{"id":47180,"date":"2019-03-14T16:02:35","date_gmt":"2019-03-14T23:02:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/world.edu\/?p=47180"},"modified":"2019-03-14T16:02:35","modified_gmt":"2019-03-14T23:02:35","slug":"new-dictionary-provides-nuanced-insights-into-the-language-of-african-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/new-dictionary-provides-nuanced-insights-into-the-language-of-african-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"New dictionary provides nuanced insights into the language of African politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Every country has its own political language. These terms and phrases that have developed over time give distinctive meanings that may not be fully understood by outsiders. Unless we learn them, we may miss critical information about how politics really works.<\/p>\n

Our new\u00a0dictionary of African politics<\/a>\u00a0reveals the witty and insightful political terminology that people in different African countries use to speak truth to power and discuss everyday developments. It shows the importance of language for understanding politics and the varied experience of different nations.<\/p>\n

The dictionary serves three key purposes. First, it provides clear and concise overviews of hundreds of key personalities, events and institutions from the colonial period to the present day. These range from Sudanese President\u00a0Omar al-Bashir<\/a>\u00a0to former South African leader\u00a0Jacob Zuma<\/a>, through the late Kenyan environmentalist and Nobel Laureate\u00a0Wangari Mathaai<\/a>, and\u00a0Aja Fatoumata Jallow-Tambajang<\/a>, a leading gender activist and the vice president of Gambia.<\/p>\n

Second, it explains a rich set of theoretical terms that emerged out of the research on Africa over the last 70 years. These include\u00a0neo-patrimonialism<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0extraversion<\/a>, which have become important for global debates about power and the way it\u2019s exercised.<\/p>\n

Third – and much more significantly – it allows for a better understanding of the contributions that the continent has made to the practice and understanding of everyday politics. It also makes it possible to share the perceptive and shrewd ways that people speak truth to power in various countries: this is the real reason that the world needs a new dictionary of African politics.<\/p>\n

Crowd-sourcing<\/h2>\n

To access this wealth of\u00a0\u201ckona\u201d<\/a>\u00a0knowledge (street corner wisdom in Kiswahili), we crowd sourced suggestions for the most relevant and insightful terms using social media. The hundreds of responses we received mean that the dictionary is packed full of fascinating terms from across the continent. These come from a variety of languages including Kiswahili, Chibemba, Kikuyu, Wolof, isiZulu and isiXhosa. There are also Africanised versions of English, French and Portuguese words.<\/p>\n

An illustrative example is the wealth of English vocabulary that has emerged from the interaction between local political norms and democratic institutions. This includes the Kenyan model of\u00a0\u201cnegotiated democracy\u201d<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 the sharing of political positions between different communities in advance of an election to avoid conflict.<\/p>\n

Another is the Nigerian practice of\u00a0\u201czoning\u201d<\/a>, which was set up to try and ensure that the presidency of Africa\u2019s most populous country alternates between northerners and southerners. That way, no community is permanently excluded from power.<\/p>\n

Clothing-related expressions have also emerged in countries like Kenya and Ghana to show voting behaviours.\u00a0\u201cThree-piece suit voting\u201d<\/a>\u00a0refers to supporting the same party for all elected positions. On the contrary,\u00a0\u201cskirt-and-blouse voting\u201d<\/a>\u00a0means to vote for different parties for presidential and legislative elections.<\/p>\n

\"\"A series of evocative expressions describe a politician\u2019s move from one party to another \u2013 usually from the opposition to the governing party following an inducement. Terms such as floor-crossing or\u00a0cross-carpeting<\/a>\u00a0are inspired by the parliament\u2019s settings, or nomadic traditions – examples are\u00a0transhumance<\/a>and\u00a0\u201cnomadisme politique\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ingenuity and humour<\/strong><\/h4>\n

The ingredients that shape these terms are decades, if not centuries old. They thus provide an insight into a collective memory that goes back to well before colonial rule. But, language also evolves to keep up with the times. In French, for example,\u00a0glissement<\/a>means to slide. But, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the word recently took on a whole new meaning. This, as former President Joseph Kabila repeatedly postponed scheduled elections that would see him stand down. Congolese citizens started using the term to refer to the act of deliberately \u201csliding\u201d past the official election date to retain power indefinitely.<\/p>\n

Similarly, in Francophone Africa the term\u00a0\u201calternance\u201d<\/a>, used as the demand for a transfer of power, shows a passionate commitment to the liberal-democratic norm of putting limits on the number of terms a president may serve. This has no equivalent in Europe and North America.<\/p>\n

While the use of words such as glissement hint at the world-weary cynicism many ordinary people feel towards their leaders, other terms revel in the joy of wordplay. One of our favourites is\u00a0\u201cWatermelon politics\u201d<\/a>. It refers to an individual that professes to support one political party but in reality belongs to another.<\/p>\n

It was coined in Zambia, where activists from the opposition\u00a0United Party of National Development<\/a>, (whose colour was then red), pretended to support the governing party, the\u00a0Patriotic Front<\/a>, (whose colour was green), to avoid reprisals. They were thus depicted as \u201cgreen on the outside, but red on the inside\u201d.<\/p>\n

Such expressions show the ingenuity and humour with which citizens evade despotism and exercise their democratic rights. They also show how much researchers and journalists miss when they don\u2019t pay attention to African ideas and concepts. Thus, the best reason to read this dictionary is to learn about the political ingenuity of African citizens and to gain insights into local political ideas and frames of reference.<\/p>\n

The dictionary is also about much more than that. It includes one of the most thorough timelines of African political events ever compiled, with direct links to entries that put critical events into context. It also provides useful overviews of the topics that are of most interest to students. These range from from\u00a0HIV\/Aids<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0gender quotas<\/a>, and from the anti-apartheid<\/a>struggle to the Rwandan\u00a0genocide<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Our hope is that it does justice to the efforts of the many people who took time to send in the suggestions that have enriched it, and that everyone who takes a look learns something new.<\/p>\n

Author Bios:<\/strong> Nic Cheeseman is a Professor of Democracy at the University of Birmingham, Elo\u00efse Bertrand is a a PhD Student in Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick and Sa’eed Husaini is a DPhil Candidate at the University of Oxford<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every country has its own political language. These terms and phrases that have developed over time give distinctive meanings that may not be fully understood by outsiders. Unless we learn them, we may miss critical information about how politics really works. Our new\u00a0dictionary of African politics\u00a0reveals the witty and insightful political terminology that people in […]\n… learn more→<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":47181,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[295167],"coauthors":[11733],"class_list":["post-47180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-politics","tag-african-politics"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nNew dictionary provides nuanced insights into the language of African politics - World leading higher education information and services<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/new-dictionary-provides-nuanced-insights-into-the-language-of-african-politics\/\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"New dictionary provides nuanced insights into the language of African politics - World leading higher education information and services\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Every country has its own political language. 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