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The prevalence of global pandemics has been timeless and universal. In 1918, the Spanish Flue grounded Spain and her neighbours. In 1997, 2014 and 2020, the Ebola virus wreaked havoc in West Africa in the same manner that polio had ravaged the globe. Since 2019, the Coronavirus has forced most economies onto a downward spiral. Despite concerted global attempts at observing World Health Organization guidelines, the Coronavirus has been changing peoples' lives, forcing most economies onto their knees, endangering lives and livelihoods, making a mockery of global medicine and causing the widespread despair and helplessness that has come to be known as 'the new normal'. Unlike the other pandemics, the mayhem, complexities and dialectics caused by Covid-19 have been matchless, requiring a systematic study and necessitating a volume like this one. The volume's 16 well-researched chapters argue that despite Covid-19's enormous lessons and predictions about even greater future pandemics, humanity can ill-afford to relent in its determination to conquer the pandemic in the same way that human resolve has defeated past pandemic. As such, the volume provides hope and direction to the global community on how best to deal with Covid-19 and pandemics of similar or even higher magnitude in the future.

La musique populaire moderne ivoirienne, aspect de la culture populaire, éclate à travers les industries productrices de la culture de masse et touche des publics très vastes. Après en avoir retracé l'historique, cet ouvrage examine la fabrication, les acteurs et leurs discours, les divers lieux de performance et d'enchantement (salles de répétitions, studios, maquis musicaux, etc.), des aspects de son contenu et certains des effets de cette forme médiatique. Entre l'essai et l'anthropologie de la musique, entre commentaire et données ethnographiques de terrain, cet ouvrage se propose aussi d'étudier la société ivoirienne qui se produit en Côte d'Ivoire dans et à travers son histoire récente. La musique populaire moderne, reste insaisissable et indomptable. Lieu d'expression d'une intellectualité populaire et d'une conscientisation musicale portée par des artistes-chanteurs, peut-elle contribuer à rendre le monde meilleur voire à le ré-enchanter ?

One of the oldest survival pursuits undertaken by the weak and the downtrodden people across the world has been begging. Going back to the ancient Christian biblical times up to the present epoch as well as across varying spatial settings, in situations of trouble and tribulations, parts of various communities have resorted to beggary to either overcome immediate adversities or longer term calamities. Drawing on insights from two polar theoretical lenses of Social Constructionism and Social Deconstructionism, and guided by a pithy study of the begging across the African continent especially by Zimbabweans, this book troubles the various contours related to the subject of begging. Inter alia, the book considers the concept of begging, the causes of the prevalence of begging across the world and particularly among Zimbabweans, the challenges and benefits associated with the pursuit of alms, the impact of begging in foreign lands as well as some of the strategies that beggars employ to maximize their collections and/ or profits. What can be discerned from the book is that for many, begging is one of the last resort undertakings with low pickings. However, from a utilitarian perspective, begging has helped to sustain the impoverished livelihoods of Zimbabweans, both inside and outside the borders of the country since the advent of a debilitating crisis experienced from the turn of the new millennium. On the whole, this book seeks to provoke further researches on an important socio-economic area that affects many African communities but has so far been scantily researched. The book is handy for students and practitioners in economic history, African studies, economics, risk and disaster management, social anthropology, political science, and development studies.

The advent of Coronavirus (also known as COVID-19) pandemic has caused much distress, despondence, fear and pandemonium across all nations of the world. In Zimbabwe, the emergence of the virus sent a chilling message of insecurity and need for conscientiousness and diligence, as the virus decimated humankind amid untold suffering. The pandemic came as a litmus test for the integrity and meticulousness of all the so-called professionals and institutions of integrity across the country, challenging them to stand equal to their tasks, titles and claimed astuteness. For Zimbabwe and Africa in general, the manifestation and ramifications of COVID-19, has raised so many questions around issues of people's welfare and innovative research, especially amid the reality that the country is dependent on charity and donations from well-wishers for the vaccines it needs, over and above the modest amount it can purchase. This reality and related challenges pose interesting research questions addressed in this volume. A central question on the possibility and extent of home-grown solutions inspired by and tailored to the needs and predicaments of Zimbabwe and the African continent. The richness of the book is in the firsthand eyewitness accounts of scholars caught up in the COVID-19 challenge. The researchers in this volume have sought to capture developments, insights and evolutions as they unfold and progress. The book is handy for scholars in policy studies, risk and disaster management, social anthropology, political science, development studies, African studies and decolonial fields of studies.

Might it be possible that the world is being migrated into an era where the imperial periphery will be increasingly governed through Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics designed to replace human beings? Celebrated as efficient, strong, unfailing, tireless, precise and beyond corruption, AI and robots are set to replace African leaders who are imperially deemed to be and consistently condemned as corrupt, failed, weak and inefficient. But, if these AI and robots are neo-imperial tools and machinations, the million-dollar question is whether empire is not returning to recolonise the [supposedly inefficient] Africans via the new technologies and machinism? Where Africans once celebrated their liberation war movements, empire has emplaced what it calls liberation technologies designed to supposedly liberate African youths from their own states and governments led by liberation movements. Where Africans once celebrated their liberation war movements, empire has placed its own NGOs/CSOs spewing liberal ideologies designed to ostensibly liberate African youths from their own supposedly failed and corrupt states and government leaders. With African youths/citizens allying not with their liberation movements but with the liberation technologies and liberal NGOs/CSOs, it is not surprising why African citizens oppose their states-led Fast-Track Land Redistribution Programmes while ironically they happily celebrate Fast-Tracked COVID-19 Vaccines. Positing the notion of #HumansMustFall movements, this book underscores ways in which empire is in a process of eternal return to 21st century Africa. The book is crucial for scholars and activists in political science, government studies, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, history, languages and communication studies, security studies, military studies and development studies.

The book sieves the pros and cons of the Japanese agricultural cooperative system with knowledge systems from the Zimbabwe movement to advance a new agricultural cooperative development framework for Zimbabwe and other post-colonial states.

Sur l'invitation de son cousin Charlemagne, Benedict quitte Ndobo, son village natal au Mayuka, pour Touri dans l'Etat voisin de Jangaland. Mayuka est une colonie anglaise où son arrière-grand-père, Bante, roi de l'ethnie Magwa, s'était exilé. Bante avait quitté Jangaland précipitamment parce que les autorités coloniales étaient à ses trousses. On le soupçonnait d'être à l'origine d'un meurtre et aussi d'être à la tête d'une résistance à la colonisation française. Benedict prospère à Touri. Il tombe amoureux d'une jolie demoiselle du nom de Brigitte ; mais il a un rival, le cuisinier d'un commerçant français. Brigitte doit choisir entre Benedict et le cuisinier. Elle jette son dévolu sur Benedict. De là va naître une émouvante aventure qui mènera Benedict à l'avant-plan du champ politique à l'aube des mouvements des indépendances des Etats africains. Un périple parsemé d'embuches au cours duquel le jeune Benedict ira jusqu'au sacrifice suprême, au nom de la justice et de l'Egalite pour les siens.Cette oeuvre expose l'aliénation culturelle, le manque de patriotisme et l'hypocrisie des puissances coloniales, bref, le néo-colonialisme. Ce dernier à lui seul explique la mauvaise gestion du patrimoine national, l'effondrement économique, l'instabilité politique, les crises sociales, l'implosion de nombreux États avec pour conséquence l'afflux des réfugiés africains en Occident. Cette oeuvre tient toute sa pertinence du fait que les sujets y traités demeurent actuels.

The coronavirus has rattled humanity, tested resolve and determination, and redefined normalcy. This compelling collection of 29 short stories and essays brings together the lived experiences of covid19 through a diversity of voices from across the African continent. The stories highlight challenges, new opportunities, and ultimately the deep resilience of Africans and their communities. Bringing into conversation the perspectives of laypeople, academics, professionals, domestic workers, youth, and children, the volume is a window into the myriad ways in which people have confronted, adapted to, and sought to tackle the coronavirus and its trail of problems. The experiences of the most vulnerable are specifically explored, and systemic changes and preliminary shifts towards a new global order are addressed. Laughter as a coping mechanism is a thread throughout.

This poem is a bluesy-jazzy drama replete with metaphor, epic simile, analogy, personification, synecdoche, irony, satire, allegory, imagery, etc.

This richly sourced monograph develops the logical explanation that sticks together all forces that constrained Africans to give up labour to an industrial economy in Evaton.

Since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Covid-19 a worldwide pandemic, humanity has been compelled to focus on its quantifiable aspects, that is, how many people were being infected each day, how many were confined to intensive care units and how many had died. These deadly statistics created an impression that all human beings are equal and that in charting the numbers, national governments are managing the crisis. However, and as social media conversation and the work of professionals beyond government has revealed, Covid-19 has significant social and psychological impacts. It has revealed social and class divides, the vulnerability of indigenous communities and the deleterious effects of extreme, narcissistic individualism.This anthology seeks tend to the range of human emotions experienced in the early phase of the pandemic. It uncovers an inner world that rarely featured in official narratives of the day. In the early days, the narratives and feelings of those under lockdown barely made it into headline news. The anthology therefore gives voice to feelings and seeks to render audible those currently silenced. The poems suggest that all communities speak. The marginalized speak against and through oppression. They are often audible but those in power often choose not to hear them. To emphasize this divide, the poet juxtaposes the emotions of the marginalized with strident, self-focused responses to the crisis, revealing a wide spectrum of human emotions and their impacts. A quiet offering of the book is that emotions matter and can provide deep insight into individual and national psyche.

This book contains dozens of haiku sequences. Each sequence consists of many haiku poems that revolve around the same topic and can be read sequentially and spatially. The poems in each sequence complement one another and shed contrastive and corroborative light on one another. They deal with many spiritual, moral, and realistic problems of contemporary humans and seek to develop the nature of haiku poetry itself.

Placing security studies in the context of contemporary discourses about the "colonial comeback" and posthumanism, this book postulates the notion of staticide which avers that the effacement of African state sovereignty is crucial for the security of the oncoming empire. Understood in the light of posthumanism, antihumanism, animism, postanthropocentrism and transhumanism; African human security has evidently been put on a recession course together with African state security. Much as African states are demonised as so failed, defective, corrupt, weak and rogue to require recolonisation; transhumanism also assumes that human bodies are so corrupt, imperfect, defective, failed, rogue and weak to require not only enhancements or augmentation but also to beckon recolonisation. Also, deemed to be ecologies, human bodies are set to be liberalised and democratised in the interest of nonhuman viruses, nanobots, microchips, bacteria, fungi and other pathogens living within the bodies.The book critically examines the security implications of theorising human bodies as ecologies for nonhuman entities. Reading staticide together with transhumanism, this book foresees transhumanist new eugenics that are accompanying the new empire in a supposedly Anthropocene world that serves to justify the sacrifice and disposability of some surplus humans living in the recesses and nether regions of the empire. Paying attention to the "colonial comeback", the book urges African scholars not to mistake imperial transformation for decolonisation. The book is invaluable for scholars and activists in African studies, anthropology, decoloniality, sociology, politics, development studies, security studies, sociology and anthropology of science and technology studies, and environmental studies.

Climate change is the topic of the century. It is a subject of discussion by sceptics, heretics and those that have immersed in it as a serious debate for engagement. In this volume, the matter is localised to the plateau bordered by the great rivers of Limpopo to the south and Zambezi to the north. Evidence has it that climate change is inducing immense environmental change hitherto unknown including water stress and droughts, heat waves and flooding. The effects span across all sectors - agriculture, forestry, engineering, construction and other socio-economic dimensions of life. When an issue becomes such topical, it becomes political but also courts policy debate. The thrust of this volume is to explore into climate change as an environmental concern begging government attention and requiring prioritisation as a shaper of our future, whether we set to put mitigation or adaptation measures in place, or we choose to do nothing about it, as sceptics would perhaps suggest.The book explores climate change as a theoretical, policy, technical and practical debate as it affects sectors and rural and urban spatialities in Zimbabwe. Contributions explore such themes as regional research, gender, disaster preparedness, policymaking, resilience, governance, urban planning, risk management, environmental law, and the food-water-health-energy-climate change nexus.