A collection of writing on the historical alliances, cultural connections, and shared political strategies linking African Americans and Asian Americans.

Rethinking Ownership of Development in Africa demonstrates how instead of empowering the communities they work with, the jargon of development ownership often actually serves to perpetuate the centrality of multilateral organizations and international donors in African development, awarding a fairly minimal role to local partners. In the context of today’s development scheme for Africa, ownership is often considered to be the panacea for all of the aid-dependent continent’s development woes. Reinforced through the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)’s Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the Accra Agenda for Action, ownership is now the preeminent procedure for achieving aid effectiveness and a range of development outcomes. Throughout this book, the author illustrates how the ownership paradigm dictates who can produce development knowledge and who is responsible for carrying it out, with a specific focus on the health sectors in Burkina Faso and Kenya. Under this paradigm, despite the ownership narrative, national stakeholders in both countries are not producers of development knowledge; they are merely responsible for its implementation. This book challenges the preponderance of conventional international development policies that call for more ownership from African stakeholders without questioning the implications of donor demands and historical legacies of colonialism in Africa. Ultimately, the findings from this book make an important contribution to critical development debates that question international development as an enterprise capable of empowering developing nations. This lively and engaging book challenges readers to think differently about the ownership, and as such will be of interest to researchers of development studies and African studies, as well as for development practitioners within Africa.

The Routledge Handbook of Africa–Asia Relations is the first handbook aimed at studying the interactions between countries across Africa and Asia in a multi-disciplinary and comprehensive way. Providing a balanced discussion of historical and on-going processes which have both shaped and changed intercontinental relations over time, contributors take a thematic approach to examine the ways in which we can conceptualise these two very different, yet inextricably linked areas of the world. Using comparative examples throughout, the chronological sections cover: • Early colonialist contacts between Africa and Asia; • Modern Asia–Africa interactions through diplomacy, political networks and societal connections; • Africa–Asia contemporary relations, including increasing economic, security and environmental cooperation. This handbook grapples with major intellectual questions, defines current research, and projects future agendas of investigation in the field. As such, it will be of great interest to students of African and Asian Politics, as well as researchers and policymakers interested in Asian and African Studies.

How might we understand yellowface performances by African Americans in 1930s swing adaptations of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado, Paul Robeson's support of Asian and Asian American struggles, or the absorption of hip hop by Asian American youth culture?AfroAsian Encounters is the first anthology to look at the mutual influence of and relationships between members of the African and Asian diasporas in the Americas. While these two groups have often been thought of as occupying incommensurate, if not opposing, cultural and political positions, scholars from history, literature, media, and the visual arts here trace their interconnections and interactions, as well as how they have been set in opposition by white systems of racial domination. AfroAsian Encounters probes beyond popular culture to trace the historical lineage of these coalitions from the post-Civil War era through the present.From the history of Japanese jazz composers to the current popularity of black/Asian "buddy films" like Rush Hour, AfroAsian Encounters is a groundbreaking intervention into studies of race and ethnicity and a crucial look at the shifting meaning of race in America in the twenty-first century.

The 21st century has seen an increase in the presence and influence of Asian governments, firms and other stake-holders in Africa. With the changing times, changes in approaches to Africa by four major Asian countries (China, India, Japan and South Korea) have taken place. By tracing the history between these Asian countries and African countries, this collection reflects on the “new” phases of Asian Approaches to Africa. Composed by authors who are not only experienced expert scholars of African Studies, but also prominent specialists on African policies of Asian countries, this collection focuses on the official development assistance (ODA) as well as other crucial issues and actors such as business, civil society, and media to explore the new Asian approaches to Africa in a comprehensive manner. Organised into three sections, this collection explores the experiences of the “forums” (conferences, or summits) for Africa’s development hosted by four major Asian countries, reflects on Asian cultural influence in Africa, and highlights new phases of Asian approaches to Africa. This book looks to the future collaboration of Asian actors/ partners working in/ with Africa, rather than exaggerating rivalries and disputes in order to grasp the potentialities and challenges in the relationship between the two regions; an emerging and ongoing agenda that we will encounter further in the coming years. This book will be of interest to students, researchers and professors in universities, as well as research institutes on Asian and African Studies. It will also be of value to journalists, and government officials; particularly diplomats.

Who Is the Asianist? reconsiders the past, present, and future of Asian Studies through the lens of positionality, questions of authority, and an analysis of race with an emphasis on Blackness in Asia. From self-reflective essays on being a Black Asianist to the Black Lives Matter movement in Papua New Guinea, Japan, and Viet Nam, scholars grapple with the global significance of race and local articulations of difference. Other contributors call for a racial analysis of the figure of the Muslim as well as a greater transregional comparison of slavery and intra-Asian dynamics that can be better understood, for instance, from a Black feminist perspective or through the work of James Baldwin. As a whole, this diversified set of essays insists that the possibilities of change within Asian Studies occurs when, and only when, it reckons with the entirety of the scholars, geographies, and histories that it comprises.