Two 'transitions': the political economy of Joyce Banda's rise to power and the related role of civil society organisations in Malawi

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Review of African Political Economy on 21/07/2014, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03056244.2014.90194

The global development project contested: the local politics of the PRSP process in Malawi

Development, in an age of globalizations, has indeed become a global project. However, this project remains contested and contestable. While much attention has been given to this contestation at a macro-policy level, the dynamics of such contestations on the ground remain less studied. Noting that development projects, policies and programs are themselves products of power relations and social struggles, this paper focuses on the dynamics of these relations and struggles in relation to the dissemination of the global development project in Malawi. Drawing from the experiences and fractious journey from 2000 to 2006 of the broad-based civil society network involved in Malawi’s ongoing PRSP process, the paper shows how local actors draw creatively on globalized discourses of participation and representation to contest and confound the objectives of the elites, thereby complicating the channels through which the global development project is promulgated

Secret worlds, democratization and election observation in Malawi

ASC – Publicaties niet-programma gebonde

Pentecostalism, gerontocratic rule and democratization in Malawi: the changing position of the young in political culture

This chapter explores the relationship between the father-metaphor, gerontocratic power, democratization and religion in the context of changing political culture in Malawi. It argues that democratization in Malawi signalled a change in the nature of the dominant gerontocratic power relations associated with Chewa political traditions, and gave the young an opportunity to escape from their tightly circumscribed sociopolitical space in what for thirty years had been a highly supervised society. It further argues that religion, in particular 'born-again' (often Pentecostal) Christianity, played a significant role in changing the meaning of the crucial root paradigm of gerontocracy in Malawian political culture. The chapter shows that the position adopted by religious youth groups in the 1990s was the outcome of a 'struggle for youth' that Malawian society had faced since colonial times and in which religion played a significant role. In so doing, it deconstructs the so-called 'conservative nature' of Christian fundamentalism-cum- Pentecostalism.ASC – Publicaties niet-programma gebonde

The Public Health Relevance of Contagious Rhythm: Infectious Diseases of 20th Century Musicians

No abstract available

Point of View: Modern medical myth: ‘More doctors in Manchester than in Malawi’: A preliminary communication

This paper argues that there has never been a period in which there were more indigenous Malawi doctors working in Manchester than Malawi. An explanation for this myth is advanced

Music advocacy, the media and the Malawi political public sphere, 1958–2007

Journalists and writers in Malawi were crucial in the resistance to Dr Banda's hegemony between 1964 and 1993. The contested terrain was orality. This paper concentrates on the role of musicians and asserts that musicians in Malawi were, and arguably are, much braver and more persistent political critics and social change advocates than their counterparts in print journalism. While journalists censored themselves, and were censored, oral practitioners' lyrics and texts were usually much more explicit. Musicians exploited aspects of traditional culture to point out the political-economic suffering of the peasantry. While journalists' critiques and analyses have, since 1995, become more muted, musicians have continued to provide more independent, forceful voices on behalf of the poor in a country where literacy levels remain low and English is the official legislative, political and economic voice. This paper argues that an assessment of Malawi's public sphere excluding oral critiques misses significant and critical inputs important for social and developmental change