University of Hradec Králové Journals
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Relationality or Hospitality in Twenty-First Century Research? Big Data, Internet of Things, and the Resilience of Coloniality on Africa
Get PDFIn a supposedly relational world, African people are increasingly datafied, dehumanised and denied self-knowledge, self-mastery, self-organization and data sovereignty. They are datafied, dehumanised and recolonised by foreign corporations and states engaged in the new scramble for African data. Arguing for more attention to data sovereignty, this article notes that the relational Internet of Things and Big Data threaten the autonomy, privacy, data, and national sovereignty of Africans. Deemed, in relational ontologies, to be lacking autonomy and to be indistinct from machines/nonhumans/animals, Africans would then be inserted or implanted with remotely controlled intelligent tracking devices that mine data from their brains, bodies, homes, cities and so on. Because technological relationality effaces distinctions between nature and culture, it legitimised mining data from human minds/bodies as if the data were natural minerals
Siko, John and Victor, Jonah. 2020. African Security: An Introduction. London and New York: I.B. Tauris, Bloomsbury Publishing. 280 pp. ISBN 978-1-7867-3643-7 (eBook)
Get PDFA Partnership of Un-Equals: Global South–North Research Collaborations in Higher Education Institutions
Get PDFWith the realisation that institutions of higher learning may play a powerful role in transforming the world, research partnerships between institutions in the Global South and North have gained popularity. These partnerships are meant to empower and strengthen the contribution of higher learning institutions and bridge the North/South knowledge divide. Considering the limited access to research resources in the Global South, it is anticipated that these partnerships will create research opportunities for scholars. However, while it can be acknowledged that the research partnerships can be of benefit to African institutions and economy, there are practical challenges that limit the success of most research partnerships. Using the authors’s experience this article explores and describes issues that surround research collaborations between institutions of higher learning in the Global South and North
Party Foot-Soldiers, Quasi-Militias, Vigilantes, and the Spectre of Violence in Zimbabwe’s Opposition Politics
Get PDFScholarship tends to neglect the phenomenon of political violence in opposition parties in Zimbabwe. The prevailing narrative is that political violence is largely a monopoly of the state and the ruling party, Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF). However, an emerging trend implicates opposition political parties, particularly the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The MDC’s party’s foot-soldiers, especially the “Vanguard,” often exhibit violent tendencies. Accordingly, the present article explores the scourge of intra-party violence in the opposition party MDC between 2005 and 2019. The article conceptualises and contextualises MDC’s violence through the lenses of Zimbabwe’s political culture and socialisation in the context of the country’s pre-colonial, colonial, and postcolonial historical trajectories
Bleck, Jamie and Van de Walle, Nicolas. 2019. Electoral Politics in Africa Since 1990: Continuity in Change. New York/Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. x + 331pp. ISBN 978-1-107-16208-2
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Collective Belief and the Intentional Strategy
Get PDFWhat do we mean when we say that some group believes something? Do we simply mean that all the members of the group believe it, or are we acknowledging the existence of some kind of group agent? According to Margaret Gilbert, talk about group mental states refers to the specific kind of agreements she calls joint commitments — that is, to collectively believe something means to be committed with others to believe it. In my article, I will first present Gilbert’s approach in more detail but will ultimately show that this approach is problematic and will refute it. I will briefly consider the most common solution to the problems Gilbert’s account faces, which lies in replacing collective beliefs with acceptances, but I will show that this solution will not do either. The solution I will then present will be based on Daniel Dennett’s intentional strategy, which is a method of interpreting the things around us and predicting their behaviour by treating them as rational agents with relevant intentions. I will try to show that all the problematic cases of collective belief can be explained by applying the intentional strategy to the groups in question.What do we mean when we say that some group believes something? Do we simply mean that all the members of the group believe it, or are we acknowledging the existence of some kind of group agent? According to Margaret Gilbert, talk about group mental states refers to the specific kind of agreements she calls joint commitments — that is, to collectively believe something means to be committed with others to believe it. In my article, I will first present Gilbert’s approach in more detail but will ultimately show that this approach is problematic and will refute it. I will briefly consider the most common solution to the problems Gilbert’s account faces, which lies in replacing collective beliefs with acceptances, but I will show that this solution will not do either. The solution I will then present will be based on Daniel Dennett’s intentional strategy, which is a method of interpreting the things around us and predicting their behaviour by treating them as rational agents with relevant intentions. I will try to show that all the problematic cases of collective belief can be explained by applying the intentional strategy to the groups in question