Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is rapidly transforming the traditional financial system by introducing a permissionless, transparent, and trustless financial ecosystem powered by blockchain technology. It eliminates intermediaries by utilizing smart contracts on public blockchains like Ethereum, thereby promoting financial inclusion and operational efficiency. This paper explores the fundamental concepts of DeFi, the underlying technology including Ethereum, smart contracts, and Layer 2 solutions, and the wide array of its applications such as (DEXs), lending/borrowing platforms, yield farming, and stablecoins. In addition to examining the functional advantages of DeFi like reduced transaction costs and increased accessibility, the paper also critically analyzes the potential risks including smart contract vulnerabilities, regulatory concerns, and systemic dependencies. A special focus is given to the Indian regulatory framework and how it compares with global jurisdictions. The paper concludes with a discussion on the future prospects of DeFi .
This paper offers a discussion and reflection on my work titled "Cabinets of Curiosities for the Postcolony II: Tokens, Collections I-V" (hereafter referred to as "Tokens") which was exhibited in 2022 both physically in a gallery in Johannesburg, South Africa, and virtually on the non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea.The physical component of "Tokens" consists of five entomology cases, each displaying a collection of unique, handmade objects, and an artists' book, and the digital component takes the form of 51 NFTs.I describe the origin, development and nature of the project and explain the reasoning behind the creative decisions that I made.Initially the project was driven by my need for tactility and experimenting and crafting with physical materials, but it evolved into an exploration of the question of what is considered "new knowledge" in creative practice.This exploration eventually led me to the world of NFTs and resulted in a final creative project that engages with further questions around uniqueness, the aura of physical and digital art, and value.I propose that by making and naming new objects, I created new knowledge, which I then attempted to validate by minting the objects as NFTs.However, I realised that by digitally reproducing the physical objects I ran the risk of destroying their "aura" as postulated by Walter Benjamin in his 1935 essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction".I consider Benjamin's concept of "aura" in relation to physical and digital art and highlight more contemporary views that refute his claim.This leads to a brief discussion of the financial value of NFTs and the importance of community in creating value in the NFT world.I conclude by noting that many questions remain on what blockchain technology can do and become for artists and the study contributes one such perspective and experience.Creative practitioners are encouraged to become acquainted with this technology.
From the Inside:The Colonial Film Unit and the Beginning of the End Tom Rice (bio) In January 1948 the British Film Institute organized a conference entitled "The Film in Colonial Development." While speakers at the conference trotted out, as the journal West Africa termed it, "the old rusty arguments about primitive, illiterate peoples ⊠ad nauseam," they also acknowledged a shift in colonial film policy that was clearly closely aligned to broader political developments.1 "Throughout our Colonial Office policy we are working at one main thing," explained K. W. Blackburn, the Director of Information Services at the Colonial Office, "trying to teach the people of the Colonies to run the show themselves and doing precisely that thing in the film world as in every other field."2 Speaking at the conference, John Grierson further outlined the need to create "a genuine African Unit that can work with native units in other colonies," what he described as a "Colonial Film Unit with true regard for decentralization and the part which natives will play in it."3 The conference marks a public shift in colonial film policy, revealing at a moment when the British government was outlining concurrent changes in its political strategies toward Africa. It represents a moment of transition, one marked by uncertainty surrounding decentralization and the alacrity and extent to which power would be transferred. The discussions address the position, function, and structure of the Colonial Film Unit (CFU) and, as throughout the history of the CFU, these film policies were intricately connected to greater political changes. When the CFU began in 1939, under the aegis of the Ministry of Information (MOI), it sought to produce "propaganda" films encouraging African audiences, exemplified by its first production, Mr. English at Home (dir. Gordon Hales, 1940, Great Britain). After the war, the role of the CFU began to change in ways that often mirrored the broader processes of decolonization. At the start of 1946, the CFU sent units to East and West Africa. Now funded by the Colonial Development and Welfare Act and under the direction of the Films Division of the Central Office of Information (COI), the CFU made instructional films for African audiences, as practical [End Page 107] instruction replaced more general imperial propaganda. By 1948, the CFU was increasingly looking to take production (and with it expenditure) away from London and into the colonies. The Home Unit now accounted for no more than twenty percent of the CFU's output and was financed separately as an allied service from the vote of the COI. The increasing marginalization of the Home Unit is indicative then of this shift in film policy, which closely mirrored changes in political policy.4 The Home Unit serves to connect the traditional functions and structure of the CFU with its ultimate ambitions. Its role in filming Africans brought over to London may appear anachronistic within the context of an administrative and film policy that was increasingly looking away from London and towards the colonies. Yet, in filming a series of conferences, tours, and public exhibitions, these Home Unit productions reveal some of the ways in which the Colonial Office visualized Britain's changing relationship with Africa and, more significantly, sought to articulate these impending changes to an African audience. The films depict African sportsmen (Nigerian Footballers in England, 1949), musicians (Colonial Cinemagazine 9, 1947), and leaders (An African Conference in London, 1948). They celebrate British interest in the empire (Colonial Month, 1949) and show social and political events that sought to challenge popular perceptions of African political life. Yet, in their largely traditional formal structure, which defined London through its landmarks, institutions, and repeated references to the royal family, as the ideological center from which the empire could be controlled and contained, the films reveal the still tentative and reactionary nature of the British government's moves toward decolonization. The films of the Home Unit thus provide a starting point when examining these shifts within colonial film and political policy. In showing official events and tours, they reveal some of the ways in which the Colonial Office and the COI sought to promote and represent a reconfigured empire to the British public and...
I think one also writes for the dead.âJacques Derrida In the European marketplace, literature by African writers is often commodified as a distinctly cultural product, having an âAfricanâ identity. This need not be clearly defined either in terms of the writer's ideological, geographic, or ethnic orientations, just so long as the work reflects some vague traces of its âAfricanness,â which can be thematized through lurid imagery splashed across the cover of a book or comprised of equally lurid blurbs on its back cover. In some cases, critics exhibit complicity in minimizing complex identities by regarding literary works as cultural products and describing them as âtruly African,â or âthe first of its kind.â1 Emphasizing either the originality or authority of the writer, such critics seem caught up in the search for a âZulu Tolstoy,â tending to bestow laurels only to rescind them immediately.2Deceptively laudatory remarks about particular African literary and cultural productions can be problematic not only because they often assume an impossible intimacy with the sum of African cultures in all of their complex and variegated forms. Such remarks can also represent a backhanded gloss on the quality of African work as a whole. Moreover, a hostile solicitude toward the history of African letters tends to ignore its indigenous oral and literary past and assume that it constitutes a relatively new history, originating only through colonial influence.3The market of African literature unevenly distributes capital and mystification between author, publisher, and audience. It domesticates the text while exoticizing the product. In this study, I explore this paradoxical trend as illustrated by the critical reception of two novels by West African authors: Le regard du roi by Camara Laye and Le devoir de violence by Yambo Ouologuem. The literary criticism of these two novels is haunted by discrepant responses of authentication, uncertainty, and contempt. At the same time, the works themselves evoke another form of haunting, namely the specters of violent histories of colonialism and neocolonialism. Illustrating the kind of European writing about these histories that Laye and Ouologuem subvert, this study includes a brief discussion of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. My examination of Conrad's novel foregrounds the other works in this study against the horizon of colonialism.Laye and Ouologuem have each been accused of plagiarism or forgery. The cases against the authors are very different, and it is my own opinion, especially with regard to Laye, that these accusations are tenuous and unfair. However, I do not wish to engage directly in the debates over these authors' authority or originality. Rather, I would like to examine the terms of this debate for the values they reflect. I argue that staking the value of a work on the identity of the author disengages one from the text and can lead to violent misreadings. Shifting these stakes, I look to a concept that undermines legal or proprietary judgments about the pure originality and authority of either Laye or Ouologuem: ghostwriting. Being the of the publisher, author, the text a complex between and its while the of specters in the writing of judgments about an originality can two while authority on the they also the of that to a with this of originality are about the and to on the originality of the work is to and a of the one in the of this of the work as of a pure of writes that âthe originality of literature in its in the of or to its The to originality is to look not for first of a to of works that have been and are the of of other that have been or that of the or and and this is constitutes of literature and it in this is an the in the form of judgments about writers and their This an of the of that a cultural works of and literature in the their not only to the of the have also to the of their concept of so and so in its European an in oral In and in West that in African for that a would the same that that would be that in the a of of of Laye and Ouologuem this problematic between African and European literary The to have its in the European to represent the work of as a kind of from the to the of that as a of the of and in the literary works are and have very to do with African of of African for of productions of literary as cultural not an of literary and up to the of the such as and the of in a European in is an it is in in as the of to other a text or of other as to the to of from African as as European these as and for a to on the of writing with which a particular author is in The and author the first and is to to a on an with its own and of to to another in an and in to to critics the authority of writers like Laye and they to a about these plagiarism or are that be to have against a of colonial and of these writers first as and as some of the first literary from the African and as and The critical of African authors that on the of is a in the reception of African cultural not just a of a The cases against Laye and Ouologuem for a kind of and the of the African to this of the of the author the of the or not the author own as a the of the African is a of is a as the originality or authority is critics an of and between European and African the laurels that the work as a of African cultural the is by in European and a for African of the of between European and African critics the between these the same that they ignore this the of against Laye and The in is that a work as own it by in it is that as own a work that from other In that are because they about the very of from to is and one to about one a work from a legal because and authority are The debates and are in to of In to the terms of this I examine the of in their the of a legal debate on of authors like Laye and Ouologuem have been accused of an can be a of its a and by a author, a it can The of the author on the horizon and of the Le regard is a as not have such a a of this kind of it an to explore the concept of as a of the of the with the of the between the author and the writer, or between the and the by that of It to originality and to it as a of as the of an in It to the of writing by writers accused of or of and of writing through that in the of histories of very that have not been or to this in its as as its to as as the about the of colonialism by the the writing of history and its of writing and can be or haunted by complex of writing that between the oral and the or between the author and the in that their In this study, I from the from these can is the of a form of that a particular and a through a of between the author and in the of The or is to form and to a that not be the a book and often or in the and of the a cultural product. Moreover, a of is the by is by the a the from oral to its tends to represent a form of It that is not and on a work not be and from their own writers are in this is only in a because tends to be unevenly between an author is and a work is to In other cases, as can works from an oral In this the of author and are it is the of the oral that and for which the tends to the of about is the of that Ouologuem which I explore in in the of this The of the is to legal about literary while a new for literary I this is a is to the very and of literary this the history of through of an in on of an of the as Ouologuem the of the to on the and history of are the of ghostwriting. to been an of the to an audience. Derrida that âthe in the is a for by which not which not so to in and which their in that this a form of the the of the as a of the of The in a paradoxical to own they on a of their also the of and the concept of the in of as as other the of the and a of that are that be as in an also the of to the of the which as an to form an with histories of and that this It is because is a of with history, a of writing The of the the that to by history and can a form of writing that is a of with the of to the traces of the past in the as as in or oral traces the between and writing because writing tends to be a of cultural oral of the of colonialism is the to cultural by to European which writing as cultural that is are because of their Moreover, the are not a to be its because it not been and because it a of This is the need to the colonial to to seem and that and can be between and on from to The a and is as a to its This is the of the which can represent that against have which to to the of the the the in the of and for the is Rather, the to be through a kind of to and just such a In its writing and can also be a for haunting, the is and its is not the kind of writing that in the the of in the by the writing which is a for a kind of writing that can be also traces of the The traces of through some the author to writing or the writing to the it In other been or can to the of traces be to lead back to the that the writes in and The of a text is not a The not in the of the in the with the wish to the the to which it a it is in this It not only the also in another is in so on the and in an and of its it is not to in book on a kind of the literary of in the to the of the African of the that the complex identity and of the is a of African The of African and the text and its the of the are that the writing the of a of an This like a and to a through the the form of that also undermines African the critical reception of works by Ouologuem and Laye as a form of can legal of and to the of the in this the critics of these authors' works a kind of of their the about the of Heart of also an This book been the of an debate about the writer's complicity in and of The of the is with Joseph as The reception of the book reflects a writer's the of complex over the by own as to of the novel the as a of and an of The is in the of colonialism and of the Conrad's is in and Laye and Ouologuem in Heart of is of a that these writers writing this Conrad's book to a over of it one of the literary works about by a colonial and to the of European while a to all the African Heart of is by to Heart of to about the the one some critics Conrad's very criticism of the colonialism of of the the other as and have to criticism to colonialism and in its the novel reflects the of European a of the novel that the that Conrad's toward in the writing of the In other for the of the that for the of is for the and its the of or its to reflects Conrad's and the that in that âthe of the is not a look it is by that the of colonialism is of the of the and of and in the It this the text by it an the impossible of of the In this is the of its as a that can be to the the of the its the of are not to not the reception and of writing by African The trend tends to a particular kind of and This is the of the in traces of this can also be Conrad's to a in the the of of indigenous in in which been The only African Conrad's and in is the This it back to in with as the is the only in the directly to the is by own of the to to of a from In a is the very of with which up the of violence and in the Moreover, a between the of and the that on I in a in a on the of The them in a all in a that to like the first of a the I and the of by the is not in in the of and in the and that this the of this also been one of the on the This is haunted by the specters of and colonialism the by the works that Conrad's Heart of as a Camara Le regard du roi an on a European in In one criticism of through a that is its in a particular about Heart of with the that the of colonialism its is to as the for the of two through which they explore their African as a in a is not about of and in as of Conrad's is it about âthe as in of to the the in an African not of is not like the of Conrad's is to a form of as the of and as it that is the of the The the of with Conrad's in which are by another is the reception of the writer's critics have and responses to the novel a debate on the of of originality reflects the of like their that is to the to the to critics work as of by that to only a of and that not the same as the writes in Le de a de de de is not like and I is other the it is because that is it is because I have the from the to and I have in this not to The to novel is a from as The that Laye to work is of so to for some The of from European that African writers of the to have to do with This a of and from European in African for writing not the of the European writer, of of European by African writers this This have been as from the of African writers of this of critics like work Le regard for a of a of African often as one of the works of African the work is It on a to the in search of the with to an audience. The book with with the and of values are so in a is to have been from or to this as of and are often it for to to as a that or a and in new in in the of a The that it is to on a by to be the to that one for the of and is a a from of are the it that one the of that is I have for I that is not I not have for that is which I to for of be do of is up with of and as a in At the of that the of and such as an with the the that the to just not I a of and that and are the of In they represent the that be from and that be to these a because of In is to to the is is and a form of The that a that can only be through to for the of the of authority over the of in is the critical with the book that from literary and toward a the of the text the authority of the The is and of the as a and the that of Le regard is a of literary Laye a to to critics work of not have the to the accusations of which the of Camara Laye, to by and to of forgery. accusations not only Laye also and and by the of all of on the that are to that Laye not have Le only a which Laye to and is to have the book for Laye, is and on and In of about the literary Laye literature and first in and in for are to not only that Laye not have the to first two novels by also that not and that the of in Le regard be as a that Laye not the of that Laye not have the novel its and its cultural to and a of that Laye not be the author of Le book a as the is to the value of with The on not only have to Laye as a have also about authority and can represent values of literary and the that work the of book in also been by a of the of first novel in is a that on up as as on the and of that to The colonial of in and is which some have on with especially that its by This in by Le a kind of that in of European in in which to the in first its is by the in to In Le de Laye to the oral history of the of with the the of this Le regard seem a of first It is in an African across which the the of a in and are against the that the other the in and been with Laye so that in of the a between their identities is in Le de the two the one Laye a literary and of criticism that can also be in in to the as a work of oral African cultural on with the works of European the other and oral history of the that a with regard to the the author to Laye the very of European literary to critics because of the with which between and that the of plagiarism and are by the in and between However, these between can be in another have with that of through to be and for on that a them in of a a a novel of and and a of the of with of European not to to In it have been and to the of African that it for to on European such as and to a novel that the and of a that own of and Laye the in between the and and to about kind of writing Laye would have been of in about the of critics of the It is that on Laye been such a of over Le originality and Laye the of between and the In so Laye also European of it as a for by authors of as a an to literary of cultural about an the is that of such as to this I think the of these values is that of it by with a European of literary that Laye a for a of this to in the between the of African oral and European to have to be as a do European as as the while writing about Laye European is with regard to European as a whole. tends to European literary and in a with African of cultural and as with a of the works explore the with which is the same by African these writers and to of African oral with oral of cultural to European of writing with a of In this it would to of against especially with it is so from the The very of and of writing not be as that a European have been that over of work also be to that the for Le regard is the that Laye in a to and this of an the for to of Le also that as a not have a also that the complex that toward own do not as about on a with the is of of the to Laye with the of that in Laye as a of its and be for between and that this undermines is they a of European in of the of a of the colonial in complex about the of colonialism in to from writing in with Laye which Laye to from this that not to that to and to only in can from this that by the and to by writing in a have to the like of the need to in a and to author and the to a a on to in with toward the colonial so in reflects complex to the between and It also for work on this also in of a of that are in literary oral cultural a kind of that is and that on the by a of or de as Laye by a is book is a with the of African oral about can be as from the violent history of between the and literary of and Laye is caught in a of between and of writing that can and can in the of is problematic for such a only because is to to a kind of one that be and in work need to a with the European the colonial to and about between and as are for in Conrad's Heart of Darkness. works a to the cultural and of a European and an indigenous writer, Laye by a of The the of African the works as the European an by indigenous to the over and the traces in work of and cultural up novel have having the relatively of up in in first have been by the new work of African from the of a European on a in Le regard a of about it that the critics from the a European the of the is the of its it to about and European and in that not to the that an indigenous the and of with an African novel be an that is to be to in Laye to an of indigenous book been a The that the very that Laye the novel its reception a history of ghostwriting. by of such a a of that specters in the or in the of Laye a with work through with the This can be as a from the European that to writing in that that the Laye as a African author in as a of the of in the colonial in and have been a of the colonial and would have been as an for the new to by a to the in its not they would be so to that a and would the of to of to explore to and European can be with that of another West African writer, the Yambo Ouologuem. Le devoir de not to the the same This which the violent history of the a African and is not on the history of of for the novel by a of the originality. in Le the book as the African novel of the the cover of the first of its in the of a the book is the of Le as âthe first African the history of African in the and in the of the been over some of this for the novel to its on violence by against other Le devoir an lurid and of and and with of from oral of It the of the the of the a of and is the of in critics have a of the of the Ouologuem a of the of and its in de de de de violence de du the of the in which the the of violence on of of to the with its of and the of a of the an and that of the and that to the of the with its on the the in with the the as as European the In is a between the toward the cultural that and in European and and toward the the are in the of and as is and of the are de have is of an market of that the other of a of these that de de this is the This is the of a on the be a the are is to be from the history represent the that is so that the can and The de this to its which is to European colonial and in the is a novel that to not only the form of the of the novel its for history is de de de de the one to that is to the of African is that the reception of Le devoir de violence such a The over the work to be as critics accusations of and of from novels by and de as as other works the the that work a of and of and the book from in across and have been have up for Ouologuem against these of novel to for its originality. for that of the from are and the that âthe novel the of an to as a and as a these seem to is that the terms and to a of that novel their on the and authority of the author, they do not or the terms of the plagiarism In such in the of value that the European literary market as a of with of in the also in the over that the and to the works it or not Ouologuem the of novel that the is an for legal However, of the of and I Ouologuem the concept of ghostwriting. This concept for the values European literary with cases of plagiarism are with their own of and book the same Ouologuem of to The of the values of and originality the legal and proprietary of European the for that in its can a of The of the a as a from a of of In the that up the of the with regard to Ouologuem the of this as to the de de du de de this to in of its the work that as a on own to The and of the in a a that is from a from a that this not only can work to the European that the and originality of a also that it about the of the values that these the as that be of the and of have been an that all a Ouologuem can the of histories of the Ouologuem the traces can the history of the of the of to Ouologuem to the a with that over time, to In this Ouologuem up as a of the and with the problematic that and through de du de de de to this by a new work with an the of the marketplace, to the of a writer, is to it is a to the and in a be a like for the the that it a to about the as a of with a a for because is to this is a on the of the in with also to the to writing is a to the between and that Ouologuem to the to look it in the and it in the of the as in to its history in the of the to its of that have in the of the the a to and to the of the market for African writing originality and to about writing and the histories of violence and Ouologuem not only the African works of cultural can to a This of is a in which the of the history of in just as of from the of for an of these terms is a of the colonial against the history of of them in the form of a to this of history as a to colonialism and its that and to Ouologuem in in cases European have from African of or the of or the need to work on its own it to an on have to it as an of African as as European in the West have an plagiarism of and other writers the African writers Ouologuem and which African the of West African history, and the also the of oral of on the the against Laye and the against
In May 1966, the firstâand perhaps onlyâsocialist drive-in on the planet opened in Tanzania, on the site of what is today the American embassy in the nation's capital, Dar es Salaam.1 The brainchild of C. C. Patel, a cunning and well-connected insurance magnate with business, political, and family ties throughout East Africa, with the assistance of Second Vice-President Rashid Kawawa, a former actor, the drive-in was heralded by leading Tanzanian politicians as a stunning example of the modernist development opportunities achievable through African socialism.2 At the ribbon-cutting ceremony, the minister of commerce and cooperatives, Abdulrahman Mohamed Babu, an avowed Marxist and an avid supporter of state socialism, hailed it as an âexemplary project of co-operationâ between private enterprise and the socialist state.3 The capital for building and operating the drive-in was provided entirely by Patel. The Tanzanian government acquired a 30 percent stake in the venture through a âdonationâ of land, while unnamed officials were granted shares in the company in exchange for their support.4 In the spirit of African socialism that was sweeping the nation at the time, the corporate name of the drive-in was Sisi Enterprises, with the âC. C.â of Patel's initials superseded by Sisi, Kiswahili for âweâ or âus.â5 Yet why, one might reasonably ask, would a young nation such as Tanzaniaâstriving to dig its way out from under the problems caused by decades of colonial underdevelopmentâchoose to invest its limited resources in a drive-in? How could state ownership of a drive-in possibly help to advance a socialist agenda? Didn't the drive-inâpredicated as it was on the commercial consumption of foreign films and propelled by the urban amenities of electricity, cars, and leisureâdirectly contradict President Julius Nyerere's vision of village-based African socialism? What motivated a righteous communist such as Babu, or Kawawa, who was responsible for launching several campaigns against youthful âdebaucheryâ in the 1960s and 1970s, to participate in the opening festivities for a space that was commonly regarded as a passion pit?6 How did the same government that banned television broadcasting until the mid-1990s and arrested private owners of televisions and VCRs in the early 1980s rationalize owning a drive-in? And why would a regime that frequently vilified Tanzanian Asians in the state-owned press and nationalized their property in the name of equality partner with Patel, one of the wealthiest men in East Africa? The most obvious answer to these questions is that states, like the individuals who compose them, are complicated and often contradictory entities that sometimes say one thing and do another. While the anomaly of a socialist drive-in cinema may complicate our understanding of state-centered development, we can use it to explore the complex and contradictory visions of socialism, modernity, and independence that were debated in Tanzania in the 1960s and 1970s. Sisi Enterprises was but one of many high modernist commercial leisure and industrial projects presaged by the National Development Corporation (NDC) in their published reports and magazines, heralding the state's ability to fulfill not only needs, but desires as well. Socialism and communism were conceived by many as an alternative to capitalism when it came to the fulfillment of consumptive desires. The aim was to achieve abundance; the goal was to do the and with to to and to who decades of the drive-in to to and the as that with former of the and that were to an on the of of the at the were of and in from the The drive-in for and and the of and the to the the was the at that is and to as the of in urban in many questions at the drive-in of a for a when and the nation were and a for the space and and urban the drive-in one of the for leisure in Dar es In 1966, its of the a Tanzanian in the of in At a when the was that came to the drive-in that a the most for leisure in Tanzania, would out to the drive-in and in at in the the did not until at the leading from the drive-in was often a to the and most of a in that or in of was a for who in Dar es between and of the was could a of the their way a the socialist of a drive-in might Sisi Enterprises provided an space urban and were was a one could Asians and by in their cars, and and in the same films and not but and were to their at the drive-in a the but in to the for cars, were for as as on the the cars, were by who from on their or from the the In Tanzania in the 1960s and 1970s, it was not to a of the to an at the and one came on by in the of a in a or in a private was the The films that at the drive-in were at the in as and it was not for to the same on opening and were of the same as to and the and to the to an of the was a of urban in did not to the many of the the was that were and could in these the of the In its it to Sisi Enterprises as a of the and that could achieve by a of socialist the modernist projects were the and in the and in the a way to the on the from in to in that of would to a only in the the and to that independence a with the The of that to to the by Sisi Enterprises to the In to the and the of a to to as an to it as a of their with in their of to explore the the to for or visions of of The of a socialist drive-in is of the and contradictory of and development that were debated in Tanzania in the decades drive-in the of in Dar es National Development and es is to that socialism, like modernity, was in Tanzania, and that the leading to socialist development was was on to or socialist and of socialism in Tanzania, the and often thing that to is President Nyerere's on development and the state's to of socialist The was by to Tanzanian socialism from its and was not or it was of a and to that were and that and were Nyerere's of socialism was in a vision of the as In Africa, and and to the of the and under the of a was the that Tanzania to development on the resources it and was in for the did not it was to the it could the the out the on socialism, the of of the and the for development in the use of state resources for urban and industrial projects that the in when to electricity, as as and the nation resources on urban Nyerere's and and alternative of the was by many to the of the but was not the only of the family with a vision or a the family of Tanzanian African National in government and the and of the nation who their at were a of and by and for the that was Tanzania The of and of the of the of many of were were by the but that did not that or of who were with that only through could for were in and regarded as to of were of the to their ties to foreign capital and the of the that was to the of capital out of the for the of commonly for their to that the industrial as the most in and the one to to a the at the opening for the that were not only but The for a to socialist of in the Development was the National Development Corporation in was a commercial in and and and the it was the or of the of most of in industrial and were the was to vision of a drive-in might to a of project a or at the were and to ownership it a of to such an The was in the in but it was only in the that the drive-in at the same as of their American and and many in the of the were only a of on the as the in in of a in with the cinema with the operating in the or Dar es was of for to to their former colonial on but the drive-in on at one for cars, a a a for from the and and the and it was on with operating in at the At the did not to to the were in the In that the drive-in to from development at the and from their of the by the drive-in and that was a to a Sisi Enterprises most of the African as a was the by the Yet of were and most were for the with a of was the only on the to a drive-in in the were not in the but were in their for modernity, and was a of in opening a drive-in a and only in the to did and the were and of the that their drive-in was one of only a on the and that with it was the only one not with owners from At a when Tanzania as the African for from to the and of the drive-in provided it may Sisi Enterprises for the that African socialism could the not with but with as well. In to one of the most to a the drive-in the in and to and the most of the The of a of a drive-in the of the from on of the in not only with and but with the on the the as as the for one for the of that the as their was a in In Dar es Tanzanian the of their by for in a that the that to several men who the a the the and the as in at the many of to but the most that Sisi Enterprises was one of the in the that were not with or from Sisi Enterprises Nyerere's for and resources to The drive-in was the state a percent in its of a percent from to from in to in At a when the state of to and and Sisi Enterprises a of for In to the of the and were The on and entirely the In percent of the by to and an percent of were through for and for and the and often of their on or and that could not their needs, the drive-in of and that and several by The of the was in the was the in the nation to to its to the of leading the with and a of its The and films were from but the and frequently the was and out it from the drive-in was of the was and the most in the The of a drive-in is on the ownership of private cars, that was a of and state in the urban of development, as private ownership was to urban and to Dar es In the early 1970s, percent of in the were in the the the of private in a nation equality was an and most of the to on their to them, and their to was not in for in or of the to but it was not until that in the nation's capital was nationalized or that the state its in and of the ownership as of their for modernity, and of as was an in as In the private ownership In were a in the and most of were or in and were operating in Tanzania, with the in private ownership was the of many a Tanzanian The a but in the 1970s, men most of the cars, did most of the and most of the were for of the and many of from the granted to individuals for the of to a of African in Dar es a was often a provided for in the of state-owned and of to the for of that of men that could on and and of the or to a and who as a in the 1960s and 1970s, that were and were to for who a that an could for in a for when was In the the family for of in Dar es was ownership the of who was a at a of in men were not In the were ownership was and by campaigns to In an in to the of the their for and their to a government who out for as as to their government and that from by from the of The the use of limited foreign exchange to such as to and to the consumption of by of the the minister of who for not was one of the that to the as of the in and in as the was to a socialist by the government and the who socialist of it to Yet at the same that was and government for their of Vice-President and the of were for the drive-in with C. C. Patel. could as a way to with the who to to their to the or their to to for the National the was by limited to the example and on the state-owned the a nation to socialism its foreign exchange Yet while was the in of the to socialist development and of the state were a for the at the was on way to the of the minister of the minister for and development and their were the and in the from the of their officials at a drive-in for the from opening of the were to the in were to and of of and Development and And The drive-in desires of ownership in the decades the drive-in a to is with to and it provided of the and the with an and a to that were on the In of in the that in for a drive-in to to and an with their What Tanzanian men in the for in the and their as often as did their to in the African and through the of and not but and may as a of but many ownership as that independence The were not the only who that the of independence was to with the of the colonial and by a did many who to the of on and from leading in and the was in Tanzania not only for of but for of African and as a leading from was most for in as to that in and with many and a for Yet as a to to state socialism and for the of Marxist of the and a of the of when by the was out of when of a of at the in to that from the and from as minister of was the same of when the of was a of the in the a in leading in the Tanzanian was as did not by The drive-in to for and that were of as and from the through the many of were on the Dar es African between and and the by percent from to or the were on the of colonial in was to to in the only when it was to who in colonial were to out of the of when were to and in Dar es were to out of the The of the drive-in was on to as as colonial of space to to one to that drive-in the of by as The in the to the it was a with through the by a to the was The drive-in and to the of a of the a only as and who or frequently the as an that and on their way to the drive-in from their in and was a in and of with cars, out for the drive-in as early as the as to the as the the and that were by Sisi was by an space for the and from and who came to and were in for by from African and of to to the or with and the of a to to the were by men who on a Tanzanian the drive-in of for not a private with a The was that were at the that it did not to and young was a of young men could on the or in the the from the the cinema would with of or who could not the could not the but an of were to the in the a and the of that were the of was a of building a socialist and the drive-in many to a space as to to the of the and to only for the who came to Dar es from of the the drive-in a While its with the that when in one could to the of the were to a or in a who in that the of and to the an and for the many in but of drive-in was like a of who to Dar es from at the of in was a at the but that not as a urban until a with a to the that as like a of and use of a and a but the was for was by to to the in with Yet a from to to the drive-in as the of the In cars, but their to but was like the drive-in to was at its most a for leisure and not as a to a the goal of independence was in to the drive-in was it was In to a example of the of African socialism, the and were a and perhaps example of In a was by and and most and were were one of the that from the the same leisure films provided for to their and frequently and a The on an from the of the to the and of the While the of equality by may is that it to and and to and as well. The drive-in was a for in was and could in for as often on the Tanzanian to their in to for their as in a for and to as their their way the in the when and from to the drive-in on a who and to the drive-in or in that a to to with their for an with and of to the drive-in as a as and it was to under and that could in for who the drive-in for that and the were of the but with the in as way of the their as a of to the of and for In the most drive-in to of that the would at the of to to do to the of in but it to the and of a of the with to to not what say their but The who were in Dar es of on the the and their their American in the and many that the the in it was and to with their could the to the and in it was a thing to do with the family on could to the and the could or and could and the with in who an avid to to the when young the cinema with in is and with the the are and is in are to was a and would to at the the to the or to with in an At the of Nyerere's vision of African socialism was a on a family under the of a who not on but on these of building socialism, were to a family or who to these at the In the was on men to not and for their but and leisure and family as well. National independence heralded a of on many and the drive-in was one of these and were and it was as a to the family and out to and the drive-in was the most to in and out for a as a and and from of with were that that to the drive-in as a we to to the we to to the would it was to a it to and was a to to the drive-in it that as the of the it was to out to the to at a for an of for several of family and of that was what a was to that the drive-in was one of the a that to the drive-in our only of the only the family could in of what it to a or a responsible and the as was the the at in time, and of often came with In Dar es the decades a ability to family out for a on the and to leisure not only with but with and was an of a modernity, as as an of responsible urban While many and were in African and it was for leisure to a family was not only the it was and socialist as well. a the drive-in a and could and their as urban and a for space in a at the drive-in the was a a with to of the in the that one of the of an at the drive-in was to to to and with the to out of the and as as the to with of as the of the In was at the way at the of at the was young at the time, and not to the of in Dar es was not the to and in a of the as a of the and such was a of the early independence a nation that was to a of the drive-in provided an for its to as a with were in of Tanzanian socialism, the and at the to the drive-in was one that In of that was one of the and of the The was and for and when their of to the drive-in when were was like a that one and to and and of the of was the until by in the we were in the a and our way the was an or would out of the and out on the of the would or and the for and While with in and men and and and and and to out the and it the as that of a with and the of in as as an at a time, but it the it was were for leisure or could on their desires the at the drive-in did the at the one could their of the drive-in the was and it in and as one could the most against the regime and of and and of in for and consumption and by The to the drive-in was in the it the only did a the to but who were were not for limited was that for would is of the in was state or the to the but and was for to and are that are commonly with socialism and and in Tanzania the and 1980s were of name was at or was only in limited and of and the and to Tanzania to for or as an at the in when was in a in the a the with a and to an can of on and on the an of could with the What a use of a while for the to and their to the The was an of abundance; consumptive desires were The on the for the at the may and the of the but on was out their and and who in to the The that the drive-in in the Nyerere's vision of socialist with what family would or or would and could not one would and a of to when family could on their of the drive-in of for as of the former not only and but the of or The and at the drive-in in the way that and of one could when of the in the of we could to at the who the was of ability to with and and were in of the were as as are of the from many was the to in only at the as as to the that for of the cinema was in a of their of the with and and The of the drive-in as an was by the it The drive-in not for and but for the and by socialism as well. the drive-in that and were to was an could on the that came to at the would a or a with many it was a of who and of a with who to In the of in Tanzania, as in the in the in the or who was often with and was a to men who were in a their of to the drive-in in the 1980s to when was and that it was one of the and to The socialist of to an American in Tanzania who an for the thing Dar es socialist was that was and was in one way or another. At the drive-in a of would a of with the provided by through their with it a the The drive-in was a for a it was an space and were only for a at is a on and in of it as a in the former and East often of the the and of under in their of and for the that to the the In Tanzania, many of the 1960s and 1970s, or the colonial Yet as in on is not it is by and What for in their of the is the can for the drive-in for a and and in these the and the are often who in the their of the or the early of with the a in and with and and a that the would The drive-in is in it is with the of a in and that who from their to the 1960s and and for the and in the with early The drive-in is a it provided space and for these to with the and the of the the was that with Tanzanian socialism, but the drive-in was one the state and private provided the and it to the of socialism and and Sisi Enterprises by The company was when as in and the and our or the of Dar es came to the Yet were that the drive-in to do with the may the but it was the who on the space by the who urban to in of their and in of the were in urban of the and and the drive-in was a of for the who the of its of the drive-in are of family out in in with and the the a or at the drive-in was the of and for it was a of often the in their that was it was from the of were and The of for family leisure was to and as to as the of a from a in Dar es in and are to The and that were for and most who was at the drive-in with of that are to and to In the the of the drive-in to as Tanzanian socialism and was and was the were in the Tanzania was to the of its it to the films from the their and their of that on was for such as and The of to the that a for a family the In from the and for and In Tanzania, are for that might is a it and to while their or that what their to is that are for the when a desires could with a of on In the that the to politicians to with from the state Sisi Enterprises was of a in for in the drive-in to one of its the Tanzania to the of Sisi Enterprises from from to and and In the the of state-owned were to for and their were The embassy that on the by the drive-in a for the of socialism and the of Yet the for a but not vision can as out as the the embassy at the drive-in were a for a who came of in Dar es in the 1960s and 1970s. often socialism is as it were only and of but of a socialist drive-in that such a a and debated and many but the drive-in as a and space a young nation's were and are urban or with for the to and who and provided on of and provided by who at the of the African in and the in The and for the to and on by with who with on in Tanzania, many a to on socialism and the of the state in
Despite a great deal of cultural materialist work over the past several decades devoted to the insight that literature is, in Alan Sinfield's words, âan institutional arrangement we have made to dignify some writing (at the expense of other)â (2004: 31), Francophone postcolonial studies, as I have argued on more than one occasion, remains invested in an idealist conception of the literary text as âârising aboveâ its conditions of production and receptionâ (Sinfield, 2004: 31). One might venture that there is no greater proof of this belated investment than the excessive amount of scholarly ink that has been spilled â and that, as this volume testifies, continues to be spilled â over the manifesto âPour une âlitterature-mondeâ en francaisâ since its publication by Michel Le Bris, Jean Rouaud et consortes in March 2007. What, we might well ask, is at stake in their (our) continuing investment in the salvific virtues of âliteratureâ â a word that might, at first glance, seem the least problematic component of a seductive buzz phrase like âworld literature (in French)â? That is the question I want to address here, not by lingering over the actual manifesto and interrogating its purported deconstruction of the French/Francophone binary (authentic act of literary decolonization or yet another instance of Franco-phony rhetoric? ⊠readers will have little difficulty identifying where I stand on that score), but by focusing on two Caribbean-born writers who contributed to the eponymous follow-up collection of essays published later that year by Gallimard ( Pour une litterature-monde ). In zeroing in on Edouard Glissant and, especially, the Haitian novelist Lyonel Trouillot, both co-signatories of the original manifesto, I aim to draw out the âpost-politicalâ dimension of the manifesto's commitment to a âretour aux puissances d'incandescence de la litteratureâ [return to the incandescent powers of literature] and of its insistence that this retour is part and parcel of the equally felicitous âeffondrement des grandes ideologiesâ [collapse of grand-scale ideologies] symbolized by the fall of the Berlin Wall (âPour une âlitterature-mondeâ en francaisâ, 2007).
Governing Africa's Forests in a Globalised World (2010) is the result of a collaborative effort of many different parties in government and university. The authors include foresters, anthropologists, social scientists and geographers. This mix makes the work comprehensive and multidisciplinary and multi-stakeholders approach for drawing implications from the empirical findings for policy and practice. There are two main sections in the work: the first deals with decentralization, livelihoods and sustainable forest management, and the second covers international trade, finance and forest governance reforms.
African history and culture studies
Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management
The stormy years which Salisbury underwent immediately after World War II present a singular contrast to the politically tranquil pre-1945 era. Yet, looked upon as a people's history, the postwar urban protest had long historical roots: it was very much the consummation of the urban traditions and organizations which the people had created in the prewar years.Before the early 1930s Salisbury's African community was a segmented and decentralized one. Urban institutions and associations did exist, but the town's âpreindustrialâ topography and other circumstances hardly encouraged the interlocking of workers' institutions and the growth of a âself-consciousâ community. But after the Depression the community was considerably structured and centralized. Instrumental in this development was the Mashonaland Native Welfare Society, which promoted sports and recreation among urban Africans for the social control purposes. Many sport and social clubs, old and new, came under the Society's umbrella, with their daily activities coordinated by the Sports and Games Committee.After 1942 the people were outgrowing the Welfare Society's basic tenets. Location residents took a greater interest in improving living conditions, seeking a more autonomous power. Clubs and societies in the meantime distanced themselves from the Welfare Society. A few community activists even espoused political radicalism, when they joined the Labour Party's African Branch, and had C. Mzingeli, the Branch chairman and a former ICU activist, as their leader.The postwar years witnessed a groundswell of labour and community protest, and the ascendency of the re-constructed ICU to the apex of urban politics. The situation, though it might appear totally novel, was in many ways the product of prewar urban traditions: the Reformed ICU was launched by African Labourites, who were also long-established community leaders. Behind the grassroots mobilization by the Union, moreover, lay the growing structuring and centralization of the urban community.
The urban-planning strategy of the revolutionary government for the Ng'ambo neighborhoods of Zanzibar City was dominated by a grand vision. Ng'ambo, which literally means Other Side, was slated to become the physical embodiment of the revolution's social experiment. However, the socialist grand vision fared no better in Zanzibar than did its weaker version on the Tanzanian mainland in creating an egalitarian urbanism. Specifically, I examine the attempted reconstruction of Ng'ambo as a vast public-housing project, which was the principal urban program and most enduring legacy of the revolutionary era (1964 to 1977). I contend that this program was not so much a means of bettering Ng'ambo for its residents as it was a way for revolutionary elites to define the area in their new ideological framework of understanding. Denied participation in official planning channels, Ng'ambo residents utilized their own customs and practices to remake the area as best they could, albeit under a set of authoritarian constraints. This study of the Zanzibari socialist experiment in its urban-geographical dimension contributes to the expanding literature on the political and ideological content of cultural landscapes (Western 1985; Constantin 1987; Roweis 1988; Duncan 1990). My interpretation of the Zanzibar cityscape differs from that in several previous studies (Martin 1978; Clayton 1981; Sheriff and Ferguson 1991). The premise is that it is necessary both to understand how the state has utilized space in tactics and strategies deployed through implantations, distributions, demarcations, control of territories and organization of domains (Foucault 1980, 77) and to examine how the residents of Ng'ambo used urban space in political and cultural expression. SOCIALIST URBAN PLANNING IN ZANZIBAR A practical question is whether the program of urban development for Zanzibar between 1964 and 1977 was really socialist. A socialist development program should have five characteristics: state ownership of means of production, absence of a free market for land and real estate, a centrally planned economy, effective one-party rule, and socialist goals prominent in public and state documents (Forbes and Thrift 1987, 2). The stress on common socialist goals in urban policy should involve both a redistribution of goods and services to create egalitarian cities and a decentralization of urbanization to prevent primate-city dominance of the urban hierarchy and to promote regional, rather than specific urban, growth. Socialist goals in the city have obviously varied somewhat according to regime, but the five listed above have broad application. According to these characteristics Tanzania was a marginal example of third-world socialism, because of the steep rise in overall urbanization and the tremendous growth of Dar es Salaam, the primate city of the country. This categorization of Tanzanian socialist experimentation dovetails with other, more detailed critiques (Hill 1975; Shivji 1976; Samoff 1979, 1982; Saul 1979; Coulson 1982). Under ujamaa, the collective term for Tanzanian socialist policies, urban policy called for the establishment of eight regional-growth centers to redistribute and balance development between urban and rural areas (Freund 1989). At best ujamaa was wishful thinking, and at worst a co-optation of socialism as a strategy through which the bureaucratic party elite controlled the economy for their own benefit (Shivji 1976; Mueller 1980). However, these critiques may not be relevant to Zanzibar. The mixture of autonomously derived policies that Abeid Amani Karume, the first president of Zanzibar, adopted seemingly hewed much more closely to the mainstream of socialist planning than was the case on the mainland. Centralized planning and proclamation of socialist goals were accomplished within a year of his taking power. The first postcolonial master plan for Zanzibar City was written by a planning team from the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1968; the second was produced by a team from the People's Republic of China. âŠ
The paper provides a brief overview of the problems of physical agricultural marketing infrastructure in Africa, with particular reference to rural roads and marketing facilities, such as storage, processing and market centres. In order to overcome these constraints, it is necessav to strengthen macro policy changes, with particular reference to commodity marketing, rural finance and government decentralization policies with the obiective of providing more incentives to marketing enterprises and local authorities to promote infrastructure development. Changes in macro policies have to be supported by adequate training programmes, support to institution building and adjustment of aid strategies to encourage self-help in developing marketing infrastructure.
Abstract Since Botswana became independent in 1966 a steady process of decentralization has been undertaken by a Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) government confident in its own legitimacy and committed officially to a policy of rural development. In 1978 the President appointed a Local Government Structure Commission to test the suitability of the existing structure and to advise on the relationship between the four main institutions at district levelâthe District Administration, the District Council, the Land Board and the Tribal Administration. In its 1979 Report the Commission recommended that each institution should retain its separate identity, with its powers balanced by those of the others. This article reviews the working of each institution, and concludes that the Commission's recommendation was justified. It notes, however, that the balance between the four institutions has been tilted to an extent in favour of the District Administration. It shows that the District Councils have displayed an improved capacity for plan implementation, but need more skilled technical personnel and a better quality of elected councillor; that the Land Boards are no longer subordinate to the District Councils in administrative matters, but are hampered by a shortage of transport and finance; and that Tribal Administration staff still work under very poor conditions, though their salaries and pensionable status are much improved.
B. Balamurugan, T. Poongodi, M. R. Manu, S. Karthikeyan · 5 authors
The moving image archive of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) includes a copy of the film The Double Day (1975), cataloged in the series Moving Images Relating to International Development Programs and Activities, 1979â1991, a collection of more than eight hundred titles âcreated to provide information on assistance programs supported by the Agency for International Development (AID).â1 Yet, The Double Day does not, in fact, directly depict or engage with any specific development or aid initiative. Instead, the filmâdirected by US-based Brazilian filmmaker Helena Solberg as part of the International Womenâs Film Project collective and described as âthe first Latin American feminist documentaryââexamines the gendered dynamics of paid and unpaid labor through the testimonies of women from Argentina, Bolivia, Venezuela, and Mexico.2 Its presence in the USAID archive is likely a consequence of its funding history, having received support from the Inter-American Foundation, a USAID-affiliated entity; the development agencies of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden; the United Nations Development Program; and US philanthropist Calvin Cafritz.3These transnational funding structures not only enabled the filmâs production but also determined its archival destination, which renders legible its place within the history of international development.4 The Double Dayâs institutional trajectory reflects the shifting configurations of aid, gender, and media during a historic moment when women were being repositioned at the center of what Arturo Escobar has described as developmentâs âregimes of visuality.â5 Especially relevant to The Double Dayâs production and exhibition was the international institutional framework of Women in Development (WID). Emerging in the early 1970s and culminating in United Nationsâ proclamation of 1975 as International Womenâs Year, WID emphasized womenâs participation in the global economy as both an index and mechanism of development. Indeed, The Double Day premiered at the World Conference of the International Womenâs Year, held in Mexico City.6 Within this context, the film forms part of a broader trajectory of media use by international organizations that intensified during the 1970sâas best exemplified by Media Habitat, a collection of 236 documentary films commissioned by the United Nations to represent urban and rural development initiatives for the 1976 Habitat Conference on Human Settlements in Vancouver. As a policy-shaping initiative, Media Habitat primarily featured films from the Global South intended not only to illustrate but also to help codify standardized audiovisual markers of âunderdevelopmentâ that determined access to the emerging global economic order and to international aid.7Framed in relation to these international institutions and their operations, The Double Day could similarly be considered âdevelopment mediaââexemplifying the type of nonfiction media produced and distributed outside of the commercial film circuits whose aspects and subcategories have been variously described in scholarship as nontheatrical, useful, sponsored, institutional, industrial, educational, or nonprofessional/amateur.8 Scholars working in this area have emphasized the institutional contexts of such mediaâs production and exhibition infrastructures as shaping its instrumentalized effects. From a feminist perspective, such an approach is crucial to grappling with the broader question of how âgender impacts [these worksâ] shape, content, and trajectories.â9 Yet we also argue that, taken in isolation, the institutional and infrastructural contexts are insufficient to account for the complex relationship between media and development, potentially not only limiting our understanding of the reach and impact of development but also distorting our interpretive conclusions. For example, to categorize The Double Day as âdevelopment mediaâ is to overlook the filmâs place within Solbergâs directorial oeuvre, as well as within the histories of both transnational womenâs filmmaking and radical Latin American documentary cinema to which it simultaneously belongs. Such exclusive framing is especially limiting given that women globally were disproportionately engaged in nonfiction production throughout the twentieth centuryâsometimes by political choice but more often due to structural exclusions from fiction filmmaking. Even in nonfiction historiography, however, institutional media has remained particularly marginal, reinforcing hierarchies that separate such works from the aesthetic and authorial frameworks through which film history has been constructed.10 This marginalization not only tends to erase womenâs contributions but also presumes a âweakâ or derivative authorship, rendering these films unworthy of the interpretive attention needed to apprehend their aesthetic and political complexity.11 The same dynamic is likely to structure assumptions about âdevelopment mediaâ as well.Categorizing The Double Day exclusively within this category would further prompt us to assume top-down institutional analyses that have been characteristic of both institutional media methodologies and the scholarship on development at large. This, in turn, would risk obscuring this filmâs radical Marxist approach to womenâs labor as well as its concrete contribution to activism and its attendant grassroot structures. In Mexico City, The Double Day became a catalyst for feminist solidarity in practice when one of the filmâs protagonists, Bolivian activist and trade unionist Domitila Barrios de Chungara, was invited to participate in the Tribune of Non-Governmental Organizations held alongside the official UN conference.12 There, Barrios de Chungara challenged Western feminist priorities by reframing the debate around labor, class, and imperialism, helping to articulate a shared Third World feminist agenda that significantly departed from the developmentalist vision of the United Nations and USAID.13 Seen through the lens of activist media, The Double Day helped forge transnational solidarity networks by enabling information exchange across the diverse voices that shaped its makingâfrom the women featured in the film to the activists who circulated itârevealing a considerably more dynamic interplay between institutional and grassroots or contingent media practices.Moreover, the filmâs Latin American contextâreflected in Solbergâs formation in Brazil as the only woman in Cinema Novo, its focus on women from across the region, and its premiere and key reception in Mexico Cityârequires grappling with the regional specificities of the very notion of development in its multiple iterations.14 Far from being an epistemological and political framework imposed solely by the Global North, both the practices of development and the theoretical foundations of developmentalism (understood as a broad and polysemic set of discourses) were shaped through the active participation of Latin American economists.15 Within this iteration, underdevelopment, as a constitutive notion of developmentalism, became central to a distinctly critical strand, which by the late 1960s became known as the dependency theory.16 This same approach is reflected in some of the best-known Latin American radical film manifestos of the time, arising precisely from the same milieus to which Solberg belonged.17These various considerations of the filmâs history illustrate the methodological challenges confronting feminist scholars seeking to assess the impact of development on media projects, theories, and practices. To disregard the developmentalist context of such works by emphasizing their political aesthetics and affects risks reproducing a romanticized narrative of heroic resistance (albeit from a feminist perspective). Yet to engage exclusively with their institutional and material infrastructures risks naturalizing developmentalismâs political and epistemological foundations at the expense of the goals and beliefs of the many women who participated in these projects. The contradictions and ambivalences that animate such histories call for feminist frameworks capable of holding both institutional complicity and radical possibility in view.This challenge resonates with ongoing debates about the politics of the archive and what Allyson Field has termed âthe practice of informed speculation.â18 As she reminds us, feminist, queer, and decolonial methodologies have long taught us to âpress at the limitsâ of the archive to âinoculate our scholarship against our evidenceâs afflictions.â19 The concern that the evidence we draw on in our analysis reproduces the very structures and blind spots of the dominant ideology and therefore shapes and delimits our interpretation becomes particularly urgent when engaging the developmentalist media corpus. Informed speculation offers an alternative by inviting the experimental, creative, and speculative rewriting of history, mobilizing the archive âin a project that runs counter to the original purpose, or the imperative to preserve, or the conditions that led to erasure.â20 Yet, as Field cautions, such speculative gestures must remain grounded in a deep and âintimate familiarity with the archiveâ that we are working with and against. Building on this imperative, we suggest that the developmentalist archive, in particular, demands expansion and critical reconsideration in ways that unsettle the very disciplinary frameworks through which it has been studied as well as the larger institutional contexts for such knowledge production.Our focus on The Double Day in the opening of this introduction thus foregrounds the entanglements of institutional and grassroots forces, local and international contexts, structural and interpersonal relations, and creative and economic factors that have shaped not only this film but the broader ecosystem of development media projectsâand their preservationâover time. Addressing such a constellation involves transgressing methodologically entrenched divisions between political economy and aesthetics, between material infrastructures and affective regimes; reckoning with divergent periodizations across film history and world economics; and situating these within the local specificities of womenâs movements and international institutional programs. It also demands attentiveness to the coexistence of multiple, and sometimes competing, understandings of developmentâeach historically, geographically, and ideologically situated.We imagine this special issue as an opening toward a critical dialogue, not only about how such an approach might be enacted in practice but also about the far-reaching ways development paradigms have shaped both our objects of study and the contours of the field itself. The decision to center institutionally sponsored films across all the essays in this issue is deliberate and enables us to highlight institutional critique as a vital methodological imperative within our analytical framework. Created within the frameworks of international organizations, state agencies, or NGOs, these filmsâ histories make legible the institutional logics that underwrite their production. Yet our critique does not stop at these specific entities. Rather, we argue for a broader interrogation of the political conditions and institutional infrastructures that shape media and knowledge production more generally. This includes contemporary corporations embedded in the digital platform economy, from streaming services to the rapid expansion of AI. Equally critical is a reflexive examination of academia itself, where departments of economics, political science, and centers for development have played a formative role in producing and legitimizing developmentalist theories and policy frameworks. While the humanities and arts have at times offered critical alternatives, they have also frequently mirrored and reinforced many of the same developmentalist assumptions. A feminist analysis of the nexus between development and media must therefore unsettle not only dominant archives but also the institutional and disciplinary foundations of our own scholarly practices.As scholars, we share the complex position of navigating the same tensions between institutional complicity and emancipatory aspiration as many of the media-makers whose work we study. Mirroring our subjects is also the transnational, collective mode of this special issueâs own production as it emerges from an ongoing informal working group we have sustained over several years. While relying on institutional and disciplinary affordancesâsuch as university funding for conferences or access to academic publishing platformsâwe have been working toward creating a community that exceeds, and often resists, the prevailing logics of our academic institutions. Our aim has been to create a space for shared inquiry and mutual support that pushes back against disciplinary siloing and technocratic neoliberal assessment modes of both labor and knowledge productionâand this certainly extends to our experience collaborating with the journal editors throughout the publication process. Our goal has been to examine both the persistence and variability of developmentalism, understood as what Gustavo Esteva calls a âpowerful but fragile semantic constellation,â as a conceptual formation that has historically inspired, legitimized, and mobilized media projects across Asia, Africa, and Latin America.21 And gendered biopolitics, from population control to gender mainstreaming, have remained integral to development policies and media practices, recurring across formats from institutional newsreels to film festivals.We share the conviction that, far beyond the history of nonfiction institutional media, development (as both a broad ideological project and a network of material and institutional practices) and developmentalism (as a set of discourses and theoretical models associated with development) have exerted a far-reaching influence on film and media cultures at large. As such, they must be treated as a major force in shaping global film and media systems and also the many ongoing assumptions behind their critical discourses. The discipline of communication studies was founded on modernization theory governed by Cold War goals of dissemination of Western liberal democracy around the world, while âan area studies framework allowed compartmentalizing Western and non-Western outcomes of technologies that were always claimed to be universal.â22 Despite critique from postcolonial and critical race studies, many of these frameworks have remained foundational for media theory.23 In historical scholarship, as we increasingly move beyond âmodernityâ as a dominant conceptual anchor, engaging with practices and discourses of development opens more precise analytical pathways. These film and mediaâs entanglements with the logics of and economic and the associated with as well as their conceptual underdevelopment, and impact in as diverse as and of media aesthetic and paradigms in film and film and funding are developmentalist assumptions to the they to underwrite the narrative and logics of and global media from the structure of the film to the cultures of argue that a examination of the historical entanglements between film and developmentalist aesthetics, modes of as well as infrastructures and critical the and that our contemporary media is a of the historical contours of development as a field of inquiry embedded within a of some of the methodologies by the featured in this special a of this complex history, to the larger at in media, development, and gender all its development a it as an of be with practices as divergent as and in In as we work on this the of the of the USAID the ideological that have the history of international the and of this on the global its a from development as a global practice and as an institutional and which over the has as a with its own media Yet or does not erase the historical impact of these the contradictions they have reflected and over the as the of development several crucial to the economic theories of development initiatives to and through the of the development an international policy framework at from the Global to the of the Global the by the political role of and the of the International the on was challenged by dependency theory and at development as global structural the neoliberal of the the Programs by the and World imposed and as conditions for and forms of assistance became known as the major markers for international development development has moving beyond economic to such as the Human Development and the Development and from international organizations such as the United Nations to a broader network of These frameworks increasingly of and liberal of and with what in many ways to various while the of the to developmentâs epistemological more scholarship has toward a of its and material the field has to a of and critical by and scholars, which development as a dynamic of conceptual and political to these the studies in this special issue call for sustained analysis in place of In we draw from a of and that in of of gender and to this special issue engage that and from Mexico to contemporary specific local historical of global distinctly feminist methodologies as well as attention to studies that this issue a in the global history of development on and documentary work in Mexico how early women infrastructures as of while US films an early of state and transnational on a outside the Global as the of developmentalist both the and markers of development media, its to the and Latin central grounded in archival also womenâs in transnational and the methodological of archives on study of the series to a a digital media not by but by women not as but as subjects and within circuits of neoliberal and the aesthetics and of how developmentâs has models of to contemporary neoliberal paradigms of and analysis how digital and gender and practices, discourses on and their of these essays the of some of the historical of developmentalist as the question of the role of the state within such on a notion of economic as a and the dominant of development that the state as the for and through infrastructural projects. This understanding of development was shared across both of the as well as in the Third The United and the increasingly mobilized international in the of the modes of international at the postcolonial of policy and ideological These programs were at the expansion of their and of while with the and decolonial of The conceptual between modernization and development that the Cold in of and hierarchies of that long and As an of postcolonial their role as of international aid concern about the of Western development projects. In alternative across the Global South that to structural between and through policies of and In many they were further the global structures. In Latin for example, this approach was through organizations such as the United Nations for Latin and the both developmentalist projects and their have taken many forms historically, and they have and they have been to a of projects, and postcolonial and development has been and in ways and with frequently political While many of these alternative frameworks the embedded in dominant Western they often technocratic and assumptions. gender and gender as for the of to be shaped by This becomes particularly in the media that of development where women frequently a crucial associated with and women were as both the subjects and of their participation in the and labor often as the index of In this study of from the 1970s how women were as of this as these about womenâs urban and recurring and of a within the own of and critique that official examination of archives and enables a feminist interrogation of their mobilizing a of the in the of contribution to this issue similarly the of a dynamic within as well as across ideological the of womenâs and the media of the and as active in labor and as integral to the technocratic women became of as their labor remained a of and analysis and archival with attention to the specific of and It also transnational that as a and affective a nexus of and practices through which gender, media, and developmentalism one film not as a but as part of the of alongside and work a broader concern of this special media as a of developmentalist projects. The debates the World and which international such as the United Nations and a critical historical for such primarily by postcolonial and of the for the of media and communication infrastructures in as to counter Western The a between and economic how systems of media and reinforced global hierarchies of and in an agenda that supported and alternative media infrastructures across postcolonial contexts, the framework gender as an analytical This âgender in the 1970s by of the Women in Development in relation to The Double its political critique of with its broader to center women in development policy through and This was also in of media, which was shaped by its international reach and audiovisual production and and and Yet, as WID institutional it also to the and of the womenâs development programs often by in These were by a of studies, and on and the to of womenâs presence and through the of their economic and In this on the filmmaker this history directly by the and of for women by the WID framework during the with and agencies the of and against Women in at the of the neoliberal turn, when institutional media often the only to access and support to projects. The an by this dynamic as of the from the Global South are to engage with the developmentalist assumptions funding models that their similarly the as a in developmentalist media history by the of and centers on the Film a between of and the attention toward the and labor by and work was foundational the of and the of audiovisual aid, as both a of development projects and a critical for their the in this issue argue for a with media, gender, and developmentalism as an field of that is and shaped by feminist and methodologies and that challenge the entanglements between academic knowledge production and and technocratic development And while methodological these dynamics at the structural the of feminist in media and cinema by this the very a