Journal of Language, Technology & Entrepreneurship in Africa

Race, Ethnicity, and Postcolonial Identity: The East African Perspective

Macharia Munene — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The people of Eastern Africa suffer identity maladies related to the establishment of colonial states. Competing European powers had destroyed African beliefs and institutions, sovereignty, freedoms, and sense of legitimacy. They transferred the source of legitimacy to agreements in European capitals, imposed layers of new identities to make people subservient to external wishes. Africans became European subjects and property labeled ‘natives’ when serving colonial interests. They were also reduced to ‘warring tribes’ in need of European pacification when they tried to challenge the colonial state. They were not citizens; just slaves in situ.

At independence, the effort to create new identities ran into challenges of acceptability within and outside the new states. Did the people accept they were part of the new state ruled by people who were not European? The challenges, connected to colonial conditioning, were both internal and external and had religious, ethnic, racial, language, and ideological attributes. Neighbouring states shared border people who wondered what they were or why they had to choose between two or more states. Then there were extra-continental powers, seemingly determined to ensure that the African post-colonial state failed.

Extra-continental forces supervised the transition from colonialism to independence. They largely succeeded in placing their chosen African leaders, as ‘neo-colonial’ agents, in critical governance and economic positions. These were to protect external interests against internal challenges and became good at denigrating anything African, and some regretted they were born black. In their mental subservience, they tended to glorify the colonial past and allowed imperial interpreters of Africa perpetually to interpret what is good for Africans. They became sources of identity friction and collided with those trying to distance themselves from colonial evils. The ensuing struggle to recreate identities that promote the essence of being African and sense of Pan-Africanism in the midst of hostile imperial designs affects one’s perspective on belonging.

Politics: Broader Ethnicity Good for Kenya's Nationhood

Kang'ethe — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

It is often said that the multiplicity of ethnic communities, pejoratively referred to as tribes, is the bane of nationhood in most African countries, including Kenya. Indeed, Kenya is reported as having 43 ethnic communities that purportedly undermine our nationhood. A nation is loosely defined as a group of people, within a political entity called a State, who share a common language and culture. Politically, and this annoys Prof Ngugi wa Thiong'o, rich countries are nations, even when they have a very small population like Norway or Belgium, but poor countries are just a group of tribes. This is demeaning. Ethnic clashes are reported, even by our very own journalists, as tribal clashes. The damage is in the mind. We describe ourselves using the lens of the oppressors. Language is everything, as Confucius once wrote. Ethnicity, just like nepotism, is not necessarily a bad phenomenon.

Phonological and Morphological Elements of the Cardinal and Ordinal Numerical System of Kenyan Sign Language (KSL)

Jefwa Mweri — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This paper is an attempt at a comprehensive discussion of the cardinal and ordinal numerical system of Kenyan Sign Language (KSL). Numerals are a feature of all languages. The numerical system of KSL has not been examined structurally. This paper therefore examines the different strategies used to generate both cardinal and ordinal numbers in KSL. All languages have a system or a way that they use that enables users to associate things or objects with quantity. This enables them assign importance to certain things in real life by assigning them numerical value. In KSL certain signs are used to represent numbers, thus culminatively forming the KSL numerical system that is used to show quantity or define a set of values. The paper examines the (articulatory properties) or phonological elements of both cardinal and ordinal numbers in KSL. The paper also discusses KSL morphological elements in its numerical system. Numerals in KSL especially the cardinal numbers can be articulated using one hand that represents distinct morphemes as exemplified by signs for numbers (1-5) or through the use of two hands – both active and passive articulators giving us compound signs e.g. signs for numbers 6-10. Ordinal numbers on the other hand are articulated only on one hand.

Conceptual Mappings in Metaphors of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Lukabaras

Matsheshe, Benard Mudogo, David Barasa — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Metaphors have been utilized in framing the COVID-19 pandemic, a respiratory disease caused by the corona virus. However, understanding the cultural conceptualization of this novel pandemic becomes necessary when varied metaphorical frames have implications on the interventions to prevent the outbreak. The emergence of the pandemic in late 2019 not only provided a chance to investigate the metaphorical framing of this disease but also the experiential differences about the disease in varied sociocultural contexts and discourses. Thus, this article described the conceptual mappings in the metaphors of the COVID-19 pandemic in Lukabaras, a Bantu language spoken in Western Kenya. The study used a descriptive design and data was identified using Metaphor Identification Procedure (MIP). The conceptual mappings in the data that was collected through key informant interviews, was analysed within the tenets and framework of the Conceptual Integrated Theory (CIT) by Fauconnier and Turner (2002). The findings revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic in Lukabaras was conceptualized through source domains such as people, animals, objects, events, actions, natural phenomena and states and conditions. It was established that the conceptual mappings in the metaphors utilized to talk about COVID-19 reflected the perception and attitude of the people towards the pandemic. Consequently, there was misinformation regarding the seriousness of the outbreak and this affected the measures put in place to prevent and contain the rampant spread of the pandemic.

Allegorical depiction of East Africa in Kenyan Swahili novel of the 21st century

Mikhail Gromov — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Allegory as a literary device and an artistic form¹ has been widely used in modern Swahili literature since its earlier times – suffice it to recall Shaaban Robert’s “modern tales” Kusadikika and Kufikirika, written in the 1940s and 1950s. In Kenyan Swahili writing of the second half of the 20^th century the most well-known allegorical texts are Katama Mkangi’s novellas Mafuta (Oil, 1984) and Walenisi (Them Are Us, 1995) (cf. Вertoncini et al. 2009:52, 57, Wamitila 1998). In Kenyan Swahili literature of the current century allegory is extensively used in a host of literary genres and forms. This study analyses the use of allegory in several novels by the leading Kenyan authors of Swahili expression, published within the first decades of the current century. In these novels the writers, in order to perform their artistic tasks, present their allegorical visions of the past, present and even the future of the region.

Deploying Contemporary Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Solutions for Academic Delivery in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) – An African Experience

Paul Okanda, Ernest Andugo — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Higher education institutions (HEIs) have a fundamental role to play in enhancing the development and nurturing of demand driven digital and technical skills because of their quadruple mission, namely, teaching and learning, research and scholarship, public service and engagement, and innovation and entrepreneurship. The COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on global economies has meant that, as with every other sector, higher education institutions face major transformations that require continuous reform to make them better responsive to the unyielding and unpredictable demands of the 21st century societies.

War and Democracy: Case for Political Violence as a Process of Democratisation

Babatunde Oyateru — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The insinuation that political violence is a potent catalyst for democratization may be regarded as an abhorring statement or one of contempt. Yet, the works of renowned philosophers such as John Locke present an interesting case on the role of conflict, particularly in the human being versus the government dynamic. Locke’s Social Contract argument is that violence propagated by citizens towards their non-democratic government is an exemplification of human beings acting in their normal state of nature to take back the self-governance power surrendered to the government. The efficacy of Locke’s Social Contract theory can only be measured when considering theories that advocate for the absence of war or conflict from governance or the State. This study seeks to compare and understand the position of peace theories like Immanuel Kant’s Perpetual Peace and The Democratic Peace Theory associated with Michael Doyle, both of which uphold the abstraction that democratization only occurs through a symbiotic and placid relationship, especially among nations, with a Lockean view of politics. Studies that demonstrated negative and positive relationships to the two concepts were considered to conclusively determine the relationship between war and democracy. The study found that evidence of a parabolic relationship political openness and war, the more competitive and open an undemocratic society becomes the more likely the occurrence of political violence or war.

Environmental Factors and Adoption of Prosocial Crowdfunding in Microfinance Institutions in Tanzania

Bulenge, Tundui, Deogratias Kibona — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Prosocial crowdfunding is a crowdfunding model whereby organizations, mostly microfinance institutions (MFI) use digital media to access funds from individual lenders with a social mission. Although it has several potential advantages to MFIs such as providing cheap access to sources of funds, a high success rate, providing an opportunity to transfer credit default risk from MFIs to social investors, and improving both outreach and sustainability of MFIs, its diffusion in developing countries is relatively low, and little is known about factors influencing its adoption. Therefore, this study investigates the role of four environmental factors namely, client readiness, supplier support, competitive pressure, and regulatory support in influencing prosocial crowdfunding adoption in MFIs in Tanzania. The study employed a cross-sectional survey to collect data from 228 MFIs from five big cities in Tanzania (Dares Salaam, Mwanza, Arusha, Mbeya, and Dodoma). The study used partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) for data analysis. The study revealed that while two environmental factors, client readiness, and supplier support have a significant effect on MFI's intention to adopt prosocial crowdfunding, the effect of the two remaining factors was insignificant.