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- All Subjects: African Studies
- Creators: Anokye, Duku A
Description
Africa is misrepresented and mis-imaged in the western media. Because of this, notions and beliefs about atrocities that take place on the continent lack context, leaving people to think that Africa is a place of misery, darkness and despair; a monolithic land where evil resides. The image of Africa as the "heart of darkness" was conjured following the Joseph Conrad novel and the idea of Africa as the "Dark Continent" still pervades Western thought. This is an inadequate understanding of Africa, and lacks the context to comprehend why many of the atrocities in Africa occur. I will explore two atrocities in Africa, the 1994 Rwanda Genocide and child slavery on Lake Volta in Ghana. I believe that both these examples reflect how the label of evil is insufficient to describe the circumstances around each atrocity. In order to understand such events we must understand the part that colonialism and poverty play in the disruption of pan-African culture. The "evils" of these two phenomenon, are in many cases the result of the Western world's past involvement in Africa and are remnants and extensions of the disruption caused.
ContributorsBork, Paul (Author) / Simmons, William P (Thesis advisor) / Erfani, Julie (Committee member) / Anokye, Duku A (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Many global development initiatives focus on improving access to safe and affordable water. Governments and infrastructure in rapidly urbanizing cities struggle to meet the increased demand for water, especially in peri-urban and informal settlements of sub-Saharan Africa. The private sector, in the form of small water enterprises (SWEs), plays an increasing role in satisfying demand for water, but their greater effects have seldom been investigated. This research explores how SWEs affect access to household water in a peri-urban settlement of Accra, Ghana and investigates their social, economic, and environmental impacts in the community. This research also examines how SWEs influence security and sustainability goals within the framing concepts of the US Army’s Stability doctrine and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The methods employed in this study were interviews, observation, and review of existing literature and case studies. Results of this qualitative analysis reveal that while SWEs increase and diversify local access to clean water, provide economic opportunities and jobs—especially to women—they also present environmental and health concerns when unregulated and unaddressed by educators, city officials, and community leaders. Further, in cases where municipal governments cannot provide safe and consistent access to clean water in the given location, results show that SWEs enterprises can work in cohesion with both the SDGs and the US Army stability goals. Moving forward, city officials, development programs, and US Army stability doctrine should consider supporting SWEs to increase water access and improve other developmental outcomes, while working to avoid potentially negative environmental and health outcomes.
ContributorsMallue, Natalie (Author) / White, Dave D. (Thesis advisor) / Allenby, Brad (Committee member) / Richmond, Amy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019