Taxing Africa: Coercion, Reform and Development

Launch of the latest book in the African Arguments series

Wednesday, 19 September 2018 - 6:30pm to 8:00pm
Venue: Khalili Lecture Theatre, SOAS, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG
URL: royalafricansociety.org/event/taxing-africa-coercion-reform-and-development

Local intellectuals strand - call for papers

The aim of this strand of the journal is to introduce and analyse texts – whether oral, manuscript or print – produced by authors outside the literary or academic mainstream.

Read more and view the call for papers >>

Call for papers: Africa Bibliography Introductory Essays Title
Articles of 5,000-8,000 words on topics relating to research, libraries, archives and publishing in and on Africa, and in African studies, are invited.
Find out more here or contact Managing Editor Stephanie Kitchen for further details, sk111(at)soas.ac.uk.

International African Library series - call for proposals
The Institute and series editors welcome new proposals for this series.
Please see further details on The International African Library page.

Doing Business in Cameroon: An Anatomy of Economic Governance
Jose Maria Munoz

From the mid-1980s to the early 2000s, images of crisis and reform dominated talk of Cameroon's economy. Doing Business in Cameroon examines the aftermath of that period of turbulence and unpredictability in the northern city of Ngaoundéré. Taking the everyday encounters between business actors and state bureaucrats as its point of departure, the book vividly illustrates the backstage and interconnected dynamics of four different sectors (cattle trade, trucking, public contracting, and NGO work). Read more >>

ISBN: 9781108684477, September 2018

Pentecostal Republic: Religion and the Struggle for State Power in Nigeria
Ebenezer Obadare

Throughout its history, Nigeria has been plagued by religious divisions. Tensions have only intensified since the restoration of democracy in 1999, with the divide between Christian south and Muslim north playing a central role in the country’s electoral politics, as well as manifesting itself in the religious warfare waged by Boko Haram. Through the lens of Christian-Muslim struggles for supremacy, Ebenezer Obadare charts the turbulent course of democracy in the Nigerian Fourth Republic, exploring the key role religion has played in ordering society. Read more >>

ISBN: 9781786992376, 244pp, October 2018

Taxing Africa: Coercion, Reform and Development
Mick Moore, Wilson Prichard, and Odd-Helge Fjeldstad

Mick Moore, Wilson Prichard, and Odd-Helge Fjeldstad Taxation has been seen as the domain of charisma-free accountants, lawyers and number crunchers – an unlikely place to encounter big societal questions about democracy, equity or good governance. Yet it is exactly these issues that pervade conversations about taxation among policymakers, tax collectors, civil society activists, journalists and foreign aid donors in Africa today. Tax has become viewed as central to African development. Read more >>

Coastal Sierra Leone: Materiality and the Unseen in Maritime West Africa
Jennifer Diggins
Jennifer Diggins offers a dynamic account of post-war Sierra Leone, through the examination of a precarious frontier economy and those who depend on it. One can go a long way towards mapping the town's shifting networks of friendship, love, and obligation simply by watching the vast daily traffic in gifts of fish exchanging hands on the wharf. However, these mundane social and economic strategies are often inflected through a cultural dynamic of 'secrecy', and a shared sense of the unseen forces understood to inhabit the material world.
Read more >>

The Trial of Hissène Habré: How the People of Chad Brought a Tyrant to Justice
Celeste Hicks
When Hissène Habré, the deposed dictator of Chad, was found guilty of crimes against humanity in 2016, it was described as ‘a watershed for human rights justice in Africa and beyond’. For the first time, an African war criminal had been convicted on African soil. Having followed the trial from the very beginning and interviewed many of those involved, journalist Celeste Hicks tells the remarkable story of how Habré was brought to justice. Read more >>

Quranic Schools in Northern Nigeria: Everyday Experiences of Youth, Faith, and Poverty
Hannah Hoechner
In a global context of widespread fears over Islamic radicalisation and militancy, poor Muslim youth, especially those socialised in religious seminaries, have attracted overwhelmingly negative attention. In northern Nigeria, male Qur'anic students have garnered a reputation of resorting to violence in order to claim their share of highly unequally distributed resources. Read more >>