University of Toronto

Lecturer and Researcher

Paul worked at University of Toronto as a Lecturer and Researcher

Centennial College

Sessional Professor

Paul worked at Centennial College as a Sessional Professor

School of Social Work, Memorial University of Newfoundland

Chair, PhD Program

Paul worked at School of Social Work, Memorial University of Newfoundland as a Chair, PhD Program

School of Social Work, Memorial University of Newfoundland

Assistant Professor

Paul worked at School of Social Work, Memorial University of Newfoundland as a Assistant Professor

Memorial University of Newfoundland

Associate Professor

Social Work

Decolonizing Schooling and Education in Ghana

In A. Abdi & S. Guo (Ed.), Education and social development: Global issues and analyses (pp.139-154). Rotterdam: Sense publishers

Decolonizing Schooling and Education in Ghana

In A. Abdi & S. Guo (Ed.), Education and social development: Global issues and analyses (pp.139-154). Rotterdam: Sense publishers

The “fragility of goodness”: black parents’ perspective about raising children in Toronto, Winnipeg, and St. John’s of Canada

Journal of Public Child Welfare

How does one measure ‘goodness’ when all ethical choices lead to evil outcomes? To answer this question, this essay uses Martha Nussbaum’s fragility of goodness, critical race theory, and data from a SSHRC-funded study, in which we critically examine the parenting experiences of Black families in Canada. Findings suggest how racist ideas in Canada function as “colorblind” laws and policies that affect the everyday lives of Black people including their parenting practices. Our study calls on child welfare services in Canada to develop a comprehensive understanding of Black parenting practices, perhaps enabling more Black children to remain home safely

Decolonizing Schooling and Education in Ghana

In A. Abdi & S. Guo (Ed.), Education and social development: Global issues and analyses (pp.139-154). Rotterdam: Sense publishers

The “fragility of goodness”: black parents’ perspective about raising children in Toronto, Winnipeg, and St. John’s of Canada

Journal of Public Child Welfare

How does one measure ‘goodness’ when all ethical choices lead to evil outcomes? To answer this question, this essay uses Martha Nussbaum’s fragility of goodness, critical race theory, and data from a SSHRC-funded study, in which we critically examine the parenting experiences of Black families in Canada. Findings suggest how racist ideas in Canada function as “colorblind” laws and policies that affect the everyday lives of Black people including their parenting practices. Our study calls on child welfare services in Canada to develop a comprehensive understanding of Black parenting practices, perhaps enabling more Black children to remain home safely

"When Blackness Shows up Uninvited: Examining the Murder of Trayvon Martin through Fanonian Racial Interpellation"

Peter Lang

The recent murder of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman at Stanford, Florida has generated a lot of brouhaha about race relations in the United States. This essay uses Frantz Fanon’s racial interpellation to elucidate the marked difference between how anti-racism readings may help us understand and interpret the evidence in the murder of Martin differently from how the justice system in Florida will interpret and analyze the evidence. The essay argues that Martin’s death reveals something deeper than the aberrant behaviour of George Zimmerman, Florida’s noxious “Stand Your Ground law,” and the benign gun control laws in the United States. Martin’s death reveals the ongoing W.E.B. Dubois colour-line prediction in the United States, in which white nations are lined up on one side and Dubois’ darker race are on the other side. It also reveals violent colonial imaginary script that depicts black males as existential threat to whiteness. Martin was not killed because of the obnoxious Florida “Stands Your Ground law” or benign gun control laws in the United States; he was killed because he transgressed spatial law by moving from a space of degeneration into a space of respectability. The essay asks: How does it look like when blackness shows up uninvited? How does alienation of blackness come to accord particular governance on the everyday lives of black bodies in ways whereby the meaning making process of black subjects comes to be constituted through an epistemic violence?

Decolonizing Schooling and Education in Ghana

In A. Abdi & S. Guo (Ed.), Education and social development: Global issues and analyses (pp.139-154). Rotterdam: Sense publishers

The “fragility of goodness”: black parents’ perspective about raising children in Toronto, Winnipeg, and St. John’s of Canada

Journal of Public Child Welfare

How does one measure ‘goodness’ when all ethical choices lead to evil outcomes? To answer this question, this essay uses Martha Nussbaum’s fragility of goodness, critical race theory, and data from a SSHRC-funded study, in which we critically examine the parenting experiences of Black families in Canada. Findings suggest how racist ideas in Canada function as “colorblind” laws and policies that affect the everyday lives of Black people including their parenting practices. Our study calls on child welfare services in Canada to develop a comprehensive understanding of Black parenting practices, perhaps enabling more Black children to remain home safely

"When Blackness Shows up Uninvited: Examining the Murder of Trayvon Martin through Fanonian Racial Interpellation"

Peter Lang

The recent murder of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman at Stanford, Florida has generated a lot of brouhaha about race relations in the United States. This essay uses Frantz Fanon’s racial interpellation to elucidate the marked difference between how anti-racism readings may help us understand and interpret the evidence in the murder of Martin differently from how the justice system in Florida will interpret and analyze the evidence. The essay argues that Martin’s death reveals something deeper than the aberrant behaviour of George Zimmerman, Florida’s noxious “Stand Your Ground law,” and the benign gun control laws in the United States. Martin’s death reveals the ongoing W.E.B. Dubois colour-line prediction in the United States, in which white nations are lined up on one side and Dubois’ darker race are on the other side. It also reveals violent colonial imaginary script that depicts black males as existential threat to whiteness. Martin was not killed because of the obnoxious Florida “Stands Your Ground law” or benign gun control laws in the United States; he was killed because he transgressed spatial law by moving from a space of degeneration into a space of respectability. The essay asks: How does it look like when blackness shows up uninvited? How does alienation of blackness come to accord particular governance on the everyday lives of black bodies in ways whereby the meaning making process of black subjects comes to be constituted through an epistemic violence?

Sankofa: In search for alternative development paradigm for Africa

In A. Abdi & G. Richardson (Ed.), Decolonizing Democratic Education: Trans disciplinary Dialogues (pp.173-182). Rotterdam: Sense publishers

The essential thrust and the relevant argument in this essay is that development in Africa (whatever it means, and however it is use) is dead, if one has not read the obituary, please see (Sachs, 1992). As Dei (1998) accedes, it does not require any intellectual imagination to realize that the euphoria of international development has worn thin in the minds of many Africans, partly, because the so-called development paradigm in Africa has come at a high human, ecological, political, and ethical cost to Africans. The effects of Western development in Africa have literally put to shame the so-called innocence and saving mission of the West. Any economic gains from development have been spurious and disproportionately channelled to the already wealthy West. In fact, what has been celebrated as development in Africa is nothing more than an economic boom for transnational corporate organization and Western nations operating in Africa under the rubric of development partners. Thus, African educators and development workers who claimed to be working in the interest of the continent cannot continue to work with the current Western development paradigm

Decolonizing Schooling and Education in Ghana

In A. Abdi & S. Guo (Ed.), Education and social development: Global issues and analyses (pp.139-154). Rotterdam: Sense publishers

The “fragility of goodness”: black parents’ perspective about raising children in Toronto, Winnipeg, and St. John’s of Canada

Journal of Public Child Welfare

How does one measure ‘goodness’ when all ethical choices lead to evil outcomes? To answer this question, this essay uses Martha Nussbaum’s fragility of goodness, critical race theory, and data from a SSHRC-funded study, in which we critically examine the parenting experiences of Black families in Canada. Findings suggest how racist ideas in Canada function as “colorblind” laws and policies that affect the everyday lives of Black people including their parenting practices. Our study calls on child welfare services in Canada to develop a comprehensive understanding of Black parenting practices, perhaps enabling more Black children to remain home safely

"When Blackness Shows up Uninvited: Examining the Murder of Trayvon Martin through Fanonian Racial Interpellation"

Peter Lang

The recent murder of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman at Stanford, Florida has generated a lot of brouhaha about race relations in the United States. This essay uses Frantz Fanon’s racial interpellation to elucidate the marked difference between how anti-racism readings may help us understand and interpret the evidence in the murder of Martin differently from how the justice system in Florida will interpret and analyze the evidence. The essay argues that Martin’s death reveals something deeper than the aberrant behaviour of George Zimmerman, Florida’s noxious “Stand Your Ground law,” and the benign gun control laws in the United States. Martin’s death reveals the ongoing W.E.B. Dubois colour-line prediction in the United States, in which white nations are lined up on one side and Dubois’ darker race are on the other side. It also reveals violent colonial imaginary script that depicts black males as existential threat to whiteness. Martin was not killed because of the obnoxious Florida “Stands Your Ground law” or benign gun control laws in the United States; he was killed because he transgressed spatial law by moving from a space of degeneration into a space of respectability. The essay asks: How does it look like when blackness shows up uninvited? How does alienation of blackness come to accord particular governance on the everyday lives of black bodies in ways whereby the meaning making process of black subjects comes to be constituted through an epistemic violence?

Sankofa: In search for alternative development paradigm for Africa

In A. Abdi & G. Richardson (Ed.), Decolonizing Democratic Education: Trans disciplinary Dialogues (pp.173-182). Rotterdam: Sense publishers

The essential thrust and the relevant argument in this essay is that development in Africa (whatever it means, and however it is use) is dead, if one has not read the obituary, please see (Sachs, 1992). As Dei (1998) accedes, it does not require any intellectual imagination to realize that the euphoria of international development has worn thin in the minds of many Africans, partly, because the so-called development paradigm in Africa has come at a high human, ecological, political, and ethical cost to Africans. The effects of Western development in Africa have literally put to shame the so-called innocence and saving mission of the West. Any economic gains from development have been spurious and disproportionately channelled to the already wealthy West. In fact, what has been celebrated as development in Africa is nothing more than an economic boom for transnational corporate organization and Western nations operating in Africa under the rubric of development partners. Thus, African educators and development workers who claimed to be working in the interest of the continent cannot continue to work with the current Western development paradigm

Resistance to Amputation: Discomforting Truth about Colonial Education in Ghana.

In G. Dei (Ed) Frantz Fanon and Education: Pedagogical Possibilities. (pp.79-104) New York: Peter Lang

There is something discomforting about truth; especially when it challenges our deeply embedded emotional dimensions that frame and shape our daily habits, routines, and unconscious complicity with hegemony (Boler and Zembylas 2003). Even more painful, truth betrays that which we have held dear, that which we have privileged in our thinking, that which we have institutionalized. Today, there is a disturbing truth about colonial education system. I am referring to its colonizing tendencies to amputate learners from the rich cultural knowledges and experiences they bring into learning. Like the dialogue between Frantz Fanon’s brother and the crippled veteran of the Pacific war (Fanon, 1967, p.140), the colonial education system continues to remind local learners to amputate themselves from their culture, identity, values, and worldviews. It is this amputation that I call for resistance in this essay. Thus, “resistance to amputation” (see Dei 2008) implies personal and political struggles to challenge the colonial and racist thinking in the current education system. Thus, using antiracism and anticolonial readings, I critically examine the writings of Frantz Fanon in context of education in Ghana; especially, how his ideas can inform, shape, and encourage resistance to colonial and racists relations in knowledge production, validations, and disseminations.

Decolonizing Schooling and Education in Ghana

In A. Abdi & S. Guo (Ed.), Education and social development: Global issues and analyses (pp.139-154). Rotterdam: Sense publishers

The “fragility of goodness”: black parents’ perspective about raising children in Toronto, Winnipeg, and St. John’s of Canada

Journal of Public Child Welfare

How does one measure ‘goodness’ when all ethical choices lead to evil outcomes? To answer this question, this essay uses Martha Nussbaum’s fragility of goodness, critical race theory, and data from a SSHRC-funded study, in which we critically examine the parenting experiences of Black families in Canada. Findings suggest how racist ideas in Canada function as “colorblind” laws and policies that affect the everyday lives of Black people including their parenting practices. Our study calls on child welfare services in Canada to develop a comprehensive understanding of Black parenting practices, perhaps enabling more Black children to remain home safely

"When Blackness Shows up Uninvited: Examining the Murder of Trayvon Martin through Fanonian Racial Interpellation"

Peter Lang

The recent murder of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman at Stanford, Florida has generated a lot of brouhaha about race relations in the United States. This essay uses Frantz Fanon’s racial interpellation to elucidate the marked difference between how anti-racism readings may help us understand and interpret the evidence in the murder of Martin differently from how the justice system in Florida will interpret and analyze the evidence. The essay argues that Martin’s death reveals something deeper than the aberrant behaviour of George Zimmerman, Florida’s noxious “Stand Your Ground law,” and the benign gun control laws in the United States. Martin’s death reveals the ongoing W.E.B. Dubois colour-line prediction in the United States, in which white nations are lined up on one side and Dubois’ darker race are on the other side. It also reveals violent colonial imaginary script that depicts black males as existential threat to whiteness. Martin was not killed because of the obnoxious Florida “Stands Your Ground law” or benign gun control laws in the United States; he was killed because he transgressed spatial law by moving from a space of degeneration into a space of respectability. The essay asks: How does it look like when blackness shows up uninvited? How does alienation of blackness come to accord particular governance on the everyday lives of black bodies in ways whereby the meaning making process of black subjects comes to be constituted through an epistemic violence?

Sankofa: In search for alternative development paradigm for Africa

In A. Abdi & G. Richardson (Ed.), Decolonizing Democratic Education: Trans disciplinary Dialogues (pp.173-182). Rotterdam: Sense publishers

The essential thrust and the relevant argument in this essay is that development in Africa (whatever it means, and however it is use) is dead, if one has not read the obituary, please see (Sachs, 1992). As Dei (1998) accedes, it does not require any intellectual imagination to realize that the euphoria of international development has worn thin in the minds of many Africans, partly, because the so-called development paradigm in Africa has come at a high human, ecological, political, and ethical cost to Africans. The effects of Western development in Africa have literally put to shame the so-called innocence and saving mission of the West. Any economic gains from development have been spurious and disproportionately channelled to the already wealthy West. In fact, what has been celebrated as development in Africa is nothing more than an economic boom for transnational corporate organization and Western nations operating in Africa under the rubric of development partners. Thus, African educators and development workers who claimed to be working in the interest of the continent cannot continue to work with the current Western development paradigm

Resistance to Amputation: Discomforting Truth about Colonial Education in Ghana.

In G. Dei (Ed) Frantz Fanon and Education: Pedagogical Possibilities. (pp.79-104) New York: Peter Lang

There is something discomforting about truth; especially when it challenges our deeply embedded emotional dimensions that frame and shape our daily habits, routines, and unconscious complicity with hegemony (Boler and Zembylas 2003). Even more painful, truth betrays that which we have held dear, that which we have privileged in our thinking, that which we have institutionalized. Today, there is a disturbing truth about colonial education system. I am referring to its colonizing tendencies to amputate learners from the rich cultural knowledges and experiences they bring into learning. Like the dialogue between Frantz Fanon’s brother and the crippled veteran of the Pacific war (Fanon, 1967, p.140), the colonial education system continues to remind local learners to amputate themselves from their culture, identity, values, and worldviews. It is this amputation that I call for resistance in this essay. Thus, “resistance to amputation” (see Dei 2008) implies personal and political struggles to challenge the colonial and racist thinking in the current education system. Thus, using antiracism and anticolonial readings, I critically examine the writings of Frantz Fanon in context of education in Ghana; especially, how his ideas can inform, shape, and encourage resistance to colonial and racists relations in knowledge production, validations, and disseminations.

The Non - V iolent Philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. in the 21st Century: Implications for the Pursuit of Social Justice in a Global Context

Journal of Global Citizenship & Equity Education 3( 1) 80 - 101

This essay is an intellectual conversation about the non-violent philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., and the possibility of using it to pursue social justice within the field of social work. The essay asks: In what ways can Gandhi and King’s non-violent philosophy help professional social workers capture their inner feelings and thoughts that harbor resistance against social injustice, while, at the same time, seek love, common humanity, compassion and kindness? In what ways can their ideas about non-violence and their effects on the human psyche help today’s social workers to pursue social justice in the global context? What are the real consequences of situating their non-violent praxis in the pursuit of global social justice? The essay relies on data collected during the author’s doctoral research in Toronto in 2009 and 2010 to answer the questions. Six of the 20 study participants were key informants . This paper is about some of the responses of key informants about the non-violent philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. and how it can be used to pursue social justice. This paper calls for a revolutionized reflection of Gandhi and King’s non- violent philosophy. By that, this essay suggests bringing a discursive sophistication into their speeches and writings in ways that can inform and shape contemporary activism while acknowledging their shortcomings and limitations. The essay argues that, given the current charge against the social work profession that it is doing little to address social marginalization and injustices in society, a dedication to the non-violent philosophy of Gandhi and King can be a starting point to position members of the profession as forerunners in the pursuit of global social justice

Decolonizing Schooling and Education in Ghana

In A. Abdi & S. Guo (Ed.), Education and social development: Global issues and analyses (pp.139-154). Rotterdam: Sense publishers

The “fragility of goodness”: black parents’ perspective about raising children in Toronto, Winnipeg, and St. John’s of Canada

Journal of Public Child Welfare

How does one measure ‘goodness’ when all ethical choices lead to evil outcomes? To answer this question, this essay uses Martha Nussbaum’s fragility of goodness, critical race theory, and data from a SSHRC-funded study, in which we critically examine the parenting experiences of Black families in Canada. Findings suggest how racist ideas in Canada function as “colorblind” laws and policies that affect the everyday lives of Black people including their parenting practices. Our study calls on child welfare services in Canada to develop a comprehensive understanding of Black parenting practices, perhaps enabling more Black children to remain home safely

"When Blackness Shows up Uninvited: Examining the Murder of Trayvon Martin through Fanonian Racial Interpellation"

Peter Lang

The recent murder of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman at Stanford, Florida has generated a lot of brouhaha about race relations in the United States. This essay uses Frantz Fanon’s racial interpellation to elucidate the marked difference between how anti-racism readings may help us understand and interpret the evidence in the murder of Martin differently from how the justice system in Florida will interpret and analyze the evidence. The essay argues that Martin’s death reveals something deeper than the aberrant behaviour of George Zimmerman, Florida’s noxious “Stand Your Ground law,” and the benign gun control laws in the United States. Martin’s death reveals the ongoing W.E.B. Dubois colour-line prediction in the United States, in which white nations are lined up on one side and Dubois’ darker race are on the other side. It also reveals violent colonial imaginary script that depicts black males as existential threat to whiteness. Martin was not killed because of the obnoxious Florida “Stands Your Ground law” or benign gun control laws in the United States; he was killed because he transgressed spatial law by moving from a space of degeneration into a space of respectability. The essay asks: How does it look like when blackness shows up uninvited? How does alienation of blackness come to accord particular governance on the everyday lives of black bodies in ways whereby the meaning making process of black subjects comes to be constituted through an epistemic violence?

Sankofa: In search for alternative development paradigm for Africa

In A. Abdi & G. Richardson (Ed.), Decolonizing Democratic Education: Trans disciplinary Dialogues (pp.173-182). Rotterdam: Sense publishers

The essential thrust and the relevant argument in this essay is that development in Africa (whatever it means, and however it is use) is dead, if one has not read the obituary, please see (Sachs, 1992). As Dei (1998) accedes, it does not require any intellectual imagination to realize that the euphoria of international development has worn thin in the minds of many Africans, partly, because the so-called development paradigm in Africa has come at a high human, ecological, political, and ethical cost to Africans. The effects of Western development in Africa have literally put to shame the so-called innocence and saving mission of the West. Any economic gains from development have been spurious and disproportionately channelled to the already wealthy West. In fact, what has been celebrated as development in Africa is nothing more than an economic boom for transnational corporate organization and Western nations operating in Africa under the rubric of development partners. Thus, African educators and development workers who claimed to be working in the interest of the continent cannot continue to work with the current Western development paradigm

Resistance to Amputation: Discomforting Truth about Colonial Education in Ghana.

In G. Dei (Ed) Frantz Fanon and Education: Pedagogical Possibilities. (pp.79-104) New York: Peter Lang

There is something discomforting about truth; especially when it challenges our deeply embedded emotional dimensions that frame and shape our daily habits, routines, and unconscious complicity with hegemony (Boler and Zembylas 2003). Even more painful, truth betrays that which we have held dear, that which we have privileged in our thinking, that which we have institutionalized. Today, there is a disturbing truth about colonial education system. I am referring to its colonizing tendencies to amputate learners from the rich cultural knowledges and experiences they bring into learning. Like the dialogue between Frantz Fanon’s brother and the crippled veteran of the Pacific war (Fanon, 1967, p.140), the colonial education system continues to remind local learners to amputate themselves from their culture, identity, values, and worldviews. It is this amputation that I call for resistance in this essay. Thus, “resistance to amputation” (see Dei 2008) implies personal and political struggles to challenge the colonial and racist thinking in the current education system. Thus, using antiracism and anticolonial readings, I critically examine the writings of Frantz Fanon in context of education in Ghana; especially, how his ideas can inform, shape, and encourage resistance to colonial and racists relations in knowledge production, validations, and disseminations.

The Non - V iolent Philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. in the 21st Century: Implications for the Pursuit of Social Justice in a Global Context

Journal of Global Citizenship & Equity Education 3( 1) 80 - 101

This essay is an intellectual conversation about the non-violent philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., and the possibility of using it to pursue social justice within the field of social work. The essay asks: In what ways can Gandhi and King’s non-violent philosophy help professional social workers capture their inner feelings and thoughts that harbor resistance against social injustice, while, at the same time, seek love, common humanity, compassion and kindness? In what ways can their ideas about non-violence and their effects on the human psyche help today’s social workers to pursue social justice in the global context? What are the real consequences of situating their non-violent praxis in the pursuit of global social justice? The essay relies on data collected during the author’s doctoral research in Toronto in 2009 and 2010 to answer the questions. Six of the 20 study participants were key informants . This paper is about some of the responses of key informants about the non-violent philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. and how it can be used to pursue social justice. This paper calls for a revolutionized reflection of Gandhi and King’s non- violent philosophy. By that, this essay suggests bringing a discursive sophistication into their speeches and writings in ways that can inform and shape contemporary activism while acknowledging their shortcomings and limitations. The essay argues that, given the current charge against the social work profession that it is doing little to address social marginalization and injustices in society, a dedication to the non-violent philosophy of Gandhi and King can be a starting point to position members of the profession as forerunners in the pursuit of global social justice

What has Barack Obama's election victory got to do with race? A closer look at post-racial rhetoric and its implication for antiracism education

Race Ethnicity and Education, 16(1), 134-153

Our charge in this article is that it is becoming almost impossible to speak about race after Obama’s election victory because for many Canadians and Americans, the election of Barack Hussein Obama as the first African American President of the United States ushered the US into a post-racial era. This thinking not only obfuscates any discussion about race and racism but also ignores the historical and contemporary evidence of racism in the United States. For those of us living in Canada, we cannot help but examine the post-racial rhetoric and its implications for antiracism education in Canada and the United States. The article asks these questions: if race is analytically reductive and has no intellectual validity, then what is the social significance of race in the era ushered in by Obama’s election victory. How do we address the limits and possibilities of defining race as an ascribed status linked with physical characteristics of skin colour and pigmentation while engaging race and social difference in a power and conflict analysis? How do we contextualize concepts such as ‘race,’ ‘racism,’ and ‘post-raciality’ to the broader process of institutional and structural transformation in the era ushered in by Obama’s election victory? Our article invites complex and multiple discussions on these questions and their implication for antiracism education in Canada and the United States.

Decolonizing Schooling and Education in Ghana

In A. Abdi & S. Guo (Ed.), Education and social development: Global issues and analyses (pp.139-154). Rotterdam: Sense publishers

The “fragility of goodness”: black parents’ perspective about raising children in Toronto, Winnipeg, and St. John’s of Canada

Journal of Public Child Welfare

How does one measure ‘goodness’ when all ethical choices lead to evil outcomes? To answer this question, this essay uses Martha Nussbaum’s fragility of goodness, critical race theory, and data from a SSHRC-funded study, in which we critically examine the parenting experiences of Black families in Canada. Findings suggest how racist ideas in Canada function as “colorblind” laws and policies that affect the everyday lives of Black people including their parenting practices. Our study calls on child welfare services in Canada to develop a comprehensive understanding of Black parenting practices, perhaps enabling more Black children to remain home safely

"When Blackness Shows up Uninvited: Examining the Murder of Trayvon Martin through Fanonian Racial Interpellation"

Peter Lang

The recent murder of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman at Stanford, Florida has generated a lot of brouhaha about race relations in the United States. This essay uses Frantz Fanon’s racial interpellation to elucidate the marked difference between how anti-racism readings may help us understand and interpret the evidence in the murder of Martin differently from how the justice system in Florida will interpret and analyze the evidence. The essay argues that Martin’s death reveals something deeper than the aberrant behaviour of George Zimmerman, Florida’s noxious “Stand Your Ground law,” and the benign gun control laws in the United States. Martin’s death reveals the ongoing W.E.B. Dubois colour-line prediction in the United States, in which white nations are lined up on one side and Dubois’ darker race are on the other side. It also reveals violent colonial imaginary script that depicts black males as existential threat to whiteness. Martin was not killed because of the obnoxious Florida “Stands Your Ground law” or benign gun control laws in the United States; he was killed because he transgressed spatial law by moving from a space of degeneration into a space of respectability. The essay asks: How does it look like when blackness shows up uninvited? How does alienation of blackness come to accord particular governance on the everyday lives of black bodies in ways whereby the meaning making process of black subjects comes to be constituted through an epistemic violence?

Sankofa: In search for alternative development paradigm for Africa

In A. Abdi & G. Richardson (Ed.), Decolonizing Democratic Education: Trans disciplinary Dialogues (pp.173-182). Rotterdam: Sense publishers

The essential thrust and the relevant argument in this essay is that development in Africa (whatever it means, and however it is use) is dead, if one has not read the obituary, please see (Sachs, 1992). As Dei (1998) accedes, it does not require any intellectual imagination to realize that the euphoria of international development has worn thin in the minds of many Africans, partly, because the so-called development paradigm in Africa has come at a high human, ecological, political, and ethical cost to Africans. The effects of Western development in Africa have literally put to shame the so-called innocence and saving mission of the West. Any economic gains from development have been spurious and disproportionately channelled to the already wealthy West. In fact, what has been celebrated as development in Africa is nothing more than an economic boom for transnational corporate organization and Western nations operating in Africa under the rubric of development partners. Thus, African educators and development workers who claimed to be working in the interest of the continent cannot continue to work with the current Western development paradigm

Resistance to Amputation: Discomforting Truth about Colonial Education in Ghana.

In G. Dei (Ed) Frantz Fanon and Education: Pedagogical Possibilities. (pp.79-104) New York: Peter Lang

There is something discomforting about truth; especially when it challenges our deeply embedded emotional dimensions that frame and shape our daily habits, routines, and unconscious complicity with hegemony (Boler and Zembylas 2003). Even more painful, truth betrays that which we have held dear, that which we have privileged in our thinking, that which we have institutionalized. Today, there is a disturbing truth about colonial education system. I am referring to its colonizing tendencies to amputate learners from the rich cultural knowledges and experiences they bring into learning. Like the dialogue between Frantz Fanon’s brother and the crippled veteran of the Pacific war (Fanon, 1967, p.140), the colonial education system continues to remind local learners to amputate themselves from their culture, identity, values, and worldviews. It is this amputation that I call for resistance in this essay. Thus, “resistance to amputation” (see Dei 2008) implies personal and political struggles to challenge the colonial and racist thinking in the current education system. Thus, using antiracism and anticolonial readings, I critically examine the writings of Frantz Fanon in context of education in Ghana; especially, how his ideas can inform, shape, and encourage resistance to colonial and racists relations in knowledge production, validations, and disseminations.

The Non - V iolent Philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. in the 21st Century: Implications for the Pursuit of Social Justice in a Global Context

Journal of Global Citizenship & Equity Education 3( 1) 80 - 101

This essay is an intellectual conversation about the non-violent philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., and the possibility of using it to pursue social justice within the field of social work. The essay asks: In what ways can Gandhi and King’s non-violent philosophy help professional social workers capture their inner feelings and thoughts that harbor resistance against social injustice, while, at the same time, seek love, common humanity, compassion and kindness? In what ways can their ideas about non-violence and their effects on the human psyche help today’s social workers to pursue social justice in the global context? What are the real consequences of situating their non-violent praxis in the pursuit of global social justice? The essay relies on data collected during the author’s doctoral research in Toronto in 2009 and 2010 to answer the questions. Six of the 20 study participants were key informants . This paper is about some of the responses of key informants about the non-violent philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. and how it can be used to pursue social justice. This paper calls for a revolutionized reflection of Gandhi and King’s non- violent philosophy. By that, this essay suggests bringing a discursive sophistication into their speeches and writings in ways that can inform and shape contemporary activism while acknowledging their shortcomings and limitations. The essay argues that, given the current charge against the social work profession that it is doing little to address social marginalization and injustices in society, a dedication to the non-violent philosophy of Gandhi and King can be a starting point to position members of the profession as forerunners in the pursuit of global social justice

What has Barack Obama's election victory got to do with race? A closer look at post-racial rhetoric and its implication for antiracism education

Race Ethnicity and Education, 16(1), 134-153

Our charge in this article is that it is becoming almost impossible to speak about race after Obama’s election victory because for many Canadians and Americans, the election of Barack Hussein Obama as the first African American President of the United States ushered the US into a post-racial era. This thinking not only obfuscates any discussion about race and racism but also ignores the historical and contemporary evidence of racism in the United States. For those of us living in Canada, we cannot help but examine the post-racial rhetoric and its implications for antiracism education in Canada and the United States. The article asks these questions: if race is analytically reductive and has no intellectual validity, then what is the social significance of race in the era ushered in by Obama’s election victory. How do we address the limits and possibilities of defining race as an ascribed status linked with physical characteristics of skin colour and pigmentation while engaging race and social difference in a power and conflict analysis? How do we contextualize concepts such as ‘race,’ ‘racism,’ and ‘post-raciality’ to the broader process of institutional and structural transformation in the era ushered in by Obama’s election victory? Our article invites complex and multiple discussions on these questions and their implication for antiracism education in Canada and the United States.

The (em)bodiment of blackness in a visceral antiblack racism and ableism context

Race Ethnicity and Education

Over the years, many scholarly publications have extensively discussed disability ‘diagnoses’ and placement practices in special education programs in the United States and the United Kingdom. These publications argue that racism and classism rather than clinically predetermined factors appear to influence the disability diagnosis and placement practices in special education. The present essay is contributing to the debate by critically exploring the relationship(s) between race, class, and disability ‘diagnoses’ and placement practices in special education programs in Toronto, Canada. The core ideas noted in the essay are drawn from a personal story of an African-Canadian parent – a story of a daughter with a diagnosed disability and her mother’s struggle to resist the disability ‘diagnosis’ as well as her battle rejecting her daughter’s placement in the special education program in a Toronto public school. Using this personal account, other literature, and anti-black racism theory, I argue that special education programming in Toronto, Canada helps white middle/upper class Canadians achieve a defacto race/class-based segregation in the Toronto public school system. Whereas the Supreme Courts’ rulings on Brown vs. the Board of Education in the United States and Washington vs. the Trustees of Charlottesville in Canada have insisted that whites and non-whites attend the same school, special education identification practices ensure that whites and non-whites do not have to belong to the same classroom. I conclude that when educational practices move into spaces of pathologization, blacks and working-class students are continually at risk of facing exclusionary practices. One thing is clear: the significance of skin color in the mind of the racist cannot easily be dismissed.

Decolonizing Schooling and Education in Ghana

In A. Abdi & S. Guo (Ed.), Education and social development: Global issues and analyses (pp.139-154). Rotterdam: Sense publishers

The “fragility of goodness”: black parents’ perspective about raising children in Toronto, Winnipeg, and St. John’s of Canada

Journal of Public Child Welfare

How does one measure ‘goodness’ when all ethical choices lead to evil outcomes? To answer this question, this essay uses Martha Nussbaum’s fragility of goodness, critical race theory, and data from a SSHRC-funded study, in which we critically examine the parenting experiences of Black families in Canada. Findings suggest how racist ideas in Canada function as “colorblind” laws and policies that affect the everyday lives of Black people including their parenting practices. Our study calls on child welfare services in Canada to develop a comprehensive understanding of Black parenting practices, perhaps enabling more Black children to remain home safely

"When Blackness Shows up Uninvited: Examining the Murder of Trayvon Martin through Fanonian Racial Interpellation"

Peter Lang

The recent murder of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman at Stanford, Florida has generated a lot of brouhaha about race relations in the United States. This essay uses Frantz Fanon’s racial interpellation to elucidate the marked difference between how anti-racism readings may help us understand and interpret the evidence in the murder of Martin differently from how the justice system in Florida will interpret and analyze the evidence. The essay argues that Martin’s death reveals something deeper than the aberrant behaviour of George Zimmerman, Florida’s noxious “Stand Your Ground law,” and the benign gun control laws in the United States. Martin’s death reveals the ongoing W.E.B. Dubois colour-line prediction in the United States, in which white nations are lined up on one side and Dubois’ darker race are on the other side. It also reveals violent colonial imaginary script that depicts black males as existential threat to whiteness. Martin was not killed because of the obnoxious Florida “Stands Your Ground law” or benign gun control laws in the United States; he was killed because he transgressed spatial law by moving from a space of degeneration into a space of respectability. The essay asks: How does it look like when blackness shows up uninvited? How does alienation of blackness come to accord particular governance on the everyday lives of black bodies in ways whereby the meaning making process of black subjects comes to be constituted through an epistemic violence?

Sankofa: In search for alternative development paradigm for Africa

In A. Abdi & G. Richardson (Ed.), Decolonizing Democratic Education: Trans disciplinary Dialogues (pp.173-182). Rotterdam: Sense publishers

The essential thrust and the relevant argument in this essay is that development in Africa (whatever it means, and however it is use) is dead, if one has not read the obituary, please see (Sachs, 1992). As Dei (1998) accedes, it does not require any intellectual imagination to realize that the euphoria of international development has worn thin in the minds of many Africans, partly, because the so-called development paradigm in Africa has come at a high human, ecological, political, and ethical cost to Africans. The effects of Western development in Africa have literally put to shame the so-called innocence and saving mission of the West. Any economic gains from development have been spurious and disproportionately channelled to the already wealthy West. In fact, what has been celebrated as development in Africa is nothing more than an economic boom for transnational corporate organization and Western nations operating in Africa under the rubric of development partners. Thus, African educators and development workers who claimed to be working in the interest of the continent cannot continue to work with the current Western development paradigm

Resistance to Amputation: Discomforting Truth about Colonial Education in Ghana.

In G. Dei (Ed) Frantz Fanon and Education: Pedagogical Possibilities. (pp.79-104) New York: Peter Lang

There is something discomforting about truth; especially when it challenges our deeply embedded emotional dimensions that frame and shape our daily habits, routines, and unconscious complicity with hegemony (Boler and Zembylas 2003). Even more painful, truth betrays that which we have held dear, that which we have privileged in our thinking, that which we have institutionalized. Today, there is a disturbing truth about colonial education system. I am referring to its colonizing tendencies to amputate learners from the rich cultural knowledges and experiences they bring into learning. Like the dialogue between Frantz Fanon’s brother and the crippled veteran of the Pacific war (Fanon, 1967, p.140), the colonial education system continues to remind local learners to amputate themselves from their culture, identity, values, and worldviews. It is this amputation that I call for resistance in this essay. Thus, “resistance to amputation” (see Dei 2008) implies personal and political struggles to challenge the colonial and racist thinking in the current education system. Thus, using antiracism and anticolonial readings, I critically examine the writings of Frantz Fanon in context of education in Ghana; especially, how his ideas can inform, shape, and encourage resistance to colonial and racists relations in knowledge production, validations, and disseminations.

The Non - V iolent Philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. in the 21st Century: Implications for the Pursuit of Social Justice in a Global Context

Journal of Global Citizenship & Equity Education 3( 1) 80 - 101

This essay is an intellectual conversation about the non-violent philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., and the possibility of using it to pursue social justice within the field of social work. The essay asks: In what ways can Gandhi and King’s non-violent philosophy help professional social workers capture their inner feelings and thoughts that harbor resistance against social injustice, while, at the same time, seek love, common humanity, compassion and kindness? In what ways can their ideas about non-violence and their effects on the human psyche help today’s social workers to pursue social justice in the global context? What are the real consequences of situating their non-violent praxis in the pursuit of global social justice? The essay relies on data collected during the author’s doctoral research in Toronto in 2009 and 2010 to answer the questions. Six of the 20 study participants were key informants . This paper is about some of the responses of key informants about the non-violent philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. and how it can be used to pursue social justice. This paper calls for a revolutionized reflection of Gandhi and King’s non- violent philosophy. By that, this essay suggests bringing a discursive sophistication into their speeches and writings in ways that can inform and shape contemporary activism while acknowledging their shortcomings and limitations. The essay argues that, given the current charge against the social work profession that it is doing little to address social marginalization and injustices in society, a dedication to the non-violent philosophy of Gandhi and King can be a starting point to position members of the profession as forerunners in the pursuit of global social justice

What has Barack Obama's election victory got to do with race? A closer look at post-racial rhetoric and its implication for antiracism education

Race Ethnicity and Education, 16(1), 134-153

Our charge in this article is that it is becoming almost impossible to speak about race after Obama’s election victory because for many Canadians and Americans, the election of Barack Hussein Obama as the first African American President of the United States ushered the US into a post-racial era. This thinking not only obfuscates any discussion about race and racism but also ignores the historical and contemporary evidence of racism in the United States. For those of us living in Canada, we cannot help but examine the post-racial rhetoric and its implications for antiracism education in Canada and the United States. The article asks these questions: if race is analytically reductive and has no intellectual validity, then what is the social significance of race in the era ushered in by Obama’s election victory. How do we address the limits and possibilities of defining race as an ascribed status linked with physical characteristics of skin colour and pigmentation while engaging race and social difference in a power and conflict analysis? How do we contextualize concepts such as ‘race,’ ‘racism,’ and ‘post-raciality’ to the broader process of institutional and structural transformation in the era ushered in by Obama’s election victory? Our article invites complex and multiple discussions on these questions and their implication for antiracism education in Canada and the United States.

The (em)bodiment of blackness in a visceral antiblack racism and ableism context

Race Ethnicity and Education

Over the years, many scholarly publications have extensively discussed disability ‘diagnoses’ and placement practices in special education programs in the United States and the United Kingdom. These publications argue that racism and classism rather than clinically predetermined factors appear to influence the disability diagnosis and placement practices in special education. The present essay is contributing to the debate by critically exploring the relationship(s) between race, class, and disability ‘diagnoses’ and placement practices in special education programs in Toronto, Canada. The core ideas noted in the essay are drawn from a personal story of an African-Canadian parent – a story of a daughter with a diagnosed disability and her mother’s struggle to resist the disability ‘diagnosis’ as well as her battle rejecting her daughter’s placement in the special education program in a Toronto public school. Using this personal account, other literature, and anti-black racism theory, I argue that special education programming in Toronto, Canada helps white middle/upper class Canadians achieve a defacto race/class-based segregation in the Toronto public school system. Whereas the Supreme Courts’ rulings on Brown vs. the Board of Education in the United States and Washington vs. the Trustees of Charlottesville in Canada have insisted that whites and non-whites attend the same school, special education identification practices ensure that whites and non-whites do not have to belong to the same classroom. I conclude that when educational practices move into spaces of pathologization, blacks and working-class students are continually at risk of facing exclusionary practices. One thing is clear: the significance of skin color in the mind of the racist cannot easily be dismissed.

Emerging Perspectives on ‘African Development’: Speaking Differently

Peter Lang

Emerging Perspectives on ‘African Development’: Speaking Differently discusses numerous areas of interest and issues about Africa, including contemporary challenges and possibilities of development. The book critically engages the many ways of presenting ‘development,’ highlighting the interplay of tradition and modernity as well as contestations over knowledge production in ‘post-colonial’ Africa. It offers cautionary words to field practitioners, researchers, and social theorists who work in development using language that is easily accessible to laypersons. This book is also for undergraduate and graduate courses on development, global education, rural development, and Africa studies. For readers looking for something new about Africa beyond the old stories of catastrophes and human misery, this book will be indispensable. It demonstrates that even in the face of many failures, tragedies, and suffering, Africa’s stories can be told with hope and a sense of possibility.

Decolonizing Schooling and Education in Ghana

In A. Abdi & S. Guo (Ed.), Education and social development: Global issues and analyses (pp.139-154). Rotterdam: Sense publishers

The “fragility of goodness”: black parents’ perspective about raising children in Toronto, Winnipeg, and St. John’s of Canada

Journal of Public Child Welfare

How does one measure ‘goodness’ when all ethical choices lead to evil outcomes? To answer this question, this essay uses Martha Nussbaum’s fragility of goodness, critical race theory, and data from a SSHRC-funded study, in which we critically examine the parenting experiences of Black families in Canada. Findings suggest how racist ideas in Canada function as “colorblind” laws and policies that affect the everyday lives of Black people including their parenting practices. Our study calls on child welfare services in Canada to develop a comprehensive understanding of Black parenting practices, perhaps enabling more Black children to remain home safely

"When Blackness Shows up Uninvited: Examining the Murder of Trayvon Martin through Fanonian Racial Interpellation"

Peter Lang

The recent murder of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman at Stanford, Florida has generated a lot of brouhaha about race relations in the United States. This essay uses Frantz Fanon’s racial interpellation to elucidate the marked difference between how anti-racism readings may help us understand and interpret the evidence in the murder of Martin differently from how the justice system in Florida will interpret and analyze the evidence. The essay argues that Martin’s death reveals something deeper than the aberrant behaviour of George Zimmerman, Florida’s noxious “Stand Your Ground law,” and the benign gun control laws in the United States. Martin’s death reveals the ongoing W.E.B. Dubois colour-line prediction in the United States, in which white nations are lined up on one side and Dubois’ darker race are on the other side. It also reveals violent colonial imaginary script that depicts black males as existential threat to whiteness. Martin was not killed because of the obnoxious Florida “Stands Your Ground law” or benign gun control laws in the United States; he was killed because he transgressed spatial law by moving from a space of degeneration into a space of respectability. The essay asks: How does it look like when blackness shows up uninvited? How does alienation of blackness come to accord particular governance on the everyday lives of black bodies in ways whereby the meaning making process of black subjects comes to be constituted through an epistemic violence?

Sankofa: In search for alternative development paradigm for Africa

In A. Abdi & G. Richardson (Ed.), Decolonizing Democratic Education: Trans disciplinary Dialogues (pp.173-182). Rotterdam: Sense publishers

The essential thrust and the relevant argument in this essay is that development in Africa (whatever it means, and however it is use) is dead, if one has not read the obituary, please see (Sachs, 1992). As Dei (1998) accedes, it does not require any intellectual imagination to realize that the euphoria of international development has worn thin in the minds of many Africans, partly, because the so-called development paradigm in Africa has come at a high human, ecological, political, and ethical cost to Africans. The effects of Western development in Africa have literally put to shame the so-called innocence and saving mission of the West. Any economic gains from development have been spurious and disproportionately channelled to the already wealthy West. In fact, what has been celebrated as development in Africa is nothing more than an economic boom for transnational corporate organization and Western nations operating in Africa under the rubric of development partners. Thus, African educators and development workers who claimed to be working in the interest of the continent cannot continue to work with the current Western development paradigm

Resistance to Amputation: Discomforting Truth about Colonial Education in Ghana.

In G. Dei (Ed) Frantz Fanon and Education: Pedagogical Possibilities. (pp.79-104) New York: Peter Lang

There is something discomforting about truth; especially when it challenges our deeply embedded emotional dimensions that frame and shape our daily habits, routines, and unconscious complicity with hegemony (Boler and Zembylas 2003). Even more painful, truth betrays that which we have held dear, that which we have privileged in our thinking, that which we have institutionalized. Today, there is a disturbing truth about colonial education system. I am referring to its colonizing tendencies to amputate learners from the rich cultural knowledges and experiences they bring into learning. Like the dialogue between Frantz Fanon’s brother and the crippled veteran of the Pacific war (Fanon, 1967, p.140), the colonial education system continues to remind local learners to amputate themselves from their culture, identity, values, and worldviews. It is this amputation that I call for resistance in this essay. Thus, “resistance to amputation” (see Dei 2008) implies personal and political struggles to challenge the colonial and racist thinking in the current education system. Thus, using antiracism and anticolonial readings, I critically examine the writings of Frantz Fanon in context of education in Ghana; especially, how his ideas can inform, shape, and encourage resistance to colonial and racists relations in knowledge production, validations, and disseminations.

The Non - V iolent Philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. in the 21st Century: Implications for the Pursuit of Social Justice in a Global Context

Journal of Global Citizenship & Equity Education 3( 1) 80 - 101

This essay is an intellectual conversation about the non-violent philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., and the possibility of using it to pursue social justice within the field of social work. The essay asks: In what ways can Gandhi and King’s non-violent philosophy help professional social workers capture their inner feelings and thoughts that harbor resistance against social injustice, while, at the same time, seek love, common humanity, compassion and kindness? In what ways can their ideas about non-violence and their effects on the human psyche help today’s social workers to pursue social justice in the global context? What are the real consequences of situating their non-violent praxis in the pursuit of global social justice? The essay relies on data collected during the author’s doctoral research in Toronto in 2009 and 2010 to answer the questions. Six of the 20 study participants were key informants . This paper is about some of the responses of key informants about the non-violent philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. and how it can be used to pursue social justice. This paper calls for a revolutionized reflection of Gandhi and King’s non- violent philosophy. By that, this essay suggests bringing a discursive sophistication into their speeches and writings in ways that can inform and shape contemporary activism while acknowledging their shortcomings and limitations. The essay argues that, given the current charge against the social work profession that it is doing little to address social marginalization and injustices in society, a dedication to the non-violent philosophy of Gandhi and King can be a starting point to position members of the profession as forerunners in the pursuit of global social justice

What has Barack Obama's election victory got to do with race? A closer look at post-racial rhetoric and its implication for antiracism education

Race Ethnicity and Education, 16(1), 134-153

Our charge in this article is that it is becoming almost impossible to speak about race after Obama’s election victory because for many Canadians and Americans, the election of Barack Hussein Obama as the first African American President of the United States ushered the US into a post-racial era. This thinking not only obfuscates any discussion about race and racism but also ignores the historical and contemporary evidence of racism in the United States. For those of us living in Canada, we cannot help but examine the post-racial rhetoric and its implications for antiracism education in Canada and the United States. The article asks these questions: if race is analytically reductive and has no intellectual validity, then what is the social significance of race in the era ushered in by Obama’s election victory. How do we address the limits and possibilities of defining race as an ascribed status linked with physical characteristics of skin colour and pigmentation while engaging race and social difference in a power and conflict analysis? How do we contextualize concepts such as ‘race,’ ‘racism,’ and ‘post-raciality’ to the broader process of institutional and structural transformation in the era ushered in by Obama’s election victory? Our article invites complex and multiple discussions on these questions and their implication for antiracism education in Canada and the United States.

The (em)bodiment of blackness in a visceral antiblack racism and ableism context

Race Ethnicity and Education

Over the years, many scholarly publications have extensively discussed disability ‘diagnoses’ and placement practices in special education programs in the United States and the United Kingdom. These publications argue that racism and classism rather than clinically predetermined factors appear to influence the disability diagnosis and placement practices in special education. The present essay is contributing to the debate by critically exploring the relationship(s) between race, class, and disability ‘diagnoses’ and placement practices in special education programs in Toronto, Canada. The core ideas noted in the essay are drawn from a personal story of an African-Canadian parent – a story of a daughter with a diagnosed disability and her mother’s struggle to resist the disability ‘diagnosis’ as well as her battle rejecting her daughter’s placement in the special education program in a Toronto public school. Using this personal account, other literature, and anti-black racism theory, I argue that special education programming in Toronto, Canada helps white middle/upper class Canadians achieve a defacto race/class-based segregation in the Toronto public school system. Whereas the Supreme Courts’ rulings on Brown vs. the Board of Education in the United States and Washington vs. the Trustees of Charlottesville in Canada have insisted that whites and non-whites attend the same school, special education identification practices ensure that whites and non-whites do not have to belong to the same classroom. I conclude that when educational practices move into spaces of pathologization, blacks and working-class students are continually at risk of facing exclusionary practices. One thing is clear: the significance of skin color in the mind of the racist cannot easily be dismissed.

Emerging Perspectives on ‘African Development’: Speaking Differently

Peter Lang

Emerging Perspectives on ‘African Development’: Speaking Differently discusses numerous areas of interest and issues about Africa, including contemporary challenges and possibilities of development. The book critically engages the many ways of presenting ‘development,’ highlighting the interplay of tradition and modernity as well as contestations over knowledge production in ‘post-colonial’ Africa. It offers cautionary words to field practitioners, researchers, and social theorists who work in development using language that is easily accessible to laypersons. This book is also for undergraduate and graduate courses on development, global education, rural development, and Africa studies. For readers looking for something new about Africa beyond the old stories of catastrophes and human misery, this book will be indispensable. It demonstrates that even in the face of many failures, tragedies, and suffering, Africa’s stories can be told with hope and a sense of possibility.

Resistance from the Margin: Voices of African-Canadian Parents on Africentric Education

In A. Kempf (ed). Breaching the Colonial Contract: Anti-Colonialism in the US and Canada. (137-158) New York: Springer.