Heshmati, Almas., ed. Studies on Economic Development and Growth in Selected African Countries. 1st ed. 2017. Singapore: Springer Singapore, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-4451-9.

This book is a collection of studies on economic development and growth in selected African countries. It consists of an introduction/summary and 15 inter-related empirical studies grouped into 5 research areas: women’s empowerment and demand for healthcare; the impact of institutions, aid, inflation and FDI on economic growth; capital structure and bank-loan growth effects; trade, mineral exports and exchange rate; and growth, productivity and efficiency in various industries. While it provides a comprehensive picture of the state of economic development and growth in most parts of the continent, the main focus is on economic development and growth in Ethiopia and Rwanda – two countries undergoing rapid economic and social development.

Source: book description by publisher

Hess, Janet Berry. Art and Architecture in Postcolonial Africa. Jefferson, N.C: McFarland & Company, 2006.

This work examines the complexity of popular artistic culture in the era of African nationalism, with a special focus on the influential independence era in Ghana. Discussed are architecture, museum exhibitions, political displays, nationalist ideologies, artistic practices, and the intangible forms of art.

[Source: Toronto Public Library].

Higgins, MaryEllen. Hollywood’s Africa after 1994. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2012.

Hollywood’s Africa after 1994 investigates Hollywood’s colonial film legacy in the post-apartheid era and contemplates what has changed in the West’s representations of Africa. How do we read twenty-first-century projections of human rights issues -child soldiers, genocide, the exploitation of the poor by multinational corporations, dictatorial rule, truth and reconciliation - within the contexts of celebrity humanitarianism, “new” military humanitarianism, and Western support for regime change in Africa and beyond? A number of films after 1994, such as Black Hawk Down, Hotel Rwanda, Blood Diamond, The Last King of Scotland, The Constant Gardener, Shake Hands with the Devil, Tears of the Sun, and District 9, construct explicit and implicit arguments about the effects of Western intervention in Africa. Do the emphases on human rights in the films offer a poignant expression of our shared humanity? Do they echo the colonial tropes of former “civilizing missions?” Or do human rights violations operate as yet another mine of sensational images for Hollywood’s spectacular storytelling?

[Source: Ohio University]

Higley, John and Michael Burton. Elite Foundations of Liberal Democracy. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006.

The authors argue that democracy is not possible without a “consensually united elite”, examining how such an elite form and persists. They define elites as actors with “serious and sustained effects on political outcomes”. These actors are always few in number, have high status within society, and stand to benefit from political action. Elites exist in democratic or authoritarian regimes. The book explores a wide variety of cases around the world.

Hilson, Abigail, GavinHilson, and Suleman Dauda. (2019). Corporate Social Responsibility at African Mines: Linking the Past to the Present. Journal of Environmental Management, Vol. 241, pp. 340-352.

This paper traces the origins of the 'brand' of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) employed at large-scale mines across sub-Saharan Africa. Conceived within fortified resource enclaves, the policies adopted and actions taken in the area of CSR at many of the region's large-scale mines today have had had minimal effect on community wellbeing. Further examination reveals that contemporary CSR strategy in the region's mining sector is often a 'repackaging' and 'rebranding' of moves made by major operators during the colonial period and early years of country independence to pacify and engage local communities. Today, this work is being championed as CSR but failing to deliver much change, its impact minimized by the economic and political forces at work in an era of globalization, during which extractive industry enclaves that are disconnected from local economies have been able to flourish.

Source: Paper's abstract

Hilson, Abigail, Gavin Hilson, and Suleman Dauda. “Corporate Social Responsibility at African Mines: Linking the Past to the Present.” Journal of Environmental Management 241 (July 2019): 340–52. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2019.03.121.

This paper traces the origins of the 'brand' of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) employed at large-scale mines across sub-Saharan Africa. Conceived within fortified resource enclaves, the policies adopted and actions taken in the area of CSR at many of the region's large-scale mines today have had had minimal effect on community wellbeing. Further examination reveals that contemporary CSR strategy in the region's mining sector is often a 'repackaging' and 'rebranding' of moves made by major operators during the colonial period and early years of country independence to pacify and engage local communities. Today, this work is being championed as CSR but failing to deliver much change, its impact minimized by the economic and political forces at work in an era of globalization, during which extractive industry enclaves that are disconnected from local economies have been able to flourish. As case study of Ghana, long one of the largest gold mining economies in sub-Saharan Africa, is used to illustrate these points.

Source: Paper abstract.

Hinfelaar, Hugo F, 1994. Bemba-Speaking Women of Zambia in a Century of Religious Change (1892-1992). E.J Brill, 1994.

Bemba-Speaking Women of Zambia traces the often-painful religious changes that have occurred among the Bemba-speaking women of Zambia since the last decade of the19th century. It argues that the religious tenets of the traditional domestic cult had already been undermined by the centralizing tendencies of the merchant princes before the arrival of the missionaries who based their church structures on the concept of the Bemba hierarchy. The body of the book describes with great authority the creative redress of the women as channeled through independent Christian movements and through the mission churches themselves. These chapters are especially important as it is shown in the last part of the book that these genuine reactions of the women could well offer material for genuine inculturation.

[Source: Brill.com]

Hjort, Mette, and Eva Jørholt, eds. African Cinema and Human Rights. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2019.

Bringing theory and practice together, African Cinema and Human Rights argues that moving images have a significant role to play in advancing the causes of justice and fairness. The contributors to this volume identify three key ways in which film can achieve these goals: documenting human rights abuses and thereby supporting the claims of victims and goals of truth and reconciliation within larger communities; legitimating, and consequently solidifying, an expanded scope for human rights; and promoting the realization of social and economic rights. Including the voices of African scholars, scholar-filmmakers, African directors Jean-Marie Teno and Gaston Kaboré, and researchers whose work focuses on transnational cinema, this volume explores overall perspectives, and differences of perspective, pertaining to Africa, human rights, and human rights filmmaking alongside specific case studies of individual films and areas of human rights violations. With its interdisciplinary scope, attention to practitioners’ self-understandings, broad perspectives, and particular case studies, African Cinema and Human Rights is a foundational text that offers questions, reflections, and evidence that help us to consider film’s ideal role within the context of our ever-continuing struggle towards a more just global society.

[Source: Indiana University Press].