The disciplinary,interdisciplinary and global dimensions of African studies

Abstract

In discussing African studies or any other field, it is important to note that the economies and cultures of knowledge production are an integral part of complex and sometimes contradictory, but always changing, institutional, intellectual and ideological processes and practices that occur, simultaneously, at national and transnational, or local and global levels. From their inception, universities have always been, or aspired to be, universalistic and universalising institutions. This is not the place to examine the changes and challenges facing universities in Africa and elsewhere, a subject dealt with at length in African universities in the twenty‐first century (Zeleza and Olokoshi 2004). It is simply to point out that African studies ‐ the production of African(ist) knowledges ‐ has concrete and conceptual, and material and moral contexts, which create the variations that are so evident across the world and across disciplines.This article is divided into four parts. First, it explores the changing disciplinary and interdisciplinary architecture of knowledge in general. Second, it examines the disciplinary encounters of African studies in the major social science and humanities disciplines, from anthropology, sociology, literature, linguistics and philosophy, to history, political science, economics geography and psychology. It focuses on the interdisciplinary challenges of the field in which the engagements of African studies with interdisciplinary programmes such as women's and gender studies, public health studies, art studies, and communication studies, and with interdisciplinary paradigms including cultural studies and postcolonial studies are probed. Finally, this article looks at the focus on the study of Africa in international studies, that is, the state of African studies as seen through the paradigms of globalisation and in different global regions, principally Europe (Britain, France, Germany, Scandinavia and Russia), the Americas (the United States of America (US), the Caribbean and Brazil), and Asia‐Pacific (India, Australia, China and Japan). Space does not allow for a more systematic analysis of African studies within Africa itself, a subject implied in the observations in the article, but which deserves an extended treatment in its own right.     

Measuring the Impact of Microfinance on Women Empowerment: A Cross Country Analysis with Special Reference to India

The outreach of microfinance program is considered to be a means to enhance the economic opportunities among the women section of the population and thus have its far reaching implications to the empowerment of women. In this respect, a wide variation in the outreach of microfinance program to the women poor households is observed across countries of the world. In India, the states having higher level of microfinance outreach are also the states with a relatively high level of women empowerment. It is, thus, predicted that an all-inclusive microfinance system would strengthen the process of financial inclusion in India and thereby would promote women’s empowerment.     

Unintended Consequences of Vigilance Activities in Two Project Settings in India

Anti-corruption agencies that are independent and vested with the authority to enforce laws can be a potent force in combating corruption. However, overzealous anti-corruption agencies acting in the absence of an effective institutional environment could paralyse the public sector's decision-making apparatus by instilling a sense of hesitancy into the officials’ minds. Through ethnographic studies of two infrastructure projects in India, I investigate how anti-corruption agencies contributed to project delays. This research supplements the existing discourse on factors contributing to the efficiency of anti-corruption agencies, given the constraints of project settings, and provides insights towards policy making in this domain.     

The Correlates of Corruption in India: Analysis and Evidence from the States

Robert Bartley, Chan Heng Chee, Samuel P. Huntington and Shijuro Ogata, Democracy and Capitalism: Asian and American Perspectives (Singapore: Institute of South East Asian Studies, 1993), 81 pp.

Charles Hirschman, Charles F. Keyes and Karl Hutterer (eds.), with the assistance of G. Carter Bently, Southeast Asian Studies in the Balance: Reflections from America (Ann Arbor: The Association for Asian Studies, 1992), 146 pp.

S. Gordon Redding, The Spirit of Chinese Capitalism, (New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1993), 267 pp.

Zhongguo Quanli Jigou yu Lingdaoren (Power Structure and Leadership in the People's Republic of China) (Hong Kong: Ming Pao China Study Research Unit, 1993), 277 pp.

Robert Cottrell, The End of Hong Kong: The Secret Diplomacy of Imperial Retreat (London: John Murray, 1993), xi, 244 pp.

John Andrews, The Asian Challenge ‐ Looking Beyond 2000 (Hong Kong: Longman, 1992), 218 pp.     

From the Subject of Evil to the Evil Subject: “Cultural Difference” in Postapartheid South African Crime Fiction

This article takes up the question of “crime writing” and rejoins the debate around whether such literature stands in for the “political novel” in postapartheid South Africa. What social function might crime writing be serving? Research by political economists and cultural anthropologists suggests that acts of writing in “social detection” mode (rather than “crime writing”) serve as an allegory for occulted sociopolitical conditions. Cultural difference is seen, once again, to play a pivotal role in the legitimation of power, and writers in the detection mode are correspondingly seen to be probing the possibility of a resurgence of “bad” difference. This notion, it is argued, is a key differentiator in an otherwise murky scene in which the borderline between licit and illicit, and right and wrong, has become obscure. While many South African writers are brought into the discussion, including but not restricted to crime authors, a key novel by leading crime writer Deon Meyer is read as a case study to illustrate the more general points made in the article.     

The Gender Gap in Educational Attainment in India: How Much Can Be Explained?

Differential treatment of sons and daughters by parents is a potential explanation of the gender gap in education in developing countries. This study empirically tests this explanation for India using household survey data collected in urban Uttar Pradesh in 1995. We estimate educational enrolment functions and selectivity-corrected educational attainment functions, conditional on enrolment. The gender difference in educational attainment is decomposed into the part that is explained by men and women's differential characteristics and the part that is not so explained (the conventional 'discrimination' component). The analysis suggests that girls face significantly different treatment in the intra-household allocation of education - there is a large unexplained component in the gender gap in schooling attainment. A detailed decomposition exercise attempts to discover the individual factors most responsible for the differential treatment.     

Outward Orientation,Investment and Finance Constraints: A Study of Indian Firms

We investigate the presence of finance constraints on firms' investment behaviour using Indian manufacturing as a case study. This question becomes particularly interesting in the post-1991 period when substantial market oriented reforms were undertaken. We argue that in the Indian institutional context (especially, the underdeveloped state of bankruptcy laws and restrictive exit procedures) outward orientation rather than size is the relevant criteria for distinguishing firms that may be 'finance-constrained' from those that are not. Using panel data for 718 Indian manufacturing firms for the period 1993-98, we find that exporting firms are less constrained in financial markets than firms which sell primarily to domestic markets.     

Capability Failure and Group Disparities : Some Evidence from India for the 1980s

This paper advances a particular measure of deprivation - called the Capability Failure Ratio (CFR) - on the dimensions of longevity, knowledge and income, and suggests how an (inequality-) 'adjusted' version of the CFR may be derived. These measurement concerns are explored in the context of relevant State-wise data for the Indian Union. The paper thus makes an attempt to enrich the analysis of human predicament by sensitising 'measures of central tendency' to distributional concerns.     

Terrorist Incidents in India, 1998–2004: A Quantitative Analysis of Fatality Rates

Using data from the University of Maryland's Global Terrorism Database II, this paper first provides information on the nature of terrorist incidents in India in the period 1998-2004: the Indian states that were worst affected by terrorist incidents and fatalities; the terrorist groups responsible for such incidents and their modus operandi. Next, the paper focuses on the issue of fatalities from terrorist incidents. It inquires into the extent to which the number of fatalities following an incident was influenced by the type of attack (bombings, armed assault, etc.) and the extent to which it was influenced by the type of terrorist group. By examining the number of fatalities resulting from terrorist attacks in India, the paper disentangles the influence on this number of attack type and attack group. Lastly, the paper applies Atkinson's concept of equality-adjusted income to terrorism to arrive at the concept of equality-adjusted deaths from terrorist incidents: in order to avoid spectacular incidents resulting in the loss of a large number of lives—as in New York on September 11, 2001 and in Mumbai 26–29 November 2008—“society” might be prepared to tolerate “low-grade” terrorism which resulted in a larger number of deaths in total but avoided a large number of deaths from a single iconic incident.     

Linkage between internal migration and crime: Evidence from India

Migration has been a major source of human survival, adaptation, and economic change over centuries across regions. Today, more than ever, migration forms a central part of the global flow of humans, practices, and ideas. However, from a social point of view, migration is often considered as a potential source of social disorder and crime. Several explanations have been provided on this aspect in Indian context but none of these provide a sound analysis of the linkage between migration and crime. This paper attempts to investigate empirically the association between interstate migration and crime in India. Our analysis does not show any significant association between interstate migration and crime. Therefore, this study discards the controversial thought that migration is responsible for increasing crime in the nation, and suggests adopting constructive means to control crime rather than staring at migration.