Bars of soap, lipstick and pitta bread are out; hair straighteners, garlic bread and Blu-ray disc players are in. The latest shake-up of the shopping “basket” used to measure UK inflation shines a light on Britain’s changing spending habits.
Check the article here.
Anybody knows of any contemporary anthropological studies of changes in consumption/spending habits?
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Posted in Anthropology, Commodity, Europe.
– March 15, 2010
Part of the anxiety over China’s presence in Africa comes from the challenge they pose to traditional ideas about aid. The Chinese operate with low costs compared to Western aid projects that pay high salaries to foreign experts and put them up in fancy hotels. A 2008 Oxfam study, for example, estimated that donors to Mozambique hire 3,500 “technical experts” at a cost of $350 million per year, an amount that could provide 400,000 local salaries. While Chinese projects do import labor and management, workers live in simple housing and are paid modest salaries, minimizing overhead and allowing the Chinese to greatly underbid Western donors. The Chinese also avoid imposing restrictions on their zero-interest loans for infrastructure, preferring to give African governments agency and complete buy-in. They do not demand economic or democratic reform, and they invest and emphasize profitability in sectors that have been all but abandoned by traditional donors — the messy business of industrialization is not on the agenda of the Millennium Development Goals.
The whole review, by Angilee Shah.
H/T Vernant
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Posted in Africa, China, Reviews.
– March 15, 2010
– March 13, 2010
Africa is a different place from how it is often portrayed in the popular media. Thanks to sound economic policies in many countries over the past decade or so, Africa has been able to withstand this crisis much better than has been the case in the past. The fact that the crisis hit Africa anyway does not mean that the policies were wrong. On the contrary, those policies helped to buffer Africa from the worst of the crisis, and they should now be strengthened. All three national leaders with whom I met—President Kibaki of Kenya, President Zuma of South Africa, and President Banda of Zambia—conveyed to me their strong sense of the policy agenda ahead.
Read the whole article.
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Posted in Africa, Anthropology, Development, Economy.
– March 13, 2010
David Kato, LGBTI activist from Uganda and member of SMUG
http://www.sexualminoritiesuganda.org will talk about his experiences as an
activist in the context of recent legislation threatening the death penalty for
“aggravated homosexuality”, the campaign in Uganda to stop the new law as
well as international efforts for decriminalisation. To be followed by
questions/discussion. David is on a short tour of the UK and this is his only
Manchester date.
David will be joined by Sokari Ekine, activist, writer and founder of
http://www.blacklooks.org/ a site documenting social justice issues in Africa
and the diaspora with a focus on LGBTI rights, gender-based violence,
militarism as well as literature and popular culture.
Delicious cheap food and cafe available from 12.30pm. Talk/discussion 2-4pm
Sunday 21st March, LGBT Centre, 49-51 Sidney Street, Manchester (Behind
8th Day Co-op off Oxford Rd)
The event is free but voluntary contributions towards travel expenses of
participants gratefully received. The venue is wheelchair accessible and all on
the ground floor. If you have any queries please contact
mikewupton@hotmail.com
This event is brought to you by Manchester Queer Reading Group. For more info
or to hear about other events, subscribe to our list
https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/queerreadinggroup
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Posted in Announcemenet.
– March 12, 2010
2. Haiti, two months after the earthquake – Global Voices blog review
3. Why are religious films making a come-back? – Guardian
4. Morgan Tsvangirai defends Zimbabwe’s indigenisation laws – AllAfrica
5. Should Germany change it’s economic model? – The Economist
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Posted in Links.
– March 12, 2010
Would ordinary Nigerians have felt Yar’Adua’s absence? Since the experience of the Nigerian state for most Nigerians is limited to demands for bribes by officials and policemen, the government and who is running it is of little consequence to them. Everything positive in their lives is achieved by themselves in spite of the ruling elite and their officials, not because of it. Many might say that Nigeria would be better off without a government at all.
I wrote something along those lines sometime ago. Read the whole post here.
Hat-Tip Roving Bandit.
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– March 12, 2010
The workshop will take the form of a class. Participants will be assigned a wide range of reading exercises, as well as daily writing exercises. The aim of the workshop is to improve the craft of Nigerian writers and to encourage published and unpublished writers by bringing different perspectives to the art of storytelling. Participation is limited only to those who apply and are accepted.
To apply, send an e-mail to Udonandu2010@gmail.com
Your e-mail subject should read ‘Workshop Application.’
The body of the e-mail should contain the following:
1. Your Name
2. Your address
3. A few sentences about yourself
4. A writing sample of between 200 and 800 words. The sample must be either fiction or non-fiction.
All material must be pasted or written in the body of the e-mail. Please Do NOT include any attachments in your e-mail. Applications with attachments will be automatically disqualified. Deadline for submissions is April 22 2010. Only those accepted to the workshop will be notified by May 6 2010. Accommodation in Lagos will be provided for all accepted applicants who are able to attend for the ten-day duration of the workshop. A literary evening of readings, open to the public, will be held at the end of the workshop.
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Posted in Africa, Announcemenet, CFP.
– March 10, 2010
Image via Wikipedia
Ms Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s former minister for finance, and currently a managing director of the World Bank:
intra regional trade in Africa remains low and accounts for less than 10% of total trade . Between 1999 and 2006, for example, intra-African trade increased by an average of just 14 per cent per year, while trade with the United States and China expanded by 26 per cent and 61 per cent respectively. Despite the low level of intra-African trade at the regional level, in some African countries intraregional trade is significant. Five countries export more than half of their goods within Africa, while another 14 export more than a quarter.
She goes on to write about how it works in East Asia.
Intra-regional trade in East Asia has increased rapidly and now represents most of the region’s total trade. The most prominent manifestation of the intensification of Asian intra-regional trade is “production fragmentation” enabling producers and countries to specialize in particular products along an integrated supply chain. As a result, products and components travel repeatedly across borders before becoming final goods. In East Asia, Japan made a conscious decision to outsource production of component electronic parts to Thailand and Malaysia as part of its overall industrial strategy.
Her recommendations include political commitment to regional trade in particular and regional integration in general. And:
A policy framework for intra-regional coordination must be developed and countries must be willing to commit to this framework. This means the leader must handle issues of multiplicity of membership for example which weakens member-state’s commitment to coordinate policies to promote intra-regional trade.
(Know the difference between ECOWAS and WAEMU?)
I would add transport infrastructure. Basic stuffs that make it very difficult, practically, to move things around.
Read the full article here.
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Posted in Africa, Economy, Trade, economics.
– March 9, 2010
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