Africa in/and the World

Back in 2000 Gavin Kitching sparked a major debate about giving up African Studies, his main argument being that African studies had become depressing, because the leaders he had supported during anti-colonial and anti-apartheid struggles had become the tyrants, keeping their countries and peoples subjugated and in poverty. His departure from the field of African studies flowed on the tide of Australian academics moving toward more mainstream fields of study including Asian studies, keeping job prospects open rather than closed. A rational choice in the face of an irrational Africa! A decade has passed since Kitching's 'depressing' announcement, and if only for the sake of assisting in the resettlement of former African refugees and African migrants in Australia, we need to engage with Africa and in particular conduct research and analysis of African issues in order to gain a comprehensive understanding of the experiences and conditions in Africa today

Zimbabwe's crisis: local and global contexts

In this 29th year of Zimbabwe's independence, the Zimbabwean dollar is near worthless, with one hundred trillion buying only AUD$4. There is evidence that state sanctioned violence and killings continue in the country despite the progress of the new government of national unity, and Mugabe's calls for 'national healing.' Australia has only slightly downgraded its travel warning to the country while 254 Zimbabweans remain subjected to 'travel and financial sanctions' in Australia. The Australian government website on Zimbabwe has yet to update its list of Heads of Government for Zimbabwe to include Morgan Tsvangirai as Prime Minister (www.dfat.gov.au/geo/zimbabwe/index.html), while Mugabe is still saluted as "Your Excellency". When he was Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, Kevin Rudd once criticised the Howard government for achieving no gains in the Zimbabwean crisis. Now as Prime Minister, will Rudd be able to put Africa and indeed Zimbabwe onto Australia's agenda

Pharmaceutical colonialism - ethical issues for research in Africa

Pharmaceutical Colonialism is the term used to describe the activities of some of the big pharmaceutical companies and their contract research organizations, that involves exploiting the sickness and poverty of citizens of weak and/or developing states

The state of African studies in Australia

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Women, Resistance and Africa: Armed Struggle in Zimbabwe, South Africa and Eritrea

The three Australian-based authors have completed doctorates on African liberation movements. Following fieldwork in Eritrea, Zimbabwe and among South African exiles in the United Kingdom, we each reached a similar conclusion - that the role that women played in African national liberation struggles had been inadequately acknowledged. We were concerned that dominant interpretations of the content and context of resistance had excluded non-combat activities necessary to sustain military action. Drawing on the work on resistance by Foucault and Scott, we became interested in extending the range of theoretical material available to those engaged in analyzing the relationship between gender and national liberation in the African contex

Audiovisual Metadata Platform Pilot Development (AMPPD), Final Project Report

This report documents the experience and findings of the Audiovisual Metadata Platform Pilot Development (AMPPD) project, which has worked to enable more efficient generation of metadata to support discovery and use of digitized and born-digital audio and moving image collections. The AMPPD project was carried out by partners Indiana University Libraries, AVP, University of Texas at Austin, and New York Public Library between 2018-2021

AOTI Research Strategy 2014-2019

The Association of Occupational Therapists of Ireland (AOTI) is the professional body for occupational therapists in Ireland. As a professional body, AOTI recognises the importance of ensuring evidence-based best practice, effectiveness and efficiency in the delivery of Occupational Therapy services to the benefit of service users. In 2007 a research committee was established within AOTI to guide a research agenda for the profession. In 2008, The Therapy Project Office developed core competencies for the occupational therapy profession (Therapy Project Office, 2008). These had a research and evidence-based focus

Who will make the 'best' use of Africa's land? Lessons from Zimbabwe

Conflict over African land – between small holders and large industrial farmers and between domestic farmers and global agribusinesses – raises key questions about who will make the best use of African land and which farmers do most to decrease poverty and produce more food, industrial inputs, and exports. Zimbabwe has already gone through two major changes in land occupation, and thus provides an important test of what is the 'best' use of the land. Three measures of 'best' use have been cited in Zimbabwe: reward for military victory, poverty reduction, and agricultural production. Initial evidence indicates that commercial small holder production is a better use of the land than larger, more mechanised farming

Genomic and molecular analyses identify molecular subtypes of pancreatic cancer recurrence

Pancreatic cancer (PC) remains a highly lethal malignancy, and most patients with localized disease that undergo surgical resection still succumb to recurrent disease. Pattern of recurrence after pancreatectomy is heterogenous, with some studies illustrating that site of recurrence can be associated with prognosis.1 Another study suggested that tumors that develop local and distant recurrence can be regarded as a homogenous disease with similar outcomes.2 Here we investigate novel molecular determinants of recurrence pattern after pancreatectomy for PC