Space In Africa Research Articles

Call for Special Issue Papers: New Space in Africa

<i>Call for Special Issue Papers:</i> New Space in Africa

Maitreya’s Garden in the Township: Transnational Religious Spaces of Yiguandao Activists in Urban South Africa

This paper seeks to explore the spaces created by practitioners of the Taiwanese-Chinese religious movement Yiguandao 一貫道 (“Way of Pervading Unity”) in urban South Africa. Drawing on ethnographic data from fieldwork conducted in Johannesburg, Pretoria, and Cape Town in late 2017 as well as on published Yiguandao materials, this contribution analyses how these spaces are created, maintained, and charged with meaning. It investigates the uses of these spaces as well as how and why various actors engage in them. By proposing a preliminary typology that is based on the location, function, and mobility of these spaces, this contribution argues that Yiguandao religious spaces represent more intense arenas of transcultural interaction than most other – and predominantly economic – Chinese spaces in Africa.

Landscape‐scale habitat response of African elephants shows strong selection for foraging opportunities in a human dominated ecosystem

Balancing trade‐offs between foraging and risk factors is a fundamental behavior that structures the spatial distribution of species. For African elephantsLoxodonta africana, human pressures from poaching and conflict are primary drivers of species decline, but little is known about how elephants structure their spatial behavior in the face of human occupancy and predation. We seek to understand how elephants balance trade‐offs between resource access, human presence and human predatory risk factors (poaching and conflict killing) in an unfenced, dynamic ecosystem where elephants persist primarily outside protected areas in community rangelands. We used tracking data from 101 elephants collected between 2001 and 2016. We investigated elephant behavior in response to landcover, topography, productivity, water, human features and human predation risk using third‐order resource selection functions. We extended this analysis by employing a mixed‐effects multinomial regression to identify temporal shifts in habitat use, and evaluated temporal shifts in movement patterns by estimating mean squared displacement across different productivity periods. Across periods, elephants displayed strong selection for productive areas and areas near water. Temporal shifts in habitat use showed that, during the dry period, elephants were clustered around permanent water sources where humans also congregated. At the onset of the wet period, a shift occurred where elephants moved away from permanent water and from permanent settlements towards seasonal water sources and seasonal settlements. Our findings indicate that foraging and water access are important limiting factors affecting elephants that potentially restrain their spatial responses to humans at the scale of our analysis. Given that pastoralists and elephants rely on the same resources, increasing human and livestock populations enhance pressure on shared resources and space in Africa's drylands. The long‐term conservation of elephants will require approaches that reduce poaching as well as landscape level planning to prevent negative impacts from increasing competition for preferred resources.

DYNAMICS OF GROWTH OF ALBIZIA ADIANTHIFOLIA AND ALBIZIA ZYGIA (TWO LOCAL LEGUMINOUS PLANTS WITH RAPID GROWTH) DURING THE REGENERATION OF THE POST-FARMING FALLOW AND DEGRADED SPACES

The threat which is on the forests and wooded spaces of Africa and particularly those of Côte d'Ivoire is accentuated over the years. The quoted leading causes are the land pressure related to demography, the anarchistic exploitation of the forest woody plants and itinerant agriculture. In many cases, the afforestation is the recommended palliative measure. But with which woody plants does one retimber in Côte d'Ivoire? Which assessment are previous initiatives made? On several occasions the exotic woody plants with rapid growth were used without success. The main objective of this study is to identify local woody plants with rapid growths of which the use will contribute to a significant degree to fast regeneration of our forests, degraded spaces and the post-farming fallow. Floristic inventories and measurements were carried out on the stems of Albizia adianthifolia and Albizia zygia in elementary plots of 400 m ² (20m X 20m). Two local arborescent Leguminous plants with rapid growth were identified for this purpose. They were: Albizia adianthifolia and Albizia zygia. The experiments showed that these species reach the maximas of their growth in height and thickness as from nine (9) years. The sowing of the fallow and/or spaces degraded by these woody species supports the fast regeneration of these degraded spaces.

Village Matters, City Works: Ideas, Technologies, and Dialogues in the Work of HervÉ Youmbi

Rural and urban spaces in Africa, art historians are increasingly finding, are bound to one another by webs of complex relationships, resulting in a blurring of boundaries long held to be structurally fundamental by the scholarly community. Among contemporary artists, such relationships and the blurring in which they result are a matter of growing interest. Hervé Youmbi is a case in point. His ongoing series Visages de masques highlights problems inherent in discourses that draw stark distinctions between rural and urban environments, associating the former with tradition and conservativism and the latter with modernity and innovation, while allowing for little crossover between these categories. Involving extensive collaboration between the artist, who lives and works in Douala, with ritual specialists, sculptors, beaders, and dancers based in the rural Grassfields of Cameroon, presented in village initiatory contexts and international white cube settings alike, Visages embodies the porosity of rural–urban relations.

Changing family patterns from rural to urban and living in the in-between: A public practical theological responsive ministerial approach in Africa

African people and their families find themselves in a situation of tension because of their transition from rural to urban life. This tension has created a third family type, namely emerging families. The emerging families are characterised by a sense of life being under a constant strain to meet individual needs and at the same time the expected needs of the extended family. In such a situation, an individual gets sandwiched in a space of confusion, trapped in an in-between space where one is unsure whether to stick to traditional rural values and norms amidst the challenges of the reality of inadequate financial resources to support extended family members. Thus, one’s life space in Africa should be considered as being in a state of shifting fluidity. The outcome is an emerging and negotiated family where new arrangements are developing. In response, pastoral care should take a public dimension. Pastoral care should develop an analytic framework as well as a public practical theological ministerial approach that responds to these changing family patterns. It is proposed that a responsive public pastoral care approach could perform three tasks: preventive, mitigatory and maintenance pastoral care.

“The Bag Is My Home”: Recycling “China Bags” in Contemporary African Art

“The Bag Is My Home”: Recycling “China Bags” in Contemporary African Art

Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) in Africa: Harking the Holonomic

Two nodes are salient in the space of Africa’s development. The first is a concern about population explosion harking back the sixties. The other is infrastructure, particularly at the unfolding of the new millennium. The two concerns have captivated the world of international development – they have had a holonomic effect on other issues. However, looking closer at the two nodes, what were the objectives of the concerns and how effectively were the objectives communicated? The paper shows how the first node (McNamara’s nexus), targeted directors of the World Bank, and provided motivation for the underlying structure of the Bank today. The second node presented the challenge of infrastructure as an issue of finance and targeted the world market for capital. The paper argues that in that target, we missed an opportunity to define public-private partnerships (PPP). Consequently, PPP is seen as a subject of finance not efficiency.

Fiscal Space, Poverty and Inequality in Africa

AbstractThe benefit of growth experienced since 2000 in Africa has not been broadly shared. Poverty fell by only 8.0 percentage points between 1990 and 2010 compared to the targeted 28.3 percentage points by 2015. Although income inequality fell by 4.3 percent between 1990 and 2009, Africa remains the second most unequal region globally after Latin America and the Caribbean region. Fiscal policies play important roles in reducing poverty and inequality through such instruments as taxes, transfers and government spending. Countries with high fiscal space tend to have lower poverty rates than those with lower tax revenue to GDP ratios. Indeed, fiscal space alone tends to account for 16.5 percent of changes in poverty reduction. Institutions play an important role in increasing fiscal space in Africa. Countries with increasing participatory, transparent and accountable budgetary process tend to have stronger impact of fiscal space on poverty and inequality reduction. Although 29 countries recorded declines in the distributional effectiveness of their fiscal policies over time, the distributional impact rose by 35 percent or more in countries such as Angola, Mozambique, South Africa and Togo. This paper calls for enhancing the non‐extractive revenues by diversifying revenues sources from the extractive sectors and improving progressive taxation in countries with high fiscal space and high income inequality. Heavy investment in quality and accessible education and health services, and social programs are also vital to reduce poverty and inequality in Africa.

Strengthening Higher Education Space in Africa through North-South Partnerships and Links: Myths and Realities from Tanzania Public Universities

Governments' cuts in research and development funding for public universities in Tanzania has compelled these institutions to establish and develop extensive partnerships and links with universities, and research centers in the North. The establishment of the North-South partnerships has also coincided with the dominance of external and heavy dependence on external donors for funding of research and development activities in the majority of Tanzania public universities. This article, using the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM), public university, seeks to shed light on whether or not partnerships make any significant contribution to the institution’s capacity building. The thesis of this paper is that although N-S partnerships are instrumental in institutional capacity building; they have not significantly contributed to the strengthening of higher education space at UDSM and apparently at other public universities in Tanzania because of inherent structural imbalances and inequalities embedded in the partnerships. .

Blue Lagoon: race, class, space and the making of Indian masculinities

In contemporary, South Africa space continues to remain highly racialised despite shifts and changes brought about by the end of apartheid in 1994. The recreational space of the Blue Lagoon, the focus of this study, and in close proximity to the Indian Ocean was historically demarcated for the use of Indians only. In this article, the ways in which a selected group of Indian men in Durban give meaning to the changing face of Blue Lagoon are examined. By drawing on focus group discussions, the article highlights the interaction between race, space and the construction of masculinities through which male power is expressed and inequalities are produced. The study finds that the Blue Lagoon is an important space through which Indian masculinities are produced and consolidated. However, the Blue Lagoon functions to express race and class inequalities through the investment made in the car and the construction of a racialised other. The article concludes with some implications for challenging inequalities and the exclusion it supports.

Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) on Moulding States: The Non-Ergodic Africa

Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) is a ubiquitous reality. In Africa, the wave of PPP has hit states in their infancy – still moulding following only 50 years since independence. The common perspective of PPP on the realms of scholarship is transactional (focused on the delivery-end of infrastructure). This paper presents a deeper and broader perspective, and it is a distillate of a case study on PPP as a policy phenomenon. It dissects and illuminates the interaction between the forces of state formation and the wave of PPP hitting the continent. The lens of this case study is Institutional Rational Choice (IRC). The tools are a variety, comprising textual analysis, hermeneutics and econometrics – in keeping with the essence of case study (explication of reality in-situ). The product is not the orthodox generalization (claiming ‘the way’). Instead, the explication offers a viewpoint (and trigger questions) on public space of Africa, while underpinning the non-ergodic character of that space.

Global space workforce development: a model for partnership building and knowledge transfer to developing space-faring societies

This paper reports findings of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) Study Group (SG), International Cooperation for Space Life Sciences Knowledge Sharing and Development in Africa, (2013). The SG, established in 2010, is comprised of space life sciences experts from across the globe. It charged with developing a cooperative global strategy to generate partnerships for space workforce development and life sciences knowledge sharing among space-faring and space-aspiring African nations. The study group׳s findings emphasize the need for cultural competencies and cooperation. In recent years, Africa׳s spending on space science has increased as national governments have defined their space aspirations and goals within the context of “space for humanity” and global workforce development. Some African countries have developed their own space agencies with well-defined policies and objectives. Space workforce development efforts among these countries focus on satellite technology and ground station operation, astronomy/space science and investment in related activities that advance their specific space exploration/utilization aspirations (e.g., communication services; satellite data collection and processing, with applications in areas such as food security, health and education, crime control, environmental and disaster management, and urban sprawl; radio telescope technology; and space science education outreach and awareness). The IAA study also examines the implications of increased international governmental/non-governmental educational partnerships for workforce development and proposes a roadmap for Africa׳s space-emerging countries seeking to establish global partnerships to develop indigenous space workforces. The study concludes that there are many platforms available to promote inter-regional cooperation on space workforce development, particularly in the areas of space science and technology. This paper calibrates the IAA study group׳s report with the IAA׳s report, Future Human Spaceflight: the Need for International Cooperation (2010), which outlines common global interests for human space exploration and supports the outcomes of three African IAA regional conferences on “Space for Africa.”

Urban Growth and Livelihood Transformations on the Fringes of African Cities: A Case Study of Changing Livelihoods in Peri-Urban Accra

In recent times, a growing body of research has drawn attention to the changing interface and interdependence between urban and rural spaces in Africa. This includes studies on physical, environmental, socio-demographic, economic and other transformations in the peri-urban zone. However, little is known about how residents of peri-urban communities adapt their livelihoods to these transformations. Using the case study approach, and by applying the sustainable livelihood framework as an analytical tool, we have explored the livelihood strategies adopted by the residents of four communities in peri-urban Accrain response to the city’s physical expansion. We find that urban growth has differential effects on peri-urban livelihoods, thereby creating winners and losers. Some residents, by reason of their possession of, or control over, various forms of livelihood assets, are able to utilize opportunities offered by urban growth to devise livelihood strategies to enhance their wellbeing. Those who suffer adverse effects are mainly resource-poor farm households who, apart from not having the wherewithal to take advantage of opportunities created by urban growth, lose their farm-based livelihoods as a result of the conversion of land from agricultural to non-agricultural uses. We therefore recommend that local government authorities should incorporate peri-urban livelihood issues into their planning activities.

Tourism and regional development: The case of South Africa's distressed areas

Uneven development is a long-established feature of South Africa's space economy. Recent policy initiatives have been launched for tourism to be a vehicle for regional development. Against the background of international debates about tourism and regional development, this article examines the tourism economy of South Africa's 23 priority development districts or distressed areas that are the current focus of national policy to redress uneven development. The nature and growth of tourism occurring in these areas is shown to be primarily domestic tourism and concentrated upon visiting friends and relatives travel. The prospects for regional development ultimately hinge upon leveraging potential assets for leisure tourism. Key challenges for incipient tourism-led regional development in South Africa are identified.

BECOMING ‘COSMO’: DISPLACEMENT, DEVELOPMENT AND DISGUISE IN ONGATA RONGAI

ABSTRACTOngata Rongai, a rapidly growing, ethnically heterogeneous community on Nairobi's urban periphery, has remained remarkably convivial in a country so frequently defined by conflicts over land and belonging. Bolstered by a distinct set of political logics and social practices, many of the site's multi-ethnic residents overtly reject the validity of ethnic violence and politics with reference to an explicitly articulated universalist inclusivity rarely seen in Kenya. Locally described as ‘being cosmo’, this distinct political rhetoric and emerging subjectivity has its roots in the mixed ethnic origins of its leaders, the history of land acquisition, and xenophobic persecution and displacements elsewhere in the country. More specifically, the evolution of this conviviality in the shadow of conflict has been driven by the interests of ‘half-caste’ political elites and increasingly established Kikuyu landowners. Together they draw on and reinforce a foundation myth of fair land transfers to promote peace and their own economic and electoral ambitions. The result is a vernacular and spatialized cosmopolitanism that fosters localized ethnic blindness. Its success depends on demonizing discourses of indigeneity while embracing ideas of ethnic homelands beyond the city. By acting as a foil to a growing literature on theethnicizationof land and space in Africa, this article demonstrates the need to understand spatially constructed subjectivities as responses to supra-local social and political practice.

Power, peace, and space in Africa: Revisiting territorial power sharing

Power, peace, and space in Africa: Revisiting territorial power sharing

The EU and terrorism in Africa

Islamist militant organizations such as Al-Qaeda have discovered ungoverned spaces in Africa as a fertile territory for their disastrous agenda. While that does not necessarily represent a major threat in military terms, the radicalization of populations together with human rights violations underline the potential for a continental and even global escalation. Adequately addressing the full spectrum of this emerging threat to Africa’s and Europe’s security requires not only enhanced cooperation between the European Union (EU) and the African Union. It also necessitates the involvement of the United Nations, the Regional Economic Communities, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. This paper will explore the EU’s role in combating terrorism in North Africa and the Sahel. Furthermore, this article will highlight the importance of enhanced cooperation between all the above-mentioned actors to address the emerging threat posed by terrorism in Africa, as well as the potential role played by the EU in faci...

Is monumentality in the eye of the beholder? Lessons from constructed spaces in Africa

Archaeological investigations in Africa have revealed numerous structures and other architectural features whose purposes transcended daily domestic activities. Compared to prototypical instances of monumental architecture (Egypt, Mesopotamia, Mesoamerica, the Andes), many public structures in Africa appear in unusual economic circumstances (herding without farming) or amidst less extreme social differentiation. Although often smaller in scale and employing different structural elements, African constructions combine open and restricted spaces to shape human experience. Examining these public structures and spaces is leading Africanist archaeologists, like those on other continents, to reconsider definitions of monumentality, the causes for its inception and the purposes that it served.

Between fragments and fullness: Worshipping in the in-between spaces of Africa

In this article the aesthetical practical theological notion of fragment, as introduced by the German Practical Theologian Henning Luther, was brought into dialogue with the African understanding of fullness, as articulated for instance in the concept Ubunye [we are one]. In the light of this, some basic tensions of worshipping in Africa were profiled, id est the dynamic interaction between individuality and communality, between the already and the not yet (present and future), between identity as being and identity as becoming, et cetera. The article concluded with some suggestions concerning worship in Africa as a space of paradox.