Francis Nyamnjoh: Re-thinking Communication Research and Development in Africa

Introducing Francis Nyamnjoh

Francis B. Nyamnjoh is Professor of anthropology at the University of Cape Town in South Africa
Department of Social Anthropology University of Cape Town
5.23 Arts Building
Private Bag X3
Rondebosch 7701
Cape Town
South Africa
Tel: +27 21 650 3681
Fax: +27 21 650 2307
EMAIL
Bibliography
Crucial Coupon Code

Jimbi Media Sites

AFRICAphonie
AFRICAphonie is a Pan African Association which operates on the premise that AFRICA can only be what AFRICANS and their friends want AFRICA to be.
Bakwerirama
Spotlight on Bakweri Society and Culture. The Bakweri are an indigenous African nation.
Bate Besong
Bate Besong, award-winning firebrand poet and playwright.
Bernard Fonlon
Dr Bernard Fonlon was an extraordinary figure who left a large footprint in Cameroonian intellectual, social and political life.
Fonlon-Nichols Award
Website of the Literary Award established to honor the memory of BERNARD FONLON, the great Cameroonian teacher, writer, poet, and philosopher, who passionately defended human rights in an often oppressive political atmosphere.
France Watcher
Purpose of this advocacy site: To aggregate all available information about French terror, exploitation and manipulation of Africa
George Ngwane: Public Intellectual
George Ngwane is a prominent author, activist and intellectual.
Jacob Nguni
Virtuoso guitarist, writer and humorist. Former lead guitarist of Rocafil, led by Prince Nico Mbarga.
Martin Jumbam
The refreshingly, unique, incisive and generally hilarous writings about the foibles of African society and politics by former Cameroon Life Magazine columnist Martin Jumbam.
Nowa Omoigui
Professor of Medicine and interventional cardiologist, Nowa Omoigui is also one of the foremost experts and scholars on the history of the Nigerian Military and the Nigerian Civil War. This site contains many of his writings and comments on military subjects and history.
Postwatch Magazine
A UMI (United Media Incorporated) publication. Specializing in well researched investigative reports, it focuses on the Cameroonian scene, particular issues of interest to the former British Southern Cameroons.
Simon Mol
Cameroonian poet, writer, journalist and Human Rights activist living in Warsaw, Poland
Victor Mbarika ICT Weblog
Victor Wacham Agwe Mbarika is one of Africa's foremost experts on Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Dr. Mbarika's research interests are in the areas of information infrastructure diffusion in developing countries and multimedia learning.
Tunduzi
A West African in Arusha at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda on the angst, contradictions and rewards of that process.
Dr Godfrey Tangwa (Gobata)
Renaissance man, philosophy professor, actor and newspaper columnist, Godfrey Tangwa aka Rotcod Gobata touches a wide array of subjects. Always entertaining and eminently readable. Visit for frequent updates.
Francis Nyamnjoh
Prolific writer, social and political commentator, he was a professor at University of Buea and University of Botswana. Currently he is Head of Publications and Dissemination at CODESRIA in Dakar, Senegal. His writings are socially relevant and engaging even to the non specialist.
Ilongo Sphere: Writer and Poet
Novelist and poet Ilongo Fritz Ngalle, long concealed his artist's wings behind the firm exterior of a University administrator and guidance counsellor. No longer. Enjoy his unique poems and glimpses of upcoming novels and short stories.
Scribbles from the Den
The award-winning blog of Dibussi Tande, Cameroon's leading blogger.
Enanga's POV
Rosemary Ekosso, a Cameroonian novelist and blogger who lives and works in Cambodia.
GEF's Outlook
Blog of George Esunge Fominyen, former CRTV journalist and currently Coordinator of the Multi-Media Editorial Unit of the PANOS Institute West Africa (PIWA) in Dakar, Senegal.
The Chia Report
The incisive commentary of Chicago-based former CRTV journalist Chia Innocent
Voice Of The Oppressed
Stephen Neba-Fuh is a political and social critic, human rights activist and poet who lives in Norway.
Bate Besong
Bate Besong, award-winning firebrand poet and playwright.
Up Station Mountain Club
A no holds barred group blog for all things Cameroonian. "Man no run!"
Bakwerirama
Spotlight on the Bakweri Society and Culture. The Bakweri are an indigenous African nation.
Fonlon-Nichols Award
Website of the Literary Award established to honor the memory of BERNARD FONLON, the great Cameroonian teacher, writer, poet, and philosopher, who passionately defended human rights in an often oppressive political atmosphere.
Bernard Fonlon
Dr Bernard Fonlon was an extraordinary figure who left a large footprint in Cameroonian intellectual, social and political life.
AFRICAphonie
AFRICAphonie is a Pan African Association which operates on the premise that AFRICA can only be what AFRICANS and their friends want AFRICA to be.
Canute - Chronicles from the Heartland
Professional translator, freelance writer and a regular contributor to THE POST newspaper. Lives in Douala, Cameroon

Google

Keynote address for 4th IDIA Conference 2010, UCT, Cape Town South Africa

Introduction

Development for Africa is fraught with a multiplicity of exogenously generated ideas, models and research paradigms, all with the purported goal of ‘alleviating’ or bringing about ‘the end of poverty … in our lifetime’ (cf. Sachs 2005). This discourse, which like fashion, goes round in circles, is carried on mainly by ‘development’ agents and ‘experts’ (mainly social and pseudo-social scientists moonlighting through consultancies) and who often limit the question of development to the problematic of achieving growth or ‘the end of poverty’ within the context of neo-liberal economic principles.

Notwithstanding the rise of ‘alternative development’ thinking and practice, the problem is rarely studied in a holistic manner. This is especially true of Africa, where problematic ‘expectations of modernity’ (Ferguson 1999) have engendered technicised, disembedded, depoliticised and sanitized approaches to ‘development’ as a unilinear process of routinised, standardized, calculable and predictable practices (Ferguson 1990). There is more emphasis on teleology and analogy than on the systematic study of ongoing processes of creative negotiation by Africans of the multiple encounters, influences and perspectives evident throughout their continent. Africans are actively modernizing their indigeneities and indigenizing their modernities, often in ways not always obvious to scholarly fascination with dichotomies.

Click here to read or download the entire keynote address.

Comments

This was wonderful.

Proud of you.

Posted by: NJI Blasius Charles | July 26, 2011 at 08:49 AM

So much great information that I never would have found on my own. Thanks!

Posted by: artificial turf | January 13, 2012 at 06:07 AM

This post is awesome,ecpecting the newest!!!LIKE IT LIKE IT LIKE IT!!!

Posted by: Moncler Speichern Online | January 16, 2012 at 04:28 AM

Well Actually never visit the site because I read a lot of other blogs feed through Google Reader. If I find something interesting, I starr it and that’s it. I visited today Guy Blog to see how the layout was hanging.

Posted by: Virtual Assistant Services | February 03, 2012 at 07:01 PM

Thank you for posting the great content…I was looking for something like this…I found it quiet interesting, hopefully you will keep posting such blogs….Keep sharing

Posted by: Video Submission Services | February 06, 2012 at 01:09 AM

Verify your Comment

Previewing your Comment

Posted by: |

This is only a preview. Your comment has not yet been posted.

Your comment could not be posted. Error type:

Your comment has been posted. Post another comment

The letters and numbers you entered did not match the image. Please try again.

As a final step before posting your comment, enter the letters and numbers you see in the image below. This prevents automated programs from posting comments.

Having trouble reading this image? View an alternate.