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In this innovative volume, experts from international relations, anthropology, sociology, global public health, postcolonial African literature, and gender studies, take up Ngugi wa Thiong'o's challenge to see how Africa gives to the west instead of the reverse. Humanitarian assumptions are challenged by unpacking critical legacies from colonial and missionary genealogies to today's global networks of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Who Gives to Whom: Reframing Africa in the Humanitarian Imaginary is a decolonial gesture that builds on Ngugi's work as well as that of pan-Africanist and intersectional feminist scholars. Contributions range from assessing the impact of historical legacies of colonialism on gender, religious/secular attempts at "saving" Africans to (South) African unrealized project to reconfigure foreign policy frameworks shaped by apartheid. Case studies of "silver bullet" solutions focus on the incorporation of women in peacebuilding, microfinance, and e-waste disposal, to argue that humanitarian interventions continue to mask ongoing forms of despoiling African well-being while shortchanging intersectional African forms of agency.
"Chapter 1." is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
List of contents
Chapter 1: Reading Humanitarianism Critically.- Chapter 2. The Humanitarian Misunderstanding in the Postcolonial Humanitarian African Imagination.- Chapter 3. Extractive Salvation: Zoe's Ark and the Ethic of Humanitarianism in Africa.- Chapter 4: Historical Roots of South African Ambivalence Toward "Africa".- Chapter 5. Joseph Kony, Invisible Children, and Military Humanitarianism in the Northern Uganda Conflict.- Chapter 6: Engendering Care Revisited: Decolonizing Global Health and Dismantling Gender Stereotypes in HIV Care in Africa.- Chapter 7: How West African Women "Save" the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda.- Chapter 8: 'Trust no one': The logics of microfinance, depending on whom you ask.- Chapter 9. Toxic Scavenging in the Digital Divide.- Chapter 10. COVID-19 and the African Disaster that Wasn't.- Chapter 11: Taking, Giving, Repairing and Reversing.- Chapter 12. The Last Word: Funtumfunafu, Denkyemfunafu: The Individual, the Community Reciprocity and Grace.
About the author
Cilas Kemedjio is Professor of Francophone African and Caribbean literary and cultural studies at the University of Rochester, USA.
Cecelia Lynch is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Irvine, USA.
