The contemporary conflict scenarios are beyond the reach of standardized approaches to conflict resolution. Given the curious datum that culture is implicated in nearly every conflict in the world, culture can also be an important aspect of efforts to transform destructive conflicts into more constructive social processes. Yet, what culture is and how culture matters in conflict scenarios is contested and regrettably unexplored. The Handbook of Research on the Impact of Culture in Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding is a critical publication that examines cultural differences in conflict resolution based on various aspects of culture such as morals, traditions, and laws. Highlighting a wide range of topics such as criminal justice, politics, and technological development, this book is essential for educators, social scientists, sociologists, political leaders, government officials, academicians, conflict resolution practitioners, world peace organizations, researchers, and students.

Studies in Nigerian Linguistics is a compilation of research papers on topical issues in Nigerian languages and linguistics covering three main areas of research, viz.: Language and Society, Applied Linguistics and Formal Linguistics. The papers in this volume are sectioned as such, even though there are bits of overlapping, especially for some of the papers contained in the first and second sections. The first fifteen (15) papers focus on the major theme of Language and Society in Nigeria. Many of the papers in this section address some peculiar sociolinguistic issues that affect the nation, including the nagging and lingering problem regarding the “language question” for the Nigerian nation even after five decades of the attainment of “Political Independence”, language and national development and language varieties. Section 2 contains papers in Applied Linguistics in its narrow and extended senses. There are papers on language teaching and learning, interference and intraference phenomena, language engineering (with focus on codification), communication disorders, and much more. The third section contains sixteen (16) papers in the core areas of linguistics, including phonology, morphology and syntax of Nigerian languages. Some of the papers address aspects of the phonological and morphosyntactic processes of deletion, affixation, cliticisation, causativisation, complementation, serialisation, agreement, and much more. The phrasal structure and pronominal systems of some languages were also discussed.

In 1988, Lydia Cabrera (1899–1991) published La lengua sagrada de los Ñáñigos, an Abakuá phrasebook that is to this day the largest work available on any African diaspora community in the Americas. In the early 1800s in Cuba, enslaved Africans from the Cross River region of southeastern Nigeria and southwestern Cameroon created Abakuá societies for protection and mutual aid. Abakuá rites reenact mythic legends of the institution’s history in Africa, using dance, chants, drumming, symbolic writing, herbs, domestic animals, and masked performers to represent African ancestors. Criminalized and scorned in the colonial era, Abakuá members were at the same time contributing to the creation of a unique Cuban culture, including rumba music, now considered a national treasure. Translated for the first time into English, Cabrera’s lexicon documents phrases vital to the creation of a specific African-derived identity in Cuba and presents the first “insider’s” view of this African heritage. This text presents thoroughly researched commentaries that link hundreds of entries to the context of mythic rites, skilled ritual performance, and the influence of Abakuá in Cuban society and popular music. Generously illustrated with photographs and drawings, the volume includes a new introduction to Cabrera’s writing as well as appendices that situate this important work in Cuba’s history. With the help of living Abakuá specialists in Cuba and the US, Ivor L. Miller and P. González Gómes-Cásseres have translated Cabrera’s Spanish into English for the first time while keeping her meanings and cultivated style intact, opening this seminal work to new audiences and propelling its legacy in African diaspora studies.

The modern world is developing at a pace where few can thoroughly keep track of its progress. More advancements in technology, evolving standards of education, and ongoing cultural and societal developments are leading to a need for improved pathways of knowledge discovery and dissemination. Knowledge-Intensive Economies and Opportunities for Social, Organizational, and Technological Growth provides emerging research exploring how academic research can represent both a bold response to the problems society faces today and a source of alternative solutions to those problems. This publication is derived from the basic understanding that education plays the role of the key enabler in the process of navigating these contemporary challenges. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as e-service exploration, progressive online learning in urban areas, and advances in multimedia sharing, this book is ideally designed for consultants, academics, industry professionals, policymakers, politicians, and government officials seeking current research on the impact of information technology and the knowledge-based era.

This book explores the use of drama or theatre texts about, as approaches to, or methodologies for, interventions in conflict and post-conflict contexts. It maps the role of drama/theatre in the centre and in the aftermath of overt and direct conflict, traces how the relationship between drama/theatre and conflict is shaping the socio-cultural, political, and aesthetic landscapes of these contexts, and engages with drama/theatre as methodologies to address or forge new relationships around conflict. As such, it deals with the transformative abilities of drama/theatre in contexts where conflict or violence is overt or covert in its effects, expressions and modes of social control in a range of geographical constituencies. It includes chapters predominantly from South Africa, but also from rural Nigeria and New Zealand, reflecting work on conflict in prisons, tertiary and secondary education, cities, villages and families. It also contains two new original play scripts, both resulting in acclaimed performances: Hush, on family violence in New Zealand, and The Line, on xenophobia in South Africa.