This volume brings together the most up to date analyses of civil society in Africa from the best scholars and researchers working on the subject. Being the first of its kind, it casts a panoramic look at the African continent, drawing out persisting, if often under-communicated, variations in regional discourses. In a majority of notionally ¿global¿ studies, Africa has received marginal attention, a marginality often highlighted by the usual token chapter. Filling a critical hiatus, theHandbook of Civil Society in Africa takes Africa, African developments, and African perspectives very seriously and worthy of academic interrogation in their own right. It offers a critical, clear-sighted perspective on civil society in Africa, and positions African discourses within the framework of important regional and global debates. It promises to be an invaluable reference work for researchers and practitioners working in the fields of civil society, nonprofit studies, development studies, volunteerism, civic service, and African studies. 
Endorsements: 
 "This volume signposts a critical turning point in the renewed engagement with the theory and practice of civil society in Africa. Moving from traditional concerns with disquisitions on the appropriateness and possibility of the existence and vibrancy of the idea of civil society on the continent, the volume approaches the forms, contents, and features of the actually existing civil society in Africa from thematic, regional, and national angles. 
It demonstrates clearly the extent to which core intellectual work on civil society in Africa has largely moved from concerns with cultural reductionism to a nuanced examination of the complexities of  (formal, non-formal, organizational, non-organizational, tra

Ebenezer Obadare is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Kansas, Lawrence. He earned his doctorate in Social Policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2005, and has undergraduate and graduate degrees in History (1989) and International Relations (1992) respectively from the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. A former award-winning journalist, Dr. Obadare's research interests include civil society and the state, religion and politics in Africa, civic service, and citizenship. He has published extensively on these subjects in leading refereed journals, among them Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE), African Affairs, Politique Africaine, Journal of Civil Society, Democratization, Patterns of Prejudice, Africa Development, Critical African Studies, Development in Practice, Journal of Modern African Studies, Journal of Contemporary African Studies, and Journal of Church and State. He is the author of Africa Between the Old and the New: The Strange Persistence of the Postcolonial State (2008); Statism, Youth and the Civic Imagination: A Critical Study of the Nigerian National Youth Service Corps 2010); and co-editor of Encountering the Nigerian State (2010), Nigeria at Fifty: The Nation in Narration (2011), and Democracy and Prebendalism in Nigeria: Critical Interpretations (2013).

Chapter 1: Introduction: Turning the Table on Gellner: Alternative Discourses of Civil Society in Africa- Ebenezer Obadare.- Section I: Core Themes.- Chapter 2: Escape from Tyranny: Civil Society and Democratic Struggles in Africa- Darren Kew and Modupe Oshikoya.- Chapter 3: Civil Society and Religion- Shobana Shankar.- Chapter 4: Theorizing media as/and civil society in Africa- Wendy Willems.- Chapter 5: 'Good' State, 'Bad' State: Loss and Longing in Postcolonial Zimbabwe- Julia Gallagher.- Chapter 6: NGO Accountability in Africa- Ronelle Burger and Dineo Seabe.- Section II: Regional Perspectives.- Chapter 7: Civil Society in North Africa- James Sater.- Chapter 8: Civil Society Organizations and the State in East Africa: From the Colonial to the Modern Era- Priscilla Wamucii.- Chapter 9: Civil Society and the Politics of Belonging in Southern Africa- Daniel Hammett.- Chapter 10: Building Civil Society in West Africa: Notes from the Field -Titilope Mamattah.- Chapter 11: Civil Societyin Zimbabwe and 'Most of the World'- Kirk Helliker.- Chapter 12: Viral Messaging, Satire, and Spaces of Resistance in Nigeria- Carole Enahoro.- Chapter 13: Civil Society and Conflict in West Africa- Niklas Hultin.- Section III: Civil Society in the Shadow of Neoliberalism.- Chapter 14: Neoliberalism and the Forms of Civil Society in Kenya and South Africa- Jacob Mati.- Chapter 15: Africa Rising? Afro-Optimism and Uncivil Society in an Era of Economic Volatility- Patrick Bond.- Chapter 16: Civil Society and Neoliberalism- Usman A. Tar.- Section IV: After Development: Gender, Sexuality, and Civic Change.- Chapter 17: Popular Organizations in South Africa: from civics to service delivery protests- Elke Zuern.- Chapter 18: "If Good Food is cooked in One Country, We Will All Eat from It:" Women and Civil Society in Africa- Hannah Britton and Taylor Price.- Chapter 19: NGOs, Civil Society and Development- Badru Bukenya and Samuel Hickey.- Chapter 20: Civil Society and Sexual Struggles in Africa- Ashley Currier and Joëlle M. Cruz.- Chapter 21: Civil Society's Response to the HIV/AIDS Crisis in Africa- Richard G. Wamai.- Chapter 22: Orature as a Site for Civil Contestation: Film and the Decolonization of Space and Place in Tsitsi Dangarembga's Kare Kare Zvako (Mother's Day) 2005- Bunmi Oyinsan.- Section V: Aid, Volunteering and Philanthropy.- Chapter 23: Civil Society and Aid in Africa: A case of mistaken identity? - Alan Fowler.- Chapter 24: Volunteering, Civic Service and Civil Society in Africa- Helene Perold and Lauren Graham.- Chapter 25: Philanthropic Foundations and Civil Society in Sub-Saharan Africa- Christiana Atibil.- Chapter 26: Volunteering, Civic Agency and Citizenship in Africa- Ebenezer Obadare.