Download or read book Kenya and the Politics of a Postcolony written by Wanjala S. Nasong’o and published by Anthem Press. This book was released on 2024-08-06 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book sets out to probe, explore and evaluate the betrayal of anticolonial nationalism in Kenya. Contemporary Kenya’s emergence is rooted in the colonial enterprise, its deleterious effects and the subsequent decolonization spearheaded by a fierce anti-colonial nationalism that was embodied in freedom struggles at the cultural, political, and military levels. As a settler colony, the colonial settlers hived off millions of hectares of the best land in the highland areas of Kenya and appropriated them for themselves thereby generating a large mass of the landless. This land alienation constituted one of the most deeply felt grievances which, together with the exclusivist, exploitative and oppressive colonial system, inflamed anti-colonial nationalism that undergirded the struggle for independence. The expectation on the part of the masses was that independence would bring about social justice, restitution of the stolen lands, and a government based on the will and aspirations of the governed. Political developments soon after independence, however, demonstrated the extent of betrayal of the cause of anti-colonial nationalism, which has remained the reality to date. This book covers the extent of this sense of betrayal from the time of independence to the present. It begins by locating contemporary Kenya within the colonial context then proceeds to thematic issues of betrayal including the fall out between President Kenyatta and Vice President Odinga over ideology and issues of development, which constituted the first betrayal; the scourge of bureaucratic corruption and rent seeking; the question of land and associated historical injustices; and electoral malpractice since the return of multiparty politics in 1992 to the most recent elections of 2022. The implications of these dynamics for the future of the Kenyan polity are delineated and discussed.

Download or read book Post Colonial Kenya written by Rok Ajulu and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-07-28 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This engaging reassessment of postcolonial Kenya argues that the country’s political turmoil over the last fifteen years is a continuation of repeating patterns of political contestation and conflict across Kenya’s history. When Kibaki stole the 2007 presidential election, leading to a spiral of violence that left over 1,000 people dead in the space of a month, many analysts wondered how this could happen in a country that had previously been considered an oasis of peace in an otherwise conflict prone region. Combining political economy with political sociology, in this book Rok Ajulu demonstrates that in fact authoritarianism and the predatory deployment of the state has been the predominant feature of Kenya’s post-colonial period. Focusing on how power has been mediated in the country politically and the characters of the elites in charge, the analysis shows the dominance of extra-economic political coercion in economic activity. In a context in which economic activity remains predominantly political, continued control of state-power is so crucial for the new ruling class that it must be retained at all costs. Rok Ajulu’s masterful final book is a powerful and wide-ranging contribution to studies on post-colonial Kenya and will be an important resource for researchers from across political science, economics, history, sociology and African Studies.

Download or read book Heritage Culture and Politics in the Postcolony written by Daniel Herwitz and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2012-09-25 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The act of remaking one's history into a heritage, a conscientiously crafted narrative placed over the past, is a thriving industry in almost every postcolonial culture. This is surprising, given the tainted role of heritage in so much of colonialism's history. Yet the postcolonial state, like its European predecessor of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, deploys heritage institutions and instruments, museums, courts of law, and universities to empower itself with unity, longevity, exaltation of value, origin, and destiny. Bringing the eye of a philosopher, the pen of an essayist, and the experience of a public intellectual to the study of heritage, Daniel Herwitz reveals the febrile pitch at which heritage is staked. In this absorbing book, he travels to South Africa and unpacks its controversial and robust confrontations with the colonial and apartheid past. He visits India and reads in its modern art the gesture of a newly minted heritage idealizing the precolonial world as the source of Indian modernity. He traverses the United States and finds in its heritage of incessant invention, small town exceptionalism, and settler destiny a key to contemporary American media-driven politics. Showing how destabilizing, ambivalent, and potentially dangerous heritage is as a producer of contemporary social, aesthetic, and political realities, Herwitz captures its perfect embodiment of the struggle to seize culture and society at moments of profound social change.

Download or read book The Crises of Postcoloniality in Africa written by Omeje, Kenneth and published by CODESRIA. This book was released on 2017-05-05 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Crises of Postcoloniality in Africa is an assemblage of transdisciplinary essays that offer a spirited reflection on the debate and phenomenon of postcoloniality in Africa, including the changing patterns and ramifications of problems, challenges and opportunities associated with it. A key conceptual rhythm that runs through the various chapters of the book is that, far from being demised, postcoloniality is still firmly embedded in Africa, manifesting itself in both blatant and insidious forms. Among the important themes covered in the book include the concepts of postcolonialism, postcoloniality, and neocolonialism; Africa’s precolonial formations and the impact of colonialism; the enduring patterns of colonial legacies in Africa; the persistent contradictions between African indigenous institutions and western versions of modernity; the unravelling of the postcolonial state and issues of armed conflict, conflict intervention and peacebuilding; postcolonial imperialism in Africa and the US-led global war on terror, the historical and postcolonial contexts of gender relations in Africa, as well as pan-Africanism and regionalist approaches to redressing the crises of postcoloniality.

Download or read book Legislative Development in Africa written by Ken Ochieng' Opalo and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-06-20 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examined the development of legislatures under colonial rule, post-colonial autocratic single party rule, and multi-party politics in Africa.

Download or read book Post colonialism and the Politics of Kenya written by D. Pal S. Ahluwalia and published by Nova Publishers. This book was released on 1996 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study of Africa arouses many passions and prejudices which are the subject of this book. This book seeks to examine the hegemonic role that African studies has played in the invention of Africanism. Politics within Kenya remains entrapped by Western constructions of institutions and the practice of politics. The post-colonial period is linked inextricably to the colonial period. Kenya's political, economic, social and cultural framework has been and continues to be dominated by the colonial legacy. The discussion of Africanism earlier suggests that the decolonisation process did not achieve liberation fully, except in the narrowest of political terms. Rather, the West continued its dominance by more subtle means which has permeated the very imagination of the colonised. It is this continuing colonisation of the imagination which dominates the political scene. The ever increasing hegemonic role of donor agencies and donor countries, under the guise of structural adjustment programmes, ensures that countries such as Kenya become hostage to the latest manifestation of Africanism.

Download or read book Governance and the postcolony written by David Everatt and published by Wits University Press. This book was released on 2019-08-01 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Civil society, NGOs, governments, and multilateral institutions all repeatedly call for improved or ‘good’ governance – yet they seem to speak past one another. Governance is in danger of losing all meaning precisely because it means many things to different people in varied locations This is especially true in sub-Saharan Africa. Here, the postcolony takes many forms, reflecting the imperial project with painful accuracy. Offering a set of multidisciplinary analyses of governance in different sectors (crisis management, water, food security, universities), in different locales across sub-Saharan Africa, and from different theoretical approaches (network to adversarial network governance); this volume makes a useful addition to the growing debates on ‘how to govern’. It steers away from offering a ‘correct’ definition of governance, or from promoting a particular position on postcoloniality. It gives no neat conclusion, but invites readers to draw their own conclusions based on these differing approaches to and analyses of governance in the postcolony. As a robust, critical assessment of power and accountability in the sub-Saharan context, Governance and the Postcolony: Views from Africa brings together topical case studies that will be a valuable resource for those working in the field of African international relations, public policy, public management and administration.

Download or read book Political Protest in Contemporary Kenya written by Jacob Mwathi Mati and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-02-04 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyses the emergence, strategies, and outcomes of the struggle to embed democratic governance and constitutional order in Kenya, showcasing both the power and the limits of citizen agency in the struggle to transform a postcolonial African state. Utilising data from primary interviews, media, and existing literature, this book analyses the emergence, diffusion, operational strategies, and outcomes of Kenyan constitutional reform struggles with a view to highlighting both the power and limits of social movement in transforming a postcolonial African state. It engages intersections of social movement and theories of democratisation to probe the production, operations, and outcomes of the disruptive yet creative power of the movements at the centre of the struggle to transform the Kenyan constitution. The book also appraises the "meanings" of, and developments after, the promulgation of the 2010 constitution with a view to illuminating the prospects for a transformative democratic political order in Kenya. This book is a useful tool in understanding the struggles specific to Kenya, but also offers insights into other democratic struggles on the African continent and beyond. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of social movements and political change in Africa in general and Kenya in particular.

Download or read book Post Colonial Cameroon written by Joseph Takougang and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-06-13 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this unique volume, leading scholars examine how Cameroonians organize and experience their lives under Cameroonian leadership and local responses to that leadership. The volume offers essential case studies that allow us to examine the lives of ordinary people in post-colonial Africa through five lenses: politics, society and culture, economy, international relations, and migration. It places the nation’s contemporary challenges within a broader political, economic, and socio-cultural context, and uses that to make recommendations for future directions. The book also celebrates areas in which the country has done well and calls on its citizens to build on those achievements. This volume is forward-looking and as such raises important questions about issues of development, ethnicity, wealth, poverty, and class.

Download or read book Political Power and Tribalism in Kenya written by Westen K. Shilaho and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-10-02 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book discusses Kenya’s transition from authoritarianism to more democratic forms of politics and its impact on Kenya’s multi-ethnic society. The author examines two significant questions: Why and how is ethnicity salient in Kenya’s transition from one-party rule to multiparty politics? What is the relationship between ethnic conflict and political liberalization? The project explains the perennial issues of political disorganization through state violence and ethnicization of politics, and considers the significance of the concept of justice in Kenya.

Download or read book Matatu written by Kenda Mutongi and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-06-26 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drive the streets of Nairobi and you are sure to see many matatus colorful minibuses that transport huge numbers of people around the city. Once ramshackle affairs held together with duct tape and wire, matatus today are name-brand vehicles maxed out with aftermarket detailing. They can be stately black or come in extravagant colors, sporting names, slogans, or entire tableaus, with airbrushed portraits of everyone from Kanye West to Barack Obama, of athletes, movie stars, or the most famous face of all: Jesus Christ. In this richly interdisciplinary book, Kenda Mutongi explores the history of the matatu from the 1960s to the present. As Mutongi shows, matatus offer a window onto many socioeconomic and political facets of late-twentieth-century Africa. In their diversity of idiosyncratic designs they express multiple and divergent aspects of Kenyan life including rapid urbanization, organized crime, entrepreneurship, social insecurity, the transition to democracy, chaos and congestion, popular culture, and many others at once embodying both Kenya's staggering social problems and the bright promises of its future. Offering a shining model of interdisciplinary analysis, Mutongi mixes historical, ethnographic, literary, linguistic, and economic approaches to tell the story of the matatu as a powerful expression of the entrepreneurial aesthetics of the postcolonial world.

Download or read book Kenya written by Shadrack W. Nasong'o and published by Zed Books Ltd.. This book was released on 2013-07-18 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The path towards democracy in Kenya has been long and often tortuous. Though it has been trumpeted as a goal for decades, democratic government has never been fully realised, largely as a result of the authoritarian excesses of the Kenyatta, Moi and Kibaki regimes. This uniquely comprehensive study of Kenya's political trajectory shows how the struggle for democracy has been waged in civil society, through opposition parties, and amongst traditionally marginalised groups like women and the young. It also considers the remaining impediments to democratisation, in the form of a powerful police force and damaging structural adjustment policies. Thus, the authors argue, democratisation in Kenya is a laborious and non-linear process. Kenyans' recent electoral successes, the book concludes, have empowered them and reinvigorated the prospects for democracy, heralding a more autonomous and peaceful twenty-first century.

Download or read book Searching for a New Kenya written by Stephanie Diepeveen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-05-06 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examining public discussion in urban Kenya, both in-person and online, this book sheds light on the role public discussion plays in politics and how social media affects political movements, providing timely insights into everyday politics in Africa's digital age.

Download or read book Memory and the Postcolony written by Richard Werbner and published by Zed Books. This book was released on 1998-09 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through theoretically informed anthropology, this book meets the need to rethink our understanding of the moral & political force of memory, its official/unofficial forms, & its moves from the personal & the social in postcolonial transformations.

Download or read book Routledge Handbook of African Politics written by Nic Cheeseman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Providing a comprehensive and cutting edge examination of this important continent, Routledge Handbook of African Politics surveys the key debates and controversies, dealing with each of the major issues to be found in Africa’s politics today. Structured into 6 broad areas, the handbook features over 30 contributions focused around: The State Identity Conflict Democracy and Electoral Politics Political Economy & Development International Relations Each chapter deals with a specific topic, providing an overview of the main arguments and theories and explaining the empirical evidence that they are based on, drawing on high-profile cases such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Nigeria, Somalia, South Africa, Rwanda and Zimbabwe. The Handbook also contains new contributions on a wide range of topical issues, including terrorism, the growing influence of China, civil war, and transitional justice, making it required reading for non-specialists and experts alike. Featuring both established scholars and emerging researchers, this is a vital resource for all students of African Studies, democratization, conflict resolution and Third World politics.

Download or read book Coloniality of Power in Postcolonial Africa written by Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni and published by African Books Collective. This book was released on 2013 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book the author examines the current state of postcolonial Africa with a focus on the "liberation predicament" and the crisis of epistemological, cultural, economic, and political dependence created by colonialism and coloniality.

Download or read book The Political Legacy of Colonialism in Zimbabwe written by Everisto Benyera and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-11-18 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates the political legacy of colonialism in contemporary African institutions. Using the case study of electoral and justice institutions in post-colonial Zimbabwe, the book explores how those in post-colonial states relate to and with institutions initially designed to oppress them and remain structurally and systematically colonial. The book argues that the colonial era colonised the land, knowledge, and minds of Africans, resulting in injustice and epistemicides. The book demonstrates how the critical institutions of elections and justice have been rendered anti-black and toxic. The book calls for Africa to invest in epistemic independence, unencumbered by Western political modernity, and then deploy that independence to build reconstituted institutions, structures, and systems that serve the interests of Africans. This book will be an important read for African policymakers and researchers working on African politics, governance, and international relations.