sub-Saharan African Societies Research Articles

Rethinking the Dualism of Regionalism vs. Universalism in the Light of the Sub-Saharan Experience with the Regulation of Foreign Investment

In Sub-Saharan African countries, inequalities and unbalanced distribution of land and natural resources are deeply rooted in the historical land conflicts and dispossessions in the region that have drastically altered the political and economic positions of major segments of Sub-Saharan African societies. This article attempts an answer to the question of whether a sub-regional investment agreement could help in addressing the problem of land-grabbing in Sub-Saharan Africa. The affirmative answer to this question is based on a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the three major approaches to the legal regulation of foreign direct investments (FDI) that have been utilized to date in Sub-Saharan Africa. The article provides a succinct historical survey that sheds light on the fact that both domestic regulations of foreign investments and Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) have almost exclusively dealt with the question of the promotion of FDI, and that a number of BITs in Sub-Saharan Africa tend to overemphasize the protection of foreign investors while doing very little to protect common concerns, i.e. values that do not coincide, or do not necessarily coincide, with the interests of the investor. The article then discusses the approach to the legal regulation of FDI through BITs as exemplified in the BITs concluded by the US with six sub-Saharan African partners, underscoring the unsuitability of such treaties to lay the foundations of an international investment regime more favourable to Sub-Saharan countries. Finally, the paper attempts to formulate a few recommendations to address the problem, suggesting a sub-regional investment agreement for Sub-Saharan Africa.

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism and Healthcare Entrepreneurship in Mission Hospitals in Ghana

The current global healthcare market requires hospitals to fundamentally and constantly transform the way they function and identify new foundations or avenues to gain or consolidate any competitive advantage. We investigated whether hospitals managed by Protestants (Presbyterian or Calvinist) in Ghana exhibit entrepreneurial capabilities and competencies than hospitals managed by Catholics and Muslims due to the perceived inherent spirit of capitalism in Protestantism (Calvinism). Seventy five religious (mission) health facilities located across Ghana were evaluated for their entrepreneurial orientation with respect to autonomy, innovativeness, risk taking and competitive aggressiveness. The findings established that hospitals in Ghana which are managed by Protestant Churches (Presbyterian) do not differ in the adoption, application and use of entrepreneurial values and practices from those managed by Catholics and Ahmadiyya Muslims. The research contributes to the existing literature that puts the generalizability of Max Weber’s Protestant Ethic notion into dispute. Its novelty lies in the extension of Max Weber’s Protestant Ethic theory to analysing entrepreneurial culture in managing healthcare institutions in a “religious centric” Sub-Saharan African society”

Piety, Moral Agency, and Leadership: Dynamics Around the Feminization of Islamic Authority in Côte d'Ivoire

The existing literature has pointed out some of the ways in which Muslim women claim legitimacy and, in some cases, even authority within their communities, ranging from militancy within Islamic organizations to the mastery of religious knowledge. While militancy is at the core of the contemporary feminization of Islam in a number of sub-Saharan African societies, in some places authority over religious knowledge is also in a process of being feminized. This article examines how, in the context of Islamic revivalism in Cote d’Ivoire, the feminization of Islam has evolved in the settings of voluntary associations. In particular, this article addresses the articulation between Islamic concepts of womanhood, including practices of veiling and ideological formations around them, and the construction of alternative modes of sociability in the context of the transformation of local religious organizations. In the 1990s, women’s roles in the Ivorian Islamic revivalism were marked by instances of intensified activism, while the 2002 military conflict has encouraged the emergence of women- led NGOs. For some women, these NGOs have come to be the site of assertion of new forms of religious authority. Based on ethnographic data collected between 1992 to 2011 in the cities of Bouake and Abidjan, the analysis focuses on the material and historical conditions of women’s religious mobilization and authority.

Demographic, epidemiological, and health transitions: are they relevant to population health patterns in Africa?

BackgroundStudies of trends in population changes and epidemiological profiles in the developing world have overwhelmingly relied upon the concepts of demographic, epidemiological, and health transitions, even though their usefulness in describing and understanding population and health trends in developing countries has been repeatedly called into question. The issue is particularly relevant for the study of population health patterns in Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, as the history and experience there differs substantially from that of Western Europe and North America, for which these concepts were originally developed.ObjectiveThe aim of this study is two-fold: to review and clarify any distinction between the concepts of demographic transition, epidemiological transition and health transition and to identify summary indicators of population health to test how well these concepts apply in Africa.ResultsNotwithstanding the characteristically diverse African context, Africa is a continent of uncertainties and emergencies where discontinuities and interruptions of health, disease, and mortality trends reflect the enduring fragility and instability of countries and the vulnerabilities of individuals and populations in the continent. Africa as a whole remains the furthest behind the world's regions in terms of health improvements and longevity, as do its sub-Saharan African regions and societies specifically. This study documents: 1) theoretically and empirically the similarities and differences between the demographic transition, epidemiological transition, and health transition; 2) simple summary indicators that can be used to evaluate their descriptive and predictive features; 3) marked disparities in the onset and pace of variations and divergent trends in health, disease, and mortality patterns as well as fertility and life expectancy trajectories among African countries and regions over the past 60 years; 4) the rapid decline in infant mortality and gains in life expectancy from the 1950s through the 1990s in a context of preponderant communicable diseases in all African countries; 5) the salient role of adult mortality, mostly ascribed to HIV/AIDS and co-morbidities, since the 1990s in reversing trends in mortality decline, its interruption of life expectancy improvements, and its reversal of gender differences in life expectancies disadvantaging women in several countries with the highest prevalence of HIV/AIDS; 6) the huge impact of wars in reversing the trends in under-five mortality decline in sub-Saharan countries in the 1990s and beyond. These assessments of these transition frameworks and these phenomena were not well documented to date for all five regions and 57 countries of Africa.ConclusionPrevailing frameworks of demographic, epidemiological, and health transitions as descriptive and predictive models are incomplete or irrelevant for charting the population and health experiences and prospects of national populations in the African context.

Gender equality in European Union development policy: incorporating women’s voices or confirming hierarchies?

This paper examines gender mainstreaming in European Union (EU) development aid towards Sub-Saharan Africa. The aim is to detect how gender (in)equality in Sub-Saharan Africa is framed by the EU by critically assessing the nature and range of the differences between EU and civil society framings of gender (in)equality in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using the method of Critical Frame Analysis, 28 EU programming documents have been analysed and compared to 10 civil society texts on gender equality. I conclude that the EU’s approach to gender mainstreaming in its development aid towards Sub-Saharan Africa is to a large extent integrationist and predominantly instrumentalist as it is framed as a way of more effectively achieving existing policy goals. The more transformative issues that are put forward by Sub-Saharan African civil society organisations do not t within the EU’s dominant development paradigm that is focused on achieving the Millennium Development Goals and does not signficantly challenge gender relations or power structures. The gap between the analysed civil society views and those expressed by the EU can be explained by the EU’s reluctance to include in its policy drafting the promotion of gender equality by civil society organisations. Moreover, the gap seems to have both practical and ideological grounds. Key words: gender equality, European Union, Sub-Saharan Africa, development policy, civil society, millennium development goals, critical frame analysis

Gender equality in European Union development policy: incorporating women’s voices or confirming hierarchies?

This paper examines gender mainstreaming in European Union (EU) development aid towards Sub-Saharan Africa. The aim is to detect how gender (in)equality in Sub-Saharan Africa is framed by the EU by critically assessing the nature and range of the differences between EU and civil society framings of gender (in)equality in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using the method of Critical Frame Analysis, 28 EU programming documents have been analysed and compared to 10 civil society texts on gender equality. I conclude that the EU’s approach to gender mainstreaming in its development aid towards Sub-Saharan Africa is to a large extent integrationist and predominantly instrumentalist as it is framed as a way of more effectively achieving existing policy goals. The more transformative issues that are put forward by Sub-Saharan African civil society organisations do not fit within the EU’s dominant development paradigm that is focused on achieving the Millennium Development Goals and does not significantly challenge gender relations or power structures. The gap between the analysed civil society views and those expressed by the EU can be explained by the EU’s reluctance to include in its policy drafting the promotion of gender equality by civil society organisations. Moreover, the gap seems to have both practical and ideological grounds.

Visual media and political communication: reporting about suffering in Kinshasa

ABSTRACTMany sub-Saharan African societies have undergone significant political shifts in the last two decades. Changes in political representation and leadership have generated new forms of political mediation and communication. This article interrogates one of the most visible transformations in Kinshasa's political society: television news reports about urban misery, often resulting from a malfunctioning state, in which Kinshasa's inhabitants testify about their difficulties and press fellow citizens, as well as local and national leaders, to bring about change. Exposing suffering is a shame mobilisation strategy, and so becomes a political act. Through the discursive and visual aesthetics of the proximity account, citizens and political leaders are inserted into one political community. The main argument of this article is that the proximity account illustrates a new kind of political communication. In this article I analyse the socio-political contexts in which the proximity report emerged and became popular. I trace the materialisation of this new kind of interaction between political leaders and citizens to the transformation of the late Zaïrian ‘state’, to vernacular understandings of ‘democracy’, and to the influence of NGO activities and Pentecostal Christianity.

Art and societal dialectics in sub-Saharan Africa: A critique of Wa Thiongo and Osofisan as dramatists

Art, indeed, remains an effective means of representing reality. It has undoubtedly become instrumental in understanding and interpreting aspects of society – its inherent dialectics – its realities. Drama, therefore, as the most social of art forms invariably predisposes the dramatist/artist as invaluable in the solemn task of mirroring these realities. This paper surveys the socio-political developments, nay realities in two Sub-Saharan African societies, to examine the inextricable relationship between art and society as well as underscore the effect of the past on the present, using relevant works of two prominent dramatists from this region, Ngugi Wa Thiong’o (Kenya) and Femi Osofisan (Nigeria) as paradigms. Key words: Art, functionality, society, societal dialectics, artist.

Globalization and deepening rural poverty in contemporary Sub-Saharan African society

In recent time, especially in the last decade the issue of globalization and economic integration of world countries has been the aspiration of many nation states, including those in Africa. But various governments and organizations have not thought deeply about the social impact of this world phenomenal trend irrespective of its envisaged economic gains. Having a view of Africa and the rest of the world in respect to globalization trend it is important to examine how globalization impacts on African people’s quality of lifer and poverty situation. Against this background this paper examines the interface between globalization phenomenon and deepening rural poverty situation in Africa. The basic assumption behind this submission is that embracing the globalization phenomenon contributes negatively in the economic development and quality of life of Africans, especially those in the rural areas via the dislocation of indigenous cultural and other practices that have sustained the base structure of the people. The paper therefore, presents the theoretical conceptualization of rural poverty in Africa, characteristics and nature of the rural poor in Africa, rural poverty situation in Africa, with emphasis from Nigeria. It also explores the phenomenon of globalization and other causal processes of rural poverty in Africa, its relationship with indigenous cultural and technological practices, and consequently the impact of the interaction between them on the poverty situation or quality of life of African people. This paper concludes that globalization deepens rather than alleviates the poverty situation of rural Africans. It is therefore, recommended that African rural population should be deliberately protected through economic and cultural policies to prevent the eroding and disruptive force of globalization.

Inheritance and the Intergenerational Transmission of Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa: Policy Considerations

In many Sub-Saharan African societies, inheritance is one of the most common means by which physical property is transferred from one generation to another. As such, policy initiatives concerning the intergenerational transmission of poverty (IGT poverty) would do well to attend to how inheritance systems are governed, and particularly which considerations affect who is included and excluded. This requires examination of both legal and political rights of property ownership, as well as context-specific values, norms and dynamics of social organisation.This paper is a review of existing research and policy that address issues of inheritance and IGT poverty. It is organised into three main sections: the first outlines what is known about how inheritance correlates with IGT poverty; the middle section discusses specific initiatives that have been proposed or taken to affect inheritance in Sub-Saharan African countries; and the last section lists some key points for policy makers and researchers to consider in developing future initiatives concerning inheritance and IGT poverty.

An Inherent Burden

The connection between rural-urban migration, risky survival activities and HIV infections in sub-Saharan African societies has been central among the social and cultural factors associated with the high rates of HIV/AIDS in the continent. But the underlying role of kinship in this relationship has been less documented. This article discusses the connection of kinship in rural-urban migration and HIV infections among the matrilineal Akan of Ghana. There is a pressure on people to migrate from their villages to urban areas where they are expected to be successful and remit to other kin members back home. When people become infected, the burden then turns to lie on kin members to care for the AIDS patients. The article concludes that the family pressures reflected in the stories of many AIDS patients in Akan society are too huge to ignore. It suggests that interpersonal dialogues as campaign strategies should target both individuals and family members in households.
 
 Keywords: kinship obligations, migration, HIV/AIDS, Akan of Ghana

Adult Mortality and Erosion of Household Viability in AIDS-Afflicted Towns, Estates, and Villages in Eastern Zimbabwe

Households form the basic social and economic building blocks of sub-Saharan African societies. Household viability is threatened by sustained crisis-level mortality in widely disseminated HIV epidemics. This article describes the impact of adult deaths on households in small towns, estates, and villages in eastern Zimbabwe. A stratified baseline household census was conducted, and 9842 adults were interviewed, tested for HIV infection, and followed up after 3 years. For 374 (93%) of 404 respondents who died, verbal autopsies were conducted with caregivers and data were collected on income foregone, health care and funeral expenditure, and household dissolution and relocation. The household impact of AIDS and non-AIDS deaths was compared. Deaths occurred disproportionately in more urban and low-income households, with AIDS deaths more often resulting in the loss of the household head (57% vs. 46%, adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 2.47; P = 0.003). The median gross expenditure on health care and funerals was 25 US dollars (interquartile ratio [IQR]: 5-88) and 73 US dollars (IQR: 43-128), respectively, with external contributions being substantial for funerals (25 US dollars, IQR: 10-54). Households with AIDS deaths spent more on health care (incidence rate ratio = 1.83; 95% confidence interval: 1.06 to 3.15) and had more frequently dissolved or relocated (39% vs. 27%, AOR = 1.87; P = 0.038) than those with non-AIDS deaths. Households migrated disproportionately to rural villages. Despite the extended family system, adult deaths undermine the viability of sub-Saharan African households. HIV epidemics have greatly increased adult mortality, and AIDS deaths can be particularly destabilizing.

Literacy in an oral society: the case of Ethiopian land records

Christian Ethiopia is a culture profoundly animated by the spoken word. Its highest art is poetry, a literary form produced for performance. Verbal facility is widely diffused among different social classes. Ambiguity is prized: as is nuance and subtlety. Yet Ethiopia is unique among sub-saharan African societies in possessing an indigenous literacy, which dates back over two thousand years and which has generated its own script. Written texts in Ethiopia fall into a number of distinct genres, many of them narrative, others non-narrative. Narrative sources make clear that Ethiopian rulers kept administrative records. Of these, little has survived from before 1900 beyond the numerous notes, which litter the margins and end-papers of church service books, notes which deal pre-eminently with issues concerning land. The writing of these notes was clearly important to those who wrote them. What purpose did they serve; and what meaning did their authors attribute to them? Beyond that, what was the relationship between orality and literacy in historic Ethiopia? To be sure, literacy served the purpose of mystifying the power of state, ruling class and church vis à vis the overwhelming mass of illiterate subjects of the state. But how did literacy function in relationships within the ruling class and among the literate? This paper explores the relationship between orality and literacy on the basis of a documentary tradition, the richest legacy of which dates to the 18th century, but which has origins datable to the 13th century, and which, most probably, stems from far earlier still. It concludes that orality and literacy were interdependent.

Parish Registers: a Challenge for African Historical Demography

On the worldwide scale Africa is the least-known continent demographically. Until the mid-twentieth century not even the size of the population was precisely known in many areas of sub-Saharan Africa. The major problems in African historical demography have either been the almost total lack of relevant sources or, if some have been available, they have been fragmentary and non-systematic. The reliability of the most commonly-used sources in African historical demography—population counts and early censuses—remained questionable until the 1960s. However, fairly far-reaching conclusions and estimations based on these sources using indirect methods have been drawn. Despite the development of methods in historical demography, the questionable source materials have naturally provided serious grounds for argumentation.An excellent example is the debate between the natalistic and antinatalistic school over changes in fertility and mortality in sub-Saharan African societies during the precolonial and early colonial period. The fragmentary nature of the available sources has offered a firm basis for the disagreement.The objective of this paper is to discuss limitations, pitfalls, and opportunities related to sources used in African historical demography. The paper first reviews the conventional sources—population counts, censuses, and surveys—and then presents an old but seldom-used group of sources, Christian parish registers. The usability of parish registers is discussed through a concrete research project based on data produced since the late nineteenth century in the parishes of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia (ELCIN). Finally, attention is paid on widening the range of disciplines where African parish registers could be utilized.

Beyond the ‘internalist’ vs. ‘externalist’ debate: the local–global identities of African homosexuals in two films, Woubi Che´ri and Dakan

The 1997 movie Dakan, considered to be the first feature film on homosexuality from sub-Saharan Africa, explores the tensions experienced by two young homosexual Guinean men because of their conflicting social, cultural and sexual identities. The 1998 documentary Woubi Che´eri focuses on a community of homosexuals, transvestites and woubis (men choosing to play the role of ‘wife’ in their relationships with other men) in Abidjan, Coˆte d'Ivoire. This paper looks at how the protagonists' struggles and quest for identity are determined by both local and global dynamics. I argue that their homosexual experiences need to be studied in the light of both the history of same-sex practices in sub-Saharan African societies, and of the Westernized aspects of these societies. The protagonists' marginality can be seen as a ‘global’ consequence of the discrimination experienced by gay people all over the world, while also being the result of the specific social, cultural and economic structures governing their mostly patriarchal and family-oriented communities. However, their quest for identity can also be looked at as a metaphor for contemporary African societies' need to redefine their own traditions and to resist the often dehumanizing impact of Western globalization.

Book Review: Small-Scale Production of Food and Traditional Alcoholic Beverages in Benin and Tanzania: Implications for the Promotion of Female Entrepreneurship

Small-Scale Production of Food and Traditional Alcoholic Beverages in Benin and Tanzania: Implications for the Promotion of Female Entrepreneurship, by Johanna Maula (Helsinki: The Finnish Foundation for Alcohol Studies, 1997), 295 pp., $35.00 (paper only). During the past decade, social science literature on the role of small and micro-enterprises in international development has grown exponentially. Scholars in this field have not only delineated the nature of the so-called in worldwide, but they have effectively destroyed the myths claiming that these second economies were autonomous from the formal economy and apparent only in southern nations (MacGaffey, 1986; Portes, 1989; Feldman, 1991). Throughout this period, however, perhaps the most novel and exciting scholarship in this area has been produced by feminist social scientists and historians who drew our attention to the international division of labor by gender that circumscribed many women, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, to small enterprises and micro-enterprises. Johanna Maula's Small-Scale Production of Food and Traditional Alcoholic Beverages in Benin and Tanzania is another very important addition to this literature. Although ostensibly a study that focuses on the production of alcohol within subSaharan African societies, it is really concerned with the development of entrepreneurship among male and especially female producers and is broadly applicable to businesspersons in a wide range of micro and small-scale activities on the continent. In this regard, this study makes several unique contributions to the literature by taking a comparative approach to this topic. First, Maula's work compares entrepreneurial performance in two countries located in distinct regions of the continent: eastern Africa and western Africa. The only other study of this kind to date is the recent work by Claire Robertson (1995) comparing women's trading activities in Ghana and Kenya. In her research, Maula correctly notes the much longer history of women's entrepreneurship in West Africa, particularly in short- and longdistance trading (Sanday, 1974; Schoepf, 1992; Clark, 1994; Osirim, 1997). To fulfill their domestic responsibilities as daughters, wives and mothers and in striving for economic independence, West African women also began rotating credit schemes (or esusus) much earlier than their East African sisters. Second, Maula's study makes a unique contribution to the literature on small and micro-enterprises in that, unlike previous research, it compares women's and men's activities within the same industries. Such comparative analysis is critical as we attempt to document how structural and cultural factors, especially gender-role socialization patterns, the persistence of patriarchy, and the impact of colonialism combine to restrict women's income-earning opportunities on the continent. Third, Maula engages her readers in other multilayered comparisons, such as the distinctions in brewing and distilling practices among different ethnic groups and between urban and rural areas. To my knowledge this is the first work of its kind to combine these varied levels of comparison in a comprehensive analysis of this subject. Further, the methodology employed in this study combines both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Data from intensive interviews with entrepreneurs and others in select communities in Benin and Tanzania were combined with a baseline community survey in the Dar es Salaam region of Tanzania that included over 1,300 respondents. In the early chapters of this book, Maula demonstrates that she is well acquainted with the growing literature on women and the informal sector in sub-Saharan Africa. While she frequently cites the works of MacGaffey, Nelson, Tripp, Downing, and Kuiper, there are some notable absences in her review of the literature, namely, the works of Clark (1994), Horn (1994), and House-Midamba (1995), who have all written or edited books on this subject. …

Desired Fertility and Fertility Behaviour among the Yoruba of Nigeria: A Study of Couple Preferences and Subsequent Fertility

This paper examines the effects of the fertility desires of marital partners on subsequent fertility. In particular, we attempt to identify the role played by disagreement between the spouses in predicting the couple's fertility outcome. The results indicate that when husband and wife disagree about whether or not they want another child, the fertility desires of both partners are equally important in determining whether the couple actually have an additional birth. The dominance of men in sub-Saharan African societies tends to operate in the present study only in the initial stages of a couple's reproductive lives (associated with four or fewer children). This tendency is offset by the stronger influence of the wife's desire in the later stages. Thus, we conclude that fertility research in sub-Saharan Africa should solicit information from men and women, and any programme or policy that aims to promote fertility decline in the region must involve both sexes.

African Women in the Visual Arts

The arts of sub-Saharan African societies offer a window for viewing the cultural construction of gender through which we are able to see the complex ways in which different groups of African men and women act out their roles in social, political, economic, and religious arenas. The arts are also valuable indicators of socioeconomic change as reflected by changes in their styles, materials, production, technology, and modes of distribution and consumption. Scholars of African art have been unusually slow to consider theoretical issues of gender. While many have studied women in the arts, few grapple with gender-related issues or attempt to interpret the data from a feminist theoretical perspective. A preliminary discussion of the art biases and research strategies underlying African art studies may help to explain why. African art was first recognized by Europeans as art, and therefore worthy of study, in the early decades of this century. Until the late sixties and early seventies, however, the only true African arts, from a Western perspective, were masks and figurative sculpture. Those very arts were produced only by men, since women in Africa seldom if ever carve wood or work in metal. Such craft

The End of Slavery in Africa.

This landmark book, now back in print, explores the historical experiences of slaves, masters, and colonials as they all confronted the end of slavery in fifteen sub-Saharan African societies. The essays demonstrate that it is impossible to generalize about whether the end of slavery was a relatively mild and nondisruptive process or whether it marked a significant change in the organization of these societies. This wide-ranging inquiry is of lasting value to Africanists and a variety of social and economic historians.

Political Systems and Economic Performance in Some African Societies

Previous articleNext article No AccessPolitical Systems and Economic Performance in Some African SocietiesEdwin CharleEdwin Charle Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Economic Development and Cultural Change Volume 18, Number 4, Part 1Jul., 1970Part 1 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/450453 Views: 4Total views on this site Citations: 3Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1970 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Edward Green, Raymond Isley The Significance of Settlement Pattern for Community Participation in Health: Lessons from Africa, Human Organization 47, no.22 (Jun 1988): 158–166.https://doi.org/10.17730/humo.47.2.b43548r101v1r26q BIBLIOGRAPHY, (Jan 1976): 141–157.https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-020533-5.50009-5BENNO GALJART INCENTIVES, LEVELLING MECHANISMS AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT, Sociologia Ruralis 15, no.1-21-2 (Apr 1975): 65–72.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9523.1975.tb00163.x