This thesis explores how various African and European actors experienced projections of imperial power, and the subsequent – though not synonymous – processes of colonial state-formation, in what was a relatively remote area on the margins of empire. Situated far away from established centres of authority in Cape Town or Pietermaritzburg, Pondoland was largely of parochial interest to imperial and colonial officials for much of the nineteenth century. As the last independent chiefdom to be annexed by the Cape, the transformations that marked the diminishing of empire and the consolidation of colonial rule had relatively little impact upon Mpondo political structures until 1894. Of course, the country was not immune to wider economic shifts or the conflagrations that erupted along an ever expanding eastern frontier. But these broader patterns of change modified, rather than undermined, the existing foundations of Mpondo political authority. Consequently, this thesis explores how these broader historical developments were perceived in Pondoland. Specifically, it seeks to examine how various Mpondo and other actors understood these processes by highlighting the contentious debates about the exercise of political authority and subjecthood they provoked. Such conversations varied across the polity; they expressed the latent loyalties and long-term rivalries within the country – cleavages which themselves reflected its jurisdictionally heterogeneous nature and the processes of differential incorporation which bound its composite communities in various ways to the Mpondo paramountcy. In examining the political dialogue that took place during Pondoland’s transition from independence to annexation, this thesis foregrounds the reconfiguration of intra-Mpondo political relations as central in determining the nature of the country’s incorporation. Moreover, it explores how these intra-Mpondo shifts were both facilitated by, and foundational to, the intersection of indigenous, colonial and imperial jurisdictional disputes in ways that fundamentally shaped the administrative and institutional character of the early colonial state.

Drawing on semi-structured interviews and published documents, this thesis examines the changing union-state relationship in Zimbabwe. Unlike many existing work on the subject, this thesis is a holistic analysis in that it considers the views of the government officials, International Labour Organization (ILO) officials, Business Executives and trade unionists. An in-depth empirical study revealed that union-state relations in Zimbabwe are complex, unpredictable and can only be fully understood by fully understanding, acknowledging, and appreciating the local and international relations context at play. The conclusion challenges the established view which sought to focus on shop floor issues as key determinants of union-state relations. International political pressures and dynamics which are often selectively ignored do have a direct impact on union-state relations in postcolonial Africa. When the views of a single actor are only considered or examined, partial understanding of the relationship results, a problem that has characterised several previous works on the subject. The thesis contributes to existing related literature on union-party relations in Zimbabwe and Africa in general. Theoretically, it challenges the applicability to the Zimbabwean situation, of existing theoretical frameworks and typologies of union-party/union-state relations. The civil society narrative and national liberation narratives are the competing frameworks used by unions and the state to define their flagship and shape employment relations in contemporary Zimbabwe. One needs to examine the conflict generation systems, in particular, evaluating the extent to which they provide incentives to key actors on the political and economic front and assess the impact this has on employment relations. Methodologically, this thesis raises the need for a multi-actor's perspective approach in researching union-state relations. Finally, the thesis points to the need for further research on the changing nature of union-state relations in Zimbabwe in particular and Sub Saharan Africa in general.

Despite many years work on the technology of pottery production by archaeologists it is perhaps surprising that the origins of the potter’s wheel in Egypt have yet to be determined. This present project seeks to rectify this situation by determining when the potter’s wheel was introduced to Egypt, establishing in what contexts wheel-made pottery occurs, and considering the reasons why the Egyptians introduced the wheel when a well-established handmade pottery industry already existed. The potter’s wheel is often thought to have originated in Mesopotamia in the 4th millennium B.C. and subsequently its use spread to the Levant and Egypt, but little analysis has been undertaken as to why this occurred, or how its use came to be so widespread. Through a thorough analysis of all available sources, such as manufacturing marks on pottery, provenance potter’s wheels and depictions of potters in art and texts this thesis will assess the evidence for the introduction of the potter’s wheel. Through examining manufacturing marks on pottery and determining characteristics of wheel made marks by comparing them to experimental examples it is hoped a more complete view of when and in what manner the Egyptians were manufacturing their pottery vessels on the wheel will be gained. The potter’s wheel is arguably the most significant machine introduced into Egypt during the Old Kingdom, second only perhaps to the lever. This thesis concludes that the potter’s wheel was introduced to Egypt from the Levant during the reign of Pharoh Sneferu in the 4th dynasty (c.2600 B.C.). Sneferu or a member of his court sponsored their potters to use the elite-stone basalt potter’s wheel in and entirely new way, to throw pottery. The impact of this innovation would not just have affected the Egyptian potters themselves learning a new skill but also signalled the beginnings of a more complex and technologically advanced society.

This thesis fills a significant gap in current secondary literature on post-war British defence and internal security policy. Hitherto, post-war British defence policy in Kenya has only been considered in passing, in relation to the larger question of Middle East strategy. Very little attention has been paid to Kenya's particular importance in the post-1956 ‘east of Suez’ role. Current works on British internal security policy in Kenya concentrate either on post-war policing in general or, more specifically, on the British counter-insurgency campaign during the Mau Mau revolt (1952-6). In examining post-war British defence and internal security policy and practice in Kenya until 1965, this thesis demonstrates the essential continuity in British strategic priorities in the area. Far from having to ‘scram from Africa’, Britain adapted its defence requirements to an acceptable minimum, thereby ameliorating the more ‘extreme’ face of African nationalism, and denying it political capital with which to apply pressure to Britain's ‘moderate’ collaborators. The success of this flexible approach to defensive requirements is clear because, in losing its politically unacceptable army base, Britain gained a great deal in terms of retention of communications, leave camp, overflying, staging and training rights and facilities, in exchange for arming and training the Kenyan military and assisting in the maintenance of post-independence internal security. Such arrangements continued well beyond the apparent demise of the ‘east of Suez role’. This thesis sets British internal security policy in Kenya in its broad Cold War context (1945-65). Even after apparent military victory in 1956, Britain remained fearful of a recurrence of Mau Mau, and the possible failure of attempts to fudge a ‘political solution’ in Kenya. Britain also had to ensure that its ‘moderate’ successors would be safe from the more radical elements in Kenya African politics, especially given the earlier contradictions inherent in the divisive political and socio-economic reforms which had been designed to foster economic and political stability. Quite simply, therefore, this study demonstrates that British defence and internal security interests in Kenya were far more important, and far more intricately connected with the transfer of political power, than has hitherto been acknowledged.

This thesis is a sustained meditation on the relationship between embodiment, memory and cultural creativity in the black diaspora. It seeks to generate a theoretical vocabulary outside the stale polarisation between essentialism and anti-essentialism. Using the phenomenology of lived experience, I contend that black diasporic memory and identity are actively constructed within each present. I argue that bodily expression is part of a broader set of cultural strategies of self-definition, self-maintenance and self-preservation. In the case of the black diaspora, the past is evoked, invoked and provoked into existence once again through each expression of embodiment. A key concern in the thesis is therefore to highlight the active capacity of the body to recreate its world and in the process empower, renew and re-orient itself in the face of adversity and oppression. Rather than succumb to an account of black diasporicity as either a history of pain or the background of cultural hybridity, I argue that the pleasures and pains of black diasporicity are different aspects of the same ongoing phenomenon. Through the example of Jamaican dancehall culture, I show how the adorned, transgressive dancing body of dancehall women creates a dynamic of eroticised autonomy in an otherwise hostile environment. In sum, my thesis provides an analysis of the dynamics of diasporic identity and the antiphonies of continuity and discontinuity.

The current study contributes to the development of a discourse surrounding the ways in which Pentecostal and Charismatic attitudes have been shaped and reshaped by issues at the core of Zambia’s civic concerns. Tracing the historical development of Pentecostalism in Zambia and exploring the nation's history of civic engagement, the primary areas of examination will include both political activism and various attempts at addressing the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Attempts at Pentecostal civic engagement are traced in post-colonial Zambia, from independence in 1964 during the Kaunda era, until 2012. Between June 2009 and September 2013, the author engaged inter alia on both intensive and extensive ethnographic research in Lusaka, conducted over 50 interviews with major church leaders, distributed 300 questionnaires (with a response of 265), attended 20 gatherings of her focus group, and visited 3 HIV/AIDS clinics in Lusaka over a 4 year period. This research focused on leaders and members of mainly Pentecostal and Charismatic churches, and also on workers in integrated health care centres as well as in other institutions set up by some of these churches. To date, no comprehensive research has been conducted in the area of Pentecostal and Charismatic civic engagement in the Republic of Zambia.

This thesis seek to provide a study of the evolutionary process of ancient civilizations stressing the complementarily between theoretical principles with the relevant historical evidence. For this reason, the study will focus on the origin, development and collapse of the first stage of the ‘Central Civilization’, which was the result of the merger of two primeval civilizations, such as Mesopotamia and Egypt, during the ‘Near Eastern phase’ of this Central Civilisation. This merger seems to have been the result of the political expansion of an imperial entity coming from Mesopotamia under the aegis of the so-called Neo-Assyrian Empire from 1000 BC to 600 BC – better known as the \(Pax\) \(Assyriaca\) – although the process of full integration with Egypt seems to have been concluded by the successor empires of Assyria circa 430 BC.

This thesis addresses the modern history of money and finance in Congo from 1885 to 1995, against a background of pre-colonial traditional monetary practices observed since the 15th century and still in use today in some regions of the Congo basin within the current Democratic Republic of the Congo. The work makes use of historical research methods and is aimed, firstly, at interpreting the survival of the pre-colonial monetary tradition and its influence on the Congolese modern monetary and financial systems and, secondly, at explaining major monetary and financial developments that have occurred in Congo since 1885. First of all this study explores a series of devices that were used as money in the ancient Kingdom of Congo (13th-17th century). Two devices used as currency in the Kingdom of Congo - the nzimbu, a seashell as small as a coffee bean, and the lubongo, a small mat made of raffia fibre - are analysed. Mbongo, the common term for money or wealth in today's Congolese languages, derives from lubongo. The mitako, a brass rod of different lengths, which was granted the quality of legal tender by the authorities of the Congo Free State (1885-1908) in 1886, alongside the state currency, is explored in the process of introducing modern currencies in Congo. New light is shed on some controversial issues, such as the origin and genuine identity of the nzimbu. Also explained are the significance and limits of the monetary functions of devices used for these purposes in traditional communities accustomed to essentially barter-based mechanisms of exchange. Secondly the study addresses monetary and financial provisions set up for the Congo Free State, and analyses the six main strands of King Leopold IPs financial and development policy: (1) designation of non-occupied lands as State property; (2) setting up of a vast royal property as Crown land for the purpose of generating income for the King; (3) granting of concessions to various companies, in which the King took substantial shareholdings; (4) regime of labour-tax intended to ensure a sufficient workforce for both the State land and Crown land; (5) joint ventures with private businesses to carry out investments that required large amounts of capital; (6) placing trade activities under an absolute State monopoly. Thirdly, exploring the colonial period (1908-1960), the study demonstrates that depending on what was at stake, the Belgian colonial power addressed Congolese monetary and financial issues regardless of the legal separation established by the 1908 Charte Coloniale (Colonial Charter) between Belgium and its Colony as two distinct entities. Lastly the major political events that occurred in the Democratic Republic of the Congo from the start of the 1960s onwards resulted in a very high cost for the country in terms of waste of resources and inflation, among other adverse effects. The Congolese monetary and financial crises that started in 1960 were a consequence of irrelevant and inefficient policies combined with a lack of long-term vision in the management of public affairs. The monetary and financial developments of the early 1990s onwards were characterised by political imbroglio and hyperinflation that undermined people's trust in the national money. This study recommends further research on a number of issues, such as the use of foreign currencies in the economy that resulted from this mistrust, the development of street money markets and the coexistence of different monetary zones in the same country.

This thesis is a study of the constitution making processes in Nigeria from the colonial inception to the 1989 Constitution which is scheduled to usher in a putative third republic. Although apparently covering a wide scope, its boundary is limited by its perspective. Constitution making in any polity is essentially a political process where all the major, relevant and active interests seek to protect and advance themselves. Consequently, the focus of the research is on determining these competing interests, their interactions, compromises, winners and losers, etc. Attempts were made to provide the criteria for class identification in Nigeria to serve as a guide for determining class based action. The value of the work is threefold. First, it makes a modest but important contribution to an ongoing debate on whether or not Nigeria's post independence constitutional processes in particular were grounded in class interest, in the tradition of Charles Beard's interpretation of the constitution of the U.S.A. Second, it disputes and in large measure seeks to contradict some of the earlier widely held assumptions and assertions regarding the making of some of the constitutions, especially the Macpherson Constitution, 1951.Finally, it attempts to provide a complete and realistic account of the constitutional evolution of Nigeria less the military rule, from its inception as a country up to 1989. The method of investigation was largely analytical using official records, official reports, communications of key officials, biographical data, etc. Theoretical guidance was significantly drawn from political economy writings in politics, history and law. Eventually, the analysis revealed the existence and interplay of important interest configurations, reducing class to a subtle rather than an obvious phenomenon in the constitutional process. But overwhelmingly, the entire process was elitist and self serving with the mainstream of the population left in the margin in the composition of the constitutional bodies, the setting of agenda and the institutions and mechanisms established for governing the country. Finally, it found that there was a great deal of continuity of the values and institutions established for colonial ends with little or no will manifested in the constitutional process to break with the past. Rather what transpired was an expansion of institutions and creation of formulae in the constitution to accommodate a new breed of elites who were able to manipulate potential cleavages in the society to serve personal ends.

In the 1994 Rwanda genocide, an estimated 800,000 people were brutally murdered in just thirteen weeks. This violence affected all Rwandans, but women experienced the genocide in very specific ways. They were frequently raped, tortured and physically mutilated. Yet, because of their sexual value, the number of women who survived the genocide far outweighed the number of men, leaving them largely responsible for rebuilding Rwandan society. While it may seem abhorrent to suggest that anything good could result from such tragedy, evidence from the women’s testimonies analysed for this research project suggests that this is a reality. Traditionally, the study of psychological trauma has been pervaded by an illness ideology with an emphasis on its pathological consequences. Throughout history and across cultures, however, the notion of positive changes resulting from human suffering has been recognised in literature and philosophy. Positive change following trauma, or posttraumatic growth, refers to the tendency of some individuals to establish new psychological constructs and build a new way of life that is experienced as superior to their previous one in important ways. Little research has been carried out on the concept of posttraumatic growth in other cultures and, to date, no research into posttraumatic growth has been carried out in Rwanda. However, empirical research in other contexts suggests that efforts to harness and promote posttraumatic growth may not only enhance health and well-being but also reduce future need for formal mental health services. Through a discursive analysis of Rwandan women survivors’ testimonies, this thesis reveals that, although there are countless tales of horror, pain and loss, there are also many stories about strength, recovery and growth. The thesis examines the impact of external factors, such as victimisation, stigmatisation and gender, which appear to encourage personal strength among these women, but have also gravely damaged their interpersonal relationships. It also examines the impact of the genocide on religious beliefs and demonstrates that individual interpretations of trauma within a religious framework can provide existential reassurance. However, because of Rwanda’s history of theocratic leadership, religious interpretations can also give spiritual credibility to ideologies which have a negative impact on group identity. The final part of the thesis examines processes of growth at the collective level, exploring the impact of the genocide on these women’s group identities both as survivors in Rwandan society and as Rwandans in an international society. It suggests that for growth to take place at the collective level, survivors require access to a platform from which they can develop counter ideologies and pursue their collective needs for agency on the one hand, and communion on the other. Drawing on the findings of this research, the concluding chapter offers culturally-informed advice to trauma practitioners, policy makers and non-governmental organisations as to how posttraumatic growth might be facilitated in the socio-political climate of Rwanda.