Blair Rutherford is professor of Anthropology in the Department of Sociology & Anthropology at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. For over 25 years, his ethnographic research in various countries in sub-Saharan Africa has focused on the cultural politics of predominantly rural livelihoods, examining in particular the varied terms, conditions and contestations of labour relations along racialized, gendered, classed and citizenship axes within overlapping (and at times competing) scales of action. He is the author of Working on the Margins: Black Workers, White Farmers in Postcolonial Zimbabwe (Zed Books and Weaver Press, 2001), Farm Labor Struggles in Zimbabwe: The Ground of Politics (Indiana University Press, 2017), and co-editor of Sexual Violence in Conflict and Post-Conflict Societies: International Agendas and African Contexts (Routledge, 2014).

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  • Africa Matters – Cultural politics, political economies and grammars of protest

    Africa Matters: Cultural politics, political economies, & grammars of protest provides a sampling of insightful articles from the first five issues of Nokoko, journal of the Institute of African Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. It brings together pieces that the journal’s editorial board felt were particularly perspicacious in their analysis and resonant in their crafting. Uniting them in this book permits a new dialogue to emerge around the key themes of cultural politics, political economies and grammars of protest. Their intersection here sheds light on important issues for Africans in the twenty-first century.

    Table of Contents


    Introduction: On the matter of African mattersBlair Rutherford and Pius Adesanmi

    Two cities: Guangzhou / LagosWendy Thompson Taiwo

    Catherine Acholonu (1951- 2014): The female writer as a goddess—Nduka Otiono

    Filming home, plurality of identity, belonging and homing in transnational African cinema—Suvi Lensu

    ‘Spare Tires’, ‘Second Fiddle’ and ‘Prostitutes’? Interrogating discourses about women and politics in
    Nigeria—Grace Adeniyi-Ogunyankin

    The South African Reserve Bank and the telling of monetary stories—Elizabeth Cobbett

    The neoliberal turn in the SADC: Regional integration and disintegration—Jessica Evans

    Indian hair, the after-temple-life: Class, gender and 137 race representations of the African American woman in the human hair industry—Nadège Compaore

    The role of radio and mobile phones in conflict situations: The case of the 2008 Zimbabwe elections and xenophobic attacks in Cape Town—Wallace Chuma

    The story of Cape Town’s two marches: Personal reflections on going home—Stephanie Urdang

    Beyond an epistemology of bread, butter, culture and power: Mapping the African feminist movement—Sinmi Akin-Aina

    Setting the agenda for our leaders from under a tree: The People’s Parliament in Nairobi—Wangui Kimari and Jacob Rasmussen

    Politics across boundaries: Pan-Africanism: Seeds for African unity—Gacheke Gachihi

    Afterword: Incorporeal words: The tragic passing of Pius Adesanmi—Blair Rutherford

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