and JavaScript

Genetically modified crops have become a key element of development strategies across the Global South, despite remaining deeply controversial. Proponents hail them as an example of ‘pro-poor’ innovation, while critics regard them as a threat to food sovereignty and the environment. The promotion of biotechnology is an integral part of ‘new Green Revolution for Africa’ interventions and is also intimately linked to the rise of ‘philanthrocapitalism,’ which advances business solutions to address the problem of poverty. Through interviews with farmers, policymakers and agricultural scientists, Jacqueline Ignatova shows how efforts to transform the seed sector in northern Ghana – one of the key laboratories of this ‘new Green Revolution’ – may serve to exacerbate the inequality it was notionally intended to address. But she also argues that its effects in Ghana have been far more complex than either side of the debate has acknowledged, with local farmers proving adept at blending traditio

When asked in 2016 if he would step down as President of South Sudan, Salva Kiir replied ‘my exit could spark genocide.’ Kiir’s words exemplify how fear and the threat of mass violence have become central to the politics of South Sudan. As South Sudanese analyst Daniel Akech Thiong shows, it is this politics that lies at the heart of the country’s seemingly intractable civil war.In this book, Akech Thiong explores the origins of South Sudan’s politics of fear. Weaving together social, economic and cultural factors into a comprehensive framework, he reveal how the country’s elites have exploited ethnic divisions as a means of mobilising support and securing their grip on power, in the process triggering violent conflict. He also considers the ways in which this politics of fear takes root among the wider populace, exploring the role of corruption, social media, and state coercion in spreading hatred and fostering mass violence. As regimes across Africa and around the world become increa

After the global financial crisis of 2008, a new trend in foreign direct investments (FDI) emerged: investors’ rising interest in farmland in developing nations. This 'land rush' was a marker of increased land commodification and agricultural financialization, but has also been associated with global narratives of agricultural modernization, and development through FDI of 'cheap, unproductive and/or idle' farmland.Yet, as this book demonstrates, global investment dynamics are dictated by complex economic, political, socio-historical dynamics in any host country. Focusing on the land rush in Tanzania, the contexts of six investment projects in the nation are examined and unpacked, helping to understand the ways in which political struggles over land, capital and authority all feed into determining the goals - and eventually the outcomes - of the 'farmland investment game'.

WhatsApp is the most popular messaging platform in over 80% of countries in West Africa, and a daily port of call for a wide range of information and services. This edited collection seeks to examine the impact that this transformative technology has had beyond the much-discussed role it has played in the spread of misinformation, and explore more widely the fundamental changes that WhatsApp has brought to many citizens' lives in social, economic and political contexts.Ranging across subjects including political organisation, religious practice, and family relations, each author in this volume brings direct knowledge and testimony of the impact of WhatsApp across West African society.

WhatsApp is the most popular messaging platform in over 80% of countries in West Africa, and a daily port of call for a wide range of information and services. This edited collection seeks to examine the impact that this transformative technology has had beyond the much-discussed role it has played in the spread of misinformation, and explore more widely the fundamental changes that WhatsApp has brought to many citizens' lives in social, economic and political contexts.Ranging across subjects including political organisation, religious practice, and family relations, each author in this volume brings direct knowledge and testimony of the impact of WhatsApp across West African society.