Bøker av Francis B Nyamnjoh

Les déboires de Dieudonné est né de l'un des grands dilemmes moraux de l'Afrique, où la responsabilité personnelle est étroitement liée à la catharsis sociale provoquée par les ambitions de domination et des cercles toujours s'amenuisant. Le lecteur rencontre Dieudonné à la fin de son service de domestique chez les Toubaaby, un couple d'expatriés condescendants. En compagnie de différents types de personnages bons vivants et de musique lancinante au Grand Canari Bar, Dieudonné raconte sa vie. En épluchant ses vicissitudes couche après couche, il dépeint la résilience quotidienne de l'Africain sur un continent pris dans la toile des forces prédatrices. Pourtant, cet échec enchanteur célèbre aussi la capacité infinie de l'Africain à trouver le bonheur et à défier la victimisation. Francis B. Nyamnjoh est actuellement professeur d'anthropologie sociale à l'Université du Cap en Afrique du Sud.

This is a study of how Donald J. Trump, his populist credentials notwithstanding, borrows without acknowledgment and stubbornly refuses to come to terms with his indebtedness. Taken together with mobility and conviviality, the principle of incompleteness enables us to distinguish between inclusionary and exclusionary forms of populism, and when it is fuelled by ambitions of superiority and zero-sum games of conquest.Nyamnjoh challenges the reader to reflect on how stifling frameworks of citizenship and belonging predicated upon hierarchies of humanity and mobility, and driven by a burning but elusive quest for completeness, can be constructively transcended by humility and conviviality inspired by taking incompleteness seriously. Nyamnjoh argues that the logic and practice of incompleteness is a healthy antidote to name-calling and scapegoating others as undesirable outsiders, depending on the brand of populism at play.Recognising incompleteness also helps to question sterile and problematic binaries such as those between elites and the impoverished masses among whom populists go to fish for political visibility, prominence and success.

This book discusses the seminal role played by Edward Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud, in the founding of American-style public relations - persuasive communication through manipulation of symbols - and his huge (and cynical) impact on the American economic and political scene. It provides a substantiated and convincing explanation for what is happening today in Donald Trump's America. In the form of a history of ideas, the book makes clear that the present Trumpian manipulation of democracy and what it means to be American has a long pre-history and continues to go through different phases, involving the cultivation and institutionalisation of strong bonds between business and politics. The book shows how this is intimately linked with a science, intellectualism and practice informed by a series of binary oppositions in human action and interaction (e.g. rationality and irrationality, reason and emotion, mind and body, brain and heart, insider and outsider, us and them) and how unpredictable human nature really is. It makes a convincing argument that being human depends on how successfully we are able to negotiate such apparently contradictory binaries with the intricacies and dynamism of human agency. It is rich and thought provoking and very timely, given the exclusionary politics of fear, anger, hate and nativism we see unfolding not only in the USA but all over the world.

The idea that human beings are inextricably bound to one another is at the heart of this book about African agency, especially drawing on the African philosophy Ubuntu, with its roots in human sociality and inclusivity. Ubuntu's precepts and workings are severely tested in these times of rapid change and multiple responsibilities. Africans negotiate their social existence between urban and rural life, their continental and transcontinental distances, and all the market forces that now impinge, with relationships and loyalties placed in question. Between ideal and reality, dreams and schemes, how is Ubuntu actualized, misappropriated and endangered? The book unearths the intrigues and contradictions that go with inclusivity in Africa. Basing his argument on the ideals of trust, conviviality and support embodied in the concept of Ubuntu, Francis Nyamnjoh demonstrates how the pursuit of personal success and even self-aggrandizement challenges these ideals, thus leading to discord in social relationships. Nyamnjoh uses a popular Ivorian drama with the same title to substantiate life-world realities and more importantly to demonstrate that new forms of expression, from popular drama to fiction, thicken and enrich the ethnographic component in current anthropology.

Dieudonnes life is spun from the threads of one of Africa's grand moral dilemmas, in which personal responsibility is intertwined with the social catharsis occasioned by ambitions of dominance and ever diminishing circles. We encounter Dieudonne at the tail end of his service as 'houseboy' to the Toubaabys, a patronising expatriate couple. In the company of a lively assortment of characters and luring music at the Grand Canari Bar, Dieudonne recounts his life. As he peels layer after layer of his vicissitudes, he depicts the everyday resilience of the African on a continent caught in the web of predatory forces. Yet, this enchanting failure also celebrates the infinite capacity of the African to find happiness and challenge victimhood.

Set in the fictional and reluctantly bilingual land of Mimbo in contemporary Africa, this story revolves around the tragedy of the haunting Prospère, a semi-literate Mimbolander who is searching for the finer things in life. The novel presents a graphic picture of the frustrations engendered by a society that values wealth over love.