusion.

Doctors and the State: The Struggle for Professional Control in Zimbabwe

The research process the health care system and the medical profession under colonialism post-colonial health policies - 1980-1994 clinical autonomy economic autonomy regulation of medical education, registration and discipline summary and conclusions.

The Market as an Instrument of Political Control and Exploitation: Some Insights from Kenya

The vast majority of developing countries, especially on the African continent, have leapt into the new millennium trapped in enormous economic decline. The popular diagnosis blames the self-defeating tendencies of the Third World states as the main source of the dismal economic performance. It is against this background that the paper seeks to present an alternative account for the rampant economic stagnation experienced by developing countries on the African continent. It has been motivated by the dramatic ascendancy of Afro-pessimism, which seems to conclude that the African condition is largely of its own making and, therefore, there is little or no hope for improvement. The argument of this paper is that the colonial legacy has, to a very large extent, shaped, influenced and impacted on the range of post-colonial policy options for most countries within the policy framework of the market. The pervasive market distortions that currently characterize the majority of the economies on the continent are an enduring heritage of the colonial schemes and mechanizations. (The Journal of Cultural Studies: 2001 3(1): 246-258)

Contested and Contesting Identities: Conceptualising Linguistic Minority Rights within the Global Cultural Economy

This paper juxtaposes postmodernist discourses on language, identity and cultural power with historical forms of language inequalities grounded in the nation-state. The discussion is presented in three sections. The first section focuses on the mixed legacies of language-state relations within the pluralist nation-state, colonial and postcolonial language policies. The second section examines the concept of linguistic minority rights beyond the nation-state. This incorporates discussion of transmigration, the breaking up of previous power blocs in Eastern Europe and the role of language in the articulation of emergent 'ethnic' nationalisms. The third section examines the concept of multilingualism within the interactive cultural landscape defined by 'informationalism'. Discussing the collective impact of these variables on the shaping of new cultural, economic and political inequalities, the paper highlights the tensions in which the concept of linguistic minority rights exists in the world today.

Historical and cultural roots of drinking problems among American Indians

Roots of the epidemic of alcohol-related problems among many Native North Americans are sought in cultural responses to European arrival, the role of alcohol in frontier society, and colonial and postcolonial policies. Evidence from the historical record is considered within the framework of current social science. Initially, Native American's responses to alcohol were heavily influenced by the example of White frontiersmen, who drank immoderately and engaged in otherwise unacceptable behavior while drunk. Whites also deliberately pressed alcohol upon the natives because it was an immensely profitable trade good; in addition, alcohol was used as a tool of "diplomacy" in official dealings between authorities and natives. The authors argue that further research into the origins of modern indigenous people's problems with alcohol would benefit from an interdisciplinary "determinants of health" approach in which biological influences on alcohol problems are investigated in the context of the cultural, social, and economic forces that have shaped individual and group drinking patterns.

DESICCATION AND DOMINATION: SCIENCE AND STRUGGLES OVER ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT IN COLONIAL GUINEA

Concern about desiccation – the effects of deforestation on climate and soils – was an early and pervasive theme in colonial science, present at the onset of West Africa's colonial era and with roots in previous centuries. As a set of scientists' ideas linked to soil and forest conservation policy, the impact of desiccationism was initially muted, struggling unsuccessfully in nascent administrations with more pressing political and administrative agendas. But by the end of the colonial period it can be argued that anxiety about desiccation had become a cornerstone of development practice and state penetration. This article uses a case study to consider the transformation of the status of the ‘science’ of desiccation within colonial development agendas, the responses this transformation eventually provoked and its enduring legacy.Our reflections here complement what has, in West African studies, become a general consensus about shifts in colonial forest policy. From the outset, many colonial administrations – both francophone and anglophone – were concerned both about the effects of forest loss on climate, hydrology and soils, and about the effects of ‘irrational and wasteful’ exploitation of forest as an economic resource. But early policy imperatives to establish reserves either failed to reach the implementation stage or could not be implemented due to the resistance they engendered, both from populations and indeed from agricultural or political administrations. A significant phase of reservation, at least in West Africa's humid forest and transition zones, began only in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and was pursued until the mid 1950s by colonial states which increasingly gained the strength to impose unpopular policy despite resistance. From this perspective, and given that nationalist sentiments in pre-independence struggles were often pitted against repressive colonial forest services, it could be hypothesized that independence would bring regimes more responsive to local concerns and more likely to heed resistance. Yet such a view, focusing simply on state capacity in changing political contexts, overlooks qualitative changes in the configuration of science-policy relationships within the state, a reconfiguration that it is necessary to grasp if we are to understand how post-colonial forest policy was less a rupture than a continuation or, indeed, reinforcement.

A Political Ecology Perspective on Environmental Change in Malawi with the Blantyre Fuelwood Project Area as a Case Study

This article examines deforestation-induced environmental change in the Southern Region of Malawi. The political ecology approach is used to critique this change, assessing how colonial and postcolonial forestry policies affected the landscape. It is argued that non-participatory, “top-down” government programs disempowered Malawi's peoples and allowed the environment to degrade. The Blantyre Fuelwood Project shows how the politics of land use predicate environmental change. It is argued that government implemented, “top-down” approaches failed because they did not integrate local communities. The result has been local opposition to government programs, passive resistance, and deteriorating environmental conditions. The article critiques Malawi's forestry policies since colonial times, analyzes the political ecology of the Blantyre Fuelwood Project, and concludes with the hope that newly implemented “bottom-up” programs that incorporate local communities will make Malawi's environment more sustainable.

The Berber Agdal Institution: Indigenous Range Management in the Atlas Mountains

The A. examines the historical organization of the agdal institution and identifies its constraints and opportunities among Berbers of southeast Morocco. There are many types of agdals at different levels of Berber social organization and conflict is ever present. Analysis of the agdal arrangements for the communal use of pasture demonstrates how pastoral groups manipulate kinship and historical opportunities to negotiate order, grass, and subsistence in the highly variable environment of the High Atlas mountains. Technological innovation has exacerbated conflict among the users of pasture, but agdal management attests to its resilience. The persistence of conflict in the Ait Yaflman confederation over the use of agdals is rooted in the historical and environmental conjunctures of sixteenth-century Morocco, and the amplification of these historical forces by French colonial and postcolonial policies of resource management.

The Giza Pyramids: Accommodating Tourism, Leisure and Consumption

IN THE NINETEENTH century a growing sense emerged among Europeans that the pyramids were “theirs.” Combined with emerging lifestyles of travel and entertainment the Giza Pyramids were integrated into an emerging global touristic map. With the advent of colonial occupation, the pyramids were slowly woven into the modern cityscape of Cairo which in turn engendered changes in the surrounding landscape. Issues of free access, convenience and the comfort of various groups of tourists and pleasure seekers have dominated colonial and subsequently post–colonial policies with regard to the pyramids and their vicinity. [Cairo, tourism, colonialism, historical monuments, space and power]

THE POLITICAL ECOLOGY OF DEFORESTATION IN MALAWI

ABSTRACT This paper analyzes deforestation in Malawi during colonial and post-colonial periods, examining demographic, agricultural, and fuelwood use practices that have influenced forestry policy. It will be hypothesized that artificial land scarcities have exacerbated deforestation pressures, forcing a significant majority of Malawi's population to subsist off a fraction of its land resources. This population-land distribution discrepancy has resulted in environmental degradation, challenging post-colonial Malawi's government to counter with appropriate forestry policy. Early post-colonial policies were “top-down” projects, however, after decades of unsuccessful results a transition has occurred in which “bottom-up” programs are advocated.

Gender and Famine in Central Tanzania: 1916-1961

During the colonial era, women in Ugogo in central Tanzania, like most of Africa, became increasingly marginalized as producers in a rural economy. A colonially imposed sexual division of labor saw men forced into a cash economy while women were officially regulated to subordinate subsistence activities. Women became the victims of a version of the “cult of domesticity” that limited their ability to control resources both within and outside the household. The marginalization of women came about as a result of an alliance between the colonial state and male elders yet it was also part of the marginalization of communities in Ugogo generally in which elders and all males also saw their economic autonomy destroyed. Ironically, by the end of the colonial era this process led to many men scapegoating women as the cause of their loss of autonomy and to many women seeing empowerment only in escaping the confines of the local community. In one of the most thorough works on changing gender relations, Karen Sacks has explained this process in terms of the underdevelopment of African communities during the colonial era (1982). Majorie Mbilinyi has argued that in many parts of Tanzania colonial and post-colonial labor policies regulated women to the informal sector and even then often drove them out of the money economy entirely.

Reading Forest History Backwards:The Interaction of Policy and Local Land Use in Guinea's Forest-Savanna Mosaic, 1893-1993

Abstract Sophisticated local agricultural and forest management techniques have underlain the creation and maintenance of the main landscape features in Kissidougou Prefecture of Guinea's forest-savanna transition zone. Social anthropological, oral historical, archival and aerial photographic evidence shows how over long periods, peri-village forest islands have been created from savannas, productive rice swamps from inland valleys, and productive upland soil and vegetation conditions from unimproved herbaceous savanna. From 1893, colonial policy was based on reading the region's environmental history backwards, assuming forest islands to be relics of a once-extensive dense humid forest cover which local agriculture and fire-setting had destroyed. Archival evidence shows how the deductions of botanists, agronomists and foresters, coupled with the assumptions of administrators and other visitors, mutually reinforced each other to create and sustain a vision of degradation so pervasive that it still underlies modern environmental policy. The paper examines how colonial and post-colonial policies conceived within this vision have interacted with local land use. Given varying administrative capabilities, it considers the extent to which changes in local practices have been conditioned by policy as opposed to other social, economic, political or ecological changes, and the extent to which environmental changes have fortuitously coincided with policy objectives.

Zimbabwe's wildlife conservation regime: Rural farmers and the state

This article examines the rhino and elephant conservation policies of Zimbabwe, focusing on the historical experiences of rural farmers with colonial and post-colonial wildlife policies. It begins by defining the social and political ramifications of the current environmental conservation debate in Africa, and how these are crucially affected by rural people's perceptions of environmental goods. Next, the paper explores the exploitative colonial legacy of wildlife conservation in Zimbabwe, and how that legacy has or has not been transformed since independence. The paper pays close attention to the development of linkages between rural farmers, local conservation NGOs, and local and national governmental bodies. Finally, the paper finds that, while many positive linkages have been made between conservation authorities and rural farmers and ranchers in elephant conservation programs, few such linkages have been made in the various rhino conservation schemes. Since Zimbabwe has been relatively successful in conserving its elephant population, but relatively unsuccessful in stopping rhino poaching, the paper concludes that the development of positive linkages between rural farmers and the state, which include heavy doses of popular participation at the grassroots level, is crucial for any successful natural resource policy.

The Historical, Economic, and Political Bases of France's African Policy

A Quarter of a century has elapsed since France granted independence to her former colonies in West and Central Africa. Yet to this day, France continues to wield considerable power and influence in these countries politically, economically, socially, and culturally, thanks to a tightly-knit network of formal and informal relations. France's African policy has been remarkably constant and stable through the various successive governments of the Fifth Republic. How can this persistent situation of dominance/dependency and this continuity in foreign policy be accounted for? More specifically, the present study tries to analyse the main characteristics and essential mechanisms of France/s post-colonial policy in Africa, all too often shrouded under a veil of secrecy, albeit premised on a number of historical factors for its ideological foundation. On this basis, a variety of economic and political interests have been developed which constitute the main elements of this policy and its principal explanatory variables. Eventually, it is concluded that a neo-colonial strategy has been adopted in order to preserve a status quo that is clearly favourable to the conservative interests of the western world in general, and to France in particular.

Oaths, Ordeals, and the Kenyan Courts: A Policy Analysis

This article analyzes the Kenyan judicial system's use of Kamba oaths and ordeals and discusses the issues arising from postcolonial policies of coopting traditional institutions of social control. During 1969 a high official in the Kenyan judicial system formulated a policy for applying the kithitu ordeal in civil suits among Kamba disputants at the level of the High Court in Nairobi and at the levels of the district courts in Machakos. This study attempts to demonstrate that coopting an uncentralized laissez-faire method of dispute settlement in a centralizing system of civil justice is counterproductive for the courts and the citizenry.John Roberts' cross-culturally tested ideas on oaths, ordeals, and power are used in making a policy assessment regarding current government utilization of oaths and ordeals in Kenya. The theoretical analysis and the public policy recommendation are relevant to policy makers in Kenya and in other pluralistic postcolonial nations in which traditional institutions of socia...