SOAS University of London

It has been argued that, especially in non‐Inner Circles of English, whether or not speakers consider language to be a harbinger of national identity affects their positioning as owners of that language. A plethora of prior studies have also demonstrated that language is of central importance regarding the ways in which people enact their national identities. In the case of Nigeria, national language(s) rhetoric has been particularly contentious. This study presents findings from a larger study employing a mixed‐methods approach to examine Nigerian university students’ perceptions ( N = 387) of English language ownership. Analysis revealed that respondents’ sense of national identity was a major factor in enacting (English) language ownership. The findings from the study also indicated that the extent to which speakers outwith Inner Circle contexts exercise linguistic ownership over English can depend upon both the specific sociolinguistic milieu and the degree to which English expresses national identity.

The purpose of this Element is to analyse the assiduous attempts of two Islamic political thinkers-the 12th century Andalusian philosopher Ibn Rushd and the contemporary Sudanese reformist Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im-to theorise Islamic politics through an approach the author refers to as 'pluralistic frameworks'. A pluralistic framework, is a systematic mediation of Islamic ethics and politics that incorporates extra-Islamic traditions of thought from diverse sources. Pluralistic frameworks selectively and self-consciously enable dialogue, synthesis, and hybridity and seek to maintain a distinct conception of Islamic ethics that concords with a preferred set of political arguments. They enable reflexivity within the ethical purview of Islam and with an awareness of the normativity of sharī'a.Both Ibn Rushd and An-Na'im reconcile sharī'a in two very different ways, but to a common end; Ibn Rushd lays out a method of harmonisation with Greek thought, while An-Na'im resorts to the radical subversion of sharia under liberal thought.

In recent development policy discourse, an ambition to deliver comprehensive healthcare to all citizens in the Global South via publicly financed provisioning systems has been replaced by calls for universal health coverage (UHC). At the heart of today’s promotion of UHC in the Global South is a strategy to involve private actors as providers and financiers of healthcare. This is presented as an apt approach to overcome an acute financing gap to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 3 on attaining UHC. As part of these efforts, public private partnerships (PPPs) are celebrated as an efficient way of mobilising private sector resources and expertise, including in Africa. The World Bank Group (WBG), as a lead actor in international development, is at the forefront of promoting such a policy solution, despite mounting evidence of the pernicious implications of the increased prevalence of health PPPs across both Global North and South. Our contribution to this Special Issue on healthcare financialisation is twofold. First, we demonstrate how health PPPs can act as vehicles of healthcare financialisation, posing significant threats to equitable healthcare delivery. Second, we examine the WBG’s role in promoting health PPPs in Africa. By doing so, we shed light on the ways in which health PPPs can serve as an important channel for the advancement of financial actors, instruments and practices in national healthcare systems. The WBG’s use of diverse tools in support of health PPPs significantly impacts African healthcare systems, highlighting the scope for ‘financialisation by development policies’.

This article examines five Sasanian bullae from the fire temple of Ādur Gušnasp with seal impressions depicting Aphrodite and Eros, and Aphrodite Anadyomene. It is argued that the original seal with Aphrodite and Eros likely dates from the late 1st century BCE to the early 1st century CE, reused between the 5th–7th centuries CE, while the Aphrodite Anadyomene seal is from the 2nd or 3rd century CE. Contextualizing these findings within Graeco-Roman and Iranian cultures, this article explores reinterpretations of Graeco-Roman iconography for both Zoroastrian and non-Zoroastrian audiences, as well as highlights that bullae with concave impressions of cylindrically curved objects on the reverse had once been attached to vessels, not just documents. Additionally, this article also discusses other sealings on the new bullae, some with Middle Persian inscriptions, identifying a mgw (priest) and an astrologer, providing the first attestation of the word axtar (constellation) on a Sasanian seal.

This article offers a novel perspective into how Murle agro-pastoralist youth in South Sudan draw on permanent body marks (also known as scarifications or body inscriptions) to communicate their individual and collective stories and future aspirations; negotiate identities and generational relations; and reimagine social norms and political subjectivities. Based on long-term ethnographic research and through a visual analysis of body marks, the article explores the meanings behind young people’s body mark iconography, including assault rifles and army ranks, to mobile phones, syringes and United Nations acronyms. Body marks are a powerful embodied knowledge practice and unique lens to understand people as well as how social institutions like the age-sets are transforming. In particular, this article explores the insights that body mark iconography reveal about how Murle rural youth interpret and imagine “modernity”, as read through young people’s bodies, as a culturally situated phenomenon. It reveals how young people’s interpretations of modernity are tied to an urban and military culture that, in their eyes, is synonymous with power. While youth may be aware of the global connotations of their body marks, these are localised practices and claims for validation and pathways to social personhood within their own social world.

This article describes the progress made by scholars over a period of more than five decades in the field of Nigerian English studies. It will thus serve as a useful tool for those researching in this field; and apparently there has been no such attempt to date to review the research landscape of Nigerian English in order to show its key concerns. The article makes the case that, despite the claim that Nigerian English is under-researched, Nigerian English has been the subject of a substantial body of research, even if much of it is unknown outside Nigeria. Following the qualitative-oriented synthetic approach to literature review involving a synthesis of common themes across studies, research preoccupations, developments and directions in all the various language areas are examined, with opportunities for further research highlighted. Finally, prognostications are offered concerning the future directions of Nigerian English research.

The deteriorating demographic structure in China has already invalidated its one-child policy ineffective. However, smoothing the ripple effects generated by this policy will require more comprehensive population policies. This context led to the introduction of the two-child policy in China. This paper examines the effects of the two-child policy by observing the regions that were previously subject to the one-child rule. The findings indicate that a geographic mismatch between people’s willingness to have children and household income has resulted in an uneven distribution of birth rates following the implementation of the two-child policy, with higher birth rates concentrated in rural areas experiencing rapid urbanization. As the Chinese economy progresses towards a higher level of urbanization, population policies aimed at encouraging larger families will become less effective, as fertility norms will have permanently altered in tandem with the rising costs of urban living. With more affluent populations less likely to have more than one child, understanding how to increase fertility rates in demographic groups that have not fully transitioned to the advanced urban sector will be crucial for developing effective population growth policies.

Using a mixed methods approach that relies on conceptual metaphor theory, corpus linguistics, and discourse analysis, the study investigates the use and function of metaphor in a self-constructed corpus of U.K. bank chairman’s letters to shareholders during the study period, covering a state of relative stability (2002-2007), financial crisis and scandals (2008-2019), and the coronavirus pandemic (2020). We find evidence that bank chairmen use conventional metaphors to communicate with shareholders. Additionally, the choice of metaphors is conditional on the contextual environment in which banks operate. Further qualitative analysis of the metaphors supports a persuasive role that depends on the contextual environment.

In the contexts of South Asia, young people are systematically prevented from making fully informed decisions about their bodies, their sexuality, and their rights. The moral panic surrounding protecting young people’s perceived ‘innocence’ from a real or perceived ‘sexual threat’ has generated increasingly harsher legal limitations on their sexual expression and assertion of sexual agency, desire and rights related to bodily autonomy. In response, some child rights’ groups, women’s rights groups, feminist scholars and lawyers are raising concerns about how increasingly punitive approaches to addressing gender-based harms and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) violations faced by young people may have a collateral impact on their right to bodily autonomy. These restrictive and often punitive measures are generally promoted as protective, and in some cases, they are legitimately so. In our analysis, they also may amount to ‘protectionism’, a form of penalisation that, in effect, criminalises’ young peoples’ exploration of their gender, sexuality, bodies and pleasure. Protectionist approaches are often ideologically driven and based on paternalistic assumptions about young peoples’ (and especially girls’ and young women’s) capacity and ability, with the pretence of protecting those defined as ‘weak’ or ‘vulnerable’ as if these are inherent to the individual rather than structurally and socially constituted. It is this penalisation and alternatives to it that we explore here.

The chapter reviews the literature and develops an analytical framework—theoretical, conceptual, and empirical perspectives to examine new empirical evidence and comparative analysis of Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) in the light manufacturing sector. The chapter draws on three competing yet intersecting strands of literature that are particularly relevant to the subject. First, the literature on industrialisation and industrial policy serves as a framework for examining the role of manufacturing and exports as drivers of structural transformation and the government’s policies. Second, the theory of FDI and its contribution to industrialisation through global value chains (GVCs) aids in understanding and interpreting patterns of Chinese FDI and their different effects on industrialisation dynamics. An important observation is that outcomes of FDI and GVCs are not automatic, and the benefits and risks are shaped to a significant extent by government policies in promoting productive investment and managing firms. Third, the international political economy on Africa’s economic development and China-Africa relations, views from an African economic transformation lens, provides the historical legacy, geopolitical power relations, and nature of engagement that influenced progress. The chapter reviews the various perspectives and evolving debates around Africa’s industrialisation and economic transformation. This chapter provides the framework for establishing empirical evidence and analytical insights.