Author: Program Director

Research Africa: February 8, 2019

Research Africa Demographic Survey:
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News and Issues
Emerging Economies University Rankings 2019
The Times Higher Education Emerging Economies University Rankings for 2019 have been released. This list includes only institutions in countries classified as “advanced emerging”, “secondary emerging” or “frontier”. The rankings use the same 13 performance indicators as the Times Higher Education World University Rankings to judge institutions on their teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook. They are recalibrated to reflect the development priorities of universities in emerging economies.

Read more in this link:
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2019/emerging-economies-university-rankings#!/page/0/length/25/sort_by/rank/sort_order/asc/cols/stats

Autobiography from 1831 provides rare, firsthand account of a Muslim slave in America
By Eliott C. McLaughlin, Jan 17, 2019
He was 37 when the army of “wicked men” invaded his West African village, murdering many and absconding with others who they put on a ship for the six-week journey to Charleston, South Carolina. “There, they sold me to a small, weak and wicked man called Johnson, a complete infidel who had no fear of God at all,” scholar and slave Omar ibn Said wrote decades later in 1831, when he was in his early 60s.

Read the story in this link:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/17/us/muslim-slave-autobiography-library-congress/index.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=fbCNNi&utm_content=2019-01-18T15%3A31%3A27&utm_term=link

Mahmood Mamdani on Marxist intellectual Samir Amin.
By Mahmoud Mamdani, Dec 23, 2018
Samir Amin’s life resembled that of Karl Marx’s: a man without a homeland, but one whose home was a chosen commitment to a historical project.
In June 2010, Mahmood Mamdani was appointed Director of the Makerere Institute for Social Research (MISR) in Kampala, Uganda, which he since developed into what is arguably the premier center for graduate education in the social sciences and the humanities on the continent.

Read the story in this link:
https://africasacountry.com/2018/12/mahmood-mamdani-on-marxist-intellectual-samir-amin/

Senegal’s Museum of Black Civilizations Welcomes Some Treasures Home
By Dionne Searcey and Farah Nayeri, Jan 15, 2019
The 19th-century sword rests in a glass case alongside a frail Quran in a spacious gallery where scrolls hang from the wall and soft religious chanting is piped in. The saber’s etched copper handle is shaped like a swan’s beak, with a ring at the end. The sword belonged to Omar Saidou Tall, a prominent Muslim spiritual leader in the 1800s in what is now modern-day Senegal. His quest to conquer nearby territories put him in armed conflict with France, which had its own takeover ambitions. The French colonialists eventually won and seized not just large swaths of West Africa but also the region’s treasures, including the sword. Like most artifacts from France’s African colonies, it wound up in a French museum.

Read the story in this link:

NEW BOOKS ‫كتب جديدة

Community Resilience Under the Impact of Urbanisation and Climate Change: Cases and Experiences from Zimbabwe
‫(صمود المجتمع تحت تأثير التمدن وتغير المناخ: حالات دراسية من زيمبابوي)
Author (Editor): Innocent Chirisa, Christopher M. Mabeza

As the world today faces messy problems, what in some circles has been called global weirding, the term resilience has taken center stage. This is crunch time as we grapple with the negative effects of both climate change and urbanisation. Some commentators have compared the huge problems we face today to Oom Schalk’s proverbial leopard waiting for us in the withaak’s shade. Do we endlessly count Oom Schalk’s proverbial leopard’s spots? This is the question posed by a stellar cast of academics, researchers, and experts whose contributions in this text are a rallying cry for action to build resilience to the challenging impact of urbanisation and climate change. To that end, this volume gives hope about the potential for human agency. Our challenge, however, is to re-examine our values, to change our conservation, and return to a wiser, holistic understanding of ourselves and our place in the Universe. Perhaps then can the obituaries on our demise stay locked in the drawer.
Publisher: Langaa RPCIG, Cameroon, 2019

Unrequited Toil: A History of United States Slavery
‫(كدح بلا مقابل: تاريخ الاسترقاق في الولايات المتحدة)
Author: Calvin Schermerhorn
Unrequited Toil details how an institution that seemed to be disappearing at the end of the American Revolution rose to become the most contested and valuable economic interest in the nation by 1850. Calvin Schermerhorn charts changes in the family lives of enslaved Americans, exploring the broader processes of nation-building in the United States, growth and intensification of national and international markets, the institutionalization of chattel slavery, and the growing relevance of race in the politics and society of the republic. Schermerhorn argues that American economic development relied upon African Americans’ social reproduction while simultaneously destroying their intergenerational cultural continuity. He chronologically presents personal narratives of enslaved people and explores themes of politics, economics, labor, literature, and rebellion.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2018

حلمي شعراوي: سيرة مصرية أفريقية
[Helmi Sharawi: An Egyptian African Biography]
Author: Helmy Sharawi:
This voluminous book is a memoir of Helmi Sharawi who is widely known in the Arab world asmwalimu (the teacher) and the dean of African affairs in Egypt. The book narrates his rich and engaging life, spanning more than 60 years. Beginning with his rise to public service during President Nasser’s years to his role in mediating Nasser’s liberation projects in Africa, his story reflects a vision and struggle to bring Africans together. This book is a must read for any Arab who is interested in Africa and would behoove those interested in President Nasser’s vision for Africa.
Publisher: Dar Al’Ayn Lilnashr, Cairo, Egypt, 2019

The Specter of Global China Politics, Labor, and Foreign Investment in Africa
(مخاطر سياسات الصين العالمية : الأيدي العاملة والاستثمار الأجنبي في أفريقيا)
Author: Ching Kwan Lee
This book is based on Lee’s field study in Africa where she investigated Chinese investments for 7 years in copper mines and construction sites in Zambia. The book is extremely interesting for its methodology and unconventional findings. The author prompts the audience to ponder whether or not Chinese capital is a different type of capital and shares her perspective on this question. Lee establishes a clear definition of Chinese state capital in comparison to global private capital by assessing business objectives, labor practices, managerial ethos and political engagement with Zambia. The policy implications and inter-disciplinary contributions of her book have wide-reaching impact to many fields.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2018.
‫
BÉLÉKO
(بيليكو)
Author: Jacqueline Gondwe
Béléko is a small village in the West African state of Mali. In the book’s twenty-five chapters we meet Dutch development workers, French missionaries, Malian public service workers, health workers, and village women and their children. All of these characters strive to give meaning to their lives in the routine of daily life of Africa at the end of the 1980s. As each character tells his or her own story, we gain insight into their backgrounds, their passions, their struggles, and how they influence each other in decisive ways.
Publisher: Luviri Press, Malawi, 2018

Kenya, Bridging Ethnic Divides: A Commissioner’s Experience on Cohesion and Integration
(‫كينيا ، ترميم الفجوة في العلاقات الاثنية: تجربة المفوضية العليا في توحيد طبقات المجتمع)
Author: Alice Wairimu Nderitu
The book shows that positive policies and intra- and inter-ethnic spaces can be used to counter negative influences that lead to fear, exclusion, and violence. The diversity of Kenya’s ethnicities and races need not be a pretext for conflict, but a source of truly national identity. It proves that dialogue on understanding differences and commonalities leads to improved relationships and understanding of societal dynamics. This in turn contributes to preventing and transforming conflicts through appropriate inclusion policies and identification of entry points for change as well as opportunities to tackle the norms and behaviors that underpin structural disparities.
Publisher: Mdahalo Bridging Divides, Kenya, 2018

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Research Africa (research_africa-editor@duke.edu) welcomes submissions of books, events, funding opportunities, and more to be included in the next edition.

Research Africa: January 14, 2019

Obituary Announcement

Remembering Professor Lamin Sanneh

By CT editors January 8, 2019

We remember the late Lamin Sanneh, the world’s leading expert on Christianity and Islam in Africa and explore how a Christian convert of The Gambia became a legend at Yale Divinity School for his curiosity, joy, and deep insights.

Lamin Sanneh, the Gambian scholar who shaped contemporary discourse around global Christianity and missions in Africa, died January 6th at the age of 76.

As Sanneh wrote in his autobiography, he was “summoned from the margins,” a convert from Islam to Christianity raised in the tiny West African nation.

Over his 30-year career at Yale Divinity School and during his time at the University of London and two Pontifical Commissions, he brought World Christianity to the forefront, creating a global network of scholars and friends around his scholarship in the fields of African history, abolitionism, and Christian-Muslim relations.

Read the story in this link:

https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2019/january/lamin-sanneh-died-world-christianity-islam-africa-yale.html

Remembering Lamin Sanneh, the World’s Leading Expert on Ch…… | News & Reporting | Christianity Today
www.christianitytoday.com
Scholars explain how a convert “summoned from the margins” of The Gambia became a legend at Yale Divinity School for his curiosity, joy, and deep insights.

Application Announcement

AIMS Cooperative Master’s Degree Application

The cooperative version of the AIMS Structured Master’s program, offered only at AIMS Senegal, AIMS Cameroon and AIMS Rwanda, builds on the core AIMS Master’s program and leads to the AIMS degree in mathematical sciences.

The 18-month program takes a work-integrated learning approach by combining coursework with practical industry experience. This allows students to apply their scientific knowledge to real world problems while gaining work experience in an industrial environment. The program enables students to develop the necessary professional skills to transition from academic studies to progressive careers in industry (defined as private or public businesses, government, non-governmental organizations, and civil society). The Cooperative Master’s program includes two work placements of three and four months throughout the regular coursework. Successful completion of all coursework and both work placements is required for graduation.

For more information on the program, view this link:

AIMS Co-operative Master’s Degree Application

News and Issues

Digging into the Myth of Timbuktu

By Peter Coutros, October 31, 2017

Sometime around 1 o’clock in the afternoon on April 19, 1828, René Caillié emerged from the dark hull of the slave ship that he had boarded weeks before. Eager to disembark and escape the “prison” that he had uncomfortably shared with bundles of rice, millet, cotton, honey, vegetable butter, and fellow travelers, Caillié mounted the first available canoe and glided toward shore.

By the next afternoon, after making his way through the dusty Sahelian streets of the port city and traveling north, he became the first European to see West Africa’s Timbuktu and live to recount his tale.

Read the story in this link:

Digging Into the Myth of Timbuktu

Get to Know Sarah Diouf, The Astute Creative Behind Tongoro Studio & Ifren Media Group

By Isoken Ogiemwonyi, December 28, 2017

Sarah Diouf is a fashion industry veteran, helming two publications and creative director of her own label Tongoro. Her point of view is one that very few on the continent, and indeed overseas, share; it’s easy to see her communications background in the clarity and strength of the branding of her label Tongoro. Her well thought-out, precise methods quickly strikes a chord within the woman Sarah is trying to dress.

Read the story in this link:

Get to Know Sarah Diouf, The Astute Creative Behind Tongoro Studio & Ifren Media Group

The Trouble With Ethiopia’s Ethnic Federalism

By Mahmood Mamdani , January 3, 2019

Abiy Ahmed, the 42-year-old prime minister of Ethiopia, has dazzled Africa with a volley of political reforms since his appointment in April. Mr. Abiy ended the 20-year border war with Eritrea, released political prisoners, removed bans on dissident groups and allowed their members to return from exile, declared press freedom and granted diverse political groups the freedom to mobilize and organize.

Mr. Abiy has been celebrated as a reformer, but his transformative politics have come up against ethnic federalism enshrined in Ethiopia’s Constitution. The resulting clash threatens to exacerbate competitive ethnic politics further and push the country toward an interethnic conflict.

Read the story in this link:

Skyscrapers, trains and roads: How Addis Ababa came to look like a Chinese city

By Jenni Marsh, September 3, 2018

When Wang Yijun put Ethiopia’s most expensive real estate project on the market, he experienced a strange phenomenon. People preferred the lowest floors over those with panoramic city views. “Power cuts mean elevators in this city often don’t work,” explains Wang, the site manager. “So the bottom-floor flats became the most valuable. You won’t see this pricing in any Chinese city.” Replicating China’s urban model in Africa has its challenges, but with limited developable space in Addis Ababa — the capital is surrounded by protected farmland — Wang believes high-rise living, such as Tsehay Real Estate’s $60 million Poli Lotus development, is inevitable.

Read the story in this link:

https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/addis-ababa-china-construction-style/index.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=fbCNNi&utm_content=2019-01-05T23%3A01%3A01&utm_term=link

NEW BOOKS ‫كتب جديدة

Pio Gama Pinto Kenya’s Unsung Martyr, 1927 – 1965

[‫بيو كاما بنتو: شهيد كينيا المجهول: 1927 – 1965]

Author (Editor): Shiraz Durrani

Pio Gama Pinto was born in Kenya on March 31, 1927 and was assassinated in Nairobi on February 24, 1965. In his short life, he became a symbol of anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles in Kenya and India. He was actively involved in Goa’s struggle against Portuguese colonialism and in Mau Mau during Kenya’s war of independence. For this, he was detained by the British colonial authorities in Kenya from 1954-1959. His contribution to the struggle for liberation for working people spanned Africa and Asia and covered two phases of imperialism: colonialism in Kenya and Goa and neo-colonialism in Kenya after independence. His enemies saw no way of stopping the intense, lifelong struggle he waged except through assassination. His contribution, ideas, and ideals are remembered and upheld even today by those active in liberation struggles.

Publisher: Vita Books, Kenya, 2018

Christianity and Catastrophe in South Sudan Civil War, Migration, and the Rise of Dinka Anglicanism

[‫المسيحية ونكبة الحرب الأهلية بجنوب السودان، الهجرة، وصعود الأنكليكانية بين قبائل الدينكا]

Author: Jesse A. Zink

Zink’s book is an outstanding account of the growth and evolution of Anglican Christianity among the Dinka people in what is now South Sudan. Zink traces the origins of the Anglican mission to the Dinka people, explains its early weakness, and documents its transformation after the expulsion of foreign missionaries in 1964 Sudan. As Dinka Christians took their faith back to their rural heartland and as the church’s leaders began to tolerate the informal authority of prophetic figures, Anglicanism itself began to change. Zink’s extraordinary account describes multiple conversions – the conversion of Dinka people to Anglican religion and their conversion of Anglican religion into the cultural forms that support the faith. This book surveys the practices of one of the fastest-growing churches in the region.

Publisher: Baylor University Press, 2018

Shaykh Ahmadou Bamba: A Peacemaker for Our Time

[‫الشيخ أحمدو بامبا: صانع السلام في عصرنا]

Author: Michelle R. Kimball

This book recounts the life and legacy of Shaykh Ahmadou Bamba (d. 1927). His adventures begin in the villages of Senegal in West Africa before he is thrust into the dense, treacherous, dark jungles of the French Congo and the pristine Sahara Desert in Mauritania. The French, who had control of much of West Africa, encountered Bamba in the summer of 1895. Bamba seemed to know what was going to happen to him; the night before his arrest, he gathered his disciples together. The majority fervently pronounced that they were willing to launch a violent resistance and die rather than allow the French to take Shaykh Ahmadou Bamba away. Bamba’s reacted by stating that in a war, there are never any victors. Thirty-three years of exile, imprisonment, and house arrest only fortified his spirit, as affirmed by his moving, ubiquitous poetic expressions. His writings are seen as living texts that make them forever relevant. Kimball’s presentation of colonial resistance and non-violent social change is compelling and timely. It is a book of universal import with a message of truth, peace, and the power of nonviolence.

Publisher: The Other Press Sdn. Bhd, 2018.

A Gender Perspective of Municipal Solid Waste Generation and Management in the City of Bamenda, Cameroon

[‫وجهة نظر الرجال و النساء لعملية توليد وإدارة النفايات الصلبة في بلدية مدينة باميندا في الكاميرون]

Author: Akum Hedwig Kien

The management of urban waste constitutes one of the major environmental challenges facing African cities in general and in particular, Cameroon. Unprecedented population growth and changes in consumption patterns and lifestyles have led to increased waste generation. Municipal solid waste management efforts lag behind the growing rate of waste generation with attendant environmental and public health risks. The gender dynamics and politics at the pools of waste generation largely influence the outcome of waste management strategies and policies. This book highlights the gender dimension of municipal solid waste generation and management in the city of Bamenda. The findings revealed and proposals made from the study will hopefully be employed by municipal authorities in Cameroon and beyond to enhance waste management efforts.

Publisher: Langaa RPCIG, Cameroon, 2018.

‫

Kingdom, State and Civil Society in Africa: Conceptual and Political Collisions

[‫المماليك والدول والمجتمع المدني في أفريقيا: مراجعات سياسية ونظرية]

Author: Nelson Kasfir

Civil society is one of several Western political and social concepts that has not flourished in Africa. Revived in response to the search for democracy in Eastern Europe during the late Soviet era, Western donors promoted and funded new civil society organizations in sub-Saharan Africa, viewing them as an essential grounding for African democratization. Most of these new civil society organizations had little in common with African associational activity. Focusing on the characteristics and behavior of longstanding African organizations appears a better starting point for developing a useful concept of an African civil society. One candidate worth serious investigation is the Buganda Kingdom Government; this organization violates most distinctions central to Western notions of civil society, yet it continues to behave like a civil society organization. Its political and conceptual collisions offer guidance toward a useful notion of African civil society and understanding Ugandan politics.

Publisher: Basler Afrika Bibliographien, Switzerland, 2017

Plantation Slavery in the Sokoto Caliphate: A Historical and Comparative Study

[‫مزارع الاسترقاق في سوكوتو الخلافة: دراسة تاريخية مقارنة]

Author: Mohammed Bashir Salau

A large-scale study of plantation slavery in West Africa with a focus on the nineteenth-century Sokoto caliphate, this book draws on diverse sources including oral testimony, Arabic material, and extant scholarly works about the caliphal state. Plantation Slavery in the Sokoto Caliphate offers new views on various fundamental issues including the definition of blackness in the Sokoto caliphate, the meaning of the term “plantation,” the significance of plantation slavery in the caliphal state, and the role of slavery in the context of African states.

Publication: University of Rochester Press, 2018

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Research Africa (research_africa-editor@duke.edu) welcomes submissions of books, events, funding opportunities, and more to be included in the next edition.

Research Africa: December 31st, 2018

The Research Africa Team thanks its subscribers for its contributions in 2018 and wishes all a happy and healthy new year.

Open Applications

UN Economic Commissions for Africa Fellowship

ECA is accepting applications for qualified young African Professionals to the “ECA Fellowships for Young African Professionals” programme. Candidates applying for Fellowship position must be below 30 years of age when entering the programme and must have a Masters degree or related advanced degree. Candidates currently enrolled in a Ph.D programme or with an admission are also welcome to apply.The programme aims to provide practical, on-site experience to young professionals as they prepare either for a career in research, international development, or the public sector. It will also familiarize fellows with the Commission’s broad programmes and services for member States and sub-regional bodies in addressing the social dimensions of Africa’s development.

For more details, use this link:

https://www.uneca.org/pages/fellowship

News and Issues

The silences in academia about capitalism in Africa

By Jörg Wiegratz, Dec 13th, 2018

African Studies has a significant problem to engage collectively, explicitly, and critically with the thing that is ever more a point of discussion around the world: capitalism, more specifically with capitalism as a social phenomenon, topic and concept. There is a significant shortage at the heart of the African Studies community in Western Europe, and arguably across the entire Global North, of an explicit, focused, sustained, large-scale collective exploration, about the many, multifaceted features of contemporary capitalism on the continent, and about characteristics of African societies as capitalist societies.

Read the story in this link:

https://africasacountry.com/2018/12/the-silences-in-academia-about-capitalism-in-africa

Senegal Museum Traces Millions of Years of African History

By Nicolas Haque, Dec 25th, 2018

A new museum has opened in Senegal, tracing millions of years of African history. The Museum of Black Civilizations is provoking calls for the return of African artifacts taken away by former colonial slave traders.

Watch the video in this link:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/12/senegal-museum-traces-millions-years-african-history-181225121103356.html?fbclid=IwAR2XJQKh9DQhXsglK03izc9EWOTThLXLN3j1ScmjwbA0fT8RRXPPImhkIfI

New Books ‫كتب جديدة

Anchored in Place: Rethinking the University and Development in South Africa

[‫راسخةكالوتد: إعادةالنظرفيمسألةالجامعةوالتنميةفيجنوبأفريقيا]

Author (Editor): Leslie Bank, Nico Cloete, François van Schalkwyk

This volume is the first work in South Africa to seriously engage with the place-based developmental role of universities. In international literature and policy there has been an increasing integration of the university with place-based development, especially in cities. This volume weighs in on the phenomenon by drawing attention to the place-based roles and agency of South African universities in their local towns and cities. But what should that role be? Is there evidence that this is already occurring in South Africa, despite the lack of a national policy framework? What plans and programmes are in place, and what is needed to expand the development agency of universities at the local level? Who and what might be involved? Where should the focus lie, and who might benefit most? This book poses some of these questions as it considers the experiences of a number of South African universities, including Wits, Pretoria, Nelson Mandela University and Fort Hare.

Publisher: African Minds Publishers, South Africa, 2018

To Swim with Crocodiles: Land, Violence, and Belonging in South Africa, 1800-1996

‫مسابحة التماسيح: تأملات في قضايا الأرض والعنف والانتماء الثقافي في جنوب أفريقيا،]

1800–1996]

Author:Jill Kelly

Jill Kelly’s book is a history of ukukhonza, a practice of affiliation that bound together chiefs and subjects to enable security in the Table Mountain region of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. Kelly argues ukukhonza can be used as a “lens” to explore the history of the relationship between chief, subject, and land. By examining that history in the longue durée of the last two centuries, Kelly reveals the origins and evolution of violence and conflict that saw its peak during the civil war within the KwaZulu Bantustan during the waning years of apartheid in the 1980s. By connecting these issues with the larger evolution of apartheid and traditional ruler-ship in the country, Kelly solidifies KwaZulu-Natal as a relevant and critical region to our understanding of the history of South Africa.

Publisher:Michigan State University Press, 2018

The Education of Children Entangled in Khat trade in Ethiopia: The Case of Two Khat Market Centers

[‫ترشيد الأطفال المتورطين في تجارة القات في إثيوبيا: حالة دراسية لسوقين من أسواق القات]

Author: Girma Negash

In Ethiopia, khat cultivation is expanding aggressively in recent years. Regions that were formerly known for coffee production have become major khat producing areas. In equal proportion, the habit of khat chewing is expanding at an alarming rate among different social groups irrespective of gender, age, religion and ethnicity. Khat has also become one of the leading export commodities and foreign currency earners for the country. Correspondingly, the khat marketing system has evolved tremendously all along the value chain and has become a means of livelihood for many people. School-age children, as young as 8 years, are involved in khat trading and marketing activities. Based on empirical data collected from two khat marketing centers, Aweday and Wondo Genet, this monograph explores the impact of children’s involvement in khat trading activities on their schooling. The study also investigates the major causes for an engagement of young people in khat marketing activities and probes the nature and magnitude of other possible adverse effects, such as developing the habit of khat chewing.

Publisher: Forum for Social Studies, Ethiopia

A Cradle of the Revolution: Voices from Inyathi School Matabeleland, Zimbabwe 1914-1980

[‫مهدالثورات: أصواتمنمدرسةأنياتيفيماتابيليلندفيزيمبابوي، 1914-1980]

Author (Editor): Pathisa Nyathi, Marieke Clarke

A Cradle of the Revolution is a compelling collection of stories by former Inyathi School students in the period before Zimbabwean independence. The stories render moving accounts of evictions in the colonial period, conditions at Inyathi school, and in particular the leadership qualities of Kenneth Maltus Smith, who was the school head. After leaving Inyathi school, many of the students participated in the struggle for independence. The book is an expose of the colonial conditions and efforts to dislodge colonialists and usher in independence and dignity for the black majority.

Publisher: AmaGugu Publishers, Zimbabwe

Chinese and African Entrepreneurs Social Impacts of Interpersonal Encounters

[‫رجالالأعمالالصينيينوالأفريقيين: دراسةلواقعالتأثيرالاجتماعي فيالعلاقاتالشخصية]

Author (Editors): Karsten Giese and Laurence Marfaing

This book offers in-depth accounts of encounters between Chinese and African social and economic actors that have been increasing rapidly since the early 2000s. With a clear focus on social changes, be it quotidian behavior or specific practices, the authors employ multi-disciplinary approaches in analyzing the various impacts that the intensifying interaction between Chinese and Africans in their roles as ethnic and cultural others, entrepreneurial migrants, traders, and employers. Further, the author analysis the effects these relationships have on local developments and transformations within the host societies, be they on the African continent or in China. The dynamics of social change addressed in case studies cover processes of social mobility through migration, adaptation of business practices, changing social norms, consumption patterns, labor relations and mutual perceptions, cultural brokerage, exclusion and inclusion, gendered experiences, and powerful imaginations of China. Contributors are Karsten Giese, Guive Khan Mohammad, Katy Lam, Ben Lampert, Kelly Si Miao Liang, Laurence Marfaing, Gordon Mathews, Giles Mohan, Amy Niang, Yoon Jung Park, Alena Thiel, Naima Topkiran.

Publisher: Brill Publications, 2018.

‫

Gender and Fundamentalisms

[‫الجنسوالتطرف]

Author: Fatou Sow

When, why and how can religion and culture be both sources and places of expression for fundamentalism? Those are central questions raised throughout this book, asked particularly in the political context. What is at stake here is religion when it underpins culture and becomes a political tool to access moral and social power. Cultural and religious messages and their interpretations often underlie decisions, laws and programs made by politics. They have direct effect on society, in general, and on women and gender relations in particular. The various forms of fundamentalism in some African countries, the contexts of their emergence and the ways they (re)shape identities and relationships between men and women are also analyzed in this book. These fundamentalisms are sources of persistent concerns in social debates, in feminist and feminine organizations as well as in academia and politics. The manipulations of cultures and religions are progressively political and consequently cause social discriminations, or physical, moral and symbolic violence.

Publisher: CODESRIA, Dakar, 2018

Bird-Monk Seding

[‫طيور الرهبة في منطقة سيدينغ]

Author: Lesego Rampolokeng

Lesego Rampolokeng’s third novel Bird-Monk Seding was shortlisted for the prestigious Sunday Times Barry Ronge Fiction Prize in 2018. This place is called Seding, short for Leseding, place of light. Bird-Monk Seding is a stark picture of life in a rural township two decades into South Africa’s democracy. Listening and observing in the streets and taverns, Bavino Sekete is thrown back to his own violent childhood in Soweto. To get through, he turns to his pantheon of jazz innovators and radical writers.

Publication: Deep South, South Africa

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Research Africa (research_africa-editor@duke.edu) welcomes submissions of books, events, funding opportunities, and more to be included in the next edition.

Announcements
Call for Applications: The Yale Young African Scholars Program (YYAS) 2019
The Yale Young African Scholars Program is designed for African secondary school students who wish to pursue tertiary education and make meaningful impact as young leaders on the continent. The application is currently open for interested students. Please note there is no cost to apply for or participate in YYAS.
Deadline: February 6, 2019 at 11:59pm EST
Visit this link for more information:
https://africanscholars.yale.edu/admissions
News and Issues
Is living in African cities expensive?
By Shohei Nakamura, Rawaa Harati, Somik V. Lall, Yuri M. Dikhanov, Nada Hamadeh, William Vigil Oliver, Sep 27, 2018
Although several studies have examined why overall price levels are higher in richer countries, little is known about whether there is a similar relationship at the urban and city level across countries. This paper compares the price levels of cities in Sub-Saharan Africa with those of other regions by analyzing price information and official purchasing power parities. This paper seeks to readjust the approach to calculated price levels from national to urban levels, using known price-level ratios between those areas. The results indicate that African cities are relatively more expensive, despite having lower income levels.
Read the story in this link:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13504851.2018.1527441?scroll=top&needAccess=true
Museum of Black Civilisations aims to ‘decolonise knowledge’
By Amandla Thomas-Johnson, Dec 5, 2018
In April 1966, Senegal’s first president and a poet, Leopold Sedar Senghor ascended the steps of the National Assembly in Dakar to declare his country the temporary capital of Black Civilisation at the launch of the World Festival of Black Arts.In the following weeks, African luminaries such as Nelson Mandela and writer Wole Soyinka would converge on the Senegalese capital, as would others from the wider African diaspora: Jazz great Duke Ellington, the Martiniquan poet Aime Cesaire, Barbadian novelist George Lamming and American writers Langston Hughes and Amiri Baraka. Now, plans for a large museum to open in Dakar have begun, 52 years after Senegal’s first president presented a post-colonial cultural vision for the country.
Read the story in this link:
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/museum-black-civilisations-aims-decolonise-knowledge-181204221519936.html?fbclid=IwAR3_FLQ2zd3eM–BKZg3Gc-XRUgVo5eF5rPzzymqKICXgDfVE3Mu513RPUI
Rwanda: A Poster Child for Development with a Dark Side
By Gabriele Steinhauser, Nov 6, 2018
Seen from the concrete blocks marking the graves of some 250,000 victims of the 1994 genocide, the glistening skyline in the capital of this East African nation is the most obvious sign of the grand experiment taking place here. A quarter century after the mass slaughter of as much as 15% of its population, Rwanda has been hailed as a homegrown model of African development and its iron-fisted president, Paul Kagame, is a favorite at international business conferences such as the World Economic Forum.
Read the story in this link:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/rwanda-a-poster-child-for-development-with-a-dark-side-1541500201
For South Sudan, It’s Not So Easy to Declare Independence from Arabic
By Laura Kasinof, Nov 14, 2018
When South Sudan declared independence in 2011, breaking away from Republic of Sudan to become the world’s newest country, all facets of state-building had to be finalized: ratifying a new constitution, printing money, and distributing passports. Among these tasks was the issue of language. South Sudan is a diverse country with a population of around 13 million with some 60 languages spoken by the dozens of ethnic groups present. The majority of South Sudanese also speak what is known as Juba Arabic, a dialect far removed from standardized Arabic and named for the South Sudanese capital. But Arabic was also the language of the Sudanese government in Khartoum, which the South Sudanese viewed as their longtime colonizer.
Read the story in this link:
For South Sudan, It’s Not So Easy to Declare Independence From Arabic
A New Report on the Status of African Objects in French Museums will Urge the President to Return Works Taken “Without Consent” in the Colonial Period
By Vincent Noce, Nov 20, 2018
A report commissioned by French President Emmanuel Macron will recommend the full restitution by French museums of works in their collections which were taken “without consent” from former African colonies.The French historian Bénédicte Savoy and the Senegalese economist and writer Felwine Sarr presented their 108-page study to President Macron Friday, 23 November. In their paper, they argue that the complete transfer of property back to Africa, not the long-term loan of objects to African museums, should be the general rule for works taken in the colonial period unless it can be proven that these objects were acquired “legitimately.”
Read the story in this link:
https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/give-africa-its-art-back-macron-s-report-says?fbclid=IwAR1bMBubxnwSg_ILVWp5rVr2Jr8jtW9nzZ2CvUmGlZCVtTNK2xkqOnT7TsI
Mandinka Ajami and Arabic Manuscripts of Casamance, Senegal
By Jody Butterworth, Nov 14, 2018
This blog is written by Eleni Castro, OpenBU & ETD Program Librarian at Boston University as well as Project Technical Lead for EAP1042. This October, a poster entitled, “Digital Preservation of Mandinka Ajami Materials of Senegal” was presented at FORCE2018. This is an annual conference in Montreal, Canada centered on making research and scholarship more broadly and openly available. This poster provided a project overview and update on the work being done for EAP 1042 – an international research collaboration between Boston University, the West African Research Center, and local experts in Senegal. The project involves visiting manuscript owners in the Casamance region of Senegal to work with them to digitally preserve and increase access to manuscripts written in Arabic and Mandinka Ajami (Mandinka using Arabic script) from their personal libraries.
Read the story in this link:
https://blogs.bl.uk/endangeredarchives/2018/11/mandinka-ajami-arabic-manuscripts-casamance-senegal.html
NEW BOOKS ‫كتب جديدة
The Anglophone Literary-linguistic Continuum: English and Indigenous Languages in African Literary Discourse
‫أزمةاللغوياتفيالأدبالأنكلفوني: دراسيةلحالةاللغةالانجليزيةمقابل اللغاتالمحلية]
‫الأفريقيةفيجدلياتالأدبالأفريقي]
Author: Michael Andindilile
This book interrogates Obi Wali’s (1963) prophecy that continued use of former colonial languages in the production of African literature could only lead to ‘sterility’, as African literature can only be written in indigenous African languages. In doing so, Andindilile critically examines selected novels of Achebe of Nigeria, Ngũgĩ of Kenya, Gordimer of South Africa and Farah of Somalia. He shows that when we pay close attention to what these authors represent about their African societies and the way they integrate African languages, values, beliefs and cultures, we discover what constitutes the Anglophone African literary–linguistic continuum. This continuum can be defined as variations in the literary usage of English in African literary discourse, with the language serving as the base to which writers add variations inspired by indigenous languages, beliefs, cultures, or nation-specific experiences.
Publisher: NISC (Pty) Ltd, South Africa, 2018
Ruling Nature, Controlling People: Nature Conservation, Development and War in North-Eastern Namibia since the 1920s
[‫تعمير الطبيعةوالسيطرةعلىالناس: مسائلحولالحفاظعلىالطبيعةوالتنميةوالحربفيشمالشرقناميبيامنذ 1920]
Author: Luregn Lenggenhager
Recent nature conservation initiatives in Southern Africa such as communal conservancies and peace parks are often embedded in narratives of economic development and ecological research. They are also increasingly marked by militarization and violence. In Ruling Nature, Controlling People, Luregn Lenggenhager shows that these features were also characteristic of South African rule over the Caprivi Strip region in North-Eastern Namibia, especially in the fields of forestry, fisheries, and ultimately wildlife conservation. In the process, the increasingly internationalized war in the region from the late 1960s until Namibia’s independence in 1990 became intricately interlinked with contemporary nature conservation, ecology and economic development projects.By retracing such interdependencies, Lenggenhager provides a novel perspective from which to examine the history of a region which has until now barely entered the focus of historical research. He thereby highlights the enduring relevance of the supposedly peripheral Caprivi and its military, scientific, and environmental histories in an effort to develop a deeper understanding of the ways in which apartheid South Africa exerted state power.
Publisher: Basler Afrika Bibliographien, Namibia, 2018
Coming of Age: An Introduction to Somali Metrics
[‫عتبةالنضوج: مقدمةفيأوزانالشعرالصومالي]
Author: Farah Gamute
In this well researched study, Farah Gamuute reveals the various uses of the metrical unit in Somali poetry and how the metrical unit, music and the language interact with one another. 64 genres of poetry or measures were identified and fully analyzed in this text. Still, the variations in genres is being explored and researched. In fact, three new genres of Somali poetry have been identified while awaiting the publication of this volume.
Publisher: Ponte Invisible (Redsea Cultural Foundation), Somaliland, 2018
African Countries and the Global Scramble for China
[‫الدولالافريقيةوالتهافتالعالميتجاهالصين]
Author: Ngonlardje Kabra Mbaidjol
In this book on Africa-China relations, Ngonlardje Kabra Mbaidjol engages in the heated debate on African cooperation with China, an increasingly rich and powerful partner in the continent. The current dominant view highlights the neo-colonial and exploitative nature of these relations with a denial of any positive results from Chinese influence for African people. However, the China-Africa partnership dates back to the 1955 Bandung Conference and has become an overt competition between China and other nations over African resources. For many, “a new scramble for Africa” emerges, yet the author argues there is rather a “global scramble for China.” Africa may wish to avoid being distracted by rival voices, but developing a strategy to – the competition may serve the interests of African people. Mbaidjol’s book unpacks Africa’s preparedness and strategy to face global competition.
Publisher: Brill Publications, 2018
‫
Belt and Road Initiative: Alternative Development Path for Africa
[‫مبادرةالحزاموالطريقالصينية: خياراتالتنميةالبديلةلأفريقيا]
Author: Thokozani Simelane and Lavhelesani R. Managa
China’s emphasis on infrastructure development has received support from African leaders; the Memorandum of Understanding between China and the African Union formalized on January 27, 2015 endorsed China’s focus on infrastructure in Africa. The agreement outlines plans for connecting African countries through transportation projects including modern highways, airports, and high speed railways. At the heart of the “Belt and Road Initiative” lies the creation of an economic land belt that includes countries on the original Silk Road through Central Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Additionally, the agreement includes designs for a maritime “road” that links China’s port facilities with the African coast, pushing up through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean. From the outset, China has emphasized the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, citing five principles essential for its development: mutual respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty, non-aggression, non-interference in internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence. This volume provides an analysis of this stance by both African and Chinese scholars.
Publisher: Africa Institute of South Africa, South Africa, 2018
None Like Us: Blackness, Belonging, Aesthetic Life
[‫لاشيءمثلنا: السواد،والانتماءالثقافيوالجماليات]
Author: Stephen Best
It passes for an unassailable truth that the slave past provides an explanatory prism for understanding the black political present. In None Like Us, Stephen Best reappraises what he calls “melancholy historicism,” a kind of crime scene investigation in which the forensic imagination is directed toward the recovery of a “we” at the point of “our” violent origin. Best argues that there is and can be no “we” following from such a time and place, that black identity is constituted in and through negation. This stance is inspired by David Walker’s prayer that “none like us may ever live again until time shall be no more.” Best draws out the connections between a sense of impossible black sociality and strains of negativity that have operated under the sign of queer. In None Like Us, the art of El Anatsui and Mark Bradford with the literature of Toni Morrison and Gwendolyn Brooks evidence an apocalyptic aesthetic, or self-eclipse, which opens the circuits between past and present, thus charting a queer future for black study.
Publisher: Duke University Press, 2018.
——– ———— ———–
Research Africa (research_africa-editor@duke.edu) welcomes submissions of books, events, funding opportunities, and more to be included in the next edition.

News and Issues
A House for Mr. Soyinka
By Kola Tuboson, Aug 24, 2018
Wọlé Ṣóyínká is a prominent travel writer, and his memoirs have always been in motion. When an old woman recognized him behind the wheel and flagged us down, Wọlé Ṣóyínká interrupted our conversation. He knew her too, it seemed, having seen her in the area before. “I’m hungry,” the woman said, in Yorùbá. “I’m a relative of…” a name I no longer remember. “Please help me.”
“Come and see me at home,” the professor said, in Yorùbá. “I don’t have anything with me here.”
Read the report in this RA link:

A House for Mr. Soyinka

A House for Mr. Soyinka – Popula
popula.com
Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún is a Nigerian linguist, Fulbright Scholar, and travel writer. His words have been published in Aké Review, AfricanWriter.com, Brittle Paper, International Literary Quarterly, KTravula.com, Saraba Magazine, among others.

How Rwanda’s Capital Became an African Tech Leader
By Ephram Livni, July 27, 2018
Kigali’s knowledge-based sharing economy is an example for other cities looking towards the future. In 1994, the African nation of Rwanda suffered one of the worst genocides in human history. Over the course of 100 days, its government slaughtered one-tenth of the country’s population and displaced more than 2 million people, turning them into refugees with little hope for the future. But even before the genocide, Rwanda was a country in crisis; the ongoing civil war had destroyed its already fragile economy, severely impoverished its citizens, and made it impossible to attract external investment.
Read the story in this link:
https://qz.com/1336596/the-senegalese-sufi-saint-who-inspired-a-banking-system-based-on-generosity/

In Remembrance of The Battle of Omdurman
By Knight of the White Elephant of Burmah William McGonagall
Ye Sons of Great Britain! come join with me
And sing in praise of the gallant British Armie,
That behaved right manfully in the Soudan,
At the great battle of Omdurman.

’Twas in the year of 1898, and on the 2nd of September,
Which the Khalifa and his surviving followers will long remember,
Because Sir Herbert Kitchener has annihilated them outright,
By the British troops and Soudanese in the Omdurman fight.

The Sirdar and his Army left the camp in grand array,
And marched on to Omdurman without delay,
Just as the brigades had reached the crest adjoining the Nile,
And became engaged with the enemy in military style.
Read the story in this link:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45819/the-battle-of-omdurman

Cheikh Hamidou Kane: L’Afrique n’existe plus, elle a été dépossédée de son espace
Par Coumbe Kane, 31.08.2018
L’auteur sénégalais de « L’Aventure ambiguë », 90 ans, revient sur l’histoire contemporaine du continent, marquée par des questionnements et des tourments identitaires.
C’est l’un des paradoxes de Cheikh Hamidou Kane. En cinquante-sept ans de carrière, l’écrivain sénégalais n’a publié que deux romans – L’Aventure ambiguë, en 1961, et Les Gardiens du temple, en 1995 –, devenus des classiques, traduits dans une dizaine de langues et inscrits au programme de nombreuses écoles et universités. Ils relatent le malaise des élites africaines désorientées par la colonisation française. Né en 1928 à Matam, sur les bords du fleuve Sénégal, Cheikh Hamidou Kane a traversé l’histoire contemporaine du continent, marquée par des questionnements et des tourments identitaires.
Read the story in this link:
https://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2018/08/31/cheikh-hamidou-kane-l-afrique-n-existe-plus-elle-a-ete-depossedee-de-son-espace_5348682_3212.html
Cheikh Hamidou Kane : « L’Afrique n’existe plus, elle a été dépossédée de son espace »
www.lemonde.fr
L’auteur sénégalais de « L’Aventure ambiguë », 90 ans, revient sur l’histoire contemporaine du continent, marquée par des questionnements et des tourments …

3 Myths about China’s investment in Africa and why they need to be dispelled
By The Atlantic Council, Sept 4, 2018
On September 3 and 4, Chinese President Xi Jinping hosted the 7th Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in Beijing. Happening every three years, past FOCAC’s have been used as a platform by Xi to announce new Chinese commitments to deepen economic links with the continent — in 2015, President Xi pledged $60 billion in aid and financing, and he has already recommitted the same amount again this year. Dozens of African leaders have made the trip to Beijing, with the aim of bolstering political and commercial ties with China. FOCAC, coupled with Xi’s trip to the continent in July 2018, is thrusting the question of how the United States should compete with China in African markets back in the spotlight.
Read the story in this link:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/09/three-myths-about-chinas-investment-in-africa-and-why-they-need-to-be-dispelled/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook
3 myths about China’s investment in Africa and why they need to be dispelled
www.weforum.org
There are three common misconceptions about China’s involvement in Africa, writes Aubrey Hruby, of the Atlantic Council. Debunking these myths will foster a more constructive understanding of Beijing’s interactions with the continent.

NEW BOOKS ‫كتب جديدة

Phantom Africa: A Conversation with the Translator, Brent Hayes Edwards
[شبح أفريقيا: حوار مع مترجم الكتاب ، برنت هايز إدواردوز]
Author: Michel Leiris
Between 1931 and 1933, French writer Michel Leiris participated in a state-sponsored expedition to document the cultural practices of people in west and east Africa. The Mission Dakar-Djibouti employed some questionable, unethical methods to dispossess African communities of their cultural and religious artifacts and artwork. In his capacity as secretary-archivist, Leiris recorded the events, actions and observations of the mission in great detail in a daily journal that would become L’Afrique fantome. Leiris was both critical of and complicit in the exploitative encounter between French ethnographers and the colonized people they sought to study. His journal reveals the tensions between Europe’s claims about the superiority of its civilization and the violence and barbarity of colonialism on the ground. It also bears witness to the process by which some of the holdings in the Quai Branly museum in Paris today, were taken as booty (or in Leiris’ words, “butin”) from the African continent in the early twentieth century. Brent Edward’s Phantom Africa makes L’Afrique fantome available to English-speaking readers in its entirety for the first time.
Publisher: Seagull Books 2017

Electricity in Africa: The Politics of Transformation in Uganda
[الكهرباء في أفريقيا: سياسة التسييد و البناء في أوغندا]
Author: Christopher Gore
No country has managed to develop beyond a subsistent economy without ensuring at least minimum access to electricity for the majority of its population. Yet many sub-Saharan African countries struggle to meet demand. Why is this, and what can be done to reduce energy poverty and further Africa’s development? Examining the politics and processes surrounding electricity infrastructure, provision and reform, the author provides an overview of historical and contemporary debates about access in the sub-continent. Additionally, he explores the shifting role and influence of national governments and of multilateral agencies in energy reform decisions. He describes a challenging political environment for electricity supply, with African governments becoming increasingly frustrated with the rules and the processes of multilateral donors. As civil society began to question reform choices and governments looked to new development partners, a new path of energy transformation was chartered.
Publisher: James Currey, 2017

The Weeping Time Memory and the Largest Slave Auction in American History
[في ذاكرة الزمن المبكي: ذكرى أكبر مزاد للعبيد في التاريخ الأمريكي]
Author: Anne C. Bailey
Anne C. Bailey tells the story of the largest slave auction in U.S. history. In March 1859, the Butler Plantation estates in Georgia sold approximately 400 enslaved persons in a two-day period. Bailey reveals the stories of enslaved people before and after their sale at the auction, offering a gripping narrative of the event and the people involved. Through the use of oral histories, journalistic accounts of the auction, and the papers of the Butler family, Bailey pushes readers to think about how the traditional historical narrative treats slavery, specifically by considering slavery’s ongoing impact on modern-day descendants and their families.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2017

Khartoum at Night: Fashion and Body Politics in Imperial Sudan
[ليالي الخرطوم: سياسة المظهر والجسد ابان الحكم الإمبراطوري البريطاني في السودان]
Author: Marie Grace Brown
Marie Grace Brown’s Khartoum at Night: Fashion and Body Politics in Imperial Sudan is in many ways a history of fashion in Sudan, but more importantly is the story of women in Sudan: a story of their bodies and movement. Brown weaves together women’s education, health, and activism through use of the tobe, a popular, modest form of dress that wraps around a woman’s head and body. She reads textiles like texts and challenges us to both read existing primary sources differently and seek out new primary sources. Khartoum at Night shows us how the centrality of the tobe shaped everyday life, and how the tobe itself was shaped by continuity and rupture in Sudanese society. The story produced gives agency to its actors and ultimately tells the account of imperial Sudan.
Publisher: Stanford University Press, 2017

Problematizing the Foreign Shop: Justifications for Restricting the Migrant Spaza Sector in South Africa
[إشكالية متجر الأجنبي: نحو تقييد الأنشطة التجارية للمهاجرين في جنوب إفريقيا]
Author: Vanya Gastrow
Small businesses owned by international migrants and refugees are often the target of xenophobic hostility and attack in South Africa. This report examines the problematization of migrant-owned businesses in South Africa, and the regulatory efforts aimed at curtailing their economic activities. In so doing, it sheds light on the complex ways in which xenophobic fears are generated and manifested in the country’s social, legal and political orders. Efforts to curb migrant spaza shops in South Africa have included informal trade agreements at local levels, fining migrant shops, and legislation that prohibits asylum seekers from operating businesses in the country. Several of these interventions have overlooked the content of local by-laws and outed legal frameworks. The report concludes that when South African township residents attack migrant spaza shops, they are expressing their dissatisfaction with their socio-economic conditions to an apprehensive state and political leadership. In response, governance actors turn on migrant shops to demonstrate their allegiance to these residents, to appease South African spaza shopkeepers, and to tacitly blame socio-economic malaise on perceived foreign forces. Overall, these actors do not have spaza shops primarily in mind when calling for the stricter regulation of these businesses. Instead, they are concerned about the volatile support of their key political constituencies and how this backing can be undermined or generated by the symbolic gesture of regulating the foreign shop.
السلوك التصويتي للدول الافريقية في الأمم المتحدة إزاء المسألة العراقية منذ انتهاء الحرب الباردة
[The Voting Behavior of African States at the United Nations on the Iraqi Issue Since the End of the Cold War]
Author: محمد فاضل نعمة/Muhammad Fadil Na’mah
The four main chapters of the book examine the history and trajectory of the relationship between the state of Iraqi and African countries as represented at UN. This framing was divided into stages: the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, and during the American invasion from 2003-14. Within these stages, the author explores the concept of voting at the UN: its meaning, implications and significance to regional and global organizations. The UN Security Council’s resolutions toward Iraq comprise of the bulk of the author’s discussion. Throughout the book, an analysis of African voting trends toward issues related to Iraq are presented; these issues range from human rights matters to US/UN sanctions. In the final part of this book, the author calls for a restructuring of the relationship between African states and Iraq, focusing on the need to coordinate and collaborate in a common platform.
Publisher: Iraqi-African Center for Strategic Studies, 2018

——– ———— ———–
Research Africa (research_africa-editor@duke.edu) welcomes submissions of books, events, funding opportunities, and more to be included in the next edition.

News and Issues
The Danger of a Better Behaved Boko Haram
By Idayat Hussan, August 21, 2018
Boko Haram, the Nigerian jihadist group infamous for its bombings and abductions, is undergoing something of a makeover. A key faction that has the backing of so-called Islamic State has renounced its old blood-soaked ways and is trying instead to win hearts and minds in a new strategic twist to a nine-year insurgency that has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions.
Read the story in this link:
http://www.irinnews.org/opinion/2018/08/21/opinion-nigeria-militancy-peace-boko-haram

How Les Filles de Illighadad is Revolutionizing Traditional Tuareg Music
By Cynthia Schemer (Translation by Ahmoudou Madassane and Christopher Kirkley), February 17, 2017
The Tuareg society, a nomadic people living throughout the Sahara, are known for their tende—a style of music and the mortar drum played—and their traditional folk guitar playing. Tuareg guitar has gained notoriety locally in the Sahara and internationally due in part to Tinariwen, a band from Mali that won a Grammy Award for Best World Music Album for their 2011 release, Tassili.
Read the story in this link:

How Les Filles de Illighadad is Revolutionizing Traditional Tuareg Music

How a Senegalese princess sold into slavery in the 1700s became a wealthy plantation owner in Florida
By Elizabeth Ofosuah Johnson, September 26, 2018
In many African traditional cultures, it is believed that an African never strays too far from home. If he or she does, it is assumed the African will surely find his or her way back either in the world of the living or the dead. This notion is the reason why the rites of passage are taken very seriously in African traditional settings and why during the slave trade, many traditional ceremonies were performed to bid farewell to the captured Africans, giving them strength until they make it back home again.
Princess Anta Madjiguene Ndiaye was captured in her Senegalese kingdom and sold into slavery, and it took more than two centuries for her people to relocate her and welcome her spirit back home through grand celebrations in 2018.
Read the story in this link:https://face2faceafrica.com/article/how-a-senegalese-princess-sold-into-slavery-in-the-1700s-became-a-wealthy-plantation-owner-in-florida

The Book That Shook France’s African Colonial Empire
By Charu Sudan Kasturi, September, 13th, 2018
The first book by a Black author to win France’s most prestigious literary prize also forced the country to confront its brutal colonial record. After over six rounds of voting, the Académie Goncourt in Paris still couldn’t decide the best French novel of 1921. Then, on December 14th, a deciding vote cast by the organization’s president broke the deadlock and shook the Francophone world: The Prix Goncourt, France’s top literary award, had gone to René Maran. Maran was a French Guyanese colonial administrator in Ubangui-Shari (what is today the Central African Republic). He was the first Black author to be win the then-18-year-old award. But as civil rights and anti-colonial movements were stirring, it was the content of Maran’s novel that truly set off tremors on both sides of the Atlantic.
Read the story in this link:
https://www.ozy.com/flashback/the-book-that-shook-frances-african-colonial-empire/88593

Things Fall Apart turns 60
By Idowu Omoyele: October, 5th 2018
Sixty years ago, 27-year-old Chinua Achebe initiated a publishing sensation when London-based William Heinemann printed 2000 hardback copies of his debut novel, Things Fall Apart. Albert Chinualumogu Achebe, born in eastern Nigeria, was a member of the first set of students admitted to the University College in Ibadan when it was founded in 1948. Although he was supposed to study medicine on scholarship, he graduated with a BA degree in English, history and religious studies in 1953. Achebe began working at the Nigerian Broadcasting Service (NBS) in Lagos in 1954 and travelled out of Nigeria for the first time in 1956, when he flew to England on a scholarship to attend a course in radio production at the BBC Staff Training School.
Read the story in this link:
https://mg.co.za/article/2018-10-05-00-things-fall-apart-turns-60#.W7gSLGvTsXc.facebook

Why Infanticide Is A Problem In Senegal
By Allyn Gaestel, October 3, 2018
We had to pass two strictly-manned, massive gates to access the inner courtyard of the prison in Thies, the third largest city in Senegal. The women’s ward was off to the right, behind another wall and another smaller gate. It was like a small house, a cramped concrete structure without cells or bars. On the ground, mattresses were pressed against each other, blanketing the concrete floor. Women sat languidly on them or clustered in the courtyard outside.
Read the story in this link:
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/10/03/631892291/why-infanticide-is-a-problem-in-senegal

NEW BOOKS ‫كتب جديدة
Dani Nabudere’s Afrikology: A Quest for African Holism
[كتاب داني نابوداري عن الأفريكولوجيا: نحو سعي حثيث لفهم الشمولية الأفريقية]
Author: Sanya Osha
This publication is comprised of a diverse set of works on various aspects of African culture, politics, and philosophy. Toward the end of his life, Dani Nabudere formulated a theoretical construct that he termed “Afrikology.” Unlike most other Afrocentrists, who have stopped with the task of proving the primacy of the Egyptian past and its numerous cultural and scientific achievements, Nabudere strenuously attempts to connect that illustrious heritage with the African present. This, remarkably, is what makes his project worthy of careful attention. His corpus is multidisciplinary, although a major preoccupation with Africa is discernible in virtually all his works. His writings deal with critiques of imperialism, African political systems, processes of globalization and Africa’s location within them, and the ideological and existential imperatives of Afrocentric discourse.
Publisher: CODESRIA, Senegal, 2018

Postcolonial Paris: Fictions of Intimacy in the City of Light
[باريس فيما بعد الاستعمار: أوهام التآلف في مدينة الانوار]
Author: Laila Amine
This book shows that space and place are anything but stable. Amine focuses on the literal margins of Paris, and on the literary and artistic works that are produced in or about those margins. Rather than reproduce the well-worn trope of the banlieue, the outskirts of Paris, as a tragic space whose inhabitants are unable to integrate so-called French values, Amine carefully examines the work of writers and artists who have engaged with the space and have produced pointed critiques of structural inequality and the legacy of colonialism that calls into question traditional French narratives of cultural and religious alterity.
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press, 2018

Transitional Justice in Africa Aspects of the Dismantling of Systems of Authoritarian Study of Truth Commissions Experiences: Achievements And Challenges
[العدالة الانتقالية في أفريقيا مظاهر تفكيك الأنظمة السلطوية دراسة في تجارب لجان الحقيقة : مكتسبات وتحديات]
Author: Edited by Democratic Arab Center
The aim of this edited volume is to create an encyclopedia-style book on African transitional justice models. Through studying transitional justice experiences in Africa and measuring the extent to which grievances were experienced during conflicts, readers can better understand how conflicts and civil wars have been reduced without the boldest transitional justice mechanisms in Africa. This volume brings together academic experiences and various specialized researchers who are knowledgeable about international changes. Further, it examines ways to improve academic knowledge on research regarding African transitional justice.
Publisher: Democratic Arab Center, Germany, 2018

The Corner’s Wife Poems in Translation
[قرينة الزاوية: قصائد في الترجمة]
Author: Joan Hambidge
Joan Hambidge has published over 25 collections of poetry. Her work uses poetry to dissect, examine, and recompose the material of her own life and work to explore ideas and issues central to our understanding of language and meaning. The poems selected for translation in this compilation offer insights into her views across distinct phenomenon: city life, love, family, time, and eternity. The Coroner’s Wife offers English readers the unique opportunity to experience a prolific and renowned Afrikaan poet in her/his own language. Translations have been sensively rendered by well-known poets, Charl JF Cilliers, Johann de Lange, Jo Nel and Douglas Reid Skinner.
Publisher: Dryad Press, South Africa, 2018

Julius Nyerere
[جوليوس نيريري]
Author: Paul Bjerk
Based on multinational archival research and interviews with Nyerere’s family and colleagues, Paul Bjerk provides an incisive and accessible biography of African leader Julius Nyerere. Recognizing Nyerere’s commitment to participatory government and social equality while also confronting his authoritarian turns and policy failures, Bjerk offers a portrait of principled leadership under the difficult circumstances of postcolonial Africa.
Publisher: Ohio University Press, 2017

Of Bushmen and Work: Models, Modelling and Illusions
[من طبائع الادغال والعمل: تأملات في النماذج والتماذج والأوهام]
Author: Dafe Otobo
This book contains the 9th Inaugural Lecture Series of the University of Lagos, Nigeria delivered by Dafe Otobo on July 4th, 2018. According to Professor Otobo, “this is a small part in the on-going attempt at placing state policies, organizational, managerial and workers practices in Nigeria, if not Africa and elsewhere, into truer perspective.” In discussing topics such as trade unionism and developments in Nigeria, the lecture is a thought-provoking and thorough critique of prominent theories on labor and employment relations.
Publisher: Malthouse Press, Nigeria, 2018

Decolonising Colonial Education: Doing Away with Relics and Toxicity Embedded in the Racist Dominant Grand Narrative.
[تحريرالتعليم من ربق الاستعمار: كيف نتحرر من الآثار السامة المنبطحة في الأكذوبة الكبرى التي خلفها الاستعمار]
Author: Nkwazi Nkuzi Mhango
This book, Decolonising Education Chastises, invites academics to seriously commence academic and intellectual manumission by challenging the toxic Western dominant Grand Narrative that embeds, espouses and superimposes itself on others. It compels African scholars in particular to unite and address the legacies of colonialism by confronting the hegemonic dominance, along with the lies and myths that have caused many conflicts in world history. Such a toxic system founded on problematic experiments and theories has tended to license unsubstantiated views and stereotypes of others as intellectually impotent, moribund and of inferior humanity. The book invites academics and intellectuals to commit to a healthy dialogue among the world’s competing traditions of knowledge production in order to construct an inclusive narrative informed by a recognition of a common shared humanity.
Publisher: Langaa RPCIG, Cameroon, 2018

Garbage Citizenship: Vital Infrastructures of Labor in Dakar, Senegal
[مواطنة من القمامة: البنى التحتية والحيوية لقطاع العاملين في داكار ، السنغال]
Author: Rosalind Fredericks
Over the last twenty-five years, garbage infrastructure in Dakar, Senegal has taken center stage in the struggles over government, the value of labor, and the dignity of the working poor. Through strikes and public dumping, Dakar’s streets have been periodically inundated with household garbage as the city’s trash collectors and ordinary residents protest urban austerity. Often drawing on discourses of Islamic piety, garbage activists have provided a powerful language to critique a neoliberal mode of governing-through-disposability and assert rights to fair labor. In Garbage Citizenship, Rosalind Fredericks traces Dakar’s volatile trash politics to recalibrate how we understand urban infrastructure by emphasizing its material, social, and affective elements. She shows how labor is a key component of infrastructural systems and how Dakar’s residents use infrastructures as a vital tool for forging collective identities and mobilizing political action. Fleshing out the materiality of trash and degraded labor, Fredericks illuminates the myriad ways waste can be a potent tool of urban control and rebellion.
Publisher: Duke University Press, 2018

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Research Africa (research_africa-editor@duke.edu) welcomes submissions of books, events, funding opportunities, and more to be included in the next edition.

News and Issues

Does Citizenship Shape Identity? A “Third-Culture” Writer Takes Stock

By Rawiya Kameir, October 19, 2018
When I was a child, my mother liked telling people that I’d learned French in a month flat. It was true: my family had moved to a Francophone country, and a few weeks of playing outside was all it took. But her retellings weren’t simply boasts about her daughter’s abilities; they, like much of my childhood, were proof of just how easily a young brain, not yet calcified with experience and expectation, can adapt. From there, I would learn firsthand that it isn’t just language that can be absorbed.

Read the story in this link:

https://www.vogue.com/article/does-citizenship-shape-identity-vogue-november-2018-issue

The Short yet Inspiring Life of Josina Machel, the Mozambican Heroine who Died Fighting for her Country at 25

By Mweha Msemo, October 28, 2018

Like many other influential women in Africa, not so much is known of Josina Machel, a significant African revolutionary figure and heroine of the struggle for Mozambican national liberation. She boldly wore combat gear and fought in the war of independence as a guerrilla, created orphanages and travelled throughout the country raising awareness of women’s active role in the war.

Read the story in this link:

The short yet inspiring life of Josina Machel, the Mozambican heroine who died fighting for her country at 25

Les migrations actuelles réveillent la question coloniale

Par Alexis Lacroix, le 30 octobre 2018

Échange entre le philosophe africain Souleymane Bachir Diagne et l’historien Benjamin Stora sur la question post-coloniale. A l’heure de la mondialisation, les symétries semblent faciles entre les histoires. Mais le sont-elles réellement ? Ne nécessitent-elles pas, plus que jamais, un effort de traduction ? En effet, les regards croisés entre l’Europe et l’Afrique sont plus complexes qu’on croit. Le Sénégalais Souleymane Bachir Diagne, qui pense l’Afrique sous tous ses aspects, dans sa relation avec l’Europe notamment, et qui vient de publier En quête d’Afrique (s), universalisme et pensée décoloniale, dialogue avec le Français Benjamin Stora, spécialiste de l’histoire du Maghreb et des décolonisations, professeur émérite à Paris 13 et président du Musée de l’Immigration.
Read the story in this link:

https://www.lexpress.fr/culture/les-migrations-actuelles-reveillent-la-question-coloniale_2044964.html?fbclid=IwAR2kUFwqXymko3RGI0T8DEPRCjBDcsVP9pV60sfuUUQM1GAf1wDbc1KZ6ak#atdAuelZTeFuS31K.01

New Books ‫كتب جديدة

Curing Our Ills: The Psychology of Chronic Disease Risk, Experience and Care in Africa

[علاج ما لدينا من العلل: معرفة مخاطر الأمراض المزمنة ، والمآسي والمعاناة في أفريقيا]

Author: Ama de-Graft Aikins

In this inaugural lecture, Professor Ama de-Graft Aikins discusses the psychology of chronic disease risk, experience and care in Africa. She makes a case for why the problem of NCDs needs to be examined through a psychological lens. She draws on her independent and collaborative work on diabetes representations and experiences among Ghanaians in Ghana and Europe to highlight the complex, multi-level context of chronic diseases. She presents a synthesis of her evidence through the concepts of physical ills and ideological ills, arguing that both are interconnected and, as a result, must be addressed through interdisciplinary approaches. She concludes by offering practical solutions for reducing chronic disease risk and improving the quality of long-term experience and care in Ghana, using examples from countries that have implemented successful NCD interventions.

Publisher: Sub-Saharan Publishers, Ghana, 2018

The Blue Economy Handbook of the Indian Ocean Region

[دليل الاقتصاد الأزرق في منطقة المحيط الهندي]

Author (Editor): V.N. Attri and Narnia Bohler-Mulleris

This book is the first of its kind, providing fresh insights into the various aspects and impacts of the Blue Economy in the Indian Ocean Region. The contributions come from a variety of disciplines by scholars and experts from seven countries. From shifting paradigms, to an accounting framework, gender dynamics, the law of the sea and renewable energy, this handbook aims to increase awareness of the Blue Economy in the Indian Ocean Region and to provide evidence to policy-makers in the region to make informed decisions.

Publisher: Africa Institute of South Africa, South Africa, 2018

Colonizing Consent: Rape and Governance in South Africa’s Eastern Cape

[لجم الموافقة: الاغتصاب والحكم في منطقة الكيب الشرقية بجنوب افريقيا]

Author: Elizabeth Thornberry

Elizabeth Thornberry uses historical evidence to shed light on South Africa’s contemporary epidemic of sexual violence. Drawing on over a thousand cases from a diverse set of courts, Thornberry reconstructs the history of rape in South Africa’s Eastern Cape from the precolonial era to the triumph of legal and sexual segregation. She digs deeply into questions of conceptions of sexual consent. Through this process, Thornberry also demonstrates the political stakes of disputes over sexual consent, and the ways in which debates over the regulation of sexuality shaped both white and black politics in this period. From customary authority to missionary Christianity to segregationism, political claims implied theories of sexual consent and enabled the control of female sexuality. The political history of rape illuminates not only South Africa’s contemporary crisis of sexual violence, but the entangled histories of law, sexuality, and politics across the globe.

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2018

Voices From/ From Africa

[أصوات من أفريقيا وعنها]

Author (Editors): The 14th International Symposium on Comparative Literature Committee

This collection of conference papers argues that in an era where technology and social media are claimed to contribute to dissolving boundaries and creating a unified globe, borders continue to exist. Some of these barriers are physical while others are imaginary and psychologically reflected in language, literature, linguistics and the arts. Still, the world is a place where barriers and borders are constructed and reconstructed. Intersections of different kinds of borders, such as those of ethnicity, class, and gender, are among the prominent features of our world as forms of intersectionality. Attempts at crossing existing borders are constantly made: sometimes with great success, other times with utter failure.

Publisher: Department of English Language and Literature, Cairo University, 2018

Work, Social Status, and Gender in Post-slavery Mauritania

[مسائل في العمل و الحالة الاجتماعية، والمساواة بين الجنسين في مرحلة ما بعد العبودية في موريتانيا]

Author: Katherine Ann Wiley

Although slavery was legally abolished in 1981 in Mauritania, its legacy lives on in the political, economic, and social discrimination against ex-slaves and their descendants. Katherine Ann Wiley examines the shifting roles of Muslim Ḥarāṭīn (ex-slaves and their descendants) women, who provide financial support for their families. Wiley uses economic activity as a lens to examine what makes suitable work for women, their trade practices, and how they understand and assert their social positions, social worth, and personal value in their everyday lives. She finds that while genealogy and social hierarchy contributed to status in the past, women today believe that attributes such as wealth, respect, and distance from slavery help to establish social capital. Wiley shows how the legacy of slavery continues to constrain some women even while many of them draw on neoliberal values to connect through kinship, friendship, and professional associations. This powerful ethnography challenges stereotypical views of Muslim women and demonstrates how they work together to navigate social inequality and bring about social change.

Publisher: Indiana University Press, 2018).

The Value of Disorder: Autonomy, Prosperity and Plunder in the Chadian Sahara

[فائدة الفوضى: الحكم الذاتي والرفاهية والتسلط في الصحراء التشادية]

Author: Julien Brachet and Judith Scheele

Despite its central role in the development of Saharan regional connectivity, northern Chad has been closed to researchers since the late 1960s and thus remains virtually unknown to scholarship. Based on long-term fieldwork, The Value of Disorder is an original, in-depth account of the area and its Tubu inhabitants. Julien Brachet and Judith Scheele examine trans-border connectivity and trade, civil war and rebellion, wealth creation, and labour and gender relations. They highlight the aspirations for moral autonomy in northern Chad from an internal point of view: a point of view that in turn participates in a dynamic process of regional interdependence. Vividly ethnographic, the book gives precedence to local categories of value while asking broader questions about the nature of non-state regional political organization. They raise points that inform current political developments in the Saharan region. Certainly, this work has the potential to challenge key concepts in Saharan Studies and the social sciences.

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2018

Contestations islamisées: Le Sénégal entre diplomatie d’influence et islam politique

[نزاعات متأسلمة: السنغال بين النفوذ الدبلوماسي وتأثير الإسلام السياسي]

Language: French

Author : Bakary Sambe

Senegal is experiencing the geopolitical paradox of embodying both the continuum of sub-Saharan depth of the Arab-Muslim world and a traditional strategic partnership with the Western world. Although it has been penetrated by ideological currents that fuel political Islam, Senegal has, however, remained for now, an “island of stability in an ocean of instability.” It is at the center of political and security developments in West Africa and the Sahel, where these same Western powers and Arab-Persian Gulf agents are in an unrestrained quest for oases of influence. In this book, Bakary Sambe gives a detailed analysis of these encounters in a context where the tense security situation, the rise of extremism and the perils linked to transnational terrorism are paradoxically challenging the “secular” states of the region. Through its systematic interdisciplinary approach, this book deciphers the strategies used by Arab and Western countries in leveraging influence over the direction of public policy and diplomacy in Senegal.

Publisher: Editions Afrikana, Canada, 2018.

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Research Africa (research_africa-editor@duke.edu) welcomes submissions of books, events, funding opportunities, and more to be included in the next edition.

News and Issues

1. Africa’s Pulse

Report by the World Bank, 2018

Economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa is estimated to have risen to 2.6 percent in 2017 from the prior growth rate of 1.5 percent in 2016. This upswing reflected rising oil and metal production, recovering commodity prices, and improved agricultural conditions following droughts. Further, on the demand side, growth was supported by a rebound in consumer spending due to subsiding inflation and a recovery in fixed investment with economic activity increasing alongside oil and metals exporters. The featured topic of this issue of “Africa’s Pulse” explores options for accelerating electrification in Sub-Saharan Africa. This report discusses the role of innovation in facilitating such expansion and the implications of achieving rapid electrification for inclusive economic growth and poverty reduction in the region. Countries’ national electrification plans typically have focused on the expansion of the national electricity grid using large-scale fossil fuel and hydroelectric generation facilities. More recently, some grid-scale investments in solar and wind power generation have been made while off-grid solutions have been limited.

Read the report in this link: https://researchafrica.duke.edu/files/2018/05/World-Bank-Africas-pulse.pdf

2. Why Replacing Politicians with Experts is a Reckless Idea

By David Runciman, May 1, 2018

Democracy is tired, vindictive, self-deceiving, paranoid, clumsy and frequently ineffectual. Much of the time it is living on past glories. This sorry state of affairs reflects what we have become. But current democracy is not who we are. It is just a system of government, which we built, and which we could replace. So why don’t we replace it with something better?

Read the story in this link:

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/may/01/why-replacing-politicians-with-experts-is-a-reckless-idea

3. The Last Slave Ship Survivor’s Interview from the 1930s

By Becky Little, May 3, 2018

Roughly 60 years after the abolition of slavery, anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston made an incredible connection. She located the last surviving captive of the last slave ship to bring Africans to the United States. Hurston, a known figure of the Harlem Renaissance who would later write the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, conducted interviews with the survivor. However, she struggled to publish the accounts as a book, given the contexts of the early 1930’s. In fact, her collected interviews are only now being released to the public in a book called Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” which will be released on May 8, 2018.

Read the story in this link:

https://www.history.com/news/zora-neale-hurston-barracoon-slave-clotilda-survivor?utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#link_time=1525373347

4. China is Developing a Media Footprint Across Africa

By Dani Madrid-Morales, April 27, 2018

June 17, 2015 was the date set by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) for countries in Europe, parts of the Middle East, and Africa to finalize the migration from analogue to digital television broadcasts. This date purposefully coincided with the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. The transition from analogue to digital, which optimizes the use of frequencies, has been widely presented as having the potential to diversify the choice of audiences across the continent. Despite the increased use of digital devices to access online media, television remains a staple in media consumption for millions of Africans.

Read the story in this link:

https://africasacountry.com/2018/04/going-out-china-in-african-media?utm_source=ZNewsletter&utm_campaign=0495604167-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_05_02&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1c44d7f0c4-0495604167-250885085&mc_cid=0495604167&mc_eid=6a33a678a6

5. Nigeria Fashion Finds a Market at Home and Abroad

By Hamza Mohamed, May 9, 2018

In Lagos, Nigeria, the roads are empty; the only signs of life are birds chirping and foremen working the courtyards. It is early morning in Lagos’ affluent Lekki area, and a makeup artist is rushing to get Sandra Tubobereni ready for a busy day ahead. Tubo, as she and her clothing line are popularly known, is an up-and-coming designer in Nigeria, and her clothes and fashion services are in high demand. The phone rings constantly in the all-white reception room, and clients sit patiently under a sparkling chandelier, waiting to see the 26-year-old.

Read the story in this link:

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/nigeria-fashion-finds-market-home-180403081205868.html

6. From War Room to Boardroom: Military Firms Flourish in Sisi’s Egypt

By Reuters Staff, May 16, 2018

In the four years since former armed forces Chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi became Egypt’s president, companies owned by the military have become more powerful.

Some Egyptian businessmen and foreign investors say they are unsettled by the military’s push into civilian activities and complain about tax and other advantages granted to military-owned firms. The International Monetary Fund warned that private sector development and job creation “might be hindered by involvement of entities under the Ministry of Defense.” This is a concern given the fact that Egypt’s economy has been struggling ever since the popular uprising that toppled Mubarak in 2011. Notable, Egypt’s crucial tourism industry has been damaged by political instability and Islamist violence.

Read the story in this link:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/egypt-economy-military

NEW BOOKS ‫كتب جديدة

Garfield Todd: The End of the Liberal Dream in Rhodesia

[غارفيلد تود: ونهاية حلم الحكم الليبرالي في روديسيا]

Author: Susan Woodhouse

Prime minister Garfield Todd of Southern Rhodesia developed a reputation outside the country in January 1958 when his Cabinet rebelled against him and resigned. Within the country, the public grappled with how he became Prime Minister in the first place. This book traces the development, triumph, and failure of the man who unexpectedly found himself at the center of political life in Southern Rhodesia during the explosive years of 1953 to 1958. Todd was born in New Zealand and sent to Southern Rhodesia in 1934 by the Churches of Christ to take over their small mission station near Shabani in Matabeleland. After assisting with the development of this region and the expansion of church and school services, Todd entered Parliament in 1946 in Sir Godfrey Huggins’ United Party. Here, he established a reputation as a sound, intelligent M.P. Todd’s missionary years formed the foundation of his premiership, the basis of his close relationship with blacks (many of whom would become leaders of their people), and his understanding of the frustrations and ambitions black citizens.

Publisher: Weaver Press, Zimbabwe

The Rise of the African Novel: Politics of Language, Identity, and Ownership

[ظهور الرواية الأفريقية: سياسات اللغة والهوية والملكية الفكرية]

Author: Mukoma Wa Ngugi

The Rise of the African Novel is the first book to compare South African and African-language literature from the 1880s to 1940s with the literature of decolonization that spanned the 1950s through the 1980s. This work also highlights the contemporary generation of established and emerging continental and diaspora African writers of international renown. This book will become a foundational text in African literary studies, as it raises questions about the very nature of African literature and criticism. The author considers the ways in which critical consensus can be manufactured and rewarded at the expense of a larger and historical literary tradition. It will be an essential reading for scholars of African literary studies as well as audiences seeking a greater understanding of African literary history.

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Edges of Exposure: Toxicology and the Problem of Capacity in Postcolonial Senegal

[على حافة الهاوية: علم التسمم واشكالية البنية التحتية في السنغال لما بعد الاستعمار]

Author: Noémi Tousignant

In the industrialized nations of the global North, well-funded agencies like the CDC attend to citizens’ health. These groups are able to monitor and treat patients for toxic poisons like lead. How do the under-resourced nations of the global South meet such challenges? In Edges of Exposure, Noémi Tousignant traces the work of toxicologists in Senegal as they have sought to advise citizen about toxins and remediate the presence of heavy metals and poisons in their communities. Situating recent toxic scandals within histories of science and regulation in postcolonial Africa, Tousignant shows how decolonization and structural adjustments have impacted toxicity and toxicology research. Ultimately, as Tousignant reveals, scientists’ capacity to conduct research, in terms of working conditions and public investment, affects their ability to keep equipment, labs, projects, and careers ongoing.

Publisher: Duke University Press

‘Dignity of Labour’ for African Leaders: The Formation of Education Policy in the British Colonial Office and Achimota School on the Gold Coast

[“نحو الاعتراف بخدمة قادة الأفارقة: سياسات التعليم في مكاتب المستعمرات البريطانية :مدرسة أكيموتا في ساحل العاج نموذجا]

Author: Shoko Yamada

From 1910 to the 1930’s, educating Africans was a major focus in the metropole and in the colonies of imperial Britain. This book critically examines the discourse on education for African leaders, which involved diverse actors such as colonial officials, missionaries, European and American education specialists or ideologues in Africa and diaspora. The analysis is presented around two foci of decision-making: one is the Memorandum on Education Policy in British Tropical Africa and the other is the Achimota School’s establishment on the Gold Coast Colony. The author presented ideas from various sources to analyze and demonstrate where the motivations of actors coincided. The local and the global was linked through the chains of discourse, which involved global economic, political and social spheres. Additionally, the book vividly describes how the ideals of colonial education were realized in Achimota School.

Publisher: Langaa RPCIG, Cameroon

Ontological Terror: Blackness, Nihilism, and Emancipation

[منابع الخوف: مشاعرالسود ، ونكران الذات ، وهواجس التحرر]

Author: Calvin L. Warren

In Ontological Terror, Calvin L. Warren intervenes in Afro-pessimism, Heideggerian metaphysics, and black humanist philosophy by positing that the “Negro question” is intimately related to questions of being. Warren uses the figure of the Antebellum free black as a philosophical paradigm for thinking through the tensions between blackness and being. He illustrates how blacks embody a metaphysical nothing; this nothingness serves as a destabilizing presence. This status is what whiteness defines itself against. Thus, the function of blackness as giving form to nothing presents a terrifying problem for whites: they need blacks to affirm their own existence, even as they despise the nothingness they represent. By pointing out how all humanism is based on relating blackness with nonbeing (a logic which reproduces anti-black violence and precludes any realization of equality, justice, and recognition for blacks), Warren urges the removal of the human from its metaphysical pedestal and the exploration of ways of existing that are not predicated on a grounding in being.

Publisher: Duke University Press, 2018

——– ———— ———–

Research Africa welcomes submissions of books, events, funding opportunities, and more to be included in next week’s edition.

News & Issues

As sanctions bit, Iranian executives bought African passports

By Bozorgmehr Sharafedin & David Lewis, June 29, 2018

In January, the Comoros Islands quietly cancelled a batch of its passports that foreigners had bought in recent years. The tiny nation off the east coast of Africa published no details of its reasons, saying only that the documents had been improperly issued.

But a confidential list of the passport recipients, reviewed by Reuters, indicates the move meant more than the government let on. Reuters found that more than 100 of 155 people who had their Comoros passports cancelled in January were Iranians. They included senior executives of companies working in shipping, oil and gas, and foreign currency and precious metals – all sectors that have been targeted by international sanctions on Iran. Some were found to have bought more than one Comoros passport.

Read the report in this link:

https://af.reuters.com/article/africaTech/idAFKBN1JP1K1-OZATP.

SPECIAL REPORT: As sanctions bit, Iranian executives …
af.reuters.com
LONDON/NAIROBI (Reuters) – In January, the Comoros Islands quietly cancelled a batch of its passports that foreigners had bought in recent years. The tiny nation off the east coast of Africa published no details of its reasons, saying only that the documents had been improperly issued. But a …

The Elegant Senegal in Pictures

By Mama Casset & unknown artist, July 4, 2018

“The Elegant Senegal of the First Half of the 20th Century” is an exhibition of images taken by renowned Senegalese photographer Mama Casset in the 1950s and an unknown photographer, at the Círculo de Bellas Artes, Madrid, on display until August 26th.

Read the story in this link:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2018/jul/04/the-elegant-senegal-in-pictures

Football and Religion: Two Competing Domains with a lot to offer Africa

By Mohammed Girma, July 4, 2018

In this age of globalization, few events draw more attention than sports as the World Cup in Russia illustrates with billions of people across the globe glued to their screens. At this time in football crazy Africa, specialists and ordinary fans are watching, discussing and analyzing the World Cup.

But the excitement and euphoria come with a unique challenge to the continent’s religions. Africa remains firmly devout across different faiths. The Pew Research Center believes Christianity’s future lies in Africa. By 2060, more than 40% of Christians will call sub-Saharan Africa home, up from 26% in 2015, according to a new analysis of demographic data. The Center also projects that sub-Saharan Africa will be home to a growing share of the world’s Muslims, predicting that between 2015 and 2060, the share of all Muslims living in the region will increase from 16% to 27%.

Read the story in this link:

https://theconversation.com/football-and-religion-two-competing-domains-with-a-lot-to-offer-africa-99103

Football and religion: two competing domains with a lot to offer Africa
theconversation.com
Africa is a deeply divided continent along ideological, ethnic and territorial lines. Religion and football can produce consensus.
Call for Papers

International Conference on “Forced Displacement and Mixed Migration in the East and Horn of Africa: Current Trends and Future Directions

Date: November 27-29, 2018

Venue: Mombasa-Kenya

East and Horn of Africa is a region of diverse opportunities but is subject to various challenges that have made human displacement a reality for so long. The region experiences conflicts and political instability and additionally deals with impacts of chronic poverty and extreme climate variability; these factors lead to different forms of mobility and human displacement. The region plays the dual role of origin and host to refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers. Recent statistics released by the UNHCR indicate that by the end of 2017, there were over 3.2 million refugees originating from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, and South Sudan. Further, there are 5.76 million internally displaced persons within the countries of Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan. Mixed migration, human trafficking, and other factors defining migratory movements will be discussed at this conference.

Read the story in this link:

http://ossrea.net/images/igad/forced_migration_conference_2018.pdf

NEW BOOKS ‫كتب جديدة

Slave Owners of West Africa: Decision Making in the Age of Abolition

[مالكي الأرقاء في غرب أفريقيا: مواقفهم وقرارتهم ابان الغاء التحارة]

Author: Sandra Greene

This book presents us with the biographies of three individuals who lived in the southeastern corner of what is today the Republic of Ghana between the mid-nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth century. These men became wealthy and prominent in their own communities, largely through their trading activities. They had multiple wives and dependents, many of whom were slaves. By documenting the lives of these three men, Amegashie Afeku of Keta, Nyaho Tamakloe of Anlo, and Noah Yawo of Ho Kpenoe, Dr. Greene examines the different ways in which they confronted the processes of European colonization and the abolition of slavery. As slaveholders, all three had much to lose from these transitions and yet, they all adopted different positions and strategies. What personal, political and economic factors informed these decisions are the central questions examined in Greene’s book.

Publisher: Indiana University Press, 2017

Migration in a Globalizing World: Perspectives from Ghana

[الهجرة في عهد العولمة: وجهات نظر من دولة غانا]

Author: John Kwasi Anarfi, Alhassan Sulemana Anamzoya, Geraldine Adiku

Migration has assumed growing significance in the global development agenda as its potential for economic and social development is increasingly acknowledged. Within the Africa context, perceptions of migration as negative have shifted to recognition of its central role to Africa’s transformation. Despite this shift, emerging migration dynamics have not been adequately contextualized and conceptualized, making it difficult to integrate migration into development planning processes. This book attempts to fill the gaps in migration knowledge production, particularly from the perspectives of researchers in the global south and more specifically from Ghana. The chapters provide multi disciplinary perspectives in the contemporary migration landscape in Ghana and Africa. Rather than focus on migration as a problem to be solved, the chapters explore migration as an intrinsic part of the broader processes of structural change in Ghana, which could create opportunities for development if properly harnessed. This reader is an essential resource for migration and development researchers, students, policy makers, practitioners and others interested in the field of development.

Publisher: Sub-Saharan Publishers, Ghana, 2018

Africanization and Americanization Anthology: Africa Vs North America: Searching for Inter-racial, Interstitial, Inter-sectional, and Interstates

[مقتطفات أفريقية وأمريكية: أفريقيا في مواجهة أمريكا الشمالية]

Author: Tendai Rinos Mwanaka

This volume comprises of 107 pieces from 43 poets, 4 essay writers, 6 storytellers, and 1 playwright from North America and Africa. The book discusses Africa and North America: two continents that were under a colonial hammer that changed them completely. They went through the worst recorded cases of slave trade, human trafficking, sexual abuses, racial abuses, and genocides. The book addresses the past, present, and future of these lands while addressing the nuance and tensions in these spaces. This collection is vibrant, discursive, and penetrating. It is invaluable to a range of audiences from literary and language experts to poetry collections to race theorists and beyond.

Publisher: Mwanaka Media and Publishing, Zimbabwe, 2018

War, Women, and Power: From Violence to Mobilization in Rwanda and Bosnia Herzegovina

[الحرب والمرأة والسلطة: مشاوير من العنف إلى التعبئة ( رواندا والبوسنة والهرسك- حالات دراسية]

Author: Marie E. Berry

Berry provides the reader with a solid history and background of how war came to be in both Rwanda and Bosnia Herzegovina. The book starts off by shedding light on the transformative nature of war and women’s political mobilization. Berry notes three major changes that are key throughout the book: demographic, economic, and cultural shifts. Starting with Rwanda, Berry sheds light on women’s roles as caregivers during and after the war, and how groups they formed for emotional support lead to the organization of more formal programs and establishments. Moving to Bosnia, Berry lays out how this situation was similar and also different from Rwanda, noting that NGOs were basically non-existent there before the war. She concludes by addressing the ways in which women mobilized politically but also the limits to change from systemic issues like victim hierarchies or patriarchal backlash.

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2018

Spatial Practices: Territory, Border and Infrastructure in Africa (Africa-Europe Group for Interdisciplinary Studies)
[ممارسات وتطبيقات: قراءات في الإقليم والحدود والبنية التحتية الأفريقية (عمل مجموعة إفريقيا-أوروبا للدراسات المتعددة التخصصات]

Author: Ulf Engel, Marc Boeckler, Detlef Müller-mahn

The edited collection presents research findings from the German Research Council’s Priority Programme 1448 “Adaptation and Change in Africa” (2011-2018). At the heart of the volume are important new spatial practices that have emerged after the end of the Cold War in the fields of conflict, climate change, migration and urban development. The ordering effects of these developments with regard to social relations are subsequently explored. These findings bear particular relevance for the co-production of territorialities and sovereignties, for borders and migrations, as well as infrastructures and orders.

Publisher: Brill Academic Publications, 2018

Community-Oriented Education for Health Professionals: A Cultural Analysis Approach to Curriculum Planning

[نحو تعليم مجتمعي للعاملين في المجال الصحي: استخدام منهج التحليل الثقافي لتخطيط المناهج التدريبية]

Author: Francis Sarr

This book provides a framework for curriculum planning and makes the argument for an integrated and interdisciplinary training of health professionals at the community level in The Gambia. The benefits of such an approach are immense given that this method is responsive to the socio-economic and cultural needs of the community. Responding to these local demands is central to the health of the communities. The book is recommended as a resource for all health training institutions, teachers and students involved in curriculum development and teaching. It is also targeted to health professionals who may want to review the type of training and curriculum they advance and potentially modify their strategy for working at the community level.

Publisher: CENMEDRA, The Gambia, 2018

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Research Africa welcomes submissions of books, events, funding opportunities, and more to be included in next week’s edition.

News & Issues

Trevor Noah’s Feud with France Over Race, Identity, and Africa, Explained

By Zack Beauchamp

July 19, 2018

An important intellectual debate is currently playing out involving the French ambassador to the United States — and a late-night comedy host. During a Monday monologue, Daily Show host Trevor Noah made a joke about France’s World Cup victory. Alluding to the fact that 80 percent of the French team’s players were of African descent, he quipped, “Africa won the World Cup.” “I get it, they have to say it’s the French team,” said Noah, who is black and South African. “But look at those guys. You don’t get that tan by hanging out in the South of France, my friends.” French Ambassador Gerard Araud took offense to the comments, and sent a letter to Noah on Wednesday afternoon outlining his complaints. “By calling them an African team, it seems you are denying their Frenchness,” Araud wrote. “This, even in jest, legitimizes the ideology which claims whiteness as the only definition of being French.”

Read the story in this link:

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/7/19/17590302/trevor-noah-france-french-ambassador-araud-world-cup

Trevor Noah versus France: the World Cup joke controversy …
www.vox.com
The Daily Show host and the French ambassador to the US are feuding over a joke about the French World Cup team. Here’s what it all means.
“Ouvrir la Voix”: A Radically Frank Documentary About the Experience of Black Women in France

By Richard Brody

July 16, 2018

Not long after France beat Croatia in the final match of the 2018 World Cup,

the French sociologist Edgar Morin tweeted that the victory of the team—which is predominantly nonwhite—is an occasion to celebrate the “one and multicultural” France. “Let’s enjoy these intoxicating moments of fraternity which won’t last long,” he wrote. Morin’s not just a sociologist; he’s also the co-director of a crucial film in the history of cinema, “Chronicle of a Summer.” This 1960 production led Morin to coin a term that proved even more influential than the movie itself: cinéma vérité. That movie, a documentary made in Paris during the Algerian War, is centered on the psychological effect of colonialism, racism, anti-Semitism, and the legacy of the Nazi Occupation of France. But Morin’s tweet about France’s soccer-stoked fraternity reminded me of a more recent film that addresses the country’s struggle toward acknowledging its multiculturalism through a vision of sorority: Amandine Gay’s documentary “Ouvrir la Voix.” (The title, which means “opening the voice,” is also a homonym for ouvrir la voie, “opening the path”) It came out in France last October but hasn’t yet been released in the US, and it deserves to be seen.

Read the story in this link:

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/ouvrir-la-voix-a-radically-frank-documentary-about-the-experience-of-black-women-in-france

“Ouvrir la Voix”: A Radically Frank Documentary About the …
www.newyorker.com
Amandine Gay’s documentary “Ouvrir la Voix” confronts a political and historical paradox: the illusion of color blindness that’s central to the French national self-image.

The Pan-Africanist roots of football in Ghana

By Philip Janzen

July 9, 2018

Soccer came to Ghana with “a Jamaican educationist.” That’s the popular version. It’s not entirely correct. With the disappointing showing by African sides at the 2018 World Cup, many soccer fans are looking back to Cameroon in 1990, Senegal in 2002, and more recently, Ghana’s memorable performances at the 2010 tournament. After awin over Serbia, a draw with Australia, and a narrow loss against Germany, Asamoah Gyan led the Black Stars to a thrilling victory over the United States and a place in the quarter-finals.

Read the story in this link:

https://africasacountry.com/2018/07/the-pan-africanist-roots-of-football-in-ghana

The Pan-Africanist roots of football in Ghana
africasacountry.com
Soccer came to Ghana with “a Jamaican educationist.” That’s the popular version. It’s not entirely correct. Ghana vs Uruguay, Quarterfinal 2010 World Cup. Via Wiki Commons. Less well-known are the origins of soccer in Ghana. In most parts of Africa, the game arrived with European missionaries …
Campuses and Conflict in the Lake Chad Basin: Violent Extremism and the Politics of Religion in Higher Education

By Alexander Thurston

May 18, 2018

“Campuses and Conflict in the Lake Chad Basin” is the first in a series of RESOLVE Network research studies investigating violent extremism and the politics of religion on university campuses in the Lake Chad Basin — particularly in Cameroon, Chad, and Nigeria. As a component of the RESOLVE Lake Chad Basin Research Initiative, this report aims to address gaps in locally-informed, empirically-driven research on violent extremism by mapping out current knowledge, research gaps, and emerging trends related to religion within the higher education sector and its relation to violent extremism. The report addresses several topics: the group known as Boko Haram, the impact of colonial legacies on the university system, and areas warranting further study related to violent extremism, religiosity, and student life. The report provides a guide for those seeking to broaden their understanding of Boko Haram and emerging trends in the Lake Chad Basin. The report also tests prevailing assumptions about the relationship between education, religion, and violent extremism. Finally, the report recommends ways to address violent extremism in the Lake Chad region and beyond.

Read the story in this link:

https://resolvenet.org/system/files/2018-05/RSVE_LCB_CampusesAndConflictReport.pdf

Can China Realize Africa’s Dream of an East-West Transport Link?

By Cobus van Staden

April 9, 2018

African development hinges on a maddening paradox: its greatest asset—the sheer size and diversity of its landscape—is also the greatest barrier to its development. Landlocked countries are cut off from ports, and the difficulty of moving goods from country to country weighs down intra-continental trade. In fact in 2017, the African Development Bank reported that only 15% of African trade is within Africa. African consumers bear the brunt of these economic difficulties. Costs are driven up by a host of factors: tariffs, border delays, corruption. But the biggest challenge is that no streamlined transport route exists between West and East Africa – only a decaying and underdeveloped road and rail system which pushes up costs and drags down efficiency. Could China help with a solution?

Read the story in this link:

https://jamestown.org/program/can-china-realize-africas-dream-of-an-east-west-transport-link

How women are transforming the Arab world’s start-up scene

By Kelly Ommundsen

July 16, 2018

It may surprise some to learn that one in three start-ups in the Arab World is founded or led by a woman, a higher percentage than in Silicon Valley. Women are becoming a force to be reckoned with on the start-up scene across the Middle East. Because the tech industry is still relatively new in the Arab world, there is no legacy of it being a male-dominated field. Many entrepreneurs from the region believe that technology is one of the few spaces where everything is viewed as possible, including breaking gender norms, making it a very attractive industry for women.

Read the report in this link:

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/07/start-up-middle-east-arab-women-transforming-entrepreneurship/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

How women are transforming the Arab world’s start-up scene …
www.weforum.org
It may surprise some to learn that one in three start-ups in the Arab World is founded or led by women. That’s a higher percentage than in Silicon Valley. Women are becoming a force to be reckoned with on the start-up scene across the Middle East. Because the tech industry is still relatively new …

The New Story of Humanity’s Origins in Africa

By Ed Young

July 11, 2018

There is a decades-old origin story for our species, in which we descended from a group of hominids who lived somewhere in Africa around 200,000 years ago. Some scientists have placed that origin in East Africa; others championed a southern birthplace. In either case, the narrative always begins in one spot. Those ancestral hominids, probably Homo heidelbergensis, slowly accumulated the characteristic features of our species—the rounded skull, small face, prominent chin, advanced tools, and sophisticated culture. From that early cradle, we then spread throughout Africa, and eventually the world.

Read the story in this link:

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/07/the-new-story-of-humanitys-origins/564779/?utm_source=fbb

African Multiregionalism: The New Story of Human Origins …
www.theatlantic.com
Several new discoveries suggest that our species didn’t arise from a single point in space. Instead, the entire continent was our cradle.

NEW BOOKS ‫كتب جديدة

Best “New” African Poets 2017 Anthology

[أحسن الشعراء الجدد في أفريقيا لعام 2017: مختارات شعرية]

Author/ Editor: Tendai Rinos Mwanaka, Daniel da Purificação

“Best “New” African Poets 2017 Anthology” is the third in a continuing series. The anthologies include a plethora of poems and articles about poetry from hundreds of different authors in 13 African languages: English, Portuguese, French, Shona, Afrikaans, Kiswahili, Yoruba, Igbo, Akan Twi, Setswana, Mbesa, Dholuo and Spanish. In this anthology, the poets are from 40 African countries and the Diasporas with the majority of poets of Nigerian descent.

Publisher: Mwanaka Media and Publishing, Zimbabwe, 2018

Translocal Connections across the Indian Ocean: Swahili Speaking Networks on the Move

[الروابط القارية عبر المحيط الهندي: تنقلات المجموعات الناطقة باللغة السواحيلية]

Author/ Editor: Francesca Declich

The book describes the worlds where Swahili is spoken as multi-centred contexts that cannot be thought of as located in a specific coastal area of Kenya or Tanzania. The articles presented discuss a range of geographical areas where Swahili is spoken, from Somalia to Mozambique extending to Europe and the US. In an attempt to de-essentialize the concepts of translocality and cosmopolitanism, the emphasis of the book is on translocality as experienced by different social strata and presents cosmopolitanism as an acquired attitude.

Publisher: Brill, 2018

Living with Nkrumahism Nation, State, and Pan-Africanism in Ghana

[العيش في ظل أنكروما: الأمة، الدولة والوحدة الأفريقية]

Author: Jeffrey Ahlman

Jeffrey Ahlam uses a wide range of archival and print sources to examine the first decade of Ghanaian self-rule, and he challenges the teleological assumptions that have dominated historical understandings of African decolonization. This book explains the roots of Nkrumah’s anti-colonial agenda, which became the guiding principle for the Convention People’s Party (CPP) political program. It continues to describe the means by which said program was implemented, how it evolved in response to national and international conditions, and how it was experienced by some of the people who lived through it.

Publisher: Ohio University Press, 2017

Transforming Sudan: Decolonization, Economic Development, and State Formation

[نحو تغيير السودان: مسائل في إنهاء الاستعمار ،التنمية الاقتصادية وبناء الدولة]

Author: Alden Young

In Transforming Sudan: Decolonization, Economic Development, and State Formation, Alden Young tells the story of how the Sudanese state was shaped post-independence as a result of economic planning. Through global, regional, and national notions of how to economically arrange a state, Young traces the people, resources, and policies that would have consequences for generations to follow.

Publisher: Cambridge University Press (December 22, 2017

People-Centred Public Works Programmes: A Strategy for Poverty Alleviation and Rural Development in sub-Saharan Africa?

برامج الأشغال العامة ذات التركيز الشعبي: نحو استراتيجية تخفيف الفقر وتثبيت التنمية الريفية في أفريقيا جنوب الصحراء الكبرى؟]

Author: Costain Tandi, Munyaradzi Mawere

This book explores the role played by people-centred Public Works Programmes in the development of rural communities in Africa and in the fight against poverty. Whereas a number of countries in Africa have been approaching the issue of poverty through interventions like Public Works Schemes, it is sad to note that poverty still tops the rankings of the economic and social challenges facing the continent. Is the public works strategy misguided, misconstrued or mismanaged? The main objective of these initiatives is to make the unemployed more employable through the provision of temporary employment and training opportunities. The book concludes that Public Works Programmes, if well managed and people-centred, are one of the best ways to alleviate and even eradicate poverty in rural Africa, as it allows governments to make partnerships with people, and facilitates implementation while giving space for economic self-sustenance, growth and development.

Publisher: Langaa RPCIG, Cameroon, 2018

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Research Africa welcomes submissions of books, events, funding opportunities, and more to be included in next edition.