The African Renaissance: Myth, Vital Lie, or Mobilising Tool?

Liebenberg, Ian

doi:10.1080/10246029.1998.9627864

Cited by 8 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Others have been more hesitant, pointing out that too large a role for notions of tradition and culture in the national debate can also lead to division (Jordan 1997). There is also a debate over whether the African Renaissance propagated by Thabo Mbeki centres predominantly on economic revival or also on notions of cultural identity (Liebenberg 1998;Vale and Maseko 1998).…”

Section: Present Policies and Politicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“We must now go back to our history” Retraditionalisation in a Northern Province Chieftaincy

Oomen¹

2000

African Studies

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Section: Present Policies and Politicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“We must now go back to our history” Retraditionalisation in a Northern Province Chieftaincy

Oomen¹

2000

African Studies

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“…Mbeki, 1998). In 1998, Liebenberg (1998) commented that “during the past year,” in particular, “the term ‘African Renaissance’ has become part of the newspeak of the new South Africa.” The concept of re-awakening of Africa carries the message that indigenous value systems that identify people as Africans and can move the continent forward in the new millennium must be revisited and revived. (See in addition Quan-Baffour, 2006, 2008.)…”

Section: Some Theoretical Understandings Of Ubuntumentioning

confidence: 99%

Ubuntu-Inspired Training of Adult Literacy Teachers as a Route to Generating “Community” Enterprises

Quan-Baffour

Romm

2014

Journal of Literacy Research

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This article describes experiences of an adult educator (Kofi Quan-Baffour) at the University of South Africa, 1995 to 2009, teaching tutorial classes to train teachers who, in turn, would offer adult literacy classes/sessions (in relation to adult basic education and training [ABET] policies initiated post-1994). The article aims to make a contribution to the literature on how literacy education can in practice activate a potential for the "humanization" of economic and social life. In the context of South Africa, we consider practices for nurturing a variant of humanism called Ubuntu. As co-authors, we use a narrative inquiry approach, drawing on exemplars that arose in dialogue, to report on our joint deliberations on the import of Kofi's attempts to keep an Ubuntu spirit alive in the various learning settings with the trainees. Our reflective exercise took place via "debriefing sessions" in 2012, where we focused on the offshoots of literacy education for Ubuntu-informed cooperative work in community business enterprises. We point to some cooperative enterprises (a restaurant, a farming enterprise, and a sewing business), which we suggest incorporate an Ubuntustyle approach to human relationships based on people recognizing (and living) their mutual connectedness. We concentrate on what it may mean to be involved in basic adult education processes geared toward generating an improvement in people's lives economically and socially. We argue that this co-constructed notion of Ubuntism in the context of adult education practices is relevant for other geographical contexts where practitioners hope to accomplish humanistic goals.

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“…First introduced by Thabo Mbeki in his famous 'I am an African' speech to South Africa's Constitutional Assembly in May 1996, the notion of renaissance had a galvanizing effect on imaginations because of the emancipatory imagery and potential it offered (Vale and Maseko, 1998). Whether originally a strategy aimed at gaining electoral success, as some cynical critics have suggested, or an honest call for modernization and the reconstruction of African identity, it provided a useful counterpoint to the Afro-pessimism of the days (Liebenberg, 1998). Once situated within other attempts at forging African identities, such as Leopold Senghor's Négritude and Pan-Africanism (Ahluwalia, 2001), the concept of African Renaissance proved extremely useful to rally the continent's population behind what Benedict Anderson had called an 'imagined community' ready to overcome the continent's problems by working together (Anderson, 1992).…”

Section: The Origins and Evolution Of Africa's Security Architecturementioning

confidence: 99%

Africa's Evolving Security Architecture and the Concept of Multilayered Security Communities

Franke

2008

Cooperation and Conflict

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Following decades of feeble attempts, Africa's states have recently made great strides in establishing an elaborate security architecture to tackle the continent's many perils. I argue that the emergence and particular structure of this architecture and its institutional layers are best described by the constructivist concept of multilayered security communities. While this concept is based on the original idea of security communities by Karl Deutsch and its later adaptation by Emmanuel Adler and Michael Barnett, it recognizes the increasing prominence of elaborate multi-level security cooperation in the developing world and the difficulties of the original theoretical framework to account therefor. Consequently, it combines security community terminology with notions such as organized complementarity and multi-level governance to do conceptual justice to systems like Africa's decentralized collective security arrangement.

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The African Renaissance: Myth, Vital Lie, or Mobilising Tool?

Cited by 8 publications

References 2 publications

“We must now go back to our history” Retraditionalisation in a Northern Province Chieftaincy

“We must now go back to our history” Retraditionalisation in a Northern Province Chieftaincy

Ubuntu-Inspired Training of Adult Literacy Teachers as a Route to Generating “Community” Enterprises

Africa's Evolving Security Architecture and the Concept of Multilayered Security Communities

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