Language politics

""This well-crafted book probes the key dimensions of Africa’s existential predicament. It constitutes an intellectual response to a gnawing “African situation”—the starting-point for grasping Africa’s social and religious quest. Beyond split explanations of external (e.g., colonization/slavery) vs. internal (e.g., leadership/cultural values) factors, this study accounts more comprehensively for emergent issues shaping this situation. The situation reflects a gamut of problems in (traditional) African religion and material culture, which hitherto defines African communality, polities and destinies vis-à-vis the cosmos and nature. Thus, African religion and communities, with their attendant values, operate via adaptation, rather than by critical engagement with larger issues of society and civilization, especially those shaped by the advent of (post-) modernity. The communal drive for natural and social harmony inevitably produces a preservationist view of culture (“leaving things as they are”). This study takes an integrative approach to religion, society and civilization, eschews dichotomies, broadly defines and resignifies life and wholeness as a true end of Africans’ quest today (from the Back Cover)

ENDORSEMENTS
(For more endorsements, see the US & World edition 2013 by University Press of America @ url: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780761862680)

“This book … strives to lay bare the determining structures, decisive trends, and dominant principle that fashion and serve the goals of thought and action in Africa. … [It] is a project of interpretation of life’s heritage and baggage which Africans employ to craft their identities, sustain flourishing human socialities, and actualize their potentials. …. If there is a select group of books that captures the broad phenomenology of African peoples’ spirituality this book is arguably one of it.”     
~NIMI WARIBOKO, Katherine B. Stuart Professor & Chair of Christian Ethics, Andover Newton Theological School, Massachusetts, USA

“A formidable contribution to a giant topic … The author proceeds to the project with a broad knowledge of the field as well as with impressing pedagogical skills, and the result is a book that will serve as an important discussion partner for scholars of religion, theology, and biblical studies in Africa in the years to come.”
~KNUT HOLTER, Professor of Old Testament studies, MHS School of Mission and Theology, Norway

“A must-read document for every African citizen; a benchmark … for the new African project. [The] time has come for an African renaissance … with this cornerstone book …”
~DR. DANIEL ETOUNGA-MANGUELLE, Chairman and CEO of SADEG Consulting Group, Yaoundé, Cameroon & former member of the World Bank’s Council of African Advisors

“… A richness of bibliographical references and sources, together with innovative theories, is a further confirmation of the presence of new prestigious African authors committed to the challenge of understanding Africa.”
~Professor BEATRICE NICOLINI, PhD, Chair of History and Institutions of Africa, Faculty of Political Science, Catholic University, Milan-Italy

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Dall’osservazione dello spazio urbano della città di Roma, effettuato fra gennaio 2011 e giugno 2012, sono stati censiti e documentati 247 graffiti. Ciò che viene presentato in questo saggio è una prima analisi tematica del materiale raccolto. A questa centrale riflessione se ne accompagnano altre incentrate sul contributo che lo studio del graffitismo, osservato e documentato nello spazio urbano e linguistico della capitale italiana, può offrire relativamente a tematiche quali, per esempio, il rapporto diamesico fra lingua scritta e parlata, l’analisi delle varietà giovanili, le interferenze del dialetto e la creazione di neologismi.

The paper offers an alternative interpretation of borders, one not centred on a familiar state–security–mobility nexus. It outlines a “vernacularised” border studies which emphasises the role of ordinary people in bordering activity and the potential for connectivity that borders often display, coupled with a recognition that borders are not always a possession of the nation state. The paper outlines ways in which border politics are manifest in processes of fixity/unfixity; in a “world in motion” borders are structures of fixity that lend order to everyday interactions (ontological security). Moreover, borders are a political resource that a range of actors can draw upon in everyday life. The framework for a vernacularised border studies is applied to three cases: the “Stroud pound”, an example of bottom-up securitisation via a vernacular border; and the EU's Frontex border and the UK's offshore border, both of which show an ambivalence between fixity and unfixity. In these cases the intentionality of the borders is not matched by their accountability. The paper ends by relating the discussion of vernacularised borders to Appadurai's interpretation of “production festishism” in order to further highlight the complex interaction of the local and the global in bordering practices.

"The Greek newspaper 'Kathimerini' wrote ahead of the paper's publication: "A different view is expected from Alexander Kazamias, a political scientist in Britain. 'Most Greeks left Egypt before and after the Nasserite period, not during it', Mr Kazamias says". Kathimerini, 4 June 2008.
Full report: http://news.kathimerini.gr/4Dcgi/4Dcgi/_w_articles_civ_8_04/06/2008_272526"

This paper provides an overview of the deliberations on cultural diversity and language policy that have occurred in Northern Ireland since the onset of the peace process. The paper looks specifically at how policy decisions and political debate on the Irish language and the languages of migrant communities are driven by competing notions of Britishness and Irishness, despite a supposed desire in the Belfast Agreement to promote ‘respect, understanding and tolerance in relation to linguistic diversity’. The paper argues that the peace process has increased the level of policy discussion on both autochthonous and allochthonous language issues, but has also served to cement their position within ethnic conflict. While debates on new policy directions have raised discussions on intercultural awareness in policy delivery, the competing interests of the political parties have tended to act as a barrier to the development of a true linguistic pluralism.