From the late 1800s, African workers migrated to the mineral-rich hinterland areas of Guyana, mined gold, diamonds, and bauxite; diversified the country's economy; and contributed to national development. Utilizing real estate, financial, and death records, as well as oral accounts of the labor migrants along with colonial officials and mining companies' information stored in National Archives in Guyana, Great Britain, and the U.S. Library of Congress, the study situates miners into the historical structure of the country's economic development. It analyzes the workers attraction to mining from agriculture, their concepts of "order and progress," and how they shaped their lives in positive ways rather than becoming mere victims of colonialism. In this contentious plantation society plagued by adversarial relations between the economic elites and the laboring class, in addition to producing the strategically important bauxite for the aviation era of World Wars I & II, for almost a century the workers braved the ecologically hostile and sometimes deadly environments of the gold and diamond fields in the quest for El Dorado in Guyana.

Although much has been written about the African Diaspora in the Atlantic Ocean, the Diaspora in the Indian Ocean is virtually unrecognised. Concerned with Africans who lived south of the Sahara and were dispersed by free will or forcefully to the non-African lands in the Indian Ocean region, this book deals with a topic that has been overlooked for too long. Eight scholars researching in distinct geographical areas and with interdisciplinary expertise offer a comprehensive and informative account of the Diaspora in the Indian Ocean.

The diaspora of developing countries can be a potent force for development, through remittances, but more importantly, through promotion of trade, investment, knowledge and technology transfers. The book aims to consolidate research and evidence on these issues with a view to formulating policies in both sending and receiving countries.

This volume provides an understanding of how Islam changed the Indian Ocean world and vice versa — a world historical lesson that stretches across several centuries, a vast ocean, its littoral, and in some cases well into the interior parts of this world. It underscores the role of Islam as a religious, economic, social, and political force in the Indian Ocean world. This title is useful both for instructors who base their approach to world history on encounters and connections and to those who use a civilizational model and need help in showing such connections at key historical moments. Including accounts from Muslims, Christians, and Buddhists, the documents highlight a complex and nuanced picture of the spread and influence of Islam. Document headnotes, a chronology, and analytical questions help students to place the spread of Islam across the Indian Ocean world in global historical context.

Forests of Refuge questions the effectiveness of market-based policies that govern forests in the interest of mitigating climate change. Yolanda Ariadne Collins interrogates the most ambitious global plan to incentivize people away from deforesting activities: the United Nations–endorsed Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) initiative. Forests of Refuge explores REDD+ in Guyana and neighboring Suriname, two highly forested countries in the Amazonian Guiana Shield with low deforestation rates. Yet REDD+ implementation there has been fraught with challenges. Adopting a multisited ethnographic approach, Forests of Refuge takes readers into the halls of policymaking, into conservation development organizations, and into forest-dependent communities most affected by environmental policies and exploitative colonial histories. This book situates these challenges in the inattentiveness of global environmental policies to roughly five hundred years of colonial histories that positioned the forests as places of refuge and resistance. It advocates that the fruits of these oppressive histories be reckoned with through processes of decolonization.

There has been much recent celebration of the success of African 'civil society' in forging global connections through an ever-growing diaspora. Against the background of such celebrations, this innovative book sheds light on the diasporic networks - 'home associations' - whose economic contributions are being used to develop home. Despite these networks being part of the flow of migrants' resources back to Africa that now outweighs official development assistance, the relationship between the flow of capital and social and political change are still poorly understood. Looking in particular at Cameroon and Tanzania, the authors examine the networks of migrants that have been created by making 'home associations' international. They argue that claims in favour of enlarging 'civil society' in Africa must be placed in the broader context of the political economy of migration and wider debates concerning ethnicity and belonging. They demonstrate both that diasporic development is distinct from mainstream development, and that it is an uneven historical process in which some 'homes' are better placed to take advantage of global connections than others. In doing so, the book engages critically with the current enthusiasm among policy-makers for treating the African diaspora as an untapped resource for combating poverty. Its focus on diasporic networks, rather than private remittances, reveals the particular successes and challenges diasporas face in acting as a group, not least in mobilising members of the diaspora to fulfill obligations to home.

The first book to look specifically at the movement of Cornish men and women to and from the Caribbean from the early days of colonialism. A fascinating subject for those with an interest in all things Cornish, be they in Cornwall, in the Caribbean, or in the wider Cornish diaspora. The Cornish in the Caribbean is the first study to tell the stories of some of the many Cornish men and women who went to the Caribbean. Some became wealthy plantation owners, while others came as indentured servants and labourers. Cornish men were active in the armed services, taking part in the numerous sea and land battles fought by the competing European powers throughout the region. Cornish officers and crew sailed on the ships of the Falmouth Packet Service which took the mail to and from the Caribbean. Methodism was strong in Cornwall and Methodist missionaries and their wives came to the Caribbean to evangelise both the enslaved and the newly free. The most striking transfer of Cornish skills to the Caribbean was to be found in mining. As Cornish mining declined, and the Great Emigration of miners and their families got underway, Cornish mining engineers, captains and miners went out to mines throughout the Caribbean. “Meticulously researched and highly readable” Bridget Brereton, Professor Emerita, University of the West Indies.

Migration from and within Africa, just like migration elsewhere in the world, often generates anti-immigrant sentiment and ignites heated public debate about the migration policies of the destination countries. These countries include South Africa as well as others outside the continent. The countries of origin are also keen to minimize losses through "brain drain" and to capture resources such as remittances. Increasingly, international organizations and human rights advocates have stressed the need to protect the interests of migrants themselves. However, while the UNDP's 2009 Human Development Report talks of "win-win-win" solutions, in practice it is the perceived interests of destination countries that enjoy the greatest attention, while the rights of migrants themselves are afforded the least. Yet migration is not just an issue in itself: it also points to structural inequalities between countries and regions. Managing migration and protecting migrants is too limited an agenda. Activists and policymakers must also address these inequalities directly to ensure that people can pursue their fundamental human rights whether they move or stay. It is not enough to measure development only in terms of progress at the national level: development must also be measured in terms of reductions in the gross levels of inequality that now determine differential rights on the basis of accident of birth.

Building on global interest in migration development, the volume draws attention to one of the most important migration systems in sub-Saharan Africa. It reviews South Africa’s approach to international migration in the post-apartheid period from a regional development perspective, highlighting key policy issues, debates, and consequences. The authors find at least three areas where migration is resulting in important development impacts. First, by offering options to those affected by conflict and crises in a region that has limited formal disaster management and social protection systems. Second, by mitigating shortcomings and distortions in regional labour markets. Third, by providing support to struggling rural economies and ever expanding urban areas in terms of livelihoods and social capital transfers. Chapter One consists of a study of the country’s historical experience of migration and, in particular, analyses the changes in official attitudes throughout the twentieth century, indicating the roots of contemporary ideas and policy dilemmas. Chapters Two, Three, Four and Five complement this analysis of the South African State’s capacity to reform and manage the South African migration situation by looking at often neglected dimensions: the first explores the question of skilled labour, a crucial question given the unbalanced structure of the South African labour market; the second examines the impact of migration on local government in South African cities and specifically implications for urban planning, service delivery, health, security, and political accountability; the third analyses the nature of undocumented migration to South Africa and the challenges it raises to both State and non-State actors; The book concludes with an examination of health as a critical issue when examining the relationship between migration and development in South Africa, in light of recent empirical data.

A sweeping history of our enduring passion for diamonds—and the exploitative industry that fuels it. Blood, Sweat and Earth is a hard-hitting historical exposé of the diamond industry, focusing on the exploitation of workers and the environment, the monopolization of uncut diamonds, and how little this has changed over time. It describes the use of forced labor and political oppression by Indian sultans, Portuguese colonizers in Brazil, and Western industrialists in many parts of Africa—as well as the hoarding of diamonds to maintain high prices, from the English East India Company to De Beers. While recent discoveries of diamond deposits in Siberia, Canada, and Australia have brought an end to monopolization, the book shows that advances in the production of synthetic diamonds have not yet been able to eradicate the exploitation caused by the world’s unquenchable thirst for sparkle.