1 - Surpassing the Spectre of Impossibility: Ideational Impoverishment and the Quest for Sustainable Rural Learning Ecologies in Africa
Corresponding Author(s) : Ato Kwamena Onoma
Journal of Higher Education in Africa,
Vol. 13 No. 1-2 (2015): Journal of Higher Education in Africa: Special Issue on Sustainable Rural Learning Ecologies: Border Crossing
Abstract
The idea of sustainable rural learning ecologies in Africa apparently consti- tutes a contradiction in terms. Renowned for its provincialism, rural Africa seems to represent the opposite of the ideal setting for sustainable learning ecologies, which cultivate open, questioning and investigative spirits while fostering the acquisition of knowledge and skills. This rural landscape that is often seen as the den of parochialism is the outcome of colonial and postcolonial policies and processes of ideational impoverishment; the contrived nature of what we have come to see as the rural open space for creating and perpetuating sustainable rural learning ecologies. Pursued as a forward-looking project, the deliberate creation of sustainable rural learning ecologies is warranted by peculiarities that position rural spheres as ideal domains for cutting-edge learning on some of the most important questions in an Africa undergoing rapid transformation.
Keywords
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- Addo-Fening, R., 1980, ‘Akyem Abuakwa, c. 1874–1943: a study of the impactof missionary activities and colonial rule on a traditional state’, Ph.D. thesis,University of Ghana.
- African Technology Policy Studies Network, 2010, ‘The African Manifesto for Science, Technology and Innovation’, Nairobi.
- Aina, T., 2010, ‘The politics of higher education transformation in Africa’, AfricanStudies Review 30 (1): 21–40.
- Ake, C., 1994, ‘Academic Freedom and Material Base’, in M. Diouf and M. Mamdani,eds, Academic Freedom in Africa, Dakar: CODESRIA.
- Ali, A.A.G., 1994, ‘Donors’ Wisdom versus African Folly: What Academic Freedom and which High Moral Standing?’, in M. Diouf and M. Mamdani, eds, Academic Freedom in Africa, Dakar: CODESRIA.
- Assie-Lumumba, N., 2006, Higher Education in Africa: Crisis, Reforms and Transformation, Dakar: CODESRIA.
- Bates, R., 1984, Markets and States in Africa: The Political Basis of Economic Policies,
- Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Bernsten, J., 1998, ‘Runyakitara: Uganda’s “new” language’, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 19 (2): 93–107.
- Binns, J. A., 1987, ‘Inequality and development in rural West Africa’, GeoJournal14 (1): 77–86.
- Brookfield, H., 2006, ‘Writing about modern rural Africa: an essay around a review’,GeoJournal 65 (3): 229–34.
- Bryceson, D., 1997, ‘De-agrarianisation in sub-Saharan Africa: acknowledging the inevitable’, in D.
- Bryceson and V. Jamal, eds, Farewell to Farms: De-agraria- nization and Employment in Africa, Hampshire: Ashgate.
- Campbell, C. Faulkner, M. and Pridham, B., 2010, ‘Supporting adolescent learning and development
- using applied learning pedagogies in a regional secondary school: an evaluation of a pilot program’, The High School Journal 95 (1): 15–27.
- Chretien, J., 2003, The Great Lakes of Africa: Two Thousand Years of History, New York: Zone Books.
- Cotula, L., 2013, The Great African Land Grab? Agricultural Investments and the Global Food System, London: Zed Books.
- Cronon, W. 1991, Natures Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West, New York: W.W. Norton and Company Ltd.
- Dougan, H., 2004, ‘Hybridization: its promise and lack of promise’, CODESRIA Bulletin 1&2: 33–38.
- Eager, D., 2014, ‘Re-imagining rural health – the state of rural health 20 years into democracy’, PHASA Newsletter, 28 May.
- Effah, P., 2006, ‘Private Higher Education in Ghana’, in N.V. Varghese, ed., Growth and Expansion of Private Higher Education in Africa, Paris International Institute of Education Planning.
- Ekeh, P., 1975, ‘Colonialism and the two publics on Africa: a theoretical statement’,Comparative Studies in Society and History 17 (1): 91–112.
- Elliot, J., 2002, ‘Towards sustainable rural resource management in sub-Saharan Africa’, Geography 87 (3): 197–204.
- Germain, J., 1984, Peuples de la Foret de Guinée, Paris : Académie des Sciences d’Outre-Mer.
- Geschiere, P. and Nyamnjoh, F., 2000, ‘Capitalism and autochthony: the seesaw of mobility and belonging’, Public Culture 12 (2): 423–52.
- Goertz, G., 2006, Social Science Concepts: A User’s Guide, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
- Gugler, J., 2002, ‘The son of the hawk does not remain abroad: the urban-rural connection in Africa’, African Studies Review 45 (1): 21–41.
- Gyekye, K., 1997, Tradition and Modernity: Philosophical Reflections on the African Experience, New York: Oxford University Press.
- Hallet, R., 1984, ‘Desolation on the veld: forced removals in South Africa’, African Affairs 83 (332): 301–20.
- Hamilton, H., 1995, The Mfecane Aftermath: Reconstructive Debates in Southern African History, Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.
- Hobsbawm, Eric and Ranger, Terence, eds, 1992, The Invention of Tradition, Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Hugo, G., Champion, A. and Lattes, A., 2003, ‘Toward a new conceptualization of sett- lements for demography’, Population and Development Review 29 (2): 277–97.
- Isaacman, A., 1990, ‘Peasants and rural social protest in Africa’, African Studies Review 33 (2): 745–65.
- Jeyifo, B., 2002, ‘Whose theatre, whose Africa? Wole Soyinka’s The Road on the road’, Modern Drama 45 (3).
- Kemp, Jeremy, ed., 1990, Peasants and Cities, Cities and Peasants: Rethinking Southeast Asian Models, Overveen: ACASEA.
- Konadu-Agyeman, K. and Shabaya, J., 2005, ‘What has corruption got to do with it? Understanding the persistence of rural-urban and inter-regional inequalities in Ghana and Zimbabwe’, GeoJournal 62 (1&2): 129–46.
- Lewis, G.J. and Maund, D.J., 1976, ‘The urbanization of the countryside: a framework for analysis’, Human Geography 58 (1): 17–27.
- Mafeje, A. 1994, ‘Beyond Academic Freedom: The Struggle for Authenticity in Afri- can Social Science Discourse’, in M. Diouf and M. Mamdani, eds, Academic Freedom in Africa, Dakar: CODESRIA.
- Mamdani, M., 1993, ‘University crisis and reform: a reflection on the African expe- rience’, Review of African Political Economy 58: 7–19.
- Mamdani, M., 1996, Citizen and Subject: Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism,Princeton: Princeton University Press.
- Mamdani, M., 1998, ‘Understanding the crisis in Kivu: report of the CODESRIA Mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo September, 1997’. Text report to be submitted to the General Assembly of the Council for the development of Social research in Africa [CODESRIA] in Dakar, Senegal, 14–18 December.
- Mamdani, M., 2005, ‘Political identity, citizenship and ethnicity in post-colonial Africa’. Keynote address presented at New Frontiers of Social Policy Conference, Arusha, Tanzania, 12–15 December.
- Mamdani, M., 2007, Scholars in the Marketplace: The Dilemmas of Neo-liberal Reform at Makerere University, 1989–2005, Dakar: CODESRIA.
- Mamdani, M., undated, ‘Social movements and constitutionalism in the African context’, CBR Publications 2.
- McGovern, M., 2004, ‘Unmasking the state: developing modern subjectivities in 20ᵗʰcentury Guinea’, PhD thesis, Emory University.
- Mkandawire, T., 2011, ‘Running while others walk: knowledge and the challenge of Africa’s development’, Africa Development 36 (2): 1–36.
- Mongi, H. Majule, A. E. and Lyimo, J. G., 2010, ‘Vulnerability and adaptation of rain fed agriculture to climate change and variability in semi-arid Tanzania’, African Journal of Environmental Science and Technology 4 (6): 371–81.
- Moyo, S., 2002, ‘Peasant organisations and rural civil society in Africa: an introduc- tion’, in M. B. Romdhane and S. Moyo, eds, Peasant Organizations and the Democratization Process in Africa, Dakar: CODESRIA.
- Murphy, W. and Bledsoe, C., 1987, ‘Kinship and territory in the history of a Kpelle Chiefdom (Liberia)’, in I. Kopytoff, ed., The African Frontier: The Reproduction of Traditional African Societies, Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
- Murray, C., 1987, ‘Displaced urbanization: South Africa’s rural slums’, African Affairs869 (344): 311–29.
- Nafziger, E.W., 1988, Inequality in Africa: Political Elites, Proletariat, Peasants and the Poor, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S.J., 2013, Coloniality of Power in Postcolonial Africa: Myths of Decolonization, Dakar: CODESRIA.
- Olukoshi, A., 2006, ‘African scholars and African studies’, Development in Practice16 (6): 533–44.
- Onoma, A., 2009, The Politics of Property Rights Institutions in Africa, New York: Cambridge University Press.
- Onoma, A., 2013, Anti-refugee Violence and African Politics, New York: Cambridge University Press.
- Onoma, A., forthcoming, ‘Conceptualization, field research and refugee-host relations in Guinea’, in Method(e)s: African Review of Social Science Methodology.
- Oyewumi, O., 1997, The Invention of Woman: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
- Rosenthal, M., 2000, ‘Rural-urban relations and representations: comparative pers- pectives’, Anthropology Today 16 (5): 23–26.
- Schatz, E., 2009, ‘Introduction: Ethnographic Immersion and the Study of Politics’, in E. Schatz, ed., Political Ethnography: What Immersion Contributes to the Study of Power, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Scott, J., 1985, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance, New Haven: Yale University Press.
- Scott, J., 1990, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts, New Haven: Yale University Press.
- Simone, A., 1998, ‘Urban social fields in Africa’, Social Text 56: 71–89.
- Simone, A., 2004, For the City Yet to Come: Changing Life in Four African Cities, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
- Simo e, A., 2008, ‘Some reflections on making popular culture in Urban Africa’,African Studies Review 51 (3): 75–89.
- Stewart Jr., C., 1958, ‘The urban-rural dichotomy: concepts and uses’, American Journal of Sociology 64 (2): 152–58.
- Tenga, R. W., 1987, ‘Land law and the peasantry in Tanzania: a review of the post- Arusha period’, Eastern Africa Social Science Research Review 3 (1).
- Uzzell, D., 1979, ‘Conceptual fallacies in the rural-urban dichotomy’, Urban Anthro- pology 8 (3&4): 333–50.
- van de Walle, N., 1989, ‘Rice politics in Cameroon: state commitment, capability, and urban bias’, The Journal of Modern African Studies 27 (4): 579–99.
- van Mele, P. Wanvoeke, J. and Zossou, E., 2010, ‘Enhancing rural learning, linkages and institutions: the rice videos in Africa’, Development in Practice 20 (3): 414 –21.
- Wedeen, L., 2009, ‘Ethnography as Interpretive Enterprise’, in E. Schatz, ed., Political Ethnography: What Immersion Contributes to the Study of Power, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Wiseman, J., 1986, ‘Urban riots in West Africa, 1977-85’, Journal of Modern African Studies 24 (3): 509–18.
- World Bank, 2014, Factsheet: The World Bank and agriculture in Africa, 17 Octo- ber. Available online at http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/
- COUNTRIES/AFRICAEXT/0,,contentMDK:21935583~pagePK:146736~piPK:146830~theSitePK:258644,00.html
- Wright, G., 1991, The Politics of Design in French Colonial Urbanism, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Wyse, A., 1989, The Krio of Sierra Leone: An Interpretive History, London: Hurst. Yankson, P. and Bertrand, M., 2012, ‘Challenges of Urbanization in Ghana’, in E. Ardayfio-Schandorf, P. Yankson and M. Bertrand, eds, The Mobile City of Accra: Urban
- Families, Housing and Residential Practices, Dakar: CODESRIA.
- Yesufu, T. M., 1973, ‘The Role and Priorities of the University in Development’, in T.M. Yesufu, ed., Creating the African University: Emerging Issues in the 1970s, Oxford:Oxford University Press.
- Zeleza, T., 1992, ‘African social scientists and the struggle for academic freedom’,Journal of Eastern African Research and Development 22: 11–32.
References
Addo-Fening, R., 1980, ‘Akyem Abuakwa, c. 1874–1943: a study of the impactof missionary activities and colonial rule on a traditional state’, Ph.D. thesis,University of Ghana.
African Technology Policy Studies Network, 2010, ‘The African Manifesto for Science, Technology and Innovation’, Nairobi.
Aina, T., 2010, ‘The politics of higher education transformation in Africa’, AfricanStudies Review 30 (1): 21–40.
Ake, C., 1994, ‘Academic Freedom and Material Base’, in M. Diouf and M. Mamdani,eds, Academic Freedom in Africa, Dakar: CODESRIA.
Ali, A.A.G., 1994, ‘Donors’ Wisdom versus African Folly: What Academic Freedom and which High Moral Standing?’, in M. Diouf and M. Mamdani, eds, Academic Freedom in Africa, Dakar: CODESRIA.
Assie-Lumumba, N., 2006, Higher Education in Africa: Crisis, Reforms and Transformation, Dakar: CODESRIA.
Bates, R., 1984, Markets and States in Africa: The Political Basis of Economic Policies,
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Bernsten, J., 1998, ‘Runyakitara: Uganda’s “new” language’, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 19 (2): 93–107.
Binns, J. A., 1987, ‘Inequality and development in rural West Africa’, GeoJournal14 (1): 77–86.
Brookfield, H., 2006, ‘Writing about modern rural Africa: an essay around a review’,GeoJournal 65 (3): 229–34.
Bryceson, D., 1997, ‘De-agrarianisation in sub-Saharan Africa: acknowledging the inevitable’, in D.
Bryceson and V. Jamal, eds, Farewell to Farms: De-agraria- nization and Employment in Africa, Hampshire: Ashgate.
Campbell, C. Faulkner, M. and Pridham, B., 2010, ‘Supporting adolescent learning and development
using applied learning pedagogies in a regional secondary school: an evaluation of a pilot program’, The High School Journal 95 (1): 15–27.
Chretien, J., 2003, The Great Lakes of Africa: Two Thousand Years of History, New York: Zone Books.
Cotula, L., 2013, The Great African Land Grab? Agricultural Investments and the Global Food System, London: Zed Books.
Cronon, W. 1991, Natures Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West, New York: W.W. Norton and Company Ltd.
Dougan, H., 2004, ‘Hybridization: its promise and lack of promise’, CODESRIA Bulletin 1&2: 33–38.
Eager, D., 2014, ‘Re-imagining rural health – the state of rural health 20 years into democracy’, PHASA Newsletter, 28 May.
Effah, P., 2006, ‘Private Higher Education in Ghana’, in N.V. Varghese, ed., Growth and Expansion of Private Higher Education in Africa, Paris International Institute of Education Planning.
Ekeh, P., 1975, ‘Colonialism and the two publics on Africa: a theoretical statement’,Comparative Studies in Society and History 17 (1): 91–112.
Elliot, J., 2002, ‘Towards sustainable rural resource management in sub-Saharan Africa’, Geography 87 (3): 197–204.
Germain, J., 1984, Peuples de la Foret de Guinée, Paris : Académie des Sciences d’Outre-Mer.
Geschiere, P. and Nyamnjoh, F., 2000, ‘Capitalism and autochthony: the seesaw of mobility and belonging’, Public Culture 12 (2): 423–52.
Goertz, G., 2006, Social Science Concepts: A User’s Guide, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Gugler, J., 2002, ‘The son of the hawk does not remain abroad: the urban-rural connection in Africa’, African Studies Review 45 (1): 21–41.
Gyekye, K., 1997, Tradition and Modernity: Philosophical Reflections on the African Experience, New York: Oxford University Press.
Hallet, R., 1984, ‘Desolation on the veld: forced removals in South Africa’, African Affairs 83 (332): 301–20.
Hamilton, H., 1995, The Mfecane Aftermath: Reconstructive Debates in Southern African History, Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.
Hobsbawm, Eric and Ranger, Terence, eds, 1992, The Invention of Tradition, Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hugo, G., Champion, A. and Lattes, A., 2003, ‘Toward a new conceptualization of sett- lements for demography’, Population and Development Review 29 (2): 277–97.
Isaacman, A., 1990, ‘Peasants and rural social protest in Africa’, African Studies Review 33 (2): 745–65.
Jeyifo, B., 2002, ‘Whose theatre, whose Africa? Wole Soyinka’s The Road on the road’, Modern Drama 45 (3).
Kemp, Jeremy, ed., 1990, Peasants and Cities, Cities and Peasants: Rethinking Southeast Asian Models, Overveen: ACASEA.
Konadu-Agyeman, K. and Shabaya, J., 2005, ‘What has corruption got to do with it? Understanding the persistence of rural-urban and inter-regional inequalities in Ghana and Zimbabwe’, GeoJournal 62 (1&2): 129–46.
Lewis, G.J. and Maund, D.J., 1976, ‘The urbanization of the countryside: a framework for analysis’, Human Geography 58 (1): 17–27.
Mafeje, A. 1994, ‘Beyond Academic Freedom: The Struggle for Authenticity in Afri- can Social Science Discourse’, in M. Diouf and M. Mamdani, eds, Academic Freedom in Africa, Dakar: CODESRIA.
Mamdani, M., 1993, ‘University crisis and reform: a reflection on the African expe- rience’, Review of African Political Economy 58: 7–19.
Mamdani, M., 1996, Citizen and Subject: Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism,Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Mamdani, M., 1998, ‘Understanding the crisis in Kivu: report of the CODESRIA Mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo September, 1997’. Text report to be submitted to the General Assembly of the Council for the development of Social research in Africa [CODESRIA] in Dakar, Senegal, 14–18 December.
Mamdani, M., 2005, ‘Political identity, citizenship and ethnicity in post-colonial Africa’. Keynote address presented at New Frontiers of Social Policy Conference, Arusha, Tanzania, 12–15 December.
Mamdani, M., 2007, Scholars in the Marketplace: The Dilemmas of Neo-liberal Reform at Makerere University, 1989–2005, Dakar: CODESRIA.
Mamdani, M., undated, ‘Social movements and constitutionalism in the African context’, CBR Publications 2.
McGovern, M., 2004, ‘Unmasking the state: developing modern subjectivities in 20ᵗʰcentury Guinea’, PhD thesis, Emory University.
Mkandawire, T., 2011, ‘Running while others walk: knowledge and the challenge of Africa’s development’, Africa Development 36 (2): 1–36.
Mongi, H. Majule, A. E. and Lyimo, J. G., 2010, ‘Vulnerability and adaptation of rain fed agriculture to climate change and variability in semi-arid Tanzania’, African Journal of Environmental Science and Technology 4 (6): 371–81.
Moyo, S., 2002, ‘Peasant organisations and rural civil society in Africa: an introduc- tion’, in M. B. Romdhane and S. Moyo, eds, Peasant Organizations and the Democratization Process in Africa, Dakar: CODESRIA.
Murphy, W. and Bledsoe, C., 1987, ‘Kinship and territory in the history of a Kpelle Chiefdom (Liberia)’, in I. Kopytoff, ed., The African Frontier: The Reproduction of Traditional African Societies, Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Murray, C., 1987, ‘Displaced urbanization: South Africa’s rural slums’, African Affairs869 (344): 311–29.
Nafziger, E.W., 1988, Inequality in Africa: Political Elites, Proletariat, Peasants and the Poor, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S.J., 2013, Coloniality of Power in Postcolonial Africa: Myths of Decolonization, Dakar: CODESRIA.
Olukoshi, A., 2006, ‘African scholars and African studies’, Development in Practice16 (6): 533–44.
Onoma, A., 2009, The Politics of Property Rights Institutions in Africa, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Onoma, A., 2013, Anti-refugee Violence and African Politics, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Onoma, A., forthcoming, ‘Conceptualization, field research and refugee-host relations in Guinea’, in Method(e)s: African Review of Social Science Methodology.
Oyewumi, O., 1997, The Invention of Woman: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Rosenthal, M., 2000, ‘Rural-urban relations and representations: comparative pers- pectives’, Anthropology Today 16 (5): 23–26.
Schatz, E., 2009, ‘Introduction: Ethnographic Immersion and the Study of Politics’, in E. Schatz, ed., Political Ethnography: What Immersion Contributes to the Study of Power, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Scott, J., 1985, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Scott, J., 1990, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Simone, A., 1998, ‘Urban social fields in Africa’, Social Text 56: 71–89.
Simone, A., 2004, For the City Yet to Come: Changing Life in Four African Cities, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Simo e, A., 2008, ‘Some reflections on making popular culture in Urban Africa’,African Studies Review 51 (3): 75–89.
Stewart Jr., C., 1958, ‘The urban-rural dichotomy: concepts and uses’, American Journal of Sociology 64 (2): 152–58.
Tenga, R. W., 1987, ‘Land law and the peasantry in Tanzania: a review of the post- Arusha period’, Eastern Africa Social Science Research Review 3 (1).
Uzzell, D., 1979, ‘Conceptual fallacies in the rural-urban dichotomy’, Urban Anthro- pology 8 (3&4): 333–50.
van de Walle, N., 1989, ‘Rice politics in Cameroon: state commitment, capability, and urban bias’, The Journal of Modern African Studies 27 (4): 579–99.
van Mele, P. Wanvoeke, J. and Zossou, E., 2010, ‘Enhancing rural learning, linkages and institutions: the rice videos in Africa’, Development in Practice 20 (3): 414 –21.
Wedeen, L., 2009, ‘Ethnography as Interpretive Enterprise’, in E. Schatz, ed., Political Ethnography: What Immersion Contributes to the Study of Power, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Wiseman, J., 1986, ‘Urban riots in West Africa, 1977-85’, Journal of Modern African Studies 24 (3): 509–18.
World Bank, 2014, Factsheet: The World Bank and agriculture in Africa, 17 Octo- ber. Available online at http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/
COUNTRIES/AFRICAEXT/0,,contentMDK:21935583~pagePK:146736~piPK:146830~theSitePK:258644,00.html
Wright, G., 1991, The Politics of Design in French Colonial Urbanism, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Wyse, A., 1989, The Krio of Sierra Leone: An Interpretive History, London: Hurst. Yankson, P. and Bertrand, M., 2012, ‘Challenges of Urbanization in Ghana’, in E. Ardayfio-Schandorf, P. Yankson and M. Bertrand, eds, The Mobile City of Accra: Urban
Families, Housing and Residential Practices, Dakar: CODESRIA.
Yesufu, T. M., 1973, ‘The Role and Priorities of the University in Development’, in T.M. Yesufu, ed., Creating the African University: Emerging Issues in the 1970s, Oxford:Oxford University Press.
Zeleza, T., 1992, ‘African social scientists and the struggle for academic freedom’,Journal of Eastern African Research and Development 22: 11–32.