Download or read book The Rise of Africa s Middle Class written by Henning Melber and published by Zed Books Ltd.. This book was released on 2016-12-15 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Across Africa, a burgeoning middle class has become the poster child for the 'Africa rising' narrative. Ambitious, aspirational and increasingly affluent, this group is said to embody the values and hopes of the new Africa, with international bodies ranging from the United Nations Development Programme to the World Bank regarding them as important agents of both economic development and democratic change. This narrative, however, obscures the complex and often ambiguous role that this group actually plays in African societies. Bringing together economists, political scientists, anthropologists and development experts, and spanning a variety of case studies from across the continent, this collection provides a much-needed corrective to the received wisdom within development circles, and provides a fresh perspective on social transformations in contemporary Africa.

Download or read book The New Black Middle Class in South Africa written by Roger Southall and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2016 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides the most comprehensive account since the early 1960s of South Africa's black middle class.

Download or read book The Rise of Africa s Middle Class written by Henning Melber and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-12-15 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Across Africa, a burgeoning middle class has become the poster child for the 'Africa rising' narrative. Ambitious, aspirational and increasingly affluent, this group is said to embody the values and hopes of the new Africa, with international bodies ranging from the United Nations Development Programme to the World Bank regarding them as important agents of both economic development and democratic change. This narrative, however, obscures the complex and often ambiguous role that this group actually plays in African societies. Bringing together economists, political scientists, anthropologists and development experts, and spanning a variety of case studies from across the continent, this collection provides a much-needed corrective to the received wisdom within development circles, and provides a fresh perspective on social transformations in contemporary Africa.

Download or read book Middle Classes in Africa written by Lena Kroeker and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-02-19 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ​This volume challenges the concept of the ‘new African middle class’ with new theoretical and empirical insights into the changing lives in Sub-Saharan Africa. Diverse middle classes are on the rise, but models of class based on experiences from other regions of the world cannot be easily transferred to the African continent. Empirical contributions, drawn from a diverse range of contexts, address both African histories of class formation and the political roles of the continent’s middle classes, and also examine the important interdependencies that cut across inter-generational, urban-rural and class divides. This thought-provoking book argues emphatically for a revision of common notions of the 'middle class', and for the inclusion of insights 'from the South' into the global debate on class. Middle Classes in Africa will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, as well as NGOs and policy makers with an interest in African societies.

Download or read book The Emerging Middle Class in Africa written by Mthuli Ncube and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-10-10 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The emergence of the African middle class as a driver of Africa’s economic growth stands out as an important milestone in Africa’s contemporary economic history. This growth, though uneven, is a source of hope for Africa, but also a signal to the rest of the world on the prospects for economic recovery and renewal, particularly because it has been steady despite the global downturn. The Emerging Middle Class in Africa analyses specific aspects of the lives of the middle class in Africa. It looks at how people become and remain in the middle class through a series of thematic chapters. It examines how behaviour changes in the process, in terms of consumption patterns and spending on health and education. A further dimension of this analysis is how class impacts on gender relations and whether women are able to reap the same benefits of social advancement available to men. Africa is a continent of such scale and diversity that experiences across countries vary widely. The book thus captures the common patterns across the continent. This text is primarily aimed at Africanist researchers, policy makers, development practitioners, and bilateral and multilateral institutions, as well as students of African studies, political science, political economy, development studies, and development economics.

Download or read book The Emerging Middle Class in Africa written by Mthuli Ncube and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-10-10 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The emergence of the African middle class as a driver of Africa’s economic growth stands out as an important milestone in Africa’s contemporary economic history. This growth, though uneven, is a source of hope for Africa, but also a signal to the rest of the world on the prospects for economic recovery and renewal, particularly because it has been steady despite the global downturn. The Emerging Middle Class in Africa analyses specific aspects of the lives of the middle class in Africa. It looks at how people become and remain in the middle class through a series of thematic chapters. It examines how behaviour changes in the process, in terms of consumption patterns and spending on health and education. A further dimension of this analysis is how class impacts on gender relations and whether women are able to reap the same benefits of social advancement available to men. Africa is a continent of such scale and diversity that experiences across countries vary widely. The book thus captures the common patterns across the continent. This text is primarily aimed at Africanist researchers, policy makers, development practitioners, and bilateral and multilateral institutions, as well as students of African studies, political science, political economy, development studies, and development economics.

Download or read book The Rise of an African Middle Class written by Michael O. West and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2002-08-19 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Offers an extremely sophisticated, nuanced view of the social and political construction of an African middle class in colonial Zimbabwe." —Elizabeth Schmidt Tracing their quest for social recognition from the time of Cecil Rhodes to Rhodesia's unilateral declaration of independence, Michael O. West shows how some Africans were able to avail themselves of scarce educational and social opportunities in order to achieve some degree of upward mobility in a society that was hostile to their ambitions. Though relatively few in number and not rich by colonial standards, this comparatively better class of Africans challenged individual and social barriers imposed by colonialism to become the locus of protest against European domination. This extensive and original book opens new perspective into relations between colonizers and colonized in colonial Zimbabwe.

Download or read book Black Picket Fences written by Mary Pattillo and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-07-02 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1999, Mary Pattillo’s Black Picket Fences explores an American demographic group too often ignored by both scholars and the media: the black middle class. Nearly fifteen years later, this book remains a groundbreaking study of a group still underrepresented in the academic and public spheres. The result of living for three years in “Groveland,” a black middle-class neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side, Black Picket Fences explored both the advantages the black middle class has and the boundaries they still face. Despite arguments that race no longer matters, Pattillo showed a different reality, one where black and white middle classes remain separate and unequal. Stark, moving, and still timely, the book is updated for this edition with a new epilogue by the author that details how the neighborhood and its residents fared in the recession of 2008, as well as new interviews with many of the same neighborhood residents featured in the original. Also included is a new foreword by acclaimed University of Pennsylvania sociologist Annette Lareau.

Download or read book The Middle Class in Mozambique written by Jason Sumich and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-18 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction -- Origins -- Asendance -- Collapse -- Democracy -- Decay -- 2016, concluding thoughts

Download or read book Moving Up Moving Out written by Will Cooley and published by Northern Illinois University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-19 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Moving Up, Moving Out, Will Cooley discusses the damage racism and discrimination have exacted on black Chicagoans in the twentieth century, while accentuating the resilience of upwardly-mobile African Americans. Cooley examines how class differences created fissures in the black community and produced quandaries for black Chicagoans interested in racial welfare. While black Chicagoans engaged in collective struggles, they also used individualistic means to secure the American Dream. Black Chicagoans demonstrated their talent and ambitions, but they entered through the narrow gate, and whites denied them equal opportunities in the educational institutions, workplaces, and neighborhoods that produced the middle class. African Americans resisted these restrictions at nearly every turn by moving up into better careers and moving out into higher-quality neighborhoods, but their continued marginalization helped create a deeply dysfunctional city. African Americans settled in Chicago for decades, inspired by the gains their forerunners were making in the city. Though faith in Chicago as a land of promise wavered, the progress of the black middle class kept the city from completely falling apart. In this important study, Cooley shows how Chicago, in all of its glory and faults, was held together by black dreams of advancement. Moving Up, Moving Out will appeal to urban historians and sociologists, scholars of African American studies, and general readers interested in Chicago and urban history.

Download or read book The Rise of the Egyptian Middle Class written by Relli Shechter and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the results of the Middle Eastern oil boom of the 1970s-80s on the Egyptian economy and how this economic growth has an impact on Egyptian society.

Download or read book Ambiguous Pleasures written by Rachel Spronk and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2012-05-01 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Among both male and female young urban professionals in Nairobi, sexuality is a key to achieving a ‘modern’ identity. These young men and women see themselves as the avant garde of a new Africa, while they also express the recurring worry of how to combine an ‘African’ identity with the new lifestyles with which they are experimenting. By focusing on public debates and their preoccupations with issues of African heritage, gerontocratic power relations and conventional morality on the one hand, and personal sexual relationships, intimacy and self-perceptions on the other, this study works out the complexities of sexuality and culture in the context of modernity in an African society. It moves beyond an investigation of a health or development perspective of sexuality and instead examines desire, pleasure and eroticism, revealing new insights into the methodology and theory of the study of sexuality within the social sciences. Sexuality serves as a prism for analysing how social developments generate new notions of self in postcolonial Kenya and is a crucial component towards understanding the way people recognize and deal with modern changes in their personal lives.

Download or read book The American Middle Class written by Lawrence R Samuel and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-07-18 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The middle class is often viewed as the heart of American society, the key to the country’s democracy and prosperity. Most Americans believe they belong to this group, and few politicians can hope to be elected without promising to serve the middle class. Yet today the American middle class is increasingly seen as under threat. In The American Middle Class: A Cultural History, Lawrence R. Samuel charts the rise and fall of this most definitive American population, from its triumphant emergence in the post-World War II years to the struggles of the present day. Between the 1920s and the 1950s, powerful economic, social, and political factors worked together in the U.S. to forge what many historians consider to be the first genuine mass middle class in history. But from the cultural convulsions of the 1960s, to the 'stagflation' of the 1970s, to Reaganomics in the 1980s, this segment of the population has been under severe stress. Drawing on a rich array of voices from the past half-century, The American Middle Class explores how the middle class, and ideas about it, have changed over time, including the distinct story of the black middle class. Placing the current crisis of the middle class in historical perspective, Samuel shows how the roots of middle-class troubles reach back to the cultural upheaval of the 1960s. The American Middle Class takes a long look at how the middle class has been winnowed away and reveals how, even in the face of this erosion, the image of the enduring middle class remains the heart and soul of the United States.

Download or read book Political Protest in Contemporary Africa written by Lisa Mueller and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-28 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Looking at protests from Senegal to Kenya, Lisa Mueller shows how cross-class coalitions fuel contemporary African protests across the continent.

Download or read book The Vanishing Middle Class new epilogue written by Peter Temin and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2018-03-09 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why the United States has developed an economy divided between rich and poor and how racism helped bring this about. The United States is becoming a nation of rich and poor, with few families in the middle. In this book, MIT economist Peter Temin offers an illuminating way to look at the vanishing middle class. Temin argues that American history and politics, particularly slavery and its aftermath, play an important part in the widening gap between rich and poor. Temin employs a well-known, simple model of a dual economy to examine the dynamics of the rich/poor divide in America, and outlines ways to work toward greater equality so that America will no longer have one economy for the rich and one for the poor. Many poorer Americans live in conditions resembling those of a developing country—substandard education, dilapidated housing, and few stable employment opportunities. And although almost half of black Americans are poor, most poor people are not black. Conservative white politicians still appeal to the racism of poor white voters to get support for policies that harm low-income people as a whole, casting recipients of social programs as the Other—black, Latino, not like "us." Politicians also use mass incarceration as a tool to keep black and Latino Americans from participating fully in society. Money goes to a vast entrenched prison system rather than to education. In the dual justice system, the rich pay fines and the poor go to jail.

Download or read book Africa Rising written by Vijay Mahajan and published by Pearson Prentice Hall. This book was released on 2011-07-07 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With more than 900 million consumers, the continent of Africa is one of the world’s fastest growing markets. In Africa Rising, renowned global business consultant Vijay Mahajan reveals this remarkable marketplace as a continent with massive needs and surprising buying power. Crossing thousands of miles across the continent, he shares the lessons that Africa’s businesses have learned about succeeding on the continent...shows how global companies are succeeding despite Africa’s unique political, economic, and resource challenges...introduces local entrepreneurs and foreign investors who are building a remarkable spectrum of profitable and sustainable business opportunities even in the most challenging locations...reveals how India and China are staking out huge positions throughout Africa...and shows the power of the diaspora in driving investment and development. Recognize that Africa is richer than you think Africa is richer than India on the basis of gross national income (GNI) per capita, and a dozen African countries have a higher GNI per capita than China. Aim for Africa Two Opportunities exist in all parts of the market, particularly the 400 million people in the middle of the market. Find opportunities to organize the market From retailing to cell phones to banking, companies are succeeding by building infrastructure. Develop strategies for the most youthful market in the world Companies are recognizing opportunities from diapers to music to medicine in a market growing younger every day. Understand that Africa is not a “media dark” continent From Nollywood to satellite to broadband, media is exploding on the continent. Recognize the hidden strength of the African diaspora The African diaspora brings resources and knowledge to African development and expands the African opportunity beyond the continent. Build Ubuntu markets Create profitable businesses, sustainable growth, and social organizations by meeting basic human needs.

Download or read book The Quality of Growth in Africa written by Akbar Noman and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2019-08-20 with total page 445 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, concerns about the outcomes and nature of economic growth have given way to a new emphasis on its quality. This volume brings together prominent international contributors to consider a range of interrelated questions concerning the quality of growth in Africa, with a primary focus on sub-Saharan countries. Contributors discuss the measurement of growth, the transformations necessary to sustain it, and issues around equity and well-being. They consider topics such as the distribution of income gains from growth; the extent to which economic growth has resulted in improvements in employment, poverty, and security; structural transformations of the economy and diversification of the sources of growth; environmental sustainability; and management of urbanization. Offering both diagnoses and prescriptions, The Quality of Growth in Africa helps envision a future that goes beyond increasing GDP to ensuring that growth translates into advancements in well-being. Although the book focuses on sub-Saharan Africa, much of the contributors’ incisive analysis has implications for countries outside the region.