The Role of Eco-Villages in Tanzania
In another installment of the Spring 2024 Walter Rodney Seminar series, the African Studies Center hosted Dr. Christopher Graham, Research Affiliate at the Boston University African Studies Center, on March 25 to lead his presentation, titled “Eco-Villages Revisited: the Role of the Media, Political Ideology, and Public Opinion in Regreening Africa.”
In a far-reaching presentation, Dr. Graham discussed his analysis of Ujamaa eco-villages in Tanzania in the context of three contrasting development and sustainability paradigms: green growth, degrowth, and sustainable development. Dr. Graham raised key questions about the limitations of each paradigm, and probed the role of the media in shaping people’s perceptions. His lecture provided a broad and encompassing view of climate change issues in Africa, a useful grounding for further empirical research on climate change and models of mitigation in specific contexts.
The Walter Rodney Seminar series was inaugurated in the fall of 1977 at the initiative of two doctoral candidates in the BU political science department. It was named after Walter Rodney, the Guyanese scholar and political activist murdered in his native country in 1980, whose best-remembered book, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972), has long been considered a classic in African studies. Over the past several decades, the Walter Rodney Seminar has brought more than five hundred guest speakers to the BU African Studies Center, including presentations by established and incipient scholars in all Africa-related disciplines, encompassing the arts, humanities, social sciences, public health, and beyond. The seminars are a keystone of the weekly activities of the African Studies Center, held most Mondays during the academic calendar from 12:30 pm to 2:00 pm ET in the center’s William O. Brown Seminar Room (Rm 505, 232 Bay State Road) and also often available in hybrid format.
To attend upcoming installments of the Rodney Seminars, register on the African Studies Center website.