Browsing by Subject "Africa"
Now showing 1 - 20 of 80
- Results Per Page
- Sort Options
Item African Americans in Ghana: Black Expatriates and the Civil Rights Era by Kevin K. Gaines (2007)(2011-04-06) Parrott, JosephItem African Catholic Decolonization and the Transformation of the Church by Elizabeth A. Foster (2019)(2019-05-20) Whitehouse, DavidItem African Views of the West by Jo Ann White; Soviet Policy Toward Black Africa: the focus on national integration by Helen Desfosses Cohn(The Journal of Modern African Studies, 1973) Lutz, James M.Item Afropolitan projects : creating community, identity, and belonging(2017-05) Adjepong, Anima; Carrington, Ben, 1972-; Falola, Oloruntoyin; Gonzalez-Lopez, Gloria; Pierre, Jemima; Rodríguez, NéstorDespite a dramatic growth in the numbers of African immigrants to the United States, until recently, this population has been marginal in studies about voluntary migration and race. Likewise, in mainstream scholarship about black identities, Africa appears as a site of imagination and struggle whilst contemporary Africans are frozen in an unchanging, parochial age. My dissertation addresses the marginalization of Africa and Africans in both race and migration studies through an ethnographic case study of a community of Ghanaians in Houston, Texas. The research considers how questions of religion, race, class, and sexual politics shape the community’s boundaries of belonging. I explore how answers to these questions inform members’ relationship with Ghana, Africa, Houston, and the United States more generally. The ways in which the community addresses these issues are part of what I call its Afropolitan projects, which advance a modern non-victimized narrative about Ghana and Africa more generally, and sustain the community’s identity as progressive, modern Ghanaians. By outlining the contours of one community’s Afropolitan projects, my research offers an urgent contribution to understanding contemporary African and black identities. The dissertation argues that within the intentionally curated community of Ghanaians in Houston, members engage Christianity, sexual and racial politics, and class respectability to claim their place in the United States and to a culturally complex and cosmopolitan Ghanaian/African identity. These practices of belonging are produced through community members’ experiences as Christians, postcolonial Africans, and American residents and citizens. My analysis reveals how this particular Afropolitan project complicates possibilities for the community to find solidarity with working class and queer black/African people and instead aligns itself with heterosexual respectability and middle-class progress. By examining this black/African community formation through a theoretical lens that complicates flattened conceptualizations of community, this project proposes new ways of building solidarities across difference within the black diaspora.Item Analyzing the motivations of U.S. development aid to Africa(2013-05) Akram Malik, Izzah; Weaver, Catherine, 1971-Research literature on foreign assistance suggests that the U.S. provides aid in order to serve both its own strategic interests as well as the development needs of aid recipient countries. Maintaining a focus on Africa, this report uses newly available data for official development assistance and attempts to verify whether prevailing hypotheses regarding the motivations behind U.S. aid giving still hold true. Specifically, the report analyzes whether aid giving patterns align with 1) the development needs of recipient countries as understood through the lens of internationally established priorities, or 2) with good political and economic policies within recipient countries vis-à-vis democratic institutions and open markets, or 3) with U.S. national strategic interests (be they political, military, or economic interests). A statistical analysis of U.S. Official Development Assistance (ODA) to 53 countries in Africa over the period of 1970 to 2010 was carried out for this purpose. The results suggest that, when it comes to aid that is specifically addressed towards development projects in Africa, the strategic considerations and political priorities of the U.S. are just as important, if not more important, than the development needs or economic performance of recipient countries. Political allies and countries that democratize receive more aid from the U.S., ceteris paribus. In addition, it was found that more aid is given to countries with larger populations - a result that contradicts earlier literature on aid's motivations. The report is organized as follows. I begin in Section 1 by providing a general overview of U.S. foreign aid. In Section 2, I detail why Africa is a significant continent for such an analysis of U.S. aid, and outline some of the trends in aid to Africa. The third section summarizes some of the most important existing hypotheses about why the U.S. gives development aid. Section 4 describes the data and methodology used for this study and provides a discussion of the results obtained from the statistical analysis. Finally, in Section 6, I conclude by offering broader policy implications and sketching out avenues for future research.Item Anxieties, Fear, and Panic in Colonial Settings: Empires on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown edited by Harald Fischer-Tiné (2016)(2019-09-16) Marzouk Chouchene, AminaItem The Art & Art History Collection (AAHC)(2017) Bourget, Stephen; Jones, Kimberly; Runggaldier, Astrid; Doroba, Mark (photographer)The Art and Art History Collection (AAHC) consists of ancient artifacts, historic objects, and ethnographic materials from the Americas and Africa. The bulk of the collection was formed in 2004, consisting of cultural collections transferred from the Texas Memorial Museum (TMM), currently part of the Texas Natural Science Center (TNSC). The initial transfers from the TMM included largely pre-Columbian and ethnographic collections pertaining to Central and South America. Subsequent acquisitions expanded the scope to include objects from Central Africa and the North American Southwest. The transfers continued through 2008, bringing the current department holdings to nearly four thousand artifacts. The Art and Art History department acquisitions were supplemented in 2005 by a generous donation of sixty-five objects from Duncan and Elizabeth Boeckman of Dallas, Texas. The Boeckman collection represents cultures from Central and South America, predominantly ceramic figurines from Nayarit, Jalisco, and Colima cultures of West Mexico. The artifacts complement well the pre-Columbian acquisitions and further enrich the strong Americas focus of the department collection. The most substantial holdings of the AAHC are the ancient ceramic, stone, and textile artifacts created by various pre-Columbian societies. From South America, the collection includes numerous ritual ceramics and exceptionally fine textiles, pertaining to the Nasca, Moche, Chimú, Lambayeque (Sicán), and Chancay cultures. From Central America, the AAHC boasts a rich variety of ceramic vessels, modeled figurines, bone and stone sculptures created by the Olmec, Maya, Aztec, Colima, Nayarit, Zapotec, and Veracruz cultural traditions. The holdings further comprise tripod vessels and bowls from Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, Columbia, Bolivia, and Ecuador. In addition to the pre-Columbian objects, the AAHC has a distinguished group of over 700 historic and ethnographic textiles from Mexico, Guatemala, and the U.S. Southwest. These include numerous colorful huipiles (womens’ shirts) from Guatemala and mantas (shawls) from Zinacantan, Oaxaca, and the Huichol regions, collected largely from the 1960s through 1970s. The collection also hosts over sixty Navajo and Hopi textiles that date from the 19th to early 20th centuries. There are a limited number of African artifacts within the department collection. The objects largely derive from West Africa, such as a divination tray from the Yoruba. There are also wooden sculptures and masks from the Dogon, the Senufo and Mali regions. Representing over two thousand years of ritual and artistic practices, the collection supports a broad range Representing over two thousand years of ritual and artistic practices, the collection supports a broad range of academic interests for individual research and course instruction. Highly select and representative examples of the collection are on permanent display in the Fine Arts Library, including pre-Columbian ceramics, stone sculptures, and textiles, as well as the African wooden sculptures. Portions of the collection have further been exhibited in the Mexic-Arte Museum, the Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, the UT Visual Arts Center, and the College of Fine Arts Deans office. Finally, the collection is being digitally catalogued for greater accessibility. Through exhibition, teaching and research, the AAHC thus serves as a substantial resource for university students and the greater scholarly community.Item The beads of Bosutswe, Botswana(2010-05) DuBroc, Beau Richard; Denbow, James R. (James Raymond), 1946-; Rodriguez-Alegria, Enrique R.The hilltop archaeological site, Bosutswe in Botswana had a nearly a thousand years of continuous occupation. Nearly every single strata in both precincts produced shell beads of various materials and origin. By using travelogue sources as well as more recent enthnographical sources, I focus on the possible uses and importance of beads to the people of Bosutswe and the wider southern African region. Using the excavated beads as evidence, I show how certain varieties of beads made their way to the site by way of trade routes with distant riverine areas. Also, I compare my findings with arguments claiming that different groups preferred different sizes beads; therefore, one can determine a site’s ethnic makeup by this measurement alone.Item A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul (1979)(2011-11-14) Parrott, JosephItem Between Traditions: A Nigerian Writer’s Funeral(2016-04-25) Agbo, ChukwuemekaItem #BringBackOurGirls: A History of Humanitarian Intervention in Nigeria(2014-05-16) McNeil, BrianItem Charleston Shooting Exposes America’s Pro-Apartheid Cold War Past(2015-07-08) Parrott, R. JosephItem Child labor in southern Nigeria : 1880s to 1955(2012-08) Paddock, Adam; Falola, ToyinThe dissertation evaluates changes in child labor practices in the Southern Provinces of Nigeria during the colonial period from the 1880s to the 1950s. The argument concludes that child labor was part of a socializing, educational, and survival strategy prior to colonial conquest. British policies influenced by civilizing mission ideology and indirect rule fundamentally altered the relationship between children and their families. Child labor in Nigeria's cultural context was neither completely exploitative nor beneficial, but had the capacity to affect children in both ways depending on specific circumstances. Child labor initially existed in the context of the kinship group, but during the first half of the twentieth century child labor increasingly became an independent strategy outside the confines of the kinship environment, which was a direct result of social and economic change. The research underscores the central position of child labor in the Nigerian economy and the British colonial agenda. Towards the end of colonial rule, child labor issues composed part of the anti-colonial movement as it assisted discontent elites to gain support beyond coastal cities.Item Complicated Inclusion: Exploring the Reception of Nigerian Immigrants in the United States(2022-09-28) Ndubuizu, ChristopherItem Continuing Uncertainties: Forced Marriage as a Crime Against Humanity(The Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice, 2011-03) Del Vecchio, JenniferOn 22 February 2008, the Appeals Chamber of the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) delivered its judgment in the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) case. This decision stands out as unique for setting significant precedent in the development of gender-based crimes in international criminal law by holding forced marriage to be a crime against humanity under the “other inhumane acts” category contained in Article 2(i) of the Statute of the Special Court for Sierra Leone. Although this recognition of forced marriage signifies the SCSL’s commitment to actively prosecute gender-based crimes, and may further set persuasive precedent for other international adjudicative bodies, there remain certain elements of this crime that, despite the Appeals Chamber’s decision, are unsettled and unclear. The purpose of this paper is to raise, explore, and assess these pressing questions. In the first part of the paper, the author raises three questions concerning the technical elements of the crime of forced marriage. Namely, the author asks: whether forced marriage violates the principle, nullem crimen sine lege; whether forced marriage is an adequately specific and distinct crime to be prosecuted separately from previously enumerated crimes; and finally, whether the definition of forced marriage requires a nexus to armed conflict. The second part of the paper raises questions relating to the implications of defining this crime using the label, marriage. Specifically, the author asks whether this label invokes existing connotations in relation to culture, gender, sexual orientation, and age, and whether these connotations may affect the application of this crime to new contexts. The author concludes that, without addressing these continuing uncertainties in the definition of forced marriage, the force of the precedent provided by the AFRC case is potentially insufficient to prosecute future instances of forced marriages in contexts outside of Sierra Leone, thereby failing to provide justice for all victims of forced marriage worldwide.Item Cross-Cultural Exchange in the Atlantic World; Angola and Brazil during the Era of the Slave Trade by Roquinaldo Ferreira (2012)(2019-03-25) Cañizares-Esguerra, JorgeItem The Cross-Cultural Exchange of Atlantic Slavery(2014-02-16) Rubino, SamanthaItem Decolonizing the International Criminal Court: Considering Questions of Bias in the Prosecution of African Leaders(The Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice, 2018) Getabicha, MihretAlthough the establishment of the International Criminal Court remains a historic achievement in the field of international criminal law, the court is increasingly subject to criticism by some African leaders and due to the prosecution of African leaders. Understanding the reason for these critiques requires an appreciation of the innovations in international law that led to the court’s eventual establishment. This paper provides a brief legal history of international criminal law and uses case studies of two African situations in order to better understand contemporary debates around the prosecution of African Heads of State by international courts. As such, the paper offers useful background information for actors that may be unfamiliar with the trajectory of international criminal law and how historical developments continue to impact the perceived legitimacy of international criminal law in Africa.Item Domesticating Human Rights on African Soil: Theorizing from Practice(The Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice, 2019) Asare, Abena AmpofoaIn the 70th anniversary year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), this paper proposes an alternative perspective on the progress of the international human rights regime inaugurated in 1948. Focusing on the multiple ways that international human rights discourse is deployed in diverse African locales throughout the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, this paper launches the concept of domestication as a way to apprehend the variety of human rights practice. In so doing, this paper challenges definitions of human rights progress that focus on expanding global consensus, and instead theorizes a future for human rights discourse that is rooted in difference, particularly the divergent strategies and ideologies of diverse local stakeholders.Item Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood by Alexandra Fuller (2003)(2010-11-16) Groves, Ryan