Africa Research@Warwick
Regional Lead- Professor Franklyn Lisk
Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation
Importance of Africa research at Warwick: Rethinking and Reimaging African Development
A recent inventory of on-going research on Africa at Warwick by the GRP on International Development (GRP-ID) revealed that at least 75 colleagues from all faculties and across a wide range of disciplines - from politics, economics, business, sociology and law to life and health sciences, engineering and computer sciences, and to history, languages, applied linguistic and cultural policy and theatre studies – are currently engaged in theoretical, empirical, experimental, policy analysis and action-oriented research covering assorted topics, such as gender equality, legal and political institutions, post-colonialism, cultural and ethnic diversity, global public policy and international political economy, national economic development, food systems, social determinants of health, contemporary art, the digital divide, etc. The volume, dimension and diversity of research on Africa at Warwick in recent years reflect ‘the rise of Africa’ on the international horizon since the turn of the millennium and growing interest in the region in the light of changing perception about its future – from a continent of despair and stagnation to one of hope and optimism. Both The Economist and Time magazine have in the past year or so published lead articles entitled ‘Africa Rising’. Africa’s economic boom and relatively strong growth performance in the past decade have prompted researchers and analysts at Warwick to argue that the continent has reached a turning point in its development path and poised to play a significant role in the global economy in the 21st century.
Economic growth has to some measure been transformative in terms of enhancing private sector development, creating a fast growing middle class and facilitating innovation and access to new technologies, as illustrated by several country case-studies. There have been noticeable and sustained improvements in democratic governance and accountability throughout the region - in some cases characterised by a new generation of political, economic and social leaders - as compared with the 1980s and 1990s. Despite Africa’s strong economic growth performance and reasonable social progress over the past decade, indications from research and surveys are that many countries in the continent are grappling with several development challenges ranging from food insecurity, high unemployment especially among young people, inadequate infrastructure, weak institutions, poverty and inequality to commodity dependence, poor resource use and management, environmental degradation and varying degrees and aspects of marginalization in the global economy. Within the framework of research and policy analysis activities of the GRP-ID, work will continue at Warwick to research the efforts of African governments and institutions and the international development communities' initiatives aimed at addressing these development challenges.
Events
Workshop on Supranational Place Branding and Sustainable Development: Africa and the Post-2015 UN Development Agenda
Date: 19-20th March 2014
Time: 10am–5pm
Venue: The University of Warwick, UK
Keynote Speaker: Yvette Stevens, Permanent Representative of Sierra Leone to the United Nations, Geneva
Contact Details
Ms Penelope Muzanenhamo
Email: p.muzanenhamo@warwick.ac.uk
Research Projects
Dr David Lambert, Global History and Culture Centre
Knowledge, Exploration and Atlantic Slavery, c.1750-1850
David Lambert has just finished a research project on the entanglements of slavery, geographical knowledge and Britain’s emerging empire in Africa in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. At its heart are a series of geographical claims and counterclaims made about West Africa. Although centred on West Africa, the sources and consequences of these claims, as well as the broader agendas to which they were related, extended to the wider Atlantic world, including the slave colonies of the Caribbean. The project focused, in particular, on the West African facts and theories promulgated by the Scot, James MacQueen (1778–1870), especially about the course and termination of the River Niger. MacQueen was a famous nineteenthcentury geographer of Africa – despite never once visiting the continent – who correctly argued that the river flowed to the Atlantic Ocean at least a decade before this was proven to European satisfaction by explorers on the spot. MacQueen was also the former manager of a Caribbean slave plantation, a Glasgow merchant with trans-Atlantic commercial interests, a high-profile critic of the British antislavery campaign and an out-spoken advocate for the colonisation of Africa. MacQueen’s claims about Africa and the responses they engendered from the government, merchants, antislavery campaigners, explorers and other geographers, demonstrates how geographical facts and theories were central to contemporary debates about empire, slavery and scientific knowledge. A monograph based on the research project, Mastering the Niger: James MacQueen’s Map of Africa and the Struggle over Atlantic Slavery, will be published by Chicago University Press in 2013.
Professor John Oucho, Marie Curie Chair, Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations
Harnessing Africa's Brain Drain and Diaspora for its Development in the NEPAD-United Kingdom and French Partnership
The proposed research wishes to delve into Africa's brain drain and Diaspora in the two European countries and their involvement in the development of their continent of origin. Broadly speaking, three problem areas are identified. First, African emigrants' perceptions, aspirations, apprehensions and their disposition to contribute to Africa's development are crucial in an effort to involve them in the NEPAD agenda. Second, as NEPAD and the G8 have evolved promising working relations, policies and strategies of African countries vis-à-vis the United Kingdom and France have of necessity to address the NEPAD initiative in order to chart a mutually agreed approach to managing migration, in particular Africa's brain drain and Diaspora and their contribution to Africa's development. At issue are the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the streamlining of aid, trade, foreign direct investments (FDI) and migrant remittances to Africa. Finally, networks between Africa's emigrants and stayers back home need to be explored to ascertain or redirect their contribution, actual as well as potential, to the region's development.
David Anderson, History (under supervision of)
Resilience in East African Landscapes: Identifying critical threshold and sustainable trajectories – past, present and future (REAL)
Historical change in the wider Kilimanjaro lowlands (Amboseli-Pangani-Challa-Pare), c.1830 to the present
Kilimanjaro has always had an iconic status among travellers to and cultures of East Africa, resulting in a rich archive of information on landscape dynamics and human-environment interaction. Colonial archival sources and topographic maps, travellers accounts and other forms of printed evidence, historical (aerial and landscape) photographs, local knowledge accumulated from field interviews with farmers and pastoralists, and remote-sensing data available for more recent years, will all be synthesized to give a coherent picture of what is known about landscape change, and its proximate causes, on the Kilimanjaro lowlands over the past two centuries. The project will require archival research in east Africa (Tanzania and Kenya), along with extensive fieldwork in the study area. Knowledge of KiSwahili will be an advantage.
It is the aim of the wider REAL programme to combine the findings of this historical component with palaeoecological data gathered by other researchers to provide a longer historical perspective within which to frame the current rapid transformation of the area, characterized by pastoral communities switching to sedentary agriculture, partly in response to recent decimation of pastoral herds by drought and the ready availability of pumped groundwater. These changes may be indicative of adaptability and long-term resilience to shifting environmental regimes; however, they also resulted in enhanced local human disturbance and human-wildlife conflicts, and may represent an unsustainable trajectory. The comparative and collaborative aspects of the programme will address these broader questions in a multidisciplinary way.
REAL: This is a multidisciplinary and multi-partner research project entitled ‘Resilience in East African Landscapes: Identifying critical thresholds and sustainable trajectories – past, present and future’ (REAL), which is an EU funded Marie Curie Initial Training Network (ITN). The doctoral award in History at Warwick is one of several grants within the project to support Early Stage Researchers (ESRs).
Dr Richard Youngs and Dr Oz Hassan
Democracy and Citizenship in North Africa after the Arab Awakening: challenges for the EU and US foreign policy. EUSPRING
The 2010-2011 Arab uprisings have broken many myths and questioned the underpinnings of US and EU engagement with the region. We believe the ‘Arab Awakening’ represents a critical juncture in regional politics and in international relations, redefining a number of assumptions and approaches.
Many of the current debates in Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco focus on citizenship rights and their evolution. There is also a need to understand the the background to these debates, including the implementation of sharia, the clash over the confessional or the secular nature of the State, of a social welfare agenda, the expansion or reduction of the role of the state or of the market. The research project "Democracy and Citizenship rights in North Africa after the Arab Awakening: challenges to US and EU foreign policy" (EUSPRING) aims at understanding how concepts of democracy and citizenship rights are interpreted by different social and political forces in Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco. At the same time, the project will investigate the extent to which a transatlantic dialogue over democracy assistance policies towards North Africa is taking place.
Saverio Stranges & Thorogood, Margaret, WMS
Assessing adult health and ageing in Africa - IRSES Joint exchange project - Lead by Umea Sweden
Frances Griffiths, WMS
Health system design and the integration of information and medical technology in rural South Africa: A critical analysis
Dr Rocco Macchiavello & Professor Christopher Woodruff, Economics
Insights into Enterprise in Developing Countries
A majority of the world’s population makes their living from small businesses in developing countries. But sustained growth is associated with creation of stable jobs in larger firms. From this perspective, the role of enterprise is central to the future of emerging economies. Economic growth and poverty elimination cannot take place without developing enterprise capabilities in poor countries.
Paul O’Hare, WMS
ETATMBA Enhancing human resources and articulating appropriate technologies for maternal and perinatal survival in sub-Saharan Africa
This project aims to develop the education and training for Non-Physician Clinicians (NPCs) who work with mothers and babies in rural and urban areas of Africa. With few doctors available, these clinicians are a vital source of health care provision yet receive little recognition for their work.
Dr Gabrielle Lynch
Truth and Justice: The search for peace and stability in modern Kenya
This project will critically evaluate Kenya's Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) established following post-election violence of 2007/8. The aim is to evaluate the Commission's contribution to 'truth', 'justice' and 'reconciliation' according to local expectations and perceptions, as well as international norms and practices, provide critical insights into Kenyan history and politics and offer policy recommendations for those thinking of using a 'truth commission' as a 'transitional justice' tool in other contexts.