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Book part
Publication date: 30 September 2021

Mishal Khan

The abolition of slavery in the British Empire demanded a complete transformation of the global legal and political order. Focusing on British India, this chapter argues that this…

Abstract

The abolition of slavery in the British Empire demanded a complete transformation of the global legal and political order. Focusing on British India, this chapter argues that this restructuring was, in and of itself, a vital racial project that played out on a global stage. Examining these dynamics over the nineteenth century, I trace how this project unfolded from the vantage point of the Bombay Presidency and the western coast of India, tightly integrated into Indian Ocean networks trading goods, ideas, and, of course, peoples. I show how Shidis – African origin groups in South Asia and across the Middle East – were almost the sole subjects of British antislavery interventions in India after abolition. This association was intensified over the nineteenth century as Indian slavery was simultaneously reconfigured to recede from view. This chapter establishes these dynamics empirically by examining a dataset of encounters at borders, ports, and transit hubs, showing how the legal and political regime that emerged after abolition forged novel configurations around “race” and “slavery.” Documenting these “benign” encounters shifts attention to the racializing dimensions of imperial abolition, rather than enslavement. Once “freed,” the administrative and bureaucratic apparatus that monitored and managed Shidis inscribed this identity into the knowledge regime of the colonial state resulting in the long-term racialization of Shidis in South Asia, the effects of which are still present today.

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Global Historical Sociology of Race and Racism
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80117-219-6

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Book part
Publication date: 25 November 2019

Christopher Kirchgasler

The coming of Big Data is offered as a salve that will reduce global inequalities and grow national economies. The chapter pursues how notions of progress have traveled into…

Abstract

The coming of Big Data is offered as a salve that will reduce global inequalities and grow national economies. The chapter pursues how notions of progress have traveled into schooling through technology and generate differences and exclusions in the past and present. The chapter explores how transnational school reforms during the colonial era were directed to adapting education to “the African,” which connected expertise in the U.S., UK, and Africa through a shared set of standards, principles, and values about what constituted civilization and development. In school reforms today, the “African” has disappeared today in favor of the “all”; however, residues of educational values and judgments that made up the African as a peculiar and pathological target of colonial schooling still haunt the present. The chapter argues that today’s transnational school reforms continue to presume target communities are passive, pathological objects whose transformation depends upon their learning to act rationally. Whereas in the past this was envisioned as individuals’ and communities’ assimilation through surveys and questionnaires, today rationality is managed through integration in systems and optimizing users’ choices through data mining and algorithms. The narrative of data as grounding rational thought and action is a seductive one that offers optimism to schooling; however, faith in the coming of technology impairs historical reflection and ethical reflexivity toward schooling’s values and judgments, and the differences and exclusions they generate.

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The Educational Intelligent Economy: Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and the Internet of Things in Education
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78754-853-4

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Book part
Publication date: 1 December 2008

Kingsley Banya

In the past couple of decades, higher education systems have been in transition in sub-Saharan Africa. The phenomenal growth of private, for-profit higher education institutions…

Abstract

In the past couple of decades, higher education systems have been in transition in sub-Saharan Africa. The phenomenal growth of private, for-profit higher education institutions is almost universal. The global trends in higher education have affected the universities in sub-Saharan Africa as well. This chapter critically examines the rapid growth of private universities as a result of globalization and its impact on society. Although the research covers only Anglophone sub-Saharan Africa, the findings have broad implications for the whole of sub-Saharan Africa (Jokivirta, 2006). The chapter is divided into four major parts, namely globalization and the knowledge economy; the evolution of private higher education in the region, using two of the oldest universities as examples; the growth of private universities and the challenges facing them; and the linkages between foreign institutions and local ones. The empirical research on which this chapter is based is part of a longitudinal study, 2001–2006, of higher education in sub-Saharan Africa.

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Power, Voice and the Public Good: Schooling and Education in Global Societies
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84855-185-5

Book part
Publication date: 7 October 2020

Adrian Favell

In June 2016, a clear majority of English voters chose to unilaterally take the United Kingdom out of the European Union (EU). According to many of the post-Brexit vote analyses…

Abstract

In June 2016, a clear majority of English voters chose to unilaterally take the United Kingdom out of the European Union (EU). According to many of the post-Brexit vote analyses, the single strongest motivating factor driving this vote was “immigration” in Britain, an issue which had long been the central mobilizing force of the United Kingdom Independence Party. The chapter focuses on how – following the bitter demise of multiculturalism – these Brexit related developments may now signal the end of Britain's postcolonial settlement on migration and race, the other parts of a progressive philosophy which had long been marked out as a proud British distinction from its neighbors. In successfully racializing, lumping together, and relabeling as “immigrants” three anomalous non-“immigrant” groups – asylum seekers, EU nationals, and British Muslims – UKIP leader Nigel Farage made explicit an insidious recasting of ideas of “immigration” and “integration,” emergent since the year 2000, which exhumed the ideas of Enoch Powell and threatened the status of even the most settled British minority ethnic populations – as has been seen in the Windrush scandal. Central to this has been the rejection of the postnational principle of non-discrimination by nationality, which had seen its fullest European expression in Britain during the 1990s and 2000s. The referendum on Brexit enabled an extraordinary democratic vote on the notion of “national” population and membership, in which “the People” might openly roll back the various diasporic, multinational, cosmopolitan, or human rights–based conceptions of global society which had taken root during those decades. This chapter unpacks the toxic cocktail that lays behind the forces propelling Boris Johnson to power. It also raises the question of whether Britain will provide a negative examplar to the rest of Europe on issues concerning the future of multiethnic societies.

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Europe's Malaise
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83909-042-4

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Book part
Publication date: 30 October 2004

Maritsa V. Poros

The role of social networks is central to the phenomenon of employment and ownership in ethnic businesses, ethnic enclaves, and more generally ethnic economies. Social capital…

Abstract

The role of social networks is central to the phenomenon of employment and ownership in ethnic businesses, ethnic enclaves, and more generally ethnic economies. Social capital within migrant or co-ethnic social networks is generally viewed as an aid to niche employment, in other words as processes of network inclusion. This article examines both processes of inclusion and exclusion in the social networks of Asian Indian migrants in and outside of ethnic economies. Evidence from the life histories of these migrants in New York and London allows us to see the role of social networks in producing cooperation and conflict within modes of economic inclusion and exclusion.

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Diversity in the Work Force
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-76230-788-3

Book part
Publication date: 7 September 2020

Lwazi Apleni, Jaqueline Mangwane, Petrus Mfanampela Maphanga and Unathi Sonwabile Henama

Terrorism is the new normal for tourism destinations, as the acts of terror that are performed in tourism zones ensure maximum international media coverage for such acts of…

Abstract

Terrorism is the new normal for tourism destinations, as the acts of terror that are performed in tourism zones ensure maximum international media coverage for such acts of terror. The frequency of acts of terror has led to the development of crisis resistant tourists, a segment of tourists that continue tourism consumption even when acts of terrorism occur. The tourism industry is negatively impacted by crises, but it has proved to be resilient, bouncing back from a temporary decline. Crisis resistant tourists have increased the robustness of tourist destinations, as almost all destinations have jumped on the tourism bandwagon. Increasingly, countries depend on the tourism industry for economic growth, economic diversification, labour-intensive jobs and attracting foreign exchange, and therefore acts of terrorism can be regarded as economic espionage. African countries still receive less than 10% of international tourism receipts, as the majority of tourism occurs between developed countries in the West. As a consequence, developing countries benefit disproportionally less from tourism. The growth rate for African tourism has exceeded global growth averages and has been included in economic development policies in many African countries.

Terrorism in Kenya's tourism industry has had an adverse impact on tourism numbers and perception about destination Kenya. Several acts of terrorism have capacitated Kenya with institutional memory on how to handle acts of terrorism on Kenya's tourism industry. Kenya is arguably one of the leading countries in tourism in the African continent alongside South Africa, Egypt and Mauritius. In addition, Kenya Airways has used the national airport in Nairobi as a growing aviation hub connecting Africa with the world. As one of Africa's top tourist destinations, Kenya has to address the issue of terrorism. The perceptions of foreign tourists, including Kenyans, are that the country is not safe anymore. As recent as early 2019, another terrorism attack took place in Kenya. This continued to strain an industry that is already under siege. It needs to be borne in mind that a country of Kenya's calibre cannot afford to lose tourists. This is because tourism plays a significant role in enhancing the livelihood of ordinary Kenyans. Additionally, it plays a pivotal role in the country's economy. Kenya provides an example of a destination country which has been able to mitigate the effects of terrorism in the tourism industry. The Atlantic Island of St. Helena, a British Overseas territory, recently constructed an airport in Jamestown to boost trade and specifically tourism to the island, to alleviate financial support from Britain to the island. The island is an unexploited dark tourism destination, as the site of freed slaves after the abolition of the Atlantic Slave trade, the exile site for Napoleon and Zulu Royalty Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo and an overseas concentration camp for the Boers after the Anglo-Boer War. The opening of the airport has created the necessary infrastructure to attract tourists to the island, and the unique selling point of the island is that it is the last outpost of British Imperialism. The island would need to exploit its dark tourism potential by appealing to the British, the South Africans and specifically heritage tourists, due to its unique offering.

Book part
Publication date: 4 September 2020

Lee B. Wilson

Historians have long understood that transforming people into property was the defining characteristic of Atlantic World slavery. This chapter examines litigation in British

Abstract

Historians have long understood that transforming people into property was the defining characteristic of Atlantic World slavery. This chapter examines litigation in British colonial Vice Admiralty Courts in order to show how English legal categories and procedures facilitated this process of dehumanization. In colonies where people were classified as chattel property, litigants transformed local Vice Admiralty Courts into slave courts by analogizing human beings to ships and cargo. Doing so made sound economic sense from their perspective; it gave colonists instant access to an early modern English legal system that was centered on procedures and categories. But for people of African descent, it had decidedly negative consequences. Indeed, when colonists treated slaves as property, they helped to create a world in which Africans were not just like things, they were things. Through the very act of categorization, they rendered factual what had been a mere supposition: that Africans were less than human.

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Studies in Law, Politics, and Society
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83982-297-1

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Book part
Publication date: 28 January 2022

Michael Cohen

Prejudice against Jews was part of the landscape in the Union of South Africa long before Nazism made inroads into the country during the 1930s, at which stage Jews constituted…

Abstract

Prejudice against Jews was part of the landscape in the Union of South Africa long before Nazism made inroads into the country during the 1930s, at which stage Jews constituted approximately 4.6% of the country’s white (or European) population. Aggressive Afrikaner nationalism was marked by fervent attempts to proscribe Jewish immigration. By 1939, Jewish immigration was included as an official plank in the political platform of the opposition Purified National Party led by Dr D.F. Malan, along with a ban on party membership for Jews residents in the Transvaal province. Racial discrimination, in a country with diversified ethnic elements and intense political complexities, was synonymous with life in the Union long before the Apartheid system, with its official policy of enforced legal, political and economic segregation, became law in May 1948 under Dr Malan’s prime ministership. Although the Jews, while maintaining their own subcultural identity, were classified within South Africa’s racial hierarchy as part of the privileged white minority, the emergence of recurrent anti-Jewish stereotypes and themes became manifest in a country permeated by the ideology of race and white superiority. This was exacerbated by the growth of a powerful Afrikaner nationalist movement, underpinned by conservative Calvinist theology. This chapter focusses on measures taken in South Africa by organisational structures within the political sphere to restrict Jewish immigration between 1930 and 1939 and to do so on ethnic grounds. These measures were underscored by radical Afrikaner nationalism, which flew in the face of the principles of ethics and moral judgement.

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Transcendent Development: The Ethics of Universal Dignity
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80262-260-7

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Book part
Publication date: 8 June 2020

Dawn Edge, Amy Degnan and Sonya Rafiq

Several decades of mental health research in the UK repeatedly report that people of African-Caribbean origin are more likely than other ethnic minorities, including the White…

Abstract

Several decades of mental health research in the UK repeatedly report that people of African-Caribbean origin are more likely than other ethnic minorities, including the White majority, to be diagnosed with schizophrenia and related psychoses. Race-based inequalities in mental healthcare persist despite numerous initiatives such as the UK’s ‘Delivering Race Equality’ policy, which sought to reduce the fear of mainstream services and promote more timely access to care. Community-level engagement with members of African-Caribbean communities highlighted the need to develop culturally relevant psychosocial treatments. Family Intervention (FI) is a ‘talking treatment’ with a strong evidence-base for clinical-effectiveness in the management of psychoses. Benefits of FI include improved self-care, problem-solving and coping for both service users and carers, reducing the risk of relapse and re-hospitalisation. Working collaboratively with African-Caribbeans as ‘experts-by-experience’ enabled co-production, implementation and evaluation of Culturally adapted Family Intervention (CaFI). Our findings suggests that a community frequently labelled ‘hard-to-reach’ can be highly motivated to engage in solutions-focussed research to improve engagement, experiences and outcomes in mental health. This underscores the UK’s Mental Health Task Force’s message that ‘new ways of working’ are required to reduce the inequalities faced by African-Caribbeans and other marginalised groups in accessing mental healthcare. Although conducted in the UK (a high-income multi-cultural country), co-production of more culturally appropriate psychosocial interventions may have wider implications in the global health context. Interventions like CaFI could, for example, contribute to reducing the 75% ‘mental health gap’ between High and Low-and-Middle-Income counties reported by the World Health Organization.

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The International Handbook of Black Community Mental Health
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83909-965-6

Book part
Publication date: 12 July 2016

Miriam Green

Ever since this area of scholarship has been developed in the West, what has generally been taught, researched and written about in the organisation/management field have been…

Abstract

Ever since this area of scholarship has been developed in the West, what has generally been taught, researched and written about in the organisation/management field have been primarily English and North American theories about and practices in organisations. This focus has also been adopted by scholars and teachers all over the world, so that mainstream organisation/management scholarship is generally synonymous with western systems. However organisation and management, though not necessarily described in those terms, have existed in all societies through their economic, social and political arrangements, regardless of period, types of activity and stages of technological development.

It is here proposed to examine some African traditional societies in terms of their economic, social and political systems and compare them with mainstream Anglo-Saxon theories and practices. The main focus of this study will be on questions of accountability. Areas to be investigated are the assumptions underlying theories and practices in both types of societies; the systems in practice; their advantages and disadvantages and crucially whether western approaches have anything to learn from these traditional systems, now diminished in power and scope but still very much present in many parts of Africa. The converse question might also be put – can those traditional systems still extant benefit from Anglo-Saxon models of organisation and management?

There are difficulties with such a project. Differences in time, space, culture, size, economic activity and technology must make for problems for researchers. There are then the problems faced by any researcher in terms of their ‘habitus’ or ‘situatedness’ and the need for awareness of their own potential influences on their research. How much more problematic might this prove when examining very different cultures and attempting to make comparisons between their social systems in different time spans, different locations and in entirely different global political and economic contexts?

British social anthropologists, studying traditional societies during the colonial period, had the additional difficulties of being part of (or seen as part of) an occupying colonial administration. Normal difficulties concerning problems with information given to researchers by informants were compounded by this political context in which a great deal of scholarship about traditional societies was produced. This has been discussed over the decades by social anthropologists and sociologists, and will be addressed in this chapter, as at least some of the information used is from that period.

However, despite the difficulties, there is value in such comparisons and in heightening awareness of issues such as accountability in non-western systems as compared with questions of accountability in western institutions. This is relevant for those teaching organisation and management studies – not least to students from other parts of the world, and for practitioners who might gain some advantage from considering different systems and practices, and possibly also gain more insight into their own situations.

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Accountability and Social Responsibility: International Perspectives
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78635-384-9

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