The Australasian Review of African Studies African Studies Association of Australasia and the Pacific Volume XXIV Number 2 December 2002 CONTENTS In Memoriam Elspeth Anne Young (1940-2002) 4 Note from the Editor 5 AFSAAP 2003 6 Guest Essay 1980: The Springtime of Robert Mugabe 7 Neal Blewett Articles Governance, Globalisation and the HIV Epidemic in Africa 26 Elizabeth Reid Africa at the ‘Edge’ of Globalisation 38 Tanya Lyons Review Articles Biography and History: Bridging the Gap 49 Peter F. Alexander Adjusting to Globalisation in Ghana 58 David Brown Central Africa’s Predatory Elites 63 David Gordon Book Reviews Christopher Ehret, The Civilizations of Africa: A History to 1800 70 Graham Connah Christopher Wrigley, Kingship and State. The Buganda Dynasty 73 Anthony Low James F. Searing, ‘God Alone is King’: Islam and Emancipation in 74 Senegal. The Wolof Kingdoms of Kajoor and Bawol Martin Klein Judith A. Byfield, The Bluest Hands: A Social and Economic History of 77 Women Dyers in Abeokuta (Nigeria), 1890-1940 David Dorward Monica M. van Beusekom, Negotiating Development: African Farmers 79 and Colonial Experts at the Office du Niger, 1920-1960 Scott MacWilliam Rosaleen Duffy, Killing for Conservation: Wildlife Policy in Zimbabwe 81 Aileen Hoath Jock McCulloch, Asbestos Blues: Labour, Capital, Physicians and the 84 State in South Africa Patrick Bertola Heinz Klug, Constituting Democracy: Law, Globalism and South 87 Africa’s Political Reconstruction Eric Louw Sue Kossew and Dianne Schwerdt (eds), Re-imagining Africa: New 90 Critical Perspectives Jean-Marie Volet Greg Gow, The Oromo in Exile: from the Horn of Africa to the Suburbs 92 of Australia Penelope Hetherington Apollo Nsubuga- Kyobe and Liz Dimock, African Communities and 94 Settlement Services in Victoria: Towards Better Service Delivery Models Wayne Pelling Susan Ziehl, Population Studies 97 David Lucas Lillian Tibatemwa Ekirikubinza, Women’s Violent Crime in Uganda- 98 More Sinned Against than Sinning Josephine Harmsworth Andama Joy C. Kwesiga, Women’s Access to Higher Education in Africa: 101 Uganda’s Experience Sarah Ntiro 2 Research Matters Recently Completed Doctoral Theses 104 New Missionary Collections in the UK 104 Notes A Note on Zimbabwe’s Structural Predicament 106 John Moore Whatever Happened to Australia’s Aid to Africa? 110 Cherry Gertzel Scolma’s 40 th Anniversary Conference 113 The Noma Award 2002 113 African Research Institute 114 African Studies Centre WA 114 People 115 Conferences 115 AFSAAP News AFSAAP Annual General Meeting: Minutes 119 Reports 122 The 25 th Annual AFSAAP Conference Postgraduate Workshop 126 James Gray Proposed Constitutional Amendments 128 AFSAAP-CAAS Exchange 128 3 In Memoriam Elspeth Anne Young (1940-2002) lspeth Young who died in August of this year was a social geographer who E chose to work largely with underprivileged or socially disadvantaged people in difficult or forgotten places. Her early work in Papua New Guinea including her field work in the PNG Highlands for her Ph.D set her on a life of study and work with development issues in non-western cultures. She is best known for her work with indigenous peoples in Australia. Those same concerns for indigenous peoples and for the impact upon their development however widened her focus to include other areas including not only the Asia- Pacific region but also Southern Africa; and a three months’ research fellowship at the University of Botswana in the first half of the 1990s extended her work to include the San people of the Kalahari. One staff member of what was then the Basarwa Reseach Committee remembers her as ‘small and intrepid’. While she herself called it ‘a short tourist visit’ (see her seminal study Third World in the First: Development and Indigenous Peoples ) she obviously hoped to return. At ANU, during her time at the National Centre for Development Studies and with the Department of Demography, African graduate students enjoyed her wonderful friendship, support and hospitality. It was only in the 1990s that I myself in fact came to know Elspeth. Short as it was, that association leaves me in no doubt that it is for this generosity and gift of friendship and genuine empathy for indigenous communities including in Africa that those of us in AFSAAP who knew her will most remember her. A Memorial Service for Elspeth Young was held in the Great Hall of ∗ University House Canberra on October 25th. Cherry Gertzel * Professor Fay Gale’s Obituary of Elspeth was I understand published by the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, of which Elspeth was elected a Fellow in 2000. Meg Deane’s tribute to Elspeth is forthcoming in the Alumni Newsletter of the National Centre for Development Studies. 4 Note from the Editor f the several themes running through this issue of ARAS perhaps the most critical is O that of the causal linkages between the growth of poverty across the African continent and the process of globalisation not only but especially over the past twenty or more years. Elizabeth Reid’s fine article on the HIV epidemic across Africa moreover makes clear especially the significance for our understanding of those linkages of the fact that the disease does not follow state borders and boundaries any more than ‘the forces of global markets and of multinational corporations’; or we need now to add, global terrorism. David Brown’s review article on Ghanian experience of internationalisation and development should also remind us of the history of structural adjustment while Tanya Lyons broader picture seeks to understand Africa’s present global location. Amongst the book reviews Patrick Bertola’s review of Jock McCulloch on asbestos mining in South Africa as well as Scott MacWilliam’s on the Office du Niger both should remind us that globalisation is not a recent phenomenon. Thus African states seeking to reverse the process of impoverishment continue to battle against what is still ‘donor conditionality’ and of a mindset that is unable to change. Against this it is reassuring to know that, notwithstanding the decline of Australian official development assistance to Africa, Australian community concern for the future of the continent remains high. Of other contributors to this issue I would like especially to thank Neal Blewett for allowing us to publish the diary he kept when he was an Australian Observer to the (first) Zimbabwe elections of 1980 and which offers some fascinating insights into the Zimbabwe political process in its early years. Combined with John Moore’s short note in this issue and Professor Ranger’s reflections on Zimbabawe’s most recent elections in the last it adds to a better understanding of the complexities of that process. I should draw the attention of members to two particular items on page 128 in the AFSAAP News section of this issue. The first is the constitutional amendments listed which aim simply to ‘tidy up’ some parts of the Association’s constitution. The second item is the announcement, foreshadowed in the Minutes of the 2002 AGM, of the Canadian Association of African Studies (CAAS) offer, to (paid up) AFSAAP members, of a reduced subscription rate to their journal, the Canadian Journal of African Studies (CJAS). This is a generous offer to what is one of the major journals in the field of African Studies which will not only benefit AFSAAP members but establish a welcome link between the two associations. Finally once again I am indebted to Karen Miller for her expert assistance in the final production of this issue. Cherry Gertzel December 2002 5 AFSAAP 2003 Africa on a Global Stage: Politics, History, Economics and Culture Thursday October 2 nd and Friday October 3 rd Flinders University of Technology – Adelaide, South Australia FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS The twenty-sixth Annual Conference of the African Studies Association of Australasia will be held at The Flinders University of South Australia on the 2nd and 3 rd of October 2003. The conference convenor is Dr Tanya Lyons. The aim of the conference will be to examine all of the major issues facing Africa today, and to put Africa in focus on a global stage. With the recent war on terror and global connections with terrorism, understanding the African context will prove to be an important factor in coming to terms with current world events. Papers, panels and seminars on these themes are encouraged, however all papers relevant to African Studies will be considered. In particular papers from postgraduates are encouraged. Accommodation is available at the University Hall on the campus. Further information will be posted regularly on the AFSAAP website. Please submit abstracts of no more than 300 words before May 30 th 2003 Send abstracts to Dr. Tanya Lyons Email: [email protected] Please note: Final papers must be written and submitted prior to the conference by August 30 th 2003 as an email attachment in Word or RTF format. If this is not possible send via the post on a floppy disk. Dr Tanya Lyons AFSAAP 2003 Convenor C/-Globalisation Program Flinders University of South Australia GPO Box 2100 Adelaide 5001, South Australia 6 Guest Essay 1980: The Springtime of Robert Mugabe Neal Blewett y the end of 1979 Zimbabwe Rhodesia, as it was then known, had been B racked by civil war for over seven years with some 20,000 killed. The insurgent forces – the Ndebele dominated Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA), with its bases in Zambia and the Shona forces of the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA), operating out of Mozambique – had come together in 1976 to form the Patriotic Front to overthrow the government of Ian Smith’s Rhodesian Front. With his Unilateral Declaration of Independence unrecognised by either the United Kingdom or the international community and with his regime subject to international sanctions, a desperate Smith sought in 1978 both to outflank his revolutionary enemies and to secure international acceptance by a compromise settlement with the internal moderate black nationalist leaders, particularly Bishop Abel Muzorewa and his United African National Council (UNAC) and the Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole.