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The American Colonization of Liberia is a unique example of statecraft, reflecting the domestic political concerns of free blacks and colonizationists in the United States. The founding of Liberia reflects the objectives of these two factions.

This thesis explores the broad continuities in the strategies that individual leaders in Africa have employed to mobilise political support across different historical periods and party systems, from the late colonial to the post-colonial era, and from single-party to multiparty systems. It examines this question through a historical biography of Michael Sata, a political leader in Zambia whose life and career, like those of several other Zambian individual politicians, cut across the main divides in the country's political history: the late-colonial period (1953-1964), the one-party state (1973-1991) and the era of multiparty democracy (since 1991). Sata's experiences also span a number of political organisations such as the United National Independence Party (from the early 1960s to 1991), the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (1991-2001) and the Patriotic Front (2001-2011). I argue that Sata employed several political strategies such as populism, clientelism, ethnic appeals and coalition building to mobilise support across these historical epochs and party institutions. The existing literature on Zambian political change has largely focused on ethnicity, which has taken attention away from the fact that most ethnic politics has had, as this thesis demonstrates, a populist component. More broadly, what this study demonstrates is the utility of historical biography in understanding political change. Examining the life of an individual whose experiences cut across supposed turning points and disruptions, or the institutions that have come and gone with them, captures not only change but continuities too, which are generally missing in many accounts of political life in Africa, and consequently allows us to gain new and unique insights.

This dissertation reconstructs a history of the greater Qacha’s Nek district of Lesotho, southern Africa from 1880 when farmers first settled the area, until 1965 on the eve of independence from Great Britain. This place-based study speaks to broader questions. How have people incorporated new and often foreign ideas into existing beliefs and practices? How did a person’s social position affect how they interacted with new ideas? How have people applied knowledge to make and remake environments such as in gardens and fields? This study is based on field research in Lesotho, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. The author examined archival materials including colonial records, agricultural reports and surveys, national council proceedings, and vernacular newspapers. During four months of rural fieldwork in Lesotho the author collected oral histories, took photographs, and participated in village life. The approach focuses on colonial government interventions into agriculture and pastoralism. These interventions serve as sites for examining historical changes in how Basotho people engaged with the non-human world. In so doing, the study makes three main interventions. First, the claims are situated within scholarly conversations about local knowledge, science, and environment under colonialism. Second, the stories of chiefs, farmers, and government employees told here extend the literature on Lesotho’s political and economic history by highlighting the nuance of local politics, ecology, and agency. Finally, to contribute to the environmental historiography on Africa and rural places in general, the study probes the interplay of culture and nature. To do this, it narrates how people deployed eclectic knowledge to build, rebuild, and redefine environments. The dissertation argues that the compilation of environmental knowledge must be understood as a historical process that encapsulates the meanings that people have imbued the landscape with, for example, by building homesteads, along with how people have understood the landscape as a system of resources to be used economically for subsistence and market purposes. These aspects of knowing are part of a single process that has unfolded, and continues to unfold, along a temporal trajectory that has varied across different social groups, such as men and women and chiefs and commoners.

abstract: Islamist groups in Somalia define themselves by their opposition. From the pre-Islamist movement of Mohammed Hassan in the nineteenth century to al-Itihaad al-Islaami in the twentieth to al-Shabaab in the twenty-first, Islamism exists as a form of resistance against the dominant power of the era. Furthermore these Islamist groups have all been influenced by the type of state in which they exist, be it colonial, independent, or failed. This work seeks to examine the relationship between the uniquely Somali form of Islamism and the state. Through use of historical records, modern media, and existing scholarship this dissertation will chart the development of Islamism in Somalia from the colonial period to the present and explore the relationship Somali Islamism has with various forms of state. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Religious Studies 2013

M.A. (French) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

The South African economy experienced slowing economic growth in the late 1970s, as a result of the international economic recession and the oil crisis of the early 1970s, and the system of apartheid was declared a crime against humanity in 1973. The 1970s saw the country experiencing renewed industrial and collective mass action, most notably the Durban strikes of 1973 and the student uprisings of 1976. The Wiehahn Commission was established in 1977 to respond to African labour militancy through a reconstruction of the then dual labour relations framework. The Commission’s stated goals were the stabilisation of labour relations and the facilitation of economic growth. This reform process led to the liberalisation of labour legislation in South Africa and additionally to the inclusion of African trade unions into the state collective bargaining system, provided these unions registered. By positioning itself within the ‘School of Continuity’, the paper disputes the notion of the discontinuation of colonialism as a result of the ‘Democratic transition’ of 1994, by proposing that this transition was but a logical progression of colonial social engineering achieved through the co‐optation of African labour in the 1970s. The research proposes that the Wiehahn Commission succeeded in creating a Black middle class that continues to act as a buffer from the rest of the African population. In addition, the long‐term objectives of the apartheid state were fulfilled with the institutionalisation of the Growth, Employment and Redistribution macroeconomic policy of 1996. / Mini Dissertation (MSocSci (History))--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Andrew W. Mellon Foundation / Historical and Heritage Studies / MsocSci (History) / Unrestricted

This dissertation examines the transmission of the past and how it is affected by context, source materials, and the individual with regards to opinion and inherent bias. The subject of this analysis is Jan Christiaan Smuts and how he has been portrayed over the last century. Various authors are analysed with W. K. Hancock forming a kind of watershed given the access to primary material. The dissertation includes a brief discussion of South African historiography as well as a brief biographical outline of Smuts's life. The main concern is however a literature analysis of selected material which will set out to illustrate how information is often "lost in transmission." / Dissertation (MHCS)--University of Pretoria, 2016. / Historical and Heritage Studies / MHCS / Unrestricted

Christian women's organizations in Zimbabwe have a long history. Prior to independence, both the Catholic church and the major Protestant denominations had mother's unions or women's clubs. These groups met at the congregational level weekly for prayer, singing, Bible study and support. Education was also an important function of these groups. After independence, many ecumenical and non-denominational Christian women's groups were formed. The purpose of these groups was to assist in national development and in women's development. This dissertation explores the role of these women's organizations in facilitating women's participation in development. The premise of the study was that the church in Zimbabwe plays a large role in development and that women are heavily involved in church life. It was not clear, however, that women's involvement resulted in their benefiting from the church's development activities and efforts. It was assumed that women's organizations would be one way that women could access those activities and the resultant benefits. The literature review includes feminist theories, women in development (WID) and women's organizations. This provided a foundation for exploring the theoretical underpinnings of WID efforts and women's organizations, as well as the appropriateness of those theories, efforts and organizations for women in Zimbabwe. The field research consisted of in-depth interviews with the heads of various types of Christian women's organizations as well as leaders within the Christian Council of Zimbabwe. Unpublished documents produced by the organizations were analyzed. And observations were done of one indigenous community development organization and one church-related women's club. The data revealed that women are benefiting from church development efforts and that women's organizations are largely responsible for that. Also, that women's organizations on their own contribute greatly to community development. Christian women's organizations in Zimbabwe have a major role to play in facilitating the full participation of women in development.

This study begins with two premises. The first is that American Studies needs to move beyond the borders of the United States to examine the ideological, cultural and economic effects our country has had on others. The United States has historically been deeply involved in Anguilla's economy, revolution and ideology. The second is that history is a commodity that is selectively deployed in the creation of personal and national cultural values in Anguilla. I use Sherry Ortner's concept of serious games and James Scott's theory of the arts of resistance to analyze how Anguilla's contemporary culture is a product of its history, environment, and a particular industry. Colonial institutional failure created a vacuum in which Anguillians were permitted, even encouraged, to conceptualize themselves as independent. The harsh environment prevented the formation of a plantocracy based on sugar production. The means and modes of the production of salt, Anguilla's only staple, resulted in a social structure that contrasts with those of the sugar islands in the Antilles. Today, independence remains Anguilla's serious game and sole art of resistance on a personal, cultural and national level.;The definition of self and nation as independent is based upon a radical excision of history that is articulated in an invention of tradition. Plato's idea of mythos and logos serve as methodological tools for unpacking how history has been strategically utilized and suppressed to support cultural concepts. The hypothesis of this dissertation is that, if history repeats, Anguilla is trapped in the box of dominant discourse. Anguillians' history does repeat; their version of history fails to benefit them because it elides their basic dependency.;The conclusion is that, in positioning independence as the contrariety of colonialism, Anguilla has created a false dichotomy that is symptomatic of an underlying social malaise. On a personal level, independence is the antithesis of community and nationalism. On a political level, independence works against regionalism. Dependence, the hidden narrative of the Anguillian public discourse of independence, undermines the mythos. Only by deconstructing the contrarieties of independence and colonialism into subcontrarieties, can Anguilla address its cultural dissonances and position itself in a global world.