Politics of origin in Africa

Autochthony, citizenship and conflict

Contested Ecologies: Reimagining the Nature-culture Divide in the Global South offers an intervention in the conversations on ecology and on coloniality, and on the ways in which modern thinking, with its bifurcation of nature and culture, constitutes ‘ecology’ within a very particular politics of the cosmos.

The main focus of this publication is the link between South Africas grand pan-African ambitions, especially in the area of peace, security and governance, and its own capacity to pursue these objectives. Specifically, the paper examines Pretorias involvement in Africa, and internal capacity to support its mediation, peacekeeping and strengthening the abilities of African institutions for peacemaking. Further, it examines the challenges posed by tension between its pan-African and economic interests as well as power rivalry at the continental level, which have greatly limited its ability to take a more assertive role in regional political and economic developments. It briefly describes South Africas relations within SADC and the AU, as well as with Zimbabwe and examines the challenges posed by the agendas of China and Africas former colonial powers.

Crisis! What Crisis! The Multiple Dimensions of the Zimbabwean Crisis argues that the Zimbabwean crisis is in fact a series of crises. From infrastructural problems and disease to a depreciating currency and an increasing muscular militarism, the citizens of Zimbabwe have faced an ongoing struggle to survive. The book explores the resilience of a people as they navigate the multiple challenges they face in the country of their birth. In an inter-disciplinary approach, the authors of Crisis! What Crisis! engage with issues as diverse as resource politics and livelihoods, migration and disembedment, language, and humour to demonstrate the ingenious ways in which citizens mediate the crisis. Topically, the book explores how social media offers a subversive space that flies in the face of increasing restrictions placed on conventional media within Zimbabwe and the governments aggressive efforts to suppress freedom of speech and spread their nationalist agenda. The book concludes with a sobering reflection on the past and what the future might hold.

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope is set to become the largest telescope on Earth, and also the largest science project in Africa. From September 2011 to August 2012, the SKA featured regularly in the South African media. In The Stars in Our Eyes, author Michael Gastrow dissects the representation of the SKA in the South African media in the period under discussion. Who were the main actors in this unfolding narrative? Who held the stage and who were marginalised? Where did gatekeeping occur and why? What was the relationship between journalists and scientists? How did the story unfold in the social media as opposed to the print media? Drawing on mass communication theory and science communication theory, The Stars in Our Eyes: Representations of the Square kilometre Array Telescope in the South African Media addresses critical gaps in the literature on science communication, particularly with respect to science communication in an African context.