Analysis of Selected Contemporary African Drama in Building a Just and Safer Society (original) (raw)

Editorial Social Imaginaries Vol 2 No 1

Th is third issue further explores social imaginaries as a paradigm-in-themaking, with a certain emphasis on the historical, situated, and contextual nature of the imaginary that incorporates an intercultural perspective. Th e Durkheimian problématique of collective representations clearly plays a role in most understandings of social imaginaries, but the existing tensions, possibilities for signifi cant shifts in interpretation, and crucial role of confl ict is more duly emphasized within a social imaginaries framework than in many Durkheimian approaches. Social imaginaries not only institute horizons of cultural meaning that structure interpretations of the world, they always already incorporate modes of action and power. Th e imaginary dimension is articulated in societal institutions, as instituting society (to draw on Castoriadian terminology), not least in the fundamental, political sense of confi guring society, but equally informing specifi c components of historical constellations, such as the political, the economic, the ecological, and the cultural. Th e gap between an instituted reality and the imaginary makes societies always open to forms of critique and interpretative confl icts. Attention to specifi c cultural projects of power and varieties of social doing thus becomes important, as it sheds light on the specifi c 'translations' of imaginaries into more concrete institutional constellations of historical societies and civilizations.

First published in 1986 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road. London N6 5AA

Fanon is the purvey~.r of the transgressive and transitional iiiith, l{~ .ro~Y yearltfor the totaft:ransforrriation <>.f~:1li !fi~ ~Qciety' .. but he speaks most effectiv~ly fr:<?m the uncertain iQ!~rstices of historical change: ..from. _the Jn:~~ of ambivaT~ eJ},~_be.tweeni~@c¢'~nd .st!~uality; ou.t. of ~I.ll1I.l~~s~l~e(f~n t~,ac:!i.ction between ~~ltur~~and1~lass} f~!D ~~ep ~!~!ll_t!t~ s!~~~ 2fpsy~!!_ic representatio11 and social_rea.lity. T~:~.~!a.~~~-~St() exp~r.~~11c~ the sens~ pfc:liyi~i()(l !h!t prefigures .;:•and fissures-.the emergence of a truly_r!:).di~ thoQghl: that never dawns without casting an uncertain dark. }J;is voic~ is. inost clearly heard in the subversive turn of a familiar term, ip. the silence of a sudden mpture: 'The.Negr-0 is not. Any more than the white man~' The awkward division that breaks his line of thought keeps alive the dramatic and enigmatic sense of the process of change. That familiar al•gnment of c;olonial subjects-Blac._k/White, Self70ther-is disturbed with one brief pause al!4 the-traditional grounds of racial identity are dispersed, whenever they aie found to resi. in the narcissistic myths of Negritude or White cultural. s~premacy. It is this palpable pressure of division and displacement that pushes Fanon• s writing to the edge of things; the cutting edge that reveals no ultimate radiance but, in his words, 'exposes an utterly naked declivity where an authentic upheaval can he horn•. 'the psychiatric hospital at Blida-Joinville is~one such, ~l~<;ewhere, in the divided world of French Algeria, F.anon <U.,scovered the impossibility of his mission as a colonial p~y ciliiatrist: :..."'-" If psychiatry is the medical technique that aims to enable man no longer to be a stranger to his environment, I owe it to myself to affirm that the Arab, permanently an alien in his own country. lives in a state of absolute depersonalization. .. The social strudure existing in Algeria was hostile to any attempt to put the individual back where he belonged. I ~ad to meet the white man's eyes.. An u~familiar weight burdened me. In the white world the man of colour em:ounters xii I Foreword t:Umculti~s in the development ofhis bodily schema. .. bvas battered down by tom-toms, cannibalism, intelle<:tual deficip.cy, fetishism, ractal defects:-.. Hook myself far off from my own presence. . •. What else cauld it be for me but an amputation, an excision, a haemorrhage that spattered my whole body With black blood? FrQm within the metaphor of vision complicit with a Western ~e~ph~sic of Man>emerges the "~~~J~p:ment of !he coloma! relabou. Th~ BlAck presence rums ~~e repre-•$.entative narrative of Western personhood; its past tethered. to treacherous stereotypes of primitivism and degeneracy will.not produce a history of civil progress,""'aspace for the Socius; its present, dismembered and disloeated. wjJlnot contain the image of identity that is questioned in t!le dialectic of mind/body Jllld resolved in the epistemology qf \~PPe3:r~nce .and reality: .• The White man's eyes break up t~e Black man's body and in that act of epistemic violence its own frame of reference is transgressed, it.~ field of vision disturbed.

KIU Journal of Humanities Vol. 1 No. 1 June 2016

This issue of KIU Journal of Humanities touches on organizational development, development administration, diplomatic relations, clinical child psychology, philosophy and education, legal studies and literary analysis. In Organizational Development, Oluka analyzes the prepotency of needs and reward valence of employees in the Uganda’s Ministry of Local Governments. He advises the government to set up policies and guidelines to identify and meet the needs of employees; find ways of rewarding employees by enhancing their salaries, allowances and other motivational strategies. Looking at the effect of the Reward Management System (RMS) and Cost of Living (COL) on the Performance of academic staff in the selected private universities in Uganda, Emuron advises management of private universities to always adopt reward policies that are responsive to changes in their workers’ cost of living. Abubakar highlights some of the major challenges of managing newspaper organizations in Nigeria and concludes that Journalism training has to be reoriented to accommodate more training in economics, the arts and the economy in general. In the Second Part which is devoted to Development Administration, Assair and Oketch examine the relationship between youth empowerment and reduction of unemployment in Gardo, Puntland, Somalia. They suggest that the State should join hands with non-governmental organizations to put in place programs that target the youth. Wandiba also examines the level service delivery in the divisions of Kampala District, Uganda and recommends that leaders of divisions of Kampala district should close the gaps between the high to very high scores of service delivery by monitoring the teachers, local council workers, and health workers that provide the services and a two way research tool of those who get the services and those that provide the services to be used for representative responses. Sota, finally, examine the role of local authority leaders in traffic accident prevention in rural areas of Northeastern Thailand and suggests that it is very important to have capacity building for traffic accident prevention in local authority leaders in rural areas for increasing concern and good behavior for traffic accident prevention and create activities in the communities for decreasing number of traffic accident. In part three, Majok and Oketch report their findings on the effect of Security Threats on Diplomatic Relations between South Sudan and Sudan and recommend that sustainable security promotion between South Sudan and Sudan should be a comprehensive and coherent approach against security threats to diplomacy which should be implemented by both countries. Ikegbu also examines China’s development aid assistance to Africa and concludes that although China provides aid to Africa simply because China wants resources, China’s contribution towards the achievement of development in Africa is quite significant and cannot be undermined. In the Section on Clinical Child Psychology, Imbuki establishes that most of the children with Hearing Impairment came from Low social economic status Societies and that an Hearing Impaired child was at a higher risk of HIV infection due to poor communication skills, abuse from the hearing communities and little information about HIV. Based on these findings, he suggests that there is need to use a different language of communication for the children with Hearing Impairment about HIV. Nafiu and Okello also examine how maternal age at first birth, maternal age, previous birth interval, maternal education, maternal occupation, paternal occupation, latrine use and source of drinking water affect under-five mortality prevalence in Abim District, Uganda. They recommend that campaign against early marriage and teenage pregnancy be explicitly done, mothers be encouraged to exclusively breastfeed for at least 2 years, mothers be sensitized about the advantages of family planning, personal hygiene and good sanitation be continuously practiced if under-five mortality in the Abim District is to be controlled. Under Philosophy and Education, Adeleye examines naturalism and its tenets on education. He discusses positions of prominent the exponents of this school of thought in order to bring out its implications for education. Ogunlade and Ariko establish that there is no significant relationship between age difference and management of students’ discipline and that students’ average level of perception are significantly different from teachers’ perception on the use of ICT in relation to the management of students’ discipline. They, therefore, recommend that tutors should combine their knowledge of education and training with their experience as parents in applying rules and regulations towards management of discipline among students. Sapele and Ekereke finally discuss the contributions of education to politics as medium for grass root participation. They conclude that for effective participation in politics especially the grass root, education has to be given its rightful place as proper funding from federal, state and local governments should be made a priority to make the sector produce the desired results which will stimulate political participation. In Legal Studies, Sanni explores the meaning of the right to health and emphasizes its relationship with medical liability which lead to cause of action in negligence or criminal liability. Looking at the issue of court’s jurisdiction as a threshold issue, Ariyoosu recommends transferring cases to the appropriate court rather than striking out for want of jurisdiction for the proper and effective administration of justice. Relying on observation derived from documentary sources such as case laws, charters, treatise, journals, books and field observation, Tarabinah establishes that the Alien Torts Claims Act provides compensatory and punitive awards for damages against violations of international law and that a non U.S. resident can successful assert a claim against a tort feasor under the Alien Torts Claims Act in a U.S. Court. He suggests that foreign government of the home state of transnational corporations should ensure that people whose fundamental human rights are violated by the operations of oil transnational corporations domiciled in their territory should have unhindered access to effective remedy through the legal system. Ariyoosu and Ayinla also discusse the imperative of the relevance of Mini-Trial and other ADR processes that are yet to be explored in Nigeria but which arefunctional, in viewof the yawningtowards ensuring a practical application of ADR in the Nigerian telecommunications industry. Through Literary Analysis, Udi explores how Africans struggled against the colonization in Kenya and how the people of Niger Delta in Nigeria currently respond to economic and political woes of the colonialism imported into the Postcolonial era. Oboli also examines the attempts of African novelists to explicate the effect of the absence of mothers in a family and especially in the lives of children. Finally, Alonge and Akinyede reveal that explicit phonics instructional strategy has an effect on pupil’s literacy skills. They therefore, recommend that effective use of explicit phonics instructional strategy should be adopted in teaching and learning of literacy skills. On the whole, articles in this maiden edition of KIU Journal of Humanities are both strongly theoretical and applied. They provide solutions to some of the problems confronting communities, societies, economies, and the environment. The authors’ teachings and areas of research must certainly influence their perspectives on the diagnoses of the matters they have addressed. The methodologies used in the articles are useful to academics and policy makers.

Sociabilité(s) en Afrique: sociologie de lieux et histoire de sociétés

Pdf, 2011

The Africa Review of Books presents a biannual review of works on Africa in the social sciences, humanities and creative arts. It is also intended to serve as a forum for critical analyses, reflections and debates about Africa. As such, the Review solicits book reviews, reviews of articles and essays that are in line with the above objectives. Contributions that traverse disciplinary boundaries and encourage interdisciplinary dialogue and debate are particularly welcome.