Migrant African women: tales of agency and belonging

This paper explores issues of belonging and agency among asylum seekers and refugee women of African origin in the UK. It discusses the ways these women engendered resistance in their everyday life to destitution, lack of cultural recognition, and gender inequality through the foundation of their own non-governmental organization, African Women’s Empowerment Forum, AWEF, a collective ‘home’ space. The focus of this account is on migrant women’s agency and self-determination for the exercise of choice to be active actors in society. It points to what might be an important phenomenon on how local grassroots movements are challenging the invisibility of asylum seekers’ and refugees’ lives and expanding the notion of politics to embrace a wider notion of community politics with solidarity. AWEF is the embodiment of a social space that resonates the ‘in-between’ experience of migrant life providing stability to the women members regarding political and community identification

Submission to the WCED

Meeting: World Commission on Environment and Development, Public Hearing, 24-25 June 1985, Oslo, NORelated to DAP 87-4249 under which IDRC supported the WCED to acquire and duplicate original papers, submissions, tapes and transcripts, became the depository of all original archival materials and received the right to microfiche the collection for broader disseminatio

From the mountains to the plains : the integration of the Lafofa Nuba into Sudanese society

This study of the Lafofa Nuba in the Sudan is the first comprehensive analysis of a matrilineal Nuba group. The author discusses the ways in which the Lafofa people in the Sudan are affected by centralisation of administration, commercialisation of agriculture, and the influence of Muslim culture. The study is a revision of the author's dissertation in anthropology.Contents: General introduction -- 1. The Liri region: some historical trends -- 2. The Hill people -- 3. Contemporary Lafofa society -- 4. Variations in adaptive strategies -- 5. Economic effects of adaptive choices -- 6. Participating in a rural region: some implications -- 7. Maintenance and change of Lafofa cultural traditions </p

Religion, Identities, and Politics: Defining Muslim Discourses in the Nuba Mountains of the Sudan

The author discusses the increased importance of Islam in religious and social life in the Sudan, exemplified by a discussion of the interplay between an indigenous, non-Arab, non-Islamized Sudanese people, the Lafofa Nuba, and their interaction with the Arab and Islamic traditions of Sudanese society at large. An understanding of this interaction will require types of analysis that deal with issues of belief as well as broader issues of identity management. People do not take over Islam as one unified system and in one process of conversion; rather they take up Muslim customs and practices that become symbols of such a conversion. The process of conversion must therefore be linked to the socio-economic and political status of the people involved. The author points out that theoretical contributions by Talal Asad on Islam as a “discursive tradition” and Robert Launay on Muslim communities as “moral communities” provide interesting avenues for exploring this complexity.

Comparing borderland dynamics : processes of territorialization in the Nuba mountains in Sudan, southern Yunnan in China, and the Pamir mountains in Tajikistan

Leif Ole Mange

Survival on meagre resources : Hadendowa pastoralism in the Red Sea Hills

This is the first comprehensive study of Hadendowa Beja pastoralism in Eastern Sudan. The various chapters deal with the effects of drought and of human activities on the natural environment; the effect on pastoral migration patterns, and socio-cultural changes. The authors argue that the recurrent pastoral disasters cannot be blamed only on the pastoralists, but must be related to wider economic and political contexts, in which the pastoralists are becoming increasingly marginalised.Contents: 1. The natural environment of the Red Sea Hills – Lessons in variability / Hassan Abd el Ati, Ole Reidar Vetaas, Leif Manger -- 2. Vegetation dynamics in the Red Sea Hills – Continuities and changes / Knut Krzywinski, Ole Reidar Vetaas, Leif Manger -- 3. Adaptive forms and processes among the Hadendowa – Coping with unpredictability / Sharif Harir -- 4. Beynd the locality – Urban centres, agricultural schemes, the states and NGOs/ Hassan Abd el Ati -- 5. Making ends meet – Some problems of viability in Hadedowa households / Leif Manger -- 6. The Hadendowa way of life – Survival of a cultural tradition / Leif Manger -- 7. The future of Red Sea Hills pastoralism – links and implications for planning / Leif Manger </p

From the mountains to the plains : the integration of the Lafofa Nuba into the Sudanese society.

Diss. doct. philosophia