Foreword

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Western Guilt and Third World Development: Part 1

The issue of Western guilt has enjoyed much attention after the independence of most colonized countries in the Third World (developing countries). Western guilt is defined here as the feeling that the West (developed countries) is responsible for the poverty of the Third World. For sometimes now, both the West and the developing countries have had some kind of agreement on the subject. But there has been an emergence of a new ideology championed mainly by Peter Bauer who has argued sternly against Western guilt. This ideology has caused many to sit up to reconsider the subject. The main of this paper is to provide the final verdict on this issue and bring the subject to a close. To do this, the paper identified four main factors of the proponents of Western guilt which includes Colonialism, Neo-colonialism, Slave trade and Trade Barriers. Part one of this work argued in favour of Western guilt using these four thematic areas. It was concluded that the West have been a major contributor of Third World poverty. Part two of this work will consider the otherwise of the situation and a verdict will be provided.Western Guilt, Third World Countries, West, Development

[Review] Roger Southall and Henning Melber, ed. (2009) A new scramble for Africa? Imperialism, investment and development

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Researching gender: the challenge of global diversity today

The text of this paper is based on a lecture given at the symposium of the Ghent African Platform “Researching Gender in/on Africa” at Ghent University in December 2009. It addresses some general challenges faced by ‘gender studies’ as an autonomous field versus ‘gender research’ as an integrated topic within mainstream disciplines in academia. Gender studies have sometimes superseded ‘women’s studies’ and expanded to cover the terrain of study of various forms of diversity including men’s and transgender studies. We will show that the ‘mainstreaming’ of gender in public policy at local, national and transnational levels is a development which may potentially lead to the loss of a – feminist – political edge. Secondly, while gender studies with their emphasis on socially constructed gender as opposed to biological essentialist understandings of ‘sex’ appear to face the challenge of a popular ‘new biological determinism’, it is shown that the binary model of sex/gender in fact has been criticised for some time now from within feminist theory and gender research. This is (selectively) illustrated with research from four disciplines, including the work of African gender studies scholars, i.e. feminist philosophy, social sciences (in particularsocio-cultural anthropology), history and biology itself. This then shows how the accusation that gender studies would be ‘socially deterministic’ without attending to bodily matters or materiality is unfounded. Finally, it is argued that there is still a need for gender studies to become more culturally diverse, more global and transnational in its outlook, by becoming more deeply attuned to the way gender intersects with other forms of difference and taking into account postcolonial critiques of western feminist paternalism, without falling into the trap of cultural relativism

Spaces and scales of African student activism: Senegalese and Zimbabwean university students at the intersection of campus, nation and globe

African university students have long engaged in political activism, responding to changing political, social and economic circumstances through protest that has at times exerted considerable influence on the national stage. Student activism employs highly spatialised strategies yet has received minimal attention from geographers. Drawing on case studies from Senegal and Zimbabwe, we identify four phases of activism in which students have mobilised distinctive relational spatialities in responding to changes in the spatial expression of dominant political power. In so doing, we highlight the inadequacies of approaches to resistance that give excessive emphasis to a power/resistance dualism or to questions of scale

Is Mozambique's elite moving from corruption to development?

Mozambique's elite has responded to five decades of rapid change and international pressure by staying united and steering a course that tried to balance the conflicting pressures of national development, self-interest, and the demands of the international community. This paper argues that after a period of donor-supported corruption, crude rent-seeking and unsuccessful Washington Consensus policies, the elite has shifted into using the state to promote the creation of business groups that could be large enough and dynamic enough to follow a development model with some similarities to the Asian Tigers, industrial development in Latin America, or Volkskapitalisme in apartheid South Africa

Neo-colonialism and the Scandal of African Poverty: A Review

This paper argues that Neo-colonialism is an essential factor for the survival of Western capitalist countries since it demonstrates permanent exploitative relationship between the rich industrialized nations of Europe and North America and the poor dependent Third World countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America. It rejects the views of liberal economists who are of the opinion that global economic policies based on trade liberalization and price control system have been fair to all nations of the world both rich and poor since it is predicated on comparative cost advantage. This paper submits that the dependency syndrome occasioned by unequal trading relationship that exists between the industrialized countries of the world and nonindustrialized countries of Africa results in economic stagnation and inflation thus paving the way for poverty across the continent. Finally, it suggest that Africa's economic transformation must be a function of internal dynamics through sustained political stability, exemplary and visionary leadership, adequate mobilization of abundant natural and human resources as well as marked improvement in indigenous technology. Key words: Neo-colonialism, African Poverty, Economic Developmen