World Cultures

For readers inspired by Margaret Busby's New Daughters of Africa, Juliet Cutler presents a stunning testament to a group of Maasai women who are claiming their voices and shaping a future of lasting change. In this inspiring collection of interviews and portraits, over twenty Maasai women share the ways education has transformed their lives by giving them the tools to overcome poverty and empowering them to make profound differences in their communities.  Through their stories, the women featured in Lessons in Hope lay bare the overwhelming challenges many Maasai women and girls continue to face. For some, hunger hovers nearby, only one bad drought away. Many must raise children without running water or electricity. Most struggle to gain a basic education, see a doctor, or earn an income. And too many Maasai girls still endure female genital mutilation, early forced marriages, and other forms of violence.  Yet these remarkable women have overcome the odds. As graduates of the first school for Maasai girls in East Africa, these thriving leaders now hold positions in education, health care, nonprofits, government, and business. Their stories reveal a cadre of Maasai women working toward positive change within their own culture and offering a compelling, optimistic vision for the future.  Proceeds from the sale of this book support education for Maasai girls. 

An expansive history of the Sahara from prehistory to the present that shows how Saharans have, over time, built complex and cosmopolitan lives despite scarcity, conquest, and the relentless challenges of the desert environment What comes to mind when we think about the Sahara? Rippling sand dunes, sun-blasted expanses, camel drivers and their caravans perhaps. Or famine, climate change, civil war, desperate migrants stuck in a hostile environment. The Sahara stretches across 3.2 million square miles, hosting several million inhabitants and a corresponding variety of languages, cultures, and livelihoods. But beyond ready-made images of exoticism and squalor, we know surprisingly little about its history and the people who call it home.    Shifting Sands is about that other Sahara, not the empty wasteland of the romantic imagination but the vast and highly differentiated space in which Saharan peoples and, increasingly, new arrivals from other parts of Africa live, work, and move. It takes us from the ancient Roman Empire through the bloody colonial era to the geopolitics of the present, questioning easy clichés and exposing fascinating truths along the way. From the geology of the region to the religions, languages, and cultural and political forces that shape and fracture it, this landmark book tells the compelling story of a place that sits at the heart of our world, and whose future holds implications for us all.

Pass down the powerful teachings of African and African American oral traditions with these 50 beautifully illustrated cultural folktales. In this captivating collection of folklore from the African diaspora, discover the stories that have been passed down through generations and continue to teach valuable lessons today through their vibrant, illustrative language. Through its 50 folktales, Roots & Legends celebrates the richness of the African and African American cultures and champions the importance of oral tradition, a practice that rose up through the dark times of slavery and oppression. Thoughtfully curated and richly illustrated, Roots & Legends features the wonder and educational lessons of cultural stories and figures such as: The Flying Africans Sukey and the Mermaid The Legend of Big Momma How the Leopard Got Its Spots Coyote Steals the Sun The Haunting of Sweet Hollow Anansi and the Moss-Covered Rock And more! Divided into seven sections covering the spiritual nature of animals, people, the land and its sometimes spooky inhabitants, and more, each page is filled with timeless tales of heroes, tricksters, and everyday wisdom, and invites you to immerse yourself in the depth and beauty of African and African American folklore. A perfect choice for families interested in passing down African and African American heritage through storytelling traditions, Roots & Legends will enchant readers of all ages through its beautifully illustrated and accessible collection of folklore.

Today, the majority of the world's Christian population lives in the Global South. This textbook offers in one volume a compact and vivid overview of the history of Christianity in Asia, Africa and Latin America since 1450, focussing on diversity and interdependence, local actors and global entanglements.

Savings and insurance associations are widespread not only in Ethiopia but also in its diaspora, even in countries with diversified and comprehensive formal financial institutions. The contributors to this volume give an extensive overview of these associations in Ethiopia and its diaspora and, at the same time, ask what the activities within these associations tell us about their members' future aspirations and ideas of a »good life«.

Africa's unique and diverse culture, embedded in age-long business practices, presents an interesting proposition for advancing indigenous knowledge and building sustainable structures. Casebook of Indigenous Business Practices in Africais a collection of case studies across Northern, Eastern, Central, Western and Southern parts of Africa. Indigenous enterprises contribute to the economic prosperity of Africa and are an essential part of the continent's business ecosystem. Contributing authors to this two-volume edited work explore the inherent potential of indigenous practices in bolstering business performance and stimulating social and economic development. The first volume focuses on Apprenticeship, Craft, and Healthcare, while this second volume considers Trade, Production and Financial Services, in featured African countries. Indigenous business practices hold great prospects for economic advancement in Africa, despite the dominance of Western business methods, which, although beneficial, are yet to drive the continent's developmental agenda. By identifying and exploring the unique features of these practices, multiple actors, including entrepreneurs, policymakers, students, educators, and practitioners, are provided with context-based information that can foster social and economic empowerment across the continent. The book extends the frontier of knowledge on the role of cultural orientation, values, and traditions in achieving a more prosperous Africa through the development of indigenous business knowledge.

Africa's unique and diverse culture, embedded in age-long business practices, presents an interesting proposition for advancing indigenous knowledge and building sustainable structures. Casebook of Indigenous Business Practices in Africais a collection of case studies across Northern, Eastern, Central, Western and Southern parts of Africa. Indigenous enterprises contribute to the economic prosperity of Africa and are an essential part of the continent's business ecosystem. Contributing authors to this two-volume edited work explore the inherent potential of indigenous practices in bolstering business performance and stimulating social and economic development. This first volume focuses on Apprenticeship, Craft, and Healthcare, while the second volume considers Trade, Production and Financial Services, in featured African countries. Indigenous business practices hold great prospects for economic advancement in Africa, despite the dominance of Western business methods, which, although beneficial, are yet to drive the continent's developmental agenda. By identifying and exploring the unique features of these practices, multiple actors, including entrepreneurs, policymakers, students, educators, and practitioners, are provided with context-based information that can foster social and economic empowerment across the continent. The book extends the frontier of knowledge on the role of cultural orientation, values, and traditions in achieving a more prosperous Africa through the development of indigenous business knowledge.

The poignant and inspiring true story of three young Kenyans who fought to transform their slum and improve the lives of those around them. Korogocho is one of Kenya's darkest slums, plagued by gang violence, food and water shortages, and rampant pollution. Most children have no future except for scavenging through trash piles or resorting to lives of crime. One day, a boy named Daniel Onyango decided to do more, creating a band called the Hope Raisers to inspire the kids of Korogocho. His friend, Mutura Kuria, quickly joined in. In The Hope Raisers: How a Group of Young Kenyans Fought to Transform Their Slum and Inspire a Community, Nihar Suthar tells the amazing story of how Daniel and Mutura turned the band into a platform for change. They started teaching children on the streets how to express themselves through art and established a skating team after finding a pair of rollerblades in the dump. Suthar closely follows the story of one rebellious girl, Lucy Achieng, who refused to get married off at a young age and instead used competitive rollerblading to reach for her dreams. Lucy continues to inspire girls to stand up for themselves and challenge the longstanding practices in Korogocho of early marriage and prostitution. The Hope Raisers is an eye-opening look into a world of poverty and violence where children receive only a basic education and are left with little to no means to get out. Yet it also reveals the remarkable impact that a few determined individuals can have on their community, even in the most challenging of conditions. Part of the proceeds from all book sales will be donated to the Hope Raisers and toward improving the slum of Korogocho.

The voices in this book offer a multi-perspectival approach to Africa, focusing on the skills and the knowledge underpinning visual cultural expressions ranging from Akan symbolism to embodied performances by dancers and storytellers, even re-designed models of Western cars. Educators, designers, artists, critics, curators, and custodians based both in Africa and in Europe are configuring spaces for public, private, institutional as well as digital conversation - whether through pottery or portraiture, furniture or film, shoes or selfies, buildings or books. Readers are encouraged to question how African visual cultures are both 'in' and 'of'; identifying and confrontational; post- and decolonial; preserved and practised; old and new; borrowed and authentic; composite and complete; rooted and soaring. Disciplines being engaged include visual culture studies, media studies, performance studies, orature, literature, art and design - as well as their histories. The editors Mary Clare Kidenda, Lize Kriel and Ernst Wagner represent three nodes in the Exploring Visual Cultures north-south collaborative network: The Technical University of Kenya, the University of Pretoria in South Africa and Munich Academy of Fine Arts in Germany.

How can we map differing perceptions of the living environment? Mapping the Unmappable? explores the potential of cartography to communicate the relations of Africa's indigenous peoples with other human and non-human actors within their environments. These relations transcend Western dichotomies such as culture-nature, human-animal, natural-supernatural. The volume brings two strands of research cartography and »relational« anthropology into a closer dialogue. It provides case studies in Africa as well as lessons to be learned from other continents (e.g. North America, Asia and Australia). The contributors create a deepened understanding of indigenous ontologies for a further decolonization of maps, and thus advance current debates in the social sciences.