Hodzi, Obert. “China And Africa: Economic Growth and a Non-Transformative Political Elite”, Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 36:2, (2018), 191-206.

Prevailing narratives in the discourse on China-Africa engagement are that China is developing Africa. This paper departs from those narratives because they disregard the agency of Africa's political elite. Basing its argument on the nature of the African political elite, the paper analyses their role in determining the impact of China's economic and trade engagement on economic development in their respective countries. To do that, it first discusses the nature and identity of African political elites and examine show they control their states and scarce resources. Having done that, the paper then analyses their role in determining the nature and extent of development emanating from their countries’ economic engagement with China. It then concludes that it is not how much foreign states invest in African countries that determines Africa's rise, but rather political elites who influence the direction of their states’ development.

Source: article abstract.

Hoefert de Turégano, Teresa. African Cinema and Europe: Close-up on Burkina Faso. Florence: European Press Academic Pub, 2004.

This work is an analysis of cinematic representation in relation to a politics of production and to a received body of knowledge on Africa. It explores the process of transnational, translational and negotiated identities within differentiated structures of power and hierarchy in a global system. Burkinabè fiction film is used to consider an asymmetric relationship between France and Burkina Faso and by extension between Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. The analytical framework revolves around a notion of external affiliation, which is seen as a process of articulation of power and knowledge within cinematic space. It functions infrastructurally through the financing, production, distribution and exhibition of Burkinabè film, as well as through the body of knowledge that constitutes an idea of Africanness, as expressed through the modernity/tradition dichotomy, exoticism, the supernatural, postcolonial, and national identities. These themes serve as context for the film analysis. The study reveals various patterns of production and two main filmic tendencies. The power relations and the knowledge that Europe deploys do not result in a determined or objectified dependency on screen. Within this framework we see how Europe’s knowledge of Africa enters into relation with Africa’s knowledge of itself and produces a negotiated new Africanness.

[Source: European Press Academic Publishing]

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Carolyn E. Holmes

Assistant Professor, Political Science, Mississippi State University

Contact:

naunihal@gmail.com

Homann, Lisa, Jean Borgatti, Akinwumi Ogundiran, Silvia Forni, Christopher Slogar, Sylvester Okwunodu Ogbechie, Charlotte Joy, and Kevin MacDonald. Knowledge, Ethics, and Power: Publishing African Objects Without Clear African Provenance. African Arts53, n^o 4 (2020): 17‑23. https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_a_00548.

"The most interesting part of the repatriation debate in relation to the publication of images of unprovenanced objects is a simultaneous demand for a return to self-determination, for the right to possess and tell the story of your own past. To truly embrace this policy would not only necessitate the return of objects that are central to the identity of nations or cultural groups, but also signal an openness to relinquishing control over who has the right to set future interpretive research agendas.”

[Source: Excerpt from the article, p. 23].

Lauren Honig

Assistant Professor, Political Science, Boston College

Contact:

Boston College, Department of Political Science

140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467

Email: lauren.honig@bc.edu

Honig, Lauren. "Traditional Leaders and Development in Africa." In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. 2019.

Traditional leaders have a significant role in the social, political, and economic lives of citizens in countries throughout Africa. They are defined as local elites who derive legitimacy from custom, tradition, and spirituality. While their claims to authority are local, traditional leaders, or "chiefs," are also integrated into the modern state in a variety of ways. The position of traditional leaders between state and local communities allows them to function as development intermediaries. They do so by influencing the distribution of national public goods and the presentation of citizen demands to the state. Further, traditional leaders can impact development by coordinating local collective action, adjudicating conflicts, and overseeing land rights. In the role of development intermediaries, traditional leaders shape who benefits from different types of development outcomes within the local and national community. Identifying the positive and negative developmental impacts of traditional leaders requires attention to the different implications of their roles as lobbyists, local governments, political patrons, and land authorities.

[Source: chapter abstract]

Gavin Hood

Director/Cinema

South Africa

twitter.com/gavin_hood1?lang=en

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Caroline Shenaz Hossein

Associate Professor, Department of Global Development Studies, University of Toronto

Website: caroline-shenaz-hossein.com