Colin Darch | University of Cape Town (original) (raw)

Books by Colin Darch

In 2005, a group of scholars and activists, mostly from the global South, created the Copy/South ... more In 2005, a group of scholars and activists, mostly from the global South, created the Copy/South Research Group to analyse, criticise, and confront the oppressive nature of current global copyright regimes, such as those defended by the World Intellectual Property Organisation, and similar ones around the globe. In May 2006, 22 of us, including 15 people from the global South, published THE COPY/SOUTH DOSSIER: Issues in the economics, politics, and ideology of copyright in the global South. The aim of the Dossier was to open ...

Co-authored with Peter G. Underwood. The link is to an HTML version of the chapter of African cas... more Co-authored with Peter G. Underwood. The link is to an HTML version of the chapter of African case studies.

Co-edited with Alan Story and Deborah Halbert.

Papers by Colin Darch

Pesquisando a História da Luta Armada em Moçambique: o contexto dos desafios atuais da comunicaçã... more Pesquisando a História da Luta Armada em Moçambique: o contexto dos desafios atuais da comunicação científica Researching the history of the armed fight in Mozambique: the context of the current challenges of scientific communication. Colin Darch * Resumo: O artigo intitulado "pesquisando a história da luta armada em Moçambique: o contexto dos desafios atuais da comunicação científica" apresenta um debate atualizado da produção historiográfica de um dos campos de estudos da história de Moçambique, "o movimento de libertação nacional". Também apresenta uma análise do processo da circulação daquela produção, considerando seus problemas e desafios, bem como analisa a importância das memórias como fonte de pesquisa histórica. Em Moçambique, nos últimos anos tem sido recorrente a publicação de memórias através das quais, ex-combatentes relatam suas próprias experiências, vivências e sua contribuição enquanto sujeito co-construtor daquele período histórico.

The Journal of Academic Librarianship, May 1, 2012

For a librarian to become mired in a non-or even anti-intellectual environment with no avenues fo... more For a librarian to become mired in a non-or even anti-intellectual environment with no avenues for learning is a crime. The worst of all crimes is for the librarian himself [sic] to have lost interest, or hope, in working out of the mire. 1

African Yearbook of Rhetoric, 2011

Eduardo Chivambo Mondlane (1920-1969) was one of the first black Mozambicans to earn a university... more Eduardo Chivambo Mondlane (1920-1969) was one of the first black Mozambicans to earn a university degree, as well as the first president of FRELIMO from 1962 until his assassination by the Portuguese. The text printed here is an early statement condemning the Portuguese colonial system that he made in April 1962 - as a private citizen - to a United Nations special committee, two months before FRELIMO was founded in Dar es Salaam and over two years before the armed struggle against the Portuguese began in September 1964.

Economy and Society, Nov 1, 1985

ABSTRACT: A review essay on Michael Malet's Nestor Makhno in the Russian Civil War (Lond... more ABSTRACT: A review essay on Michael Malet's Nestor Makhno in the Russian Civil War (London: Macmillan/London School of Economics & Political Science, 1982); & Alexandre Skirda's Nestor Makhno, le cosaque de l'anarchie: la lutte pour les soviets libres en Ukraine 1917-...

South African Journal of Libraries and Information Science, Mar 17, 2013

Looks at the South African Department of Education's new recommendations for the evaluation of hi... more Looks at the South African Department of Education's new recommendations for the evaluation of higher education research in South Africa, and examines two primary aspects: the use of pre-compiled journal lists from overseas, and the apparent reliance on peer review as a guarantee of quality. Pointing out that these are tried and tested standards of quality, the authors argue that there are nonetheless disciplinary differences between experimental sciences-such as physics or chemistry-and other disciplines that make these measures difficult to apply across the spectrum. They present an analysis of library and information science publications in the chosen lists and point to the weakness of the selection of titles in this discipline. In addition, there are extra difficulties for scientists from South Africa and the developing world in securing publication in premier international library and information science journals. The authors conclude by calling for the employment of other, additional evaluation measures in an integrated system.

The purpose of this pap,er is to outline in a critical but constructive manner what we feel to be... more The purpose of this pap,er is to outline in a critical but constructive manner what we feel to be amiss in the coordination of information services in Tanzania today. It would be wise to emphasize at the outset that while the tone of much of what follows may seem to be unduly negative, we are well aware, as professionals in the field, of the constraints that restrict the range of possible courses of action for our policy-makers financial, political, economic and social limitations cannot be sidestepped. Nevertheless, there are real alternatives available, and we must, choose between cooperation and competition, between openness and secrecy, and between friendship and rivalry. There is no doubt that the choice must be made, nor, we hope, can there be any doubt as to which choice must be made, But to say this, is not intended in any way as a denigration of the substantial and impressive achievements of the libraries and information systems of Tanzania since independence, nor of the st...

Journal of Southern African Studies, 2021

Over the last 25 years, memoirs and testimonies have appeared in Mozambique recounting the life s... more Over the last 25 years, memoirs and testimonies have appeared in Mozambique recounting the life stories of participants in the armed struggle for national independence led by FRELIMO (1964–1974). Most of the protagonists have remained loyal to FRELIMO and many have had political careers after independence. Their memoirs have been published in the course of reinforcing the Frelimo party’s political dominance in the early 21st century. Although some scholars are dismissive of the usefulness of this corpus as historical source material, the article argues that close reading provides an understanding of the often messy, contradictory experience that participants in the struggle lived through, and the outcome of which was far from predictable. Starting with a discussion of developments in the study of ‘life writing’ within the cultural studies discipline and pointing to examples of analogous bodies of work in Kenya and the Soviet Union, the article presents an informed analysis of the struggle against the Portuguese colonial armed forces in one crucial theatre of conflict, Cabo Delgado province. Our reading brings out the details of liberation warfare, including internal struggles over strategy and tactics, as well as lessons learned from overcoming military and political obstacles and setbacks. We conclude that the memoirs contribute materially to Mozambican historiography by allowing us to look behind a linear or triumphalist vision of liberation history, by confirming outlines suggested in earlier work based mainly on colonial military sources, and by illuminating more precisely than hitherto possible the relevance of particular roles and individuals.

Queen Mary Journal of Intellectual Property, 2020

We build on the well-established critique, primarily in the US literature, of the following assum... more We build on the well-established critique, primarily in the US literature, of the following assumptions: (1) copyright protections serve to incentivise creativity; (2) copyright is designed with such incentivisation as its primary purpose; and (3) a standardized set of copyright protections should ideally be applicable to all forms of cultural production, across all situations in all countries. These assumptions lead to two fundamental conceptual flaws in much current copyright policy discourse: (1) it conflates concepts such as incentive, reward, and recognition; (2) it is nomothetic in character insofar as the existing structural and procedural diversity of the different cultural industries that it governs is inadequately acknowledged. Our critique in this article is not, therefore, a general one, but is limited to a specific theory of copyright, which pretends that copyright is an incentive to creativity while the evidence indicates that it is not. We highlight the importance of ...

Journal of Southern African Studies, 2017

The speech by Samora Machel (1933-1986) printed here in translation was made to a large crowd in ... more The speech by Samora Machel (1933-1986) printed here in translation was made to a large crowd in a football stadium in Beira on 14 June 1975, a few days before Mozambican independence. The country's second city, Beira had a history as a centre of reaction in the later colonial period and in the war against FRELIMO.

The SAGE Handbook of Intellectual Property, 2015

Coulson's book is a major contribution to the already extensive literature on Tanzania, and s... more Coulson's book is a major contribution to the already extensive literature on Tanzania, and should be welcomed as such. It is an important work of synthesis, and makes available in a single volume a coherently argued radical view of the political economy of modern Tanzania, which will serve as a counterbalance to such accounts as Pratt's.' As a possible text-book for use in university classes its many virtues include an extensive 21-page bibliography, 56 statistical tables by my count, and five maps. The work is clearly written and is organized on an essentially chronological schema in twenty-six shortish chapters with five sub-chapters (misleadingly called "appendices") inserted at appropriate points. Andrew Coulson writes of his work that "for those who know little about the country, it will serve as an introduction, combining a historical outline, statistical information, and advice on where to read more" (p. 5). For such readers, certainly, the bo...

Presença intelectual africana: Cheikh Anta Diop

Co-edited with Alan Story and Deborah Halbert.

The Journal of Academic Librarianship, May 1, 2012

African Yearbook of Rhetoric, 2011

Economy and Society, Nov 1, 1985

South African Journal of Libraries and Information Science, Mar 17, 2013

Journal of Southern African Studies, 2021

Queen Mary Journal of Intellectual Property, 2020

Journal of Southern African Studies, 2017

The SAGE Handbook of Intellectual Property, 2015

Presença intelectual africana: Cheikh Anta Diop

African Research & Documentation

The Africa Bibliographic Centre Secretariat, or ABCS, is based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. (it ha... more The Africa Bibliographic Centre Secretariat, or ABCS, is based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. (it has no connection with the African Bibliographic Centre in Washington D.C., which is run by Daniel Matthews primarily as an information centre for American users.) The function of the ABCS is, for the time being, limited to propagandising the “ABC concept” through the medium of the ABC Newsletter, which is currently distributed gratis to a wide range of institutions and individuals within Africa and to a much smaller number outside. Although some previous news items in the professional literature have discussed the ABC's function and role, the following statement may be taken as reflecting the current situation.

ISTORIYA, 2020

The article presents an analysis of the trajectory of “domestic” African studies in the Soviet Un... more The article presents an analysis of the trajectory of “domestic” African studies in the Soviet Union and the post-Soviet Russian Federation, posing the fundamental question of the extent to which Soviet afrikanistika was in fact a manifestation of a disinterested political solidarity with the struggles of oppressed African peoples, and can be absolved of pursuing economic interests and even of harbouring colonial ambitions. The article analyses a proposed periodisation of afrikanistika and show how fluctuations in the fortunes of the discipline were largely determined by external factors, such as political repression or liberalization, the extent to which foreign policy was oriented towards the global south, the Cold War, and so on. Although the Soviet Union's Africa policy was generally on the right side of history, the utilitarianism that had underpinned it has not functioned to build a solid and numerous cadre of Africa specialists. And with the growth of Russian interest in relations with African countries since President Putin's speech at Sochi in 2008, the discipline is facing twin challenges: how to engage fully with the epistemological self-examination that is current in the postcolonial situation in both former metropoles and former colonies; and how to support a new generation of academic Africa specialists to meet what seems likely to be a sharply increased demand for their analyses. В статье являющейся анализом траектории «домашних» африканских исследований в Советском Союзе и на постсоветском пространстве Российской Федерации, поставлен фундаментальный вопрос о том, в какой степени советская африканстика фактически была проявлением немеркантильной политической солидарности с борьбой угнетенных африканских народов, и насколько она может быть свободна от преследования экономических интересов и даже скрытых колониальных амбиций. В статье анализируется предлагаемая периодизация африканистики и показано, как колебания в судьбе дисциплины в значительной степени определялись внешними факторами, такими как политические репрессии или либерализация, степень, с которой внешняя политика была ориентирована на глобальный юг, холодная война и так далее. Хотя политика Советского Союза в отношении Африки в целом находилась на правильной стороне истории, утилитаризм, на котором она основывалась, не способствовал появлению солидного и многочисленного корпуса специалистов по Африке. С ростом интереса России к отношениям с африканскими странами после речи президента Путина в Сочи в 2008 г., дисциплина сталкивается с двойными проблемами: как полностью заняться эпистемологическим самоанализом, который актуален в постколониальной ситуации как в бывших метрополиях, так и в бывших колониях; и как поддержать новое поколение академических специалистов по Африке, чтобы удовлетворить, как представляется, резко возросший спрос на их анализ.

University of Dar es Salaam Library Journal, 2010

Darclc 'lnformatiotr and ktrou,ledge are the themronuclear competiti','e weaporìs of ottr titne. ... more Darclc 'lnformatiotr and ktrou,ledge are the themronuclear competiti','e weaporìs of ottr titne. Kuou'ledge is more valuable and more powerful than naflrral resorÌÌ'ces, big factories, or fat bankrolls. In industry after indushy, success conles to the con-rpanies that have the best information or w,ield it rnost effectivelyl-ìot necessarily the companies u'ith the most muscre.'r ABSTRACT In this articie i argue that the ciassical growth model for academic libraries has been shorvn, by and large, not to be sustainable in less developed and inclebted cotintries, especially in AÍiica, and may be reaching the end of its useful life even in advanced industrial societies. Libraries in Africa have been shorvn to be hard to sustain, not in tire hbrary literature, which presents by-and-large 'a fairly rosy and encoulaging picfure of the state of libraries,' and not theoretically,buï cmpìricully in the reality of empfy shelves and rvom-out book stock in iiniversitv libraries across the continent.a I Sotlrc sections of this article first appcared in a papcr givcn to a confcrence on 'Thc Electronic Library as a Gateway to Inforntation: Resource Sharìng and Uscr Services in the Elcctronic Library,' Lund Univcrsity, Srveden, 2 to 6 Junc 1998. Í am grate Íìl to Al Kagan for cornrnenting on an itrtertrrcdiate clraft. For the original and morc pcssimistìc text, see Colin Darch,'The shrinking ptrblic dorrain and the unsustainable library,'available at http://wivrv. Iub.lu.se/siou papersidarch.htnrl Iaccessed 4 January 2001]. A slide presentation ofrhe sanre material is at http://wu'u'. lub.lu.se/sida/Lund prescntation/sld00l.htm, [accessed l9 January 200 l].

South African Journal on Human Rights, 2019

Review of African Political Economy, 2014

Review of African Political Economy, 2011

Annual Social Science Conference of East African …, Jan 1, 1976

This text does not attempt to discuss the role of the student movement in the period after 1974. ... more This text does not attempt to discuss the role of the student movement in the period after 1974. Rather, it tries to provide an historical framework for a discussion of the impact of student militancy and the reasons for its survival, vigour and relative sophistication in the period from 1960 until the overthrow of the monarchy by the Dergue in 1974.

Antes de mais nada, gostaria de exprimir a minha gratidão ao Centro de Pesquisa da História da Lu... more Antes de mais nada, gostaria de exprimir a minha gratidão ao Centro de Pesquisa da História da Luta de Libertação Nacional por me ter convidado a participar neste seminário na frente de uma assistência tão distinto. Sinto-me profundamente honrado pelo convite, e espero que estas poucas observações modestas -que representam naturalmente minhas opiniões pessoais -sejam úteis para aqueles que estão atualmente empenhados na tarefa de pesquisar, escrever e divulgar a história da luta de libertação, luta a qual tantos dedicaram suas energias, e na qual tantos sofreram e morreram.

Palestra apresentada no Seminário Internacional 'Herança Intelectual Africana: Outra Dimensão His... more Palestra apresentada no Seminário Internacional 'Herança Intelectual Africana: Outra Dimensão Histórico-Cultural', UNEB, Salvador, Brasil, 3 de dezembro de 2015

A opinião sobre os dezasseis anos devastadores de conflito armado em Moçambique e o quarto de séc... more A opinião sobre os dezasseis anos devastadores de conflito armado em Moçambique e o quarto de século de paz que se lhe seguiu, tem mudado substancialmente ao longo do tempo. A guerra entre o Governo da Frelimo e o grupo rebelde RENAMO começou em 1976, pouco depois da independência, e terminou em 1992, com a assinatura do Acordo Geral de Paz (AGP). Em meados dos anos 90, Moçambique era generalizadamente visto como um exemplo bem-sucedido de estabilização económica e social numa sociedade pós-conflito. Mas na segunda década do século vinte e um, a história de sucesso de Moçambique começou a esboroar-se, quando um conflito armado de baixa intensidade entre seguidores do principal partido de oposição, a RENAMO, e as forças do governo se reacendeu em 2013, e a revelação das chamadas “dívidas secretas”, afectaram as relações com a comunidade doadora internacional, resultando num grave golpe para a economia do país. O artigo de Colin Darch na Série Paz e Segurança trata as raízes estruturais da actual situação e identifica factores chave da história de Moçambique pós-independência que contribuíram para a actual crise política e económica. O autor afirma que a paz em Moçambique, mais do que falhar no sentido dramático de um colapso súbito desde a assinatura do AGP, parece antes ter-se tornado insustentável no quadro do sistema político administrativo centralizado vigente e em circunstâncias económicas radicalmente diferentes. Revisitando as características estruturais do conflito – como o reenquadramento ideológico e os pontos brancos do Acordo de Paz que prestavam mais atenção à estabilidade instantânea e menos à reconciliação e democratização do estado – Darch demonstra que as condições necessárias para uma possível parlamentarização do conflito são, ainda agora, difíceis de alcançar. Mas o aumento das pressões internas, tal como as recentes mudanças na região da África Austral, poderá alterar a economia política da razão e abrir janelas para uma ulterior consolidação da paz no país.

in: Flãvio Gonçalves dos Santos e Jacques Depelshin (org.), Presença intelectual africana: Cheikh Anta Diop (Ilhéus; Editus, 2019)

Igual-Desigual, 2020

N uma palestra para marcar o «Dia Internacional Nelson Mandela», pronunciada em julho de 2020, no... more N uma palestra para marcar o «Dia Internacional Nelson Mandela», pronunciada em julho de 2020, no meio da atual pandemia de Covid-19 e da crise econômica global que o acompanha, o Secretário-Geral das Nações Unidas, Antônio Guterres, falou com franqueza: a desigualdade, disse ele, é o tema que define a época atual. Guterres estava falando em termos gerais, mas a verdade é que, se a desigualdade define a nossa época, então, por sua vez, ela é definida como fenômeno provocado pelos tempos anteriores -e assim, tem raízes históricas mais marcadas na África do Sul do que em quase qualquer outro lugar do mundo. Os governos do apartheid do século passado, e de fato, os seus predecessores fizeram esforço conscientemente para estruturar uma sociedade em torno dos princípios da desigualdade concretizados pela lei e In: Igual-Desigual, org. João Felippe Cury M. Mathias e Luiz Fernando Saraiva (São Paulo: Hucitec Editora, 2020)

Lutas pela Memória em África, 2019

Nas semanas que antecederam a declaração da independência de Moçambique, em 25 de junho de 1975, ... more Nas semanas que antecederam a declaração da independência de Moçambique, em 25 de junho de 1975, os dirigentes da Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (Frelimo), já integrados, junto com representantes portugueses, no governo de transição, estavam ocupados no desenvolvimento de novas e radicais politicas publicas para todos os domínios da vida moçambicana. Entretanto, a tarefa fundamental era a de completar uma transferência total do poder militar e administrativo dos portugueses para o novo governo. Entre os elementos cruciais desse processo, estavam a indicação de militares veteranos para supervisionar a consolidação do controlo nas capitais provinciais, a transferência do comando dos quarteis e centros de coordenação militar portugueses e a organização de uma administração publica centralizada em todos os níveis do governo. Um mês antes do fim desse complexo processo, o presidente da Frelimo, Samora Machel, iniciou uma marcha de 30 dias partindo de Cabo Delgado, no norte do país, ate chegar a capital, Lourenço Marques, no sul. A “Viagem Triunfal”, ou “Marcha Triunfal”, como ficou conhecida mais tarde, teve lugar, dessa forma, no contexto dos processos políticos múltiplos e contestados que constituíram a transição para a independência e, mais particularmente, no contexto dos processos que objetivavam estabelecer o controlo politico e militar da Frelimo sobre o conjunto do pais inteiro.

Миролюбие и миротворчество в Африке: сборник статей, 2019

Despite the apparently competing ideological foundations of Western and Soviet African studies, t... more Despite the apparently competing ideological foundations of Western and Soviet African studies, the two traditions share certain important common features. Not least of these is a national Africanist creation narration with roots in an ahistorical account of the origins of area studies in general. The widely shared assumption is that because area studies as a set of cross-disciplinary specializations received a major stimulus in the late 1940s and early 1950s from the onset of the cold war, little significant work could have been done in the tradition before that period. Second, the corpus of Russian and Soviet research on Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa before l99l can be periodized and can also be meaningfully distinguished from Soviet African studies in general. This is both because it derives directly and legitimately from a preexisting and lengthy tradition of Oriental studies, and because of its sustained seriousness over time. Last, many Soviet publications on Africa were characterized by severe empirical weakness. They were usually more dependent on reworking evidence from published African or Western sources according to an ideologically determined program of generalization, than on original fieldwork. In addition, they were typified by the use of a common paradigm - a stereotyped form of Marxism - rather than by contending schools of thought characteristic of Western social science.

Colin Darch, Prefácio, in: Carlos Quembo, Poder no poder: Operação Produção e a invenção dos impr... more Colin Darch, Prefácio, in: Carlos Quembo, Poder no poder: Operação Produção e a invenção dos improdutivos urbanos no Moçambique socialista, 1983-1988 (Maputo: Alcance, 2017).