Cultural Appropriation and the Limits of Identity: A Case for Multiple Humanity(es)

examine the dominant conversations on cultural appropriation. The first part of the essay will examine the ideological configuration of what constitutes cultural appropriation (hereafter as CA) first, as the politics of the diaspora and second, within a normative understanding of culture and its diachronic contradictions. This will be followed by a critical reevaluation of our subject theme as primarily a discourse of power with multiple implications. Framed as a discourse of power, CA is equally exposed to ideological distortions, and its critics becoming afflicted with the same virus they set out to cure in the first place. I am interested in the aspect of culture as a constant location of tensions and rupture, yet constitutive of core credential in the making of modern identity. I argue that the failure of dominant criticisms of cultural appropriation is precisely because they do not leave epistemic space for prior commitments: the internal variation of culture. If as critics have argued that CA enables cultural violence, we need to understand the epistemic space where cultural violence occurs in order to make a meaningful proposal for identity discourse and conversation. I will make a case for what may be termed multiple humanity (ies) as a way of transcending the homogenous claims imposed upon cultural memories

Emergent issues in African philosophy : a dialogue with Kwasi Wiredu

Abstract: These are major excerpts from an interview that was conducted with Professor Wiredu at Rhodes University during the 13th Annual Conference of The International Society for African Philosophy and Studies. He speaks on a wide range of issues such as political and personal identity, racism and tribalism, moral foundations, ity, the golden rule, the liberal‐communitarian debate, African communalism, human rights, personhood, consensus, meta‐philosophy, amongst other critical themes

Fiscal Instruments and Economic Growth in Nigeria

The study investigated the impact of fiscal policy instruments on economic growth in Nigeria for the period 1970- 2015, using time series data obtained from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) statistical bulletin. Cointegration test, Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) and Granger causality test were utilized in the analysis. The variables employed in the investigation include real gross domestic product (RGDP), government recurrent expenditure (GRE), government capital expenditure (GCE), tax revenue (TAR), external debt (EDT), domestic debt (DDT) and total export (TEXP). The results of the cointegration test indicated that long run equilibrium relationship exists among the variables under study. Similarly, the results of the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) revealed that government capital expenditure (GCE), tax revenue (TAR) and domestic debt (DDT) have negative and significant impact on economic growth in Nigeria. The results also indicated that government recurrent expenditure (GRE) and total export (TEXP) have positive and significant impact on economic growth in the economy. Similarly, the results showed that external debt (EDT) has positive and insignificant impact on economic growth in Nigeria. Furthermore, the result of the Paiwise Granger causality test revealed that unidirectional relationship exists between RGDP and GCE, GRE, TAR, TEXP with causality running from real GDP to GCE, TAR, and TEXP respectively. The result also indicated that causality runs from GRE to RGDP. However, the result showed no causality between EDT and RGDP. The implication of these results is that while RGDP is the major determinants of GCE, TAR and TEXP; GRE is one of the major determinants of real GDP in the Nigerian economy. Therefore, the study recommends that government should expand its recurrent budget expenditures more than its capital budget expenditure in Nigeria, since it has positive and significant contribution to economic growth in the economy. In so doing, economic growth will improve. More so, government should as a matter of urgency review its tax policy in the country, bring in experts free of corruption in the implementation and administration of tax policy in Nigeria. It is only in this way that the contribution of tax revenue to economic growth will positively improve in the economy. Keywords: Fiscal policy, Economic growth, Cointegration, Vector error correction model, Granger causalit

Granger Causality between Private Domestic Savings and Economic Growth in Nigeria: Toda-Yamamoto Approach

The study investigated the causality between private domestic savings and economic growth in Nigeria for the period 1981-2014. Specifically, the study examines whether private domestic savings have positive impact on economic growth; and as well investigate if there is existence (or not) of significant causality between private domestic savings and economic growth in Nigeria. Vector Auto Regressive (VAR) model and Toda-Yamamoto approach to Granger causality test were utilized for the analysis. The variables such as total private savings (TPS), government expenditure (GEX), financial deepening (FD) and real GDP were used in the study. Stationarity test was conducted by applying the Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) stationarity test and the results revealed that all the variables were non-stationary at level, and however, became stationary after first and second differencing. The VAR model results showed that total private savings (TPS) has positive impact on real GDP. Furthermore, the results of the Toda-Yamamoto to Granger causality test revealed that significant causality exist between TPS and RGDP, with causality running from RGDP to TPS. Therefore, the study recommends that government should adopt those macroeconomic policies that tend to promote economic growth in order to achieve increased savings, investment and higher employment. Similarly, the study recommends that government should expand its expenditure level on real sector of the economy and as well encourage financial sector to enable them operate effectively and efficiently in order to finance investment and other macroeconomic policies that have the capacity to facilitates economic growth and savings rate in the economy. Keywords: Nigeria, Domestic Savings, Economic Growth, Toda-Yamamot

The Relationship between Unemployment and Economic Growth in Nigeria: Granger Causality Approach

The study examined the relationship between unemployment and economic growth in Nigeria; and specifically focused on the impact of unemployment on economic growth for the period 1980-2013. Cointegration test, Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) technique and Granger causality test were employed in the analysis. The variables utilized in the investigation include real gross domestic product (RGDP), unemployment rate (UNEMP) and private consumption expenditure (PCE). Stationarity test was conducted and the results indicated that all the variables except UNEMP were stationary at level; however, UNEMP became stationary after first differencing. The cointegration test result revealed that long run relationship exists among the variables under study. More so, VECM result showed that unemployment has negative and significant impact on RGDP. Finally, the Granger causality results indicated unidirectional relationship between UNEMP and RGDP, with causality running from RGDP to UNEMP. Based on the findings above, the study therefore, recommends that government should as a matter of urgency create more employment opportunities to absorb the teeming population of the unemployed labour force in the country through modernization of the agricultural sector, bring in modern equipment in the facilities of agriculture to make the sector more attractive to all citizens despite one’s qualifications and profession, as that alone would go a long way in reducing unemployment level in the country. Keywords: Nigeria, Economic growth, Unemployment, Cointegration, Granger causality

Transitional Justice, Decolonisation, and the Legitimation of Political Change in Contemporary South Africa

In this project, I explore the residual impact of transitional justice discourse in contemporary South Africa. I argue specifically that even though transitional justice in South Africa became successful in terms of political justice, it failed to fulfill its promise of sociocultural and economic transformation. Precisely because the mandate of transition was political justice, the TRC (Truth and Reconciliation Commission), instead of being an outcome of evolving historical processes and sociopolitical relations, now reads as a finished business or an event and not a transitional mechanism. The prioritization of political justice problematized other initiatives for an inclusive and contemporaneous transitional justice. First, our notion of justice is grounded in temporal fluidity, fluctuating according to political interests or wind of change. Second, it undermines the normative appeal to socioeconomic and historical justice as necessary attributes of a transformative capital. Third, it frames political justice as the end of the transformation. Transitional justice here becomes primarily an event that ended with a constitution that is supreme to the parliament. The very idea of transitional justice would have to be decolonized for a creative adaptation that will stimulate continued processes for change and emancipatory transformation. In decolonization, a few things unravel: (i) we begin to understand why societies that have undergone transitional justice sometimes relapse to pre-conflict situations and in some cases into worsening scenarios; (ii) it unmasks why transitional justice has failed to accomplish its ambitious, transformative agenda and often implicated in undermining these goals; (iii) it exposes the discontinuity between the abstract ideal of justice and a historicized notion of justice, a misrecognition that often (a) accentuates distrust of the whole political project of transition and (b) imposes a westernized idea of justice as hegemonic reality. (iv) Decolonization also opens room for mobile politics – an imaginative effusion that gives priority to context and history. Complementing decolonization is Cultural Reclamation (CR) as a theoretical utility to overcome the limitations of decolonization.CR negotiates the ambivalent relationship between race and class, including the ambiguities of survival politics, which turns victims into perpetrators or villains into victims. Race ceases to be a primary determinant of collective consciousness and becomes instead, a subsidiary to culture. The relevance of CR is this ability to contextualize history and create diverse meanings, even in most contradictory and conflictive situations. CR expands our conversation on transitional justice to include, for example, issues of historical and economic injustice as well as the land question. With this maneuverer, discussions on transitional justice move beyond the binary entrapment of us versus them to a creative engagement with a non-racialized other. Our claim on justice is no longer a residual narrative entrapped only within the epistemic space of colonial engagement to embrace a dynamic infusion of reality

Assessment of the Effect of Inflation on Nigeria’s Economic Growth: Vector Error Correction Model Approach

The study examined the effect of inflation on Nigeria’s economic growth for the period ranging from 1980 to 2015. Cointegration approach, vector error correction model (VECM) and Granger causality test were employed in the analysis. Variables engaged in the study involve real gross domestic product (RGDP), inflation rate (INFR), government investment expenditure (GINVXP), private investment expenditure (PINVXP) and total export (TEXP). The results of cointegration test showed evidence of long-run relationship among the selected variables. The VECM results demonstrated that inflation affect Nigeria’s economic growth negatively and insignificantly. More so, it was shown in the results that GINVXP and TEXP have significant and negative effect on RGDP. The results also indicate that PINVXP has significant and positive influence on RGDP. Similarly, the results of the Granger causality test revealed no causation between inflation rate and real GDP. The implication of these results is that while government economic measures aimed at improving public spending on both private and public investments leads to increase real GDP, such measure does not lead to solving Nigeria’s inflation problems. In view of the above, the study therefore recommends as follows: that government may reconsider the over reliance in its spending on public and private investments in solving inflation problems in Nigeria, as there are other factors responsible for high inflation in the economy. Similarly, government is advised to pursue vigorously the economic policies targeted at improving economic growth because that will help to reduce high inflation in the economy. Furthermore, government is by this study advised to increase its capital budget spending on public investment projects, and as well create business friendly environment for private investment in Nigeria. In so doing, significant economic growth will be achieved and sustained in the Nigerian economy. Keywords: Inflation, Economic growth, Cointegration, Vector error correction model, Granger causality