Suchergebnisse

There is a growing literature on the legacy of colonial social policies in sub-Saharan Africa. In the UN subregion Middle Africa, the colonial period is marked by concession economies. However, the francophone and especially the iberophone countries of this region are largely ignored in the literature. A literature-based historical sociology approach is used to answer two research questions to address this gap: What were the driving forces of social policies in concession economies? And what is their post-colonial legacy? Case studies of the concession economies of Angola, the Central African Republic, Cameroon, DR Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and São Tomé e Príncipe have been made. They reveal three key drivers of social services and schemes in concession economies: the scarcity of labour, domestic pressure and international pressure. The social services and schemes provided varied. They were most extensive in company towns where at the end of the colonial period the social reproduction of the workforce was possible, less extensive in what could be termed company villages, smaller in the scattered plantations and forest camps, and too small to create a permanent workforce in one concession. However, in a context of population growth, labour was no longer scarce and lost its bargaining power. Governmental and especially international pressure supported the reversal of social services through privatisation and informalisation. The quality of these services and schemes generally declined after independence. Therefore, labour scarcity is a key condition for the provision of social services by concession companies.

Résumé Formidable vecteur de nouvelles formes de normes et de nouveaux modèles sociaux dans les pays africains, le football peut être une porte ouverte à l'étude du politique comme des logiques économiques et sociales à l'œuvre. Accélérée par la montée en puissance des technologies de l'information et de la communication, la diffusion de ces normes appelle à renouveler l'approche du développement des sociétés africaines tant d'un point de vue international que local.

"Hip Hop movements based on Rap music are spread all over the globe and are also very popular in Africa south of the Sahara. Their contribution to the political change of power in Senegal (2000) as well as in Kenya (2002) is uncontested and well documented. This contribution is going to discuss Hip Hop movements in Africa based on the analysis of Hip Hop lyrics and written documents. It views the Hip Hop movements as parts of African civil societies. While at the beginning the Hip Hop movements were dominated by the children of the urban petty bourgeois in the environment of universities and secondary schools, the social base has extended to the urban lower classes, thus conserving the urban bias (as well as its gender bias). The Hip Hop movements are protest movements of young urban (male) Africans. Although Hip Hop movements are less instrumentalized by the neopatrimonial state than many NGOs, they are threatened as well, as they also depend on economic resources and as one can hardly survive on music in Africa. Especially in French speaking countries, the French Cultural Centers representing the dominant culture, offer foreign assistance. Likewise sometimes other development agencies involve Rap music to raise awareness for their topics. African Rap music is also under pressure to fit into the folkloristic 'world music' scene if the artists want to sell their music abroad; the local market is not sustainable due to low income and piracy. Critical content is restricted in many mass media run by the state, although there is a growing number of private media offering more open platforms. At the moment, the Hip Hop movements are powerful in raising protest, but generally limit themselves to this critical corrective function. Although the stand for different values and norms, they do not present a counter-concept to the neopatrimonial state and are unlikely to become the bases of an alternative society." (author's abstract)

"Hip Hop movements based on Rap music are spread all over the globe and are also very popular in Africa south of the Sahara. Their contribution to the political change of power in Senegal (2000) as well as in Kenya (2002) is uncontested and well documented. This contribution is going to discuss Hip Hop movements in Africa based on the analysis of Hip Hop lyrics and written documents. It views the Hip Hop movements as parts of African civil societies. While at the beginning the Hip Hop movements were dominated by the children of the urban petty bourgeois in the environment of universities and secondary schools, the social base has extended to the urban lower classes, thus conserving the urban bias (as well as its gender bias). The Hip Hop movements are protest movements of young urban (male) Africans. Although Hip Hop movements are less instrumentalized by the neopatrimonial state than many NGOs, they are threatened as well, as they also depend on economic resources and as one can hardly survive on music in Africa. Especially in French speaking countries, the French Cultural Centers representing the dominant culture, offer foreign assistance. Likewise sometimes other development agencies involve Rap music to raise awareness for their topics. African Rap music is also under pressure to fit into the folkloristic 'world music' scene if the artists want to sell their music abroad; the local market is not sustainable due to low income and piracy. Critical content is restricted in many mass media run by the state, although there is a growing number of private media offering more open platforms. At the moment, the Hip Hop movements are powerful in raising protest, but generally limit themselves to this critical corrective function. Although the stand for different values and norms, they do not present a counter-concept to the neopatrimonial state and are unlikely to become the bases of an alternative society." (author's abstract).