Guest Author Posting by Teresa Smart

Zimbabwe Takes Back iIs Land

By Joseph Hanlon, Jeannette Manjengwa, and Teresa Smart

Esther and Teresa are both land reform farmers in Mazowe, Zimbabwe. We first met Esther and her friend Teresa at a field day at Kia Ora Farm. They each have 15 acre plots of top quality land. The former white farms had been subdivided into 50 or 60 fifteen acre plots. These two women had impressed us with their tales of how much and what they produced on their farms. Esther talked about harvests of 100 tonnes of maize from 35 acres (her own 15 plus a borrowed 20 acres). Esther says that during 10 years of farming, she had invested her money in farming equipment.

My namesake, Teresa, has invested her profits in buying cattle and sending her two children to university in South Africa. She borrows a tractor and irrigation pipes from her friend Esther. When we asked how they had managed to produce so much, Teresa leant down and picked up some earth and showed me the earth and her work roughened hands; good soil and hard work was her answer.

We were researching our book, Zimbabwe Takes Back its Land, looking at what has happened to the 170,000 black farmers who controversially occupied 4,000 white farms in 2000 and 2001. Although the local agriculture extension officer independently verified their stories of production and equipment, we wanted to see it with our own eyes. On our visit we saw the tractors, irrigation equipment, planter, and pumps. All are in good working order and Esther already knows how she will spend the profit from the coming harvest – this tractor needs new tires and she wants to buy a harvester. Every penny from her production is invested in the farm. But her pride and joy is her maize – strong, clean, well-weeded fields of maize. She is expecting three tonnes per acre, which the extension officer confirms. She has hedged her bets by planting three different seed types: one high yielding, one lower yield but drought resistant, and one for late planting in case of late rains. So whatever the weather her yield will always give an average of three tonnes per acre.

While we are admiring her maize, she tells us her story. She was a teacher, but she had grown up on a farm and always wanted to be a farmer; so when the land reform started she applied for land. When she was granted her 15 acres, she gave up her job, but her husband stayed in his job in the police and paid the household bills while she ploughed all of her savings into the land. The first year she produced 100 tonnes and spent the money on buying a second hand tractor. The second year she bought irrigation pipes and pumps so that she could grow winter wheat giving her two crops a year. The third year she bought another tractor and so on. Her husband has since died so she has full financial responsibility for the family. The problem with farming is that you have to pay bills for fuel, workers, electricity, school fees and food every week but you only receive money once or twice a year when you sell your crops. Esther resolves this in two ways: When she sells her crops she immediately buys fertilizer, seeds and new equipment for the next year; and, then she has diversified running a small shop for local farmers and making peanut butter to sell so she has a small fund coming in every day.

Esther and Teresa are some of the best of the new farmers, but overall the new farmers are using more of the land than their white predecessors and now producing nearly as much. Research shows that it takes two decades to reach the maximum potential of a farm, so the new farmers are only halfway through that process, and seem set to produce more than the former white farmers.

At independence in 1980, only one-third of what farmers were doing well, and one-third were bankrupt. Our surveys and other studies show a similar spread for the new farmers, with a third becoming serious commercial farmers like Ester and Teresa. But what is equally impressive is standing with Joe, whose father was thrown off his land by white settlers 55 years ago, or Agnes who lost her leg as a guerrilla in the liberation war, in the middle of their resettlement farms, and of their pride not just in regaining their land, but in what they have built on their own farms in the past decade.

Many problems remain in Zimbabwe. But United States sanctions are not just against an evil elite, but against Esther, Teresa, Joe, Agnes and the other 170,000 land reform farmers. As President Barak Obama goes into his second term and looks again at foreign policy, perhaps it is time to rethink how the U.S. approaches Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe Takes Back Its Land releases later this month. The book is available to pre-order through Kumarian Press and retails for $26.95. To request review and/or exam copies, contact Marketing Associate Jennifer Kern: Jennifer@styluspub.com.

Guest Author Posting By Anthony Ware

Context-Sensitive Development
Anthony Ware

How do you write an up-to-date book about a context that is changing as fast as Myanmar? I commenced research for this book several years ago, and began writing  my findings in earnest during 2010 and 2011. However, as anyone at all familiar with Myanmar will know, political and social change has been unexpectedly rapid in this country over the last 18 months or so, making it difficult but most important to keep checking and updating the research and findings right up until the final hour before printing. Accordingly, the last revisions were made to the text in late July 2012, for an early October book launch date!

On the back of numerous visits to the country between 1992 and  2007, and a lot of reading about the history and context over the years, I commenced formal research specifically for this project during an extended visit in 2009. I have had several visits since, but that initial research period was about a year after Cyclone Nargis devastated the country at a loss of some 140,000 lives, an event which greatly change the involvement of international actors in Myanmar. Actually, the cyclone itself was not a significant factor motivating my research; to me the challenge was more about understanding how we foreigners could most effectively assist in poverty alleviation within such an enigmatic context. Poverty in Myanmar has been amongst the worst in Asia, and the state in Myanmar has long been highly bureaucratic, authoritarian, incompetent and often brutal. Complicating the issue, however, Myanmar has also long been greatly suspicious of Western motives, while itself being sanctioned by Western governments over human rights violations and a failure to respect the democratic voice of the people. How do we help alleviate poverty in such a context? That was what I set out to document.

Unexpectedly, just as I was in the midst of writing up my research, military strongman Senior General Than Shwe resigned as president. This event, of course, paved the way for the now-familiar reforms under new president Thein Sein, something we are all very pleasantly surprised to see coming to partial fruition. I had been aware that the November 2010 elections were to be held, but I did not give them must consideration. Along with most of the international community, I was taken completely by surprise when Than Shwe resigned to allow a more civilian government to form, and even more surprised by the content of Thein Sein's March 2011 inaugural speech, which outlined an ambitious reform agenda. Without taking anything away from my discussion of this in the book, let me just say that from his first speech, Thein Sein has set a very different path to that of his predecessor.

While the reforms which began to take shape over the months following Thein Sein taking power were extremely welcome, they had major ramifications for me as an author in the middle of a book about the country. Naturally, I was immediately nervous that my research and findings might become irrelevant. Thus I planned several follow-up visits during 2011 and 2012 to remain up with the changes, and consider their impact on the work of international NGOs in the country.

So I found myself back in Yangon in July 2011. I remember feeling quite frustrated at the difficulty I was having securing appointments with the Australian ambassador, the AusAID team, and others, when then news came out that Kevin Rudd, then Australian foreign minister, had arrived to assess the reform; the first Western ministerial-level visit to Myanmar in decades. I hardly minded not getting an appointment that week! (Although I was delighted to receive an invitation for an appointment with the ambassador the week after he left.)

I returned again in December 2011, just in time for Hillary Clinton's visit. It was quite interesting to find myself in a house in Insein district, chatting about her major speech to the press with local informants just the morning after the speech. As it turns out, I then flew back into the country during the second week of April 2012, just after the by-elections that saw Aung San Suu Kyi and 42 members of her National League for Democracy (NLD) elected to parliament. It was a privilege to be sitting with local residents in one of the electorates won by the NLD just a week after the election, and able to talk about their reactions to the by-election. But I did start getting a little paranoid foreign political leaders were stalking me when UK Prime Minister David Cameron appeared in the country that same week. Not that I got to see him personally, of course! What capped it all off, though, was travelling back to Myanmar yet again in June 2012, to make the final edits to the manuscript, and find that yet again I was there within days of the visit by the new Aus­tralian, Senator Carr, as he announced ground-breaking policy changes and new aid commitments by Australia.

Watching these events unfold, largely from a position inside the country, gave me the opportunity to monitor the changes closely, and incorporate these into the manuscript right up to the last moment it was sent to the printer. I have to say, Kumarian were wonderful with this – so flexible in trying to deliver the most relevant and up-to-date book to readers. The final edits sent through were dated 24 July 2012, and included several updates and an Afterword. Thank you so much to Jennifer, McKinley, Jim and everyone at Kumarian for your flexibility and encouragement in this endeavor.

Context-Sensitive Development is available for purchase through Kumarian Press. To receive review and/or exam copies, please contact Marketing Associate Jennifer Kern: Jennifer@styluspub.com.

Interested in Publishing with Kumarian Press?

Hello, KP Readers:

Do you have a great book idea? We would like to invite you to send your editorial proposals to us for review.

Below are a few helpful tips to help you get started:

The length of the manuscript is an important part of the contract: it is a key factor in determining the list price as well as the cost of producing and printing the book. Manuscript length is expressed as thousands of words. Book length is expressed in multiples of 16-page or 32-page "signatures," which are the number of pages created by folding and gathering paper mill reels or large sheets of paper into a bound book. Accordingly, a typical Stylus contract may stipulate a manuscript not exceeding 84,000 words, which, allowing for front ("prelims") and back matter (usually bibliography and index), will yield a 224-page book of a given trim size and using a page design with a particular typeface

The word count allows for the fact that a number of pages are set aside for such elements as the title page, the copyright page, dedication, acknowledgments and table of contents (the "prelims"). A typical double-spaced word-processed page of 12-point type comes to about 380 words.

If a book is to be illustrated or will present a great deal of tabular material, or needs a design with lots of indents and bullet points, this needs to be discussed at contract stage so that these factors are taken into account in determining length.

Our Stylus contract calls for you to submit your final manuscript in both hard copy and disk forms. In this digital age, hard copy is still important for transmitting detailed instructions to those involved in converting your manuscript into a book, and as a safeguard in case of corrupt files.

It is also very important to adhere to the following instructions in preparing your manuscript. In addition to the quality of the content, the physical form of submission is a key element of what constitutes an acceptable manuscript.

These instructions are designed to streamline the work of the many people who will be involved in editing, designing and printing your book, and enable them work effectively with you in the process.

Be sure to check out our manuscript submission guidelines for more information.

Are you ready to begin working with us? Contact Editor Jim Lance: JLance@kpbooks.com. We look forward to working with you.

New Titles Releasing Next Month

Kumarian Press has a slew of new titles in the fields of foreign affairs, anthropology, advocacy and more. Pre-order these titles now:

Practicing Military Anthropology: “Professor Rubinstein’s shocking revelations of brutal and cruel professional malfeasance committed by leading scholars against other contributors to this volume lays bare a shameful and deeply rooted pathology within the disciplinary culture that poses a grave threat to the collective integrity and, indeed, to the very future of anthropology itself."- George R. Lucas, Jr. (Ph.D.), Professor of Ethics & Public Policy at the Naval Postgraduate School, Distinguished Chair of Ethics at the U.S. Naval Academy

In this book, a number of anthropologists who have either worked with the US armed forces or who teach at military service academies reflect on what they do and teach in their military anthropologist personae. Through their personal accounts they show that the practice of military anthropology is much more than HTS and that they are more than mere “technicians of the state” as critics allege.

Confronting Power: "Jeff Unsicker's Confronting Power provides new knowledge for policy advocacy practitioners so that they understand the contributions they make as advocates. I found myself cheering Unsicker's writing and the stories he, his students and colleagues uncovered. Students of policy advocacy can learn from the case studies which demystify advocacy as they respect the advocates' serious work. Academic discipline does not stand in the way of making the advocates work come alive. We come away valuing the public work of policy advocacy and wanting to engage in it."- David Cohen,Co-Founder , Advocacy Institute

Confronting Power provides an academically rigorous, yet practical and comprehensive framework and concepts for planning, implementing and evaluating policy advocacy. Based on the author's experiences both as teacher and activist, the framework is general enough to be relevant for advocacy in a variety of sectors such as poverty alleviation, human rights and the environment, in different national and cultural contexts, and at levels ranging from influencing a town council to transnational institutions such as the World Bank.

Zimbabwe Takes Back Its Land: "Land and farming rights have been the most powerful issue in Zimbabwe for over 100 years, as I discovered when I wrote my MSc thesis on this subject in the 1960s. While white farmers were evicted in a brutal fashion and many of Mugabe's cronies were the beneficiaries, this is not the whole story. This excellent book describes how agricultural production is now returning to the level of the 1990s. If tens of thousands of poor Zimbabwean farmers are now able to make a livelihood from the land, some significant good will have emerged from a terrible period of Zimbabwe’s history." - Sir Malcolm Rifkind, MP, Former UK Defence Secretary and Foreign Secretary

The news from Zimbabwe is usually unremittingly bleak. Perhaps no issue has aroused such ire as the land reforms in 2000, when 170,000 black farmers occupied 4,000 white farms. A decade later, with production returning to former levels, the land reform story is a contrast to the dominant media narratives of oppression and economic stagnation. Zimbabwe Takes Back it Land offers a positive and nuanced assessment of land reform in Zimbabwe. The book stresses that the land reform was organized by liberation war veterans acting against President Mugabe and his cronies and their corruption.

NGO Leadership and Human Rights: “Addresses a critical issue that has received scant scholarly attention in the mainstream human rights/humanitarian affairs literature.”- Prof. George Andreopoulos, Center for International Human Rights , John Jay College of Criminal Justice-CUNY

NGO Leadership and Human Rights covers various topics of importance to those who work in development and/or advocacy organizations with human rights orientations and for undergraduate and graduate students aspiring to such careers. This book provides context, definition and guidance for the perplexed seeking entrance into a challenging but rewarding endeavor.

Find these books and more on our website and contact Marketing Associate Jennifer Kern if interested in obtaining a review and/or exam copy: Jennifer@styluspub.com.

Conflict Resolution Day is Thursday, October 18th

Since 2005, the ACR has joined human rights activists and conflict resolution practitioners to celebrate Conflict Resolution Day on the third Thursday of every October.

The goals of Conflict Resolution Day are to:

• Promote awareness of mediation, arbitration, conciliation and other creative, peaceful means of resolving conflict;
• Promote the use of conflict resolution in schools, families, businesses, communities, governments and the legal system;
• Recognize the significant contributions of (peaceful) conflict resolvers; and
• Obtain national synergy by having celebrations happen across the country and around the world on the same day.
 

View our Conflict Resolution Titles

Click on the cover image for more information on each title*

     

                          NEW

Coming Spring 2013
Conflict Assessment and Peacebuilding Handbook
Lisa Schirch

The handbook contains 1) conflict assessment exercises; 2) self-assessment exercises; and 3) peacebuilding planning frameworks. Conflict assessment exercises help to map the factors increasing conflict and the factors supporting peace. Self-assessment exercises help narrow priorities and assess abilities of those planning peacebuilding.  Peacebuilding frameworks offer a range of program options.

To receive a review and/or exam copy of our conflict resolution publications, contact Marketing Associate Jennifer Kern at Jennifer@styluspub.com.

Third New October Release Update

Hello, KP Bookreaders:

In addition to Context-Sensitive Development and Foreign Aid Competition in Northeast Asia, The Golden Fleece is out.

Edited by Antonio Donini, The Golden Fleece delves into questions that are rarely asked and seldom answered. It examines the impact of manipulation on the effectiveness of humanitarian action. This book takes a long view, starting with the origins of organized humanitarianism in the mid-19th century and zeroes in on the twenty-plus years since the end of the Cold War. It examines whether instrumentalization has achieved its desired objectives, whether political manipulation is greater today than before, and whether the recent dramatic growth of relief work has opened up humanitarian action to greater manipulation.

The book has already received national and international attention by organizations such as: The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and the Global Insecurities Centre, University of Bristol.

The book is available to purchase through Kumarian Press and retails for $29.95.

Contact Marketing Associate Jennifer Kern if you express an interest in review and/or exam copies: Jennifer@styluspub.com.

Guest Author Posting: Alcinda Honwana

The Time of Youth
Alcinda Honwana

The research for this book began in 2008 in Mozambique and was later expanded to South Africa, Senegal, and Tunisia. In these four countries I met young people from a range of social and economic backgrounds. I conducted individual interviews and focus-group discussions with students, young professionals, musicians and other artists, activists from various fields, and unemployed young men and women carrying out the most diverse activities to try to make ends meet.

Young people were eager to tell their stories. In long individual interviews I listened to their life stories and their views about their peers, their elders, the economy, and politics. Focus-group discussions were undertaken with diverse groups of young people. Some were all female, some all male, and some mixed. Others involved people with common interests, such as musicians and performers. I also spoke with groups belonging to particular organizations, such as party youth leagues and civil society associations. Most focus groups considered specific topics, and participants debated and exchanged views among themselves.

I also took time to interact with young people in places where they normally hung out, such as youth clubs, restaurants, and bars. Occasionally I was invited for meals at their homes and had the opportunity to meet their parents, siblings, and other relatives. The fact that my research assistants were themselves quite young facilitated my access to their social networks; I met their friends and then the friends of those friends, creating a snowball effect. My research assistants mediated between my young informants and me, as they advised me about the “dos and don’ts” and explained what was considered “cool” and “uncool.” They provided useful insights regarding ways of broaching difficult subjects. Although I speak the major languages of all four countries, they also translated and helped interpret some of the discussions conducted with young people in their mother tongues, especially Wolof in Senegal and Arabic in Tunisia.

In addition, I interviewed government officials, religious leaders, scholars, journalists, and public intellectuals who are concerned about youth. These interviews provided information about the ways these societies look at young people, specific policies and programs designed for them, and youths’ place in the economy, society, and culture.

Most of the research was conducted in urban settings, although I occasionally visited rural areas. Many young people who grow up in the economically undeveloped countryside seek a solution to their pressing problems in the cities. African cities are teeming with young men and women trying to survive on the margins of formal socioeconomic structures. For many, the city becomes a place to forge new ways of living free from the constraints of rural society. In the countryside, youth have no platform for action not only because resources are limited but also because older people tend to monopolize power; indeed, some call rural communities gerontocracies. The city promises anonymity, a degree of chaos that allows for personal freedom. Here they find possibilities for improvisation, experimentation, and desenrascar—literally, to disentangle themselves from a situation, and metaphorically, to improvise a solution from almost nothing at the very last moment.

The young people I interviewed described their daily life struggles as well as their aspirations. They shared amazing stories of resilience and survival under dire circumstances. I tell the stories of the young men in Maputo who survive by scavenging in the city’s garbage dump; of the Mozambican mukheristas, young women who engage in small-scale, cross-border trading without paying import taxes; of the young South Africans whose only form of livelihood is sporadic overnight shelf-packing in supermarkets; of the Senegalese street vendors and those desperate enough to try to make the dangerous crossing to Europe in small pirogues (boats); of the Tunisian university graduates working in European-owned call centers; and of the many young women and men who hook up with “sugar daddies” and “sugar mamas” to be able to pay high school fees and buy fashionable goods. I also introduce readers to rappers who criticize the status quo, protesters who force governments to reverse unsound policies, and revolutionaries who topple dictatorships. Indeed, young men and women do not merely wait for their lives to change. They are proactive and wake up each day with the goal of making their own lives better despite their depressing circumstances.

I was amazed by their agency as they actively set out to live as fully as possible despite their circumstances. I was equally struck by their capacity to understand the broader structural forces that shape their everyday lives. I was most impressed by their creativity and the commitment to citizenship that they sustained amid such a chaotic and often improvised existence. Young people are involved in a myriad of associations and activist groups and deeply engaged with the issues that matter to them, often on the margins of formal political structures and ideologies.

Young people were very clear about the ways they wanted me to portray them and the messages they hoped I would deliver on their behalf. They are keenly aware of the disapproving ways parents and elders, governments, and the media generally depict them. In this book I bring their own voices to the fore by using as many direct quotations as possible and providing information about who they are in order to allow the reader greater insight into their lives.

The Time of Youth focuses on the lives of many of these youths struggling with unemployment and sustainable livelihoods in the context of widespread social and economic crisis. Failed neo-liberal socio-economic policies, bad governance and political instability have caused stable jobs to disappear—without jobs young people cannot support themselves and their families. Most young Africans are living in a period of suspension between childhood and adulthood because they are unable to make the transition into adult independence -to build, buy, or rent a house for themselves, support their relatives, get married, establish families, and gain social recognition as adults. They live in a state of limbo that I call  “waithood” (a portmanteau term of “wait” and “-hood”, meaning ‘waiting for adulthood’). Unfortunately, in many of these social contexts waithood is becoming pervasive and is gradually replacing conventional adulthood. While the book focuses on four African case studies, it also argues that youth in Europe, North America and other parts of the world are facing the same crisis of joblessness and restricted futures. Thus the youth crisis, or waithood, is becoming global.

Order your copy of The Time of Youth today. To request review and/or exam copies, contact Marketing Associate Jennifer Kern at: Jennifer@styluspub.com.