This book examines how representations of African in the Anglophone West have changed in the post-imperial age. The period since the Second World War has seen profound changes in sub-Saharan Africa, notably because of decolonization, the creation of independent nation-states and the transformation of the relationships with the West. Using a range of case studies from news media, maps, popular culture, film and TV the contributions assess how narrative and counter-narratives have developed and been received by their audiences in light of these changes. Examining the overlapping areas between media representations and historical events, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of African Studies and Media and Cultural Studies.

An important feature of Ghanaian tertiary education is the foundational African Studies Programme which was initiated in the early 1960s. Unfortunately hardly any readers exist which bring together a body of knowledge on the themes, issues and debates which inform and animate research and teaching in African Studies particularly on the African continent. This becomes even more important when we consider the need for knowledge on Africa that is not Eurocentric or sensationalised, but driven from internal understandings of life and prospects in Africa. Dominant representations and perceptions of Africa usually depict a continent in crisis. Rather than buying into external representations of Africa, with its 'lacks' and aspirations for Western modernities, we insist that African scholars in particular should be in the forefront of promoting understanding of the pluri-lingual, overlapping, and dense reality of life and developments on the continent, to produce relevant and usable knowledge. Continuing and renewed interest in Africa's resources, including the land mass, economy, minerals, visual arts and performance cultures, as well as bio-medical knowledge and products, by old and new geopolitical players, obliges African scholars to transcend disciplinary boundaries and to work with each other to advance knowledge and uses of those resources in the interests of Africa's people.

This volume focuses on a longing projected mostly toward the past (mal d’Afrique) alongside a longing toward the future (afro-optimism), and the different manifestations, shifting meanings, and potential points of contact of these two stances. The volume introduces a new perspective into the discussion of Somalia in Italian Studies. This is an intersectional work of Italian Studies scholarship, whose contributors help re-imagine the field and its relationship to Somalia with their diverse backgrounds, unique insights, and global breadth. The book integrates the current scholarship on Somalia with the most recent theoretical studies on nostalgia, visionary affect, colonial ruins, silenced archives, melancholy, ecology, food and diaspora, classical studies and performativity, storytelling, afro-fabulation and queer literature, media and humanitarianism, and afro optimism. The book will serve as an invaluable reference in multidisciplinary programs such as Global History, Africana Studies, Diaspora Studies, Migration Studies, Peace and Conflict Studies, Integrity and Global Studies, as well as Italian Studies and various core courses. Because of its interdisciplinary discussion of Somalia, the volume will draw the interest of a large readership among scholars, and non-scholars, from different disciplines and geographic affiliation.

This text marks a little milestone in the understanding of the democratic peace theory in transitional states. It brings in a much needed perspective on the achievements and limitations of democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the role it plays or could play in the search for solutions to conflicts in the sub-region. The author provides a differentiated view of the traditional Western notions of democracy and its role in the search for political stability and nation-building. A series of fragile democratic developments in contemporary politics in the continent have set in processes of change in governance patterns and understandings about the idea of a nation state. However, these processes have been unable to stem the tide of conflicts that continue to raise their bloody heads in the continent. The author takes a critical look at the reasons for this limitation, while probing into the necessity for alternative ways of thinking about the causes and solutions to the conflicts. This text offers students and researchers a quick glance at the sources of conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa and an assessment of the implications of attempting to use democracy alone as a solution.

This book examines the everyday lives of ordinary Zimbabweans in the context of national crises in post-2000 Zimbabwe. Throughout the literature of Zimbabwean studies, a consideration of everyday lives has been limited to informal trading and rarely applied as an analytical framework, despite the importance of understanding crisis-living with reference to the specific character of national crises across the African continent. This edited volume is one of the first in its field to theorise everyday Zimbabwean lives within the context of crisis, with three central themes addressed: urban and rural lives; men, women and HIV; and along and beyond the border. Chapters incorporate topics from child marriage and sexual practices, to climate change and social accountability, encompassing a shift in focus from macro-structures to how farm labourers, students, child-brides and other ordinary people negotiate gender, class and social dynamics within a dominant order. The introductory chapter offers an innovative analytical framing for the empirical chapters which follow, each providing micro-studies based on original qualitative fieldwork by early-career Zimbabwean scholars. Everyday Crisis-Living in Contemporary Zimbabwe will appeal to students and scholars of sociology, anthropology and African Studies more broadly.