ECAS 4 – Africa Engagements: On Whose Terms? Panel Title: Engaging the Francophone/Anglophone divide in researching Africa Panel Proposers: Ms Amy Niang, Politics and IR, University of Edinburgh Scotland Ms Muriel Cote, Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh Like other scientific disciplines, African studies are situated within specific knowledge/institutional configurations; this is perhaps most… Read More »
A friend dragged me to a small arthouse cinema last Friday to see Kinshasa Symphony, a documentary about Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste, a Kinshasa-based symphony orchestra. I thought it would be cheesy and all bleeding hearts, but it wasn’t. It shows the passion of some people who love classical music in a country that is not… Read More »
The Economist talks to China Europe Business School’s Africa Programme Director, Kwaku Atuahene-Gima, about the reason the Chinese business school decided to establish a branch in Ghana: CEIBS has been instrumental in developing the business talent that has helped China develop,…. The Europeans and Americans were the colonisers of Africa, but there was not much… Read More »
… is the title of a recently published book by Kate Meagher of LSE’s Department of International Development, my friend and fellow student of African trade networks and informal economy. Nicolas van de Walle writes in Foreign Policy about the book: Within development circles, conventional wisdom has it that successful manufacturing sectors often develop in low-income… Read More »
Nigeria’s 50th independence anniversary is on October 1, 2010. To celebrate it, we are running a series titled Nigeria@50 at the groupblog NigeriansTalk. The first in the series, titled One Nigeria: Nigerian Unity 50 years Post-independence, was written by Kola of KTravula. The second is titled Nigeria at 50: Academic Medicine, and was written by… Read More »
You probably already know about the Freshlyground music video. Well, in what is probably the least surprising news of the day, the Zimbabwean government has pulled their work visas. Upcoming concerts in Zimbabwe are cancelled. Listen to band members Zo and Simon talk on the PRI’s Global Hits programme here [mp3].
Off to Basel tomorrow for an African Borderlands Research Network conference. As part of a panel on a comparative study of cross-border trade networks in Africa, I will be presenting a paper titled “Benin-Nigeria secondhand clothing cross-border trade in historical perspective”. The abstract: Today, Benin Republic is the main supplier of secondhand clothing to Nigeria,… Read More »
President Goodluck Jonathan says Nigeria’s power industry can only grow through liberalisation: The government will sell 11 distribution companies created out of Power Holding Co. of Nigeria, the state-owned utility, and allow private companies to set up power plants using natural gas, hydro-electric dams and coal-powered stations, Jonathan said in a speech in Lagos, the… Read More »
Apparently, the fairly fragmented but resilient world of money transfer is getting consolidated: Sigue, a US money-transfer company strong in Latin America, is buying the money-transfer business of Coinstar for $41.5m. Coinstar’s network allows users to transfer cash to 23,000 points worldwide – and Sigue’s CEO, Guillermo de la Viña, says the acquisition will make his company… Read More »
Examining data from China – the biggest internal migration experience in human history – this column finds that migrants from the same village tend to cluster at the same destination for the same occupation. This pattern is driven by social networks within villages that reduce the moving costs for future migrants, such as the risk… Read More »