Preliminary Programme

Tue 26 February
    14.15
    16.30

Wed 27 February
    8.30
    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

Thu 28 February
    8.30
    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

Fri 29 February
    8.30
    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

Sat 1 March
    8.30
    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

All days
Go back

Tuesday 26 February 2008 14.15
F-1 AFR05 Knowledge, Health and Utilities in colonial and Post-colonial Africa
Sala Leite de Vasconcelos
Network: Africa Chair: E. Ike Udogu
Organizers: - Discussants: -
Anna Bohman : Framing the Water Challenge - Institutional Change within the Ghanaian Water Supply and Sanitation Sector 1957 - 2005
Despite half a century of Official Development Assistance to the Water Supply and Sanitation sector in Ghana the situation still remain far from satisfactory. In Ghana only 51 % of the urban population have access to an improved water resource while 34 % have access to safe sanitation.

Throughout history, ... (Show more)
Despite half a century of Official Development Assistance to the Water Supply and Sanitation sector in Ghana the situation still remain far from satisfactory. In Ghana only 51 % of the urban population have access to an improved water resource while 34 % have access to safe sanitation.

Throughout history, opinions on what is best practice to provide more people with WSS services in Ghana have changed. Ideas about public and private responsibilities have shifted over time as well as ideas on the most appropriate governance models, centralized or decentralized etc. In addition, ideas on the very nature of water and the problems associated with scarcity of this precious resource, effect what actions are considered as appropriate to improve the situation for those in need.

The paper follow and analyze institutional change in the Ghanaian WSS sector during the post independence era 1957 – 2005. The concept of problem frames is used as an analytical tool in order to illustrate how ideas change and replace each other but also to highlight how problem frames are growing more complex as experiences are gained and knowledge sharing increase.
What were the previous trends and ideas driving development and motivating the institutional set up in the water and sewerage sector during different time periods? What solutions were generated from different problem frames? Who made the rules, for whom and what were the arguments?

The paper argues that that time and context limits the choice of action during different time periods. History also matters in the sense that one historical period tend to give way to another. In the case of Ghana this has often resulted in radical shifts in development policies where the pendulum has swung from one extreme position to another. Finally WSS sector development in Ghana has largely been determined by shifts in international policy trends rather than by local development strategies. However, recent trends indicate that as civil society is growing stronger this also effects policy development in the Ghanaian WSS sector. (Show less)

Markku Hokkanen : Reflections of microscopic gaze – tensions in colonial imaginations in Central Africa
“The natives look at us with microscopic eyes”
(Rev Robert Laws, 1885)

The nineteenth-century European missionary projects in Africa, to quote John and Jean Comaroff, had the aim to achieve “a world where all matters, beings, and bodies were in their proper place.” The Comaroffs have been at the forefront of ... (Show more)
“The natives look at us with microscopic eyes”
(Rev Robert Laws, 1885)

The nineteenth-century European missionary projects in Africa, to quote John and Jean Comaroff, had the aim to achieve “a world where all matters, beings, and bodies were in their proper place.” The Comaroffs have been at the forefront of reassessing colonialism, evangelization and modernity in recent African history and anthropology. Missionary activities have been considered as the establishment of a new hegemony, a new lived system of meaning and values which would transform individuals and communities fundamentally and in various ways. Through a case-study of Victorian Scottish missions in late nineteenth-century Malawi, this paper, which is based on unpublished and published sources in Malawi and Scotland, focuses on one important aspect of missionary programme, perception and imitation.

The paper first analyses perception and imitation as essential elements of the missionary scheme for “regenerating Africa”, arguing that this programme required the construction of a missionary as a model of proper, Christian, modern behaviour to be imitated by African converts. Second, the paper considers the range of responses – including doubt, mimicry and mockery – to this part of the missionary programme by both Africans and missionaries themselves. (Show less)

Ana Roque : Knowledge and use of medical herbs and plants in the central Coast of Mozambique in the late 19th century. Contribution for a better understanding of the present day situation
This paper will focus on the historical information on the Central coast of Mozambique, mainly in the area between the Rivers Pungue and Save, including the coastal islands of Chiloane and the Archipelago of Bazaruto. The first purpose will be to show the diversity of medical herbs and plants already ... (Show more)
This paper will focus on the historical information on the Central coast of Mozambique, mainly in the area between the Rivers Pungue and Save, including the coastal islands of Chiloane and the Archipelago of Bazaruto. The first purpose will be to show the diversity of medical herbs and plants already mentioned in the Portuguese documents of the late 19th century, the way they were used by the local people and how these people knew when and were they could be picked up.
Throughout the centuries this area has been subjected to severe changes due to a combination of natural and human factors. On one hand, the coast is suffering a secular deep process of deterioration due to the process of marine erosion and the silting up of the rivers; on the other hand and pushed by the poor conditions people moved to the coastal area while looking for a better standard of living. These people had to readjust themselves to a new situation, brought their own knowledge and use of the nature but had to learn to adapt themselves to what they could find in this area, namely, on the medical herbs and plants needed for their daily life.
From an historical point of view, this process is very well documented in the Portuguese documents enabling us to a better understanding of the medical flora of the region and providing information on the occurrence of species, some of them, in danger or simply disappeared. Making use of some of these documents, this paper will emphasise the importance of the historical (Show less)

Tundé Zack-Williams : African Leadership, Nation State and the Weberian Project
For many African countries, political independence was accompanied by the institutional arrangements of a modern state, which itself was imposed upon an economic infrastructure of a pre-modern society. It was hoped that these miniature replicas of the transformed colonial state would sustain a transition to modern rational legal bureaucracies. It ... (Show more)
For many African countries, political independence was accompanied by the institutional arrangements of a modern state, which itself was imposed upon an economic infrastructure of a pre-modern society. It was hoped that these miniature replicas of the transformed colonial state would sustain a transition to modern rational legal bureaucracies. It was this expectancy that led to the much anticipated ‘new man’ that was suppose to emerge out of Africa in the early 1970s. Not only did the latter fail to materialise, but also Africa’s developmental prospects took a nose-dive; with only a few nations escaping what universally came to be known as the African crisis. In this paper, I want to argue that the crisis of the African state is very much the product of the poverty of African leadership and the inability of the latter to move institutional arrangements away from patrimonial and inefficient form of governance, to a more rational legal structure of governance that should provide the superstructure for the transition to modernity. Example will be drawn from several African states to substantiate our arguments. (Show less)



Theme by Danetsoft and Danang Probo Sayekti inspired by Maksimer