Marginality and Crisis

Taking a multidisciplinary approach, this book evaluates the relations between globalization and Africa's multifarious challenges and identities. The nineteen chapters coalesce to demonstrate that the forces and processes of globalization have increased Africa's marginalization, deepened its crises, escalated and intensified its conflicts, and undermined its ability to determine the content and direction of its cultural changes and economic future.

Marginality and Crisis: Globalization and Identity in Contemporary Africa extends the scope and understanding of the effects of globalization and its forces on Africa. With each chapter written by specialists who recognize that the future of Africa is entwined with that of the rest of the world, this volume explains with fresh vigor the new thinking on the historical specificity, value, opportunity, and shortcomings of globalization for a continent many regard as marginalized and in crisis. In the face of much pessimism, several questions have engaged the attention of this young generation of African scholars: Where is Africa in relation to globalization? Where are the things that make Africa Africa (such as economy, politics, culture, identity, and human relations) headed? Are Africa's communities helpless against global forces or empowered by new avenues of access? How do scholars and policymakers engage the problems of globalization vis-^-vis Africa's ethnic, linguistic, and other identities? What are the economic and political trajectories in various countries and localities? An invaluable source for scholars, students, and the general reader, the essays in this book have confidently and clearly explored and explained the crises that have engulfed the continent in the age of globalization. Unlike other works that have dwelt only on the continent's victimhood, this volume identifies key areas in which Africa can become more proactive and outward-looking in response to the forces and values that take the globe as their reference points.

Part 1 Section I: Discourse on Globalization
Chapter 2 1. Introduction
Chapter 3 2. Globalization: The Politics of "We" and "Them"
Chapter 4 3. Origin and Dynamics of Globalization: A Historical Approach
Chapter 5 4. Compatriotism vs. Cosmopolitanism: Exploring a New Cosmo-Morality of Human Relations from the Yoruba in the Age of Global-ization
Part 6 Section II: Globalization and Culture
Chapter 7 5. Kiswahili Language and the Future of East African Integration in the Age of Globalization
Chapter 8 6. The Kabba Dress: Identity and Modernity in Contemporary Cameroon
Chapter 9 7. Beyond Memoir: Echoes of Globalization, Identity and Gender Struggle in Wole Soyinka's Ake: The Childhood Years
Chapter 10 8. From the Global to the Local: The Media and Islam in Nigeria, 1979-2006
Part 11 Section III: Marginality: Africa and the Political Economy of Globalization
Chapter 12 9. Globalization and the Privatization of State Owned Enterprises: An Empirical Analysis of the Impact of Privatization on the Nige-rian Economy
Chapter 13 10 Contemporary Trade, Investment Practices, and the Challenges of Poverty Alleviation in Africa
Chapter 14 11. Community-Based Organizations: Household Food and Liveli-hood Security in Southern Nigeria
Chapter 15 12. Trade Liberalization and Employment in Nigeria
Chapter 16 13. Globalization, Poverty, and the Failure of States in Africa: Is There a Connection?
Part 17 Section IV: Crisis: Hotspots and Contestations
Chapter 18 14. A Cross-Regional Analysis African Conflicts in the Age of Globalization
Chapter 19 15. Globalization, Identity Politics, and the Escalation of Ife-Modakeke Crisis
Chapter 20 16. The 2001 Tiv-Jukun Ethnic Crisis: The "Indigene-Settler" Fac-tor Reconsidered
Chapter 21 17. Petroleum, the Environment, and the Economics of Nationalism in the Niger Delta
Chapter 22 18. Oil Conflict in the Niger Delta: Revisiting the Odi Genocide
Part 23 Section V: Conclusion
Chapter 24 19. Conclusion