Harnessing Cultural Capital for Sustaina

A Pan Africanist Perspective

Munyaradzi Mawere, Samuel Awuah-Nyamekye, Munyaradzi Mawere, Samuel Awuah-Nyamekye

• Publisher: Langaa RPCIG
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9789956762507
• eBook ISBN: 9789956762392
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Anthropologie culturelle et sociale

This book argues that the basic component of any societys social security and sustainability is cultural capital and its ability to fully recognise diversity in knowledge production and advancement. However, with regard to African societies, since the dawn of racial slavery and colonialism, cultural capital indigenous knowledge in particular has iniquitously and acrimoniously suffered marginalisation and pejorative ragtags. Increasingly since the 1990s, cultural capital informed by African knowledge systems has taken central stage in discussions of sustainability and development. This is not unrelated with the recognition by America and Europe in particular of the central role that cultural capital could and should assume in the logic of development and sustainability at a global level. Unfortunately, action has often failed to match words with regard to the situation in Africa. The current book seeks to make a difference by exploring the role that African cultural capital could and should assume to guarantee development and sustainability on the continent and globally. It argues that lofty pan-African ideals of collective self-reliance, self-sustaining development and economic growth would come to naught unless determined and decisive steps are taken towards full recognition of indigenous cultural capital on the continent.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright page
• List of Contributors
• Contents
• Cultural Capital, Social Security and Sustainability in Conversation: An Introduction
• Chapter 1 - Indigenous Mechanisms for Disaster Risk Reduction: How the Shona of Zimbabwe Managed Drought and Famine?
• Chapter 2 - Indigenous Political Structures in Africa: Interrogating Rotational Kingship in Yorubaland vis-à-vis Political Crises and Terrorism in Nigeria
• Chapter 3 - Pan-Africanism, Marxism and Sustainable Development in Jacques Roumain’s novel Gouverneurs de le rosée (Masters of the Dew)
• Chapter 4 - Indigenous-Based Adaptation: An Imperative for Sustainable Climate Change Strategies for Africa
• Chapter 5 - Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs) and the Politics of Development and Sustainability in Africa: A Critical Appraisal of the Involvement of NGOs in Sustainable Development in Zimbabwe
• Chapter 6 - Traditional religion, Sacred Places and Sustainability in Africa: The Role and Contribution of Sacred Places in Nigeria
• Chapter 7 - The Role of Indigenous Religion in Fostering Social Stability and National Development: Lessons from Ifá of Nigeria
• Chapter 8 - Intangible Heritage Politics and Sustainability in Africa: Reflections on the Politics of Language in Mozambique
• Chapter 9 - Indigenous Knowledge: A Key Factor in Africa’s Sustainable Development
• Chapter 10 - Nyaminyami, ‘The Tonga River-God’: The Place and Role of the Nyaminyami in the Tonga People’s Cosmology and Environmental Conservation Practices
• Chapter 11 - Depiction of Polygamous Marriage in Selected Pre-colonial Shona Narratives
• Chapter 12 - Living a Sustainable Life: African and Old Testament Proverbs in Dialogue
• Chapter 13 - Indigenous Knowledge and Public Education in Africa: A Search for a Sustainable Education Curriculum
• Chapter 14 - Cultural Harnessing Among the Tonga of North-western Zimbabwe: Breaking out of the shell of stereotyping, reclaiming identity, and fostering sustainable development through craft
• Back cover