Showing papers in "The Journal of African History in 2011"
TL;DR: This paper argued that the marginalization of precolonial history from mainstream Africanist scholarship can be understood in the context of a scholarly culture that attributes an exaggerated significance to the history of the twentieth century.
Abstract: This article considers the marginalization of precolonial history from mainstream Africanist scholarship in recent decades, and argues that this can be understood in the context of a scholarly culture that attributes an exaggerated significance to the history of the twentieth century. The article highlights some of the work that continues to be done on Africa's deeper past, with a view to demonstrating the enormous value of such research in elucidating present-day issues. It also argues, however, that work on the modern period is preponderant, and that there is a clear tendency toward historical foreshortening, evidenced in recent scholarship on such topics as conflict and ethnicity.
99 citations
TL;DR: This paper argued that to move beyond the traps of localism and unhelpful categorizations that have dominated aspects of urban history and the urban studies literature of the continent, historians should explore African urban dynamics in relation to world history and history of the state in order to contribute to larger debates between social scientists and urban theorists.
Abstract: The dramatic urban change taking place on the African continent has led to a renewed and controversial interest in Africa's cities within several academic and expert circles. Attempts to align a growing but fragmented body of research on Africa's urban past with more general trends in urban studies have been few but have nevertheless opened up new analytical possibilities. This article argues that to move beyond the traps of localism and unhelpful categorizations that have dominated aspects of urban history and the urban studies literature of the continent, historians should explore African urban dynamics in relation to world history and the history of the state in order to contribute to larger debates between social scientists and urban theorists. By considering how global socio-historical processes articulate with the everyday lives of urban dwellers and how city-state relationships are structured by ambivalence, this article will illustrate how historians can participate in those debates in ways that demonstrate that history matters, but not in a linear way. These illustrations will also suggest why it is necessary for historians to contest interpretations of Africa's cities that construe them as ontologically different from other cities of the world.
48 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a new assessment of the relative importance of major African provenance zones for the sixteenth and seventeenth-century transatlantic slave trade is provided. But the shift from Upper Guinea to Lower Guinea was more gradual than scholars have previously believed.
Abstract: Drawing on port entry records for 487 ships disembarking nearly 80,000 captives in Cartagena de Indias, the primary slaving port in early colonial Spanish America, this article provides a new assessment of the relative importance of major African provenance zones for the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century transatlantic slave trade. Upper Guinea and Angola furnished roughly equal shares of forced migrants to Cartagena between 1570 and 1640, with a smaller wave of captives from Lower Guinea. While Angola eventually replaced Upper Guinea as the main source of slave traffic to Cartagena, the shift was more gradual than scholars have previously believed.
40 citations
TL;DR: This article explored the politics of race and education in early twentieth-century urban Senegal, focusing on the exclusion of African students from certain schools and on the political controversy that grew out of a 1909 education reform.
Abstract: This article explores the politics of race and education in early twentieth-century urban Senegal, focusing on the exclusion of African students from certain schools and on the political controversy that grew out of a 1909 education reform. Based on letters from officials, politicians, and African residents, along with minutes from the General Council, it suggests that changes in urban society and colonial policy encouraged people to view access to schooling in terms of race. This article argues that in debating segregation and education quality, residents contributed to a discourse on race that reflected an increasing racial consciousness in the society at large.
39 citations
TL;DR: This paper argued that 1955-62 was a period of increasing political tension, local low-intensity violence, and social and economic stagnation, which influenced the attitudes of government officials, informed the policies that they pursued, and made a Southern insurgency likely.
Abstract: Historians usually trace the start of the first civil war in the Southern Sudan to the Torit mutiny of 1955. However, organized political violence did not reach the level of civil war until 1963. This article argues that 1955–62 was a period of increasing political tension, local low-intensity violence, and social and economic stagnation. It shows how these conditions influenced the attitudes of government officials, informed the policies that they pursued, and made a Southern insurgency likely. This historical analysis helps explain why a full-scale civil war began in late 1963 and why it was not avoided.
28 citations
TL;DR: Mauritius's unusual welfare state dates back to the introduction of non-contributory old-age pensions in 1950 as discussed by the authors, focusing on the interactions between political actors in both Mauritius (local planters, political activists, and the colonial government) and London (the Colonial Office and Labour Party).
Abstract: Mauritius's unusual welfare state dates back to the introduction of non-contributory old-age pensions in 1950. This article examines the origins of this reform, focusing on the interactions between political actors in both Mauritius (local planters, political activists, and the colonial government) and London (the Colonial Office and Labour Party). Faced with riots among unorganised sugar estate workers in 1937, the colonial administration considered welfare reforms as part of a package intended to substitute for political change. The nascent Mauritian Labour Party used its links to the British Labour Party to apply additional pressure on the Colonial Office and, hence, the Governor in Mauritius. Welfare reform was stalled, however, by resistance from, initially, the governor and, later, the Colonial Office. It took partial democratisation in 1948 to push the local administration towards reluctant reform. The choice of tax-financed old-age pensions reflected the combination of a small and open economy, the absence of surplus land, poorly organised workers, and an effective state.
27 citations
TL;DR: This article explored the relationship between understandings of youth sexuality and mobility, and racial nationalism in late colonial Tanganyika through a history of dansi: a dance mode first popularized by Tanganyikan youth in the 1930s.
Abstract: This article explores the relationship between understandings of youth sexuality and mobility, and racial nationalism in late colonial Tanganyika through a history of dansi: a dance mode first popularized by Tanganyikan youth in the 1930s. Dansi's heterosocial choreography and cosmopolitan connotations provoked widespread anxieties among rural elders and urban elites over the mobility, economic autonomy, and sexual agency of youth. In urban commercial dancehalls in the 1950s, dansi staged emerging cultural solidarities among migrant youth, while also making visible social divisions based on class and gender. At the same time, nationalist intellectuals attempted to reform dansi according to an emerging political rhetoric of racial respectability.
22 citations
TL;DR: In this article, an unusual set of sources found in Timbuktu (Mali) reveals the existence of a stratum of literate, Muslim slaves who wrote and received letters written in Arabic.
Abstract: Historians of slavery in Africa have long struggled to recover the voices of enslaved people. In this article, an unusual set of sources found in Timbuktu (Mali) reveals the existence of a stratum of literate, Muslim slaves who wrote and received letters written in Arabic. These letters make it possible to probe the Islamic rhetoric used by Muslim slaves and ask how enslaved people who adopted Islam understood their faith. Did Muslim slaves arrive at different interpretations of Islam than those Muslims who were free? Using the correspondence of two slaves who worked as agents in their master's commercial activities in the Niger Bend and Central Sahara during the second half of the nineteenth century, this article demonstrates the extent to which Muslim slaves used appeals to their own piety in attempting to carve out a certain amount of social autonomy. For these Muslim slaves, Islam could be made to serve both spiritual and practical ends. And yet, this did not require slaves to interpret Islam in ways that rejected the legitimacy of slavery.
21 citations
TL;DR: This article explored the trajectories of advertising for schnapps gin and beer in Ghana and Nigeria up to 1975 and provided insights into the development of advertising in West Africa, the differing ways in which African consumers attached meanings to specific commodities and possibilities for the use of advertisements as sources for African history.
Abstract: This article explores the different trajectories of advertising for schnapps gin and beer in Ghana and Nigeria during the period of decolonisation and independence up to 1975. It analyses published newspaper advertisements alongside correspondence, advertising briefs, and market research reports found in business archives. Advertising that promoted a ‘modern’ life-style worked for beer, but not for gin. This study shows how advertisements became the product of negotiations between foreign companies, local businesses, and consumers. It provides insights into the development of advertising in West Africa, the differing ways in which African consumers attached meanings to specific commodities, and possibilities for the use of advertisements as sources for African history.
20 citations
TL;DR: In the early 1920s, the Faith Tabernacle Congregation was established in southern colonial Ghana as discussed by the authors, and it flourished in the context of colonialism, cocoa, and witchcraft, spreading rapidly after the 1918-19 influenza pandemic.
Abstract: In 1918, Faith Tabernacle Congregation was established in southern colonial Ghana. This Philadelphia-based church flourished in the context of colonialism, cocoa, and witchcraft, spreading rapidly after the 1918–19 influenza pandemic. In this context, several healing cults also proliferated, but Faith Tabernacle was particularly successful because the church offered its members spiritual, social, and legal advantages. The church's leadership was typically comprised of young Christian capitalist men, whose literacy and letter writing enabled the establishment of an American church without any missionaries present. By 1926, when Faith Tabernacle began its decline, at least 177 branches had formed in southern Ghana, extending into Togo and Cote d'Ivoire, with over 4,400 members.
16 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines a rehabilitation program for disabled Ghanaians developed by Kwame Nkrumah's government between 1961 and 1966, which sought to integrate disabled citizens into the national economy as productive workers.
Abstract: This article examines a rehabilitation program for disabled Ghanaians developed by Kwame Nkrumah's government between 1961 and 1966. Arising at a time when Nkrumah was moving away from welfarism in favor of a ‘big push’ for industrialization, rehabilitation sought to integrate disabled citizens into the national economy as productive workers. Nkrumah's program was preceded by a colonial rehabilitation project during the 1940s for disabled African soldiers. The colonial initiative drew heavily on the British model of social orthopaedics, which equated citizenship with work. This philosophy resonated with Nkrumah's vision of national development based on full employment. Although its economic focus had troubling implications for citizenship and welfare, Nkrumah's rehabilitation program was unique among newly independent African states, and it arguably produced a positive legacy.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that both the power of expert groups and the level of continuity between late colonial and postcolonial development was not always as great as has recently been suggested.
Abstract: The fall of colonial regimes across Africa was accompanied by the rise in expectations for rapid and inclusive rural economic progress. In Zambia, the cooperative production unit was one of two key initiatives at the centre of the United National Independence Party's ambitious development efforts. The other was the tractor. By following these two interlinked initiatives in the years immediately following independence, this article contributes to the under-explored history of early postcolonial development. It argues that both the power of expert groups and the level of continuity between late colonial and postcolonial development was not always as great as has recently been suggested. Cooperative mechanization policies emerged from a confluence of competing claims over knowledge, power and resources. However, as is demonstrated, they also reflected more fundamental tensions in the development endeavour between the prioritization of economically efficient mass production, and inclusive development for the masses.
TL;DR: In this paper, the Otruppa, a Herero youth society that appropriated a German military aesthetic, in Namibia between 1915 and 1949, examines struggles for masculinity among Herero elders, South African colonial administrators, and the Herero Youth Society.
Abstract: This article examines struggles for masculinity among Herero elders, South African colonial administrators, and the Otruppa , a Herero youth society that appropriated a German military aesthetic, in Namibia between 1915 and 1949. As previous scholars have argued, masculinities are mutually constituted through competitions for authority, though dominance is rarely achieved. Such contestations were integral to processes of Herero societal reconstruction following German rule and during South African colonial state formation, beginning in 1915. Different generational experiences of colonial violence and the destruction of the material resources that undergirded elders' authority led to conflicts between elders and youths over how to define Herero masculinity and negotiate authority in a rapidly changing colonial milieu.
TL;DR: In this paper, a warlord named Oorlog was formally recognized as a chief by the newly established South African administration and elevated to the highest position of power in the Kaokoveld.
Abstract: In 1916 a warlord named Oorlog - 'war', in Afrikaans - moved into the Kaokoveld in the far north-west of what is now Namibia, and drove off the original inhabitants. Shortly after, Oorlog was formally recognized as a chief by the newly established South African administration and elevated to the highest position of power in the Kaokoveld. This article, through investigating how Oorlog came to be elevated to this position of power, explores issues of colonial governance and personal relationships. By focusing on the micropolitics of the Kaokoveld, it emphasizes how interpersonal relationships - not bureaucratic structures - were of crucial importance in the establishment and maintenance of early colonial rule in Africa.
TL;DR: This paper argued that divergent outcomes were rooted in a combination of differential levels of internal cohesion and the configuration of the political arena within which the protagonists manoeuvred for advantage, whereas the temperance movement derived strength from its decentralized modes of operation and international connections.
Abstract: This article addresses the struggle between the temperance and wine interests in South Africa during three phases: 1890–1920, 1920–48 and 1948–65. It argues that divergent outcomes were rooted in a combination of differential levels of internal cohesion and the configuration of the political arena within which the protagonists manoeuvred for advantage. Conflicting interests within the wine industry hindered collective action, whereas the temperance movement derived strength from its decentralized modes of operation and international connections. The latter pioneered mass action alongside the art of lobbying. After 1948, the wine industry turned the tables by cementing a special relationship with the National Party, while tapping into popular nationalism, youth culture, and emergent consumerism.
TL;DR: The authors examined the political agitation during the Pearce Commission's visit to show how commonplace the layers of political affiliation, substitution, and deception were in the groups that both supported and opposed the proposals in 1970s Rhodesia.
Abstract: In 1972 a British commission arrived in Rhodesia to test how acceptable the latest and most comprehensive proposals to end Rhodesia's rebellion were to its entire people. Africans rejected the proposals in overwhelming numbers. Such powerful opposition was attributed to the African National Council, said to be a new and spontaneous organization, but in fact the creation of the banned political parties. This article examines the political agitation during the Pearce Commission's visit to show how commonplace the layers of political affiliation, substitution, and deception were in the groups that both supported and opposed the proposals in 1970s Rhodesia.
TL;DR: In the Colony of Ashanti, Dr Benjamin Knowles was tried and convicted for the murder of his wife without the benefit of a jury trial or the assistance of legal counsel as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In keeping with the law in place in the Colony of Ashanti in 1928, Dr Benjamin Knowles was tried and convicted for the murder of his wife without the benefit of a jury trial or the assistance of legal counsel. His trial and sentencing to death created outrage in both colonial Ghana and the metropole, and placed a spotlight on the adjudication of capital crimes in the colony. Inevitably, there were calls for reform of a system that could condemn an English government official to death without the benefit of the right to trial by a jury of his peers and counsel of his choice. Shortly after the Knowles trial, the colonial government did open up Ashanti to lawyers, and introduced other changes in the administration of criminal justice, but continued to refuse the introduction of jury trial. Nevertheless, the lasting impact of the Knowles trial was to make criminal adjudication in Ashanti, if anything, more lenient than the other area of colonial Ghana, the Gold Coast Colony.
TL;DR: In this paper, Allsworth-Jones et al. used ethnographic fieldwork to assess the long-term history of stone bracelet production in Mali, Muller-Kosack explores the complexity of the ethnohistoric data that might provide a context for the stonewalled DGB sites of Cameroon, von Hellermann (not perhaps wholly convincingly) considers historical evidence that the kingdom of Benin may not always have existed in a thickly forested environment, and Orijemie et al provide unexpected palynological evidence for a pre-European presence in Nigeria
Abstract: butter and pottery. Elsewhere, McDonald uses ethnographic fieldwork to assess the long-term history of stone bracelet production in Mali, Muller-Kosack explores the complexity of the ethnohistoric data that might provide a context for the stonewalled DGB sites of Cameroon, von Hellermann (not perhaps wholly convincingly) considers historical evidence that the kingdom of Benin may not always have existed in a thickly forested environment, and Orijemie et al. provide unexpected palynological evidence for a pre-European presence in Nigeria of ornamental trees of Asian/Indian Ocean origin. If Randsborg’s extremely brief paper on his work in Benin offers the reader less (not least by wholly ignoring the work of Béninois archaeologists and several American-led research projects), Allsworth-Jones’s own chapter on fieldwork at Adesina Oja, a village now engulfed by Ibadan, is a tour de force in employing ethnographic data to explore archaeological sites, engaging African students in the materiality of their own past and developing an archaeology of Nigeria’s recent history. Overall, then, this is a most useful collection of papers and one currently without equal in its coverage of a broad swathe of West African archaeology.
TL;DR: In this article, the predictability of the tragedy of elite politics becomes the overarching theme and the origins of opposition politics and "militant civil society" introduced in Chapter 3 fall to the wayside in the later chapters.
Abstract: origins of opposition politics and ‘militant civil society’ introduced in Chapter 3 falls to the wayside in the later chapters and the predictability of the tragedy of elite politics becomes the overarching theme. These grassroots efforts did not end with the formation of the MDC, nor with each successive stolen election, so shining more light on these non-elite actors in recent years might offer a less predictable, and hopefully less tragic, analysis of participatory politics that may not always be confined within previous patterns of political violence and factionalism.
TL;DR: The authors argue that the African diaspora must be studied with emphasis on "African di-pora intellectual genealogy" and with an "overlapping, comparative perspective" and argue that scholars must be open to "nondiscursive expressions" (not just texts) as sources on the African Diaspora.
Abstract: argue that scholars of the African diaspora should anchor themselves in their respective disciplinary canons and then branch out from this foundation. Yet a problem arises when the disciplinary canons are not appropriate, as when sociology adopted neoliberalism and rational-choice models as their standard, abandoning the concerns of African diaspora scholars. Then the editors stress that the African continent must be the intellectual starting point of African diaspora studies. Yet half of the chapter authors portray a diaspora that is not closely tied to Africa – so I wish the editors had discussed this discrepancy. Further, the editors argue that scholars must be open to ‘nondiscursive expressions’ (not just texts) as sources on the African diaspora. While this point seems central, these ‘nondiscursive expressions’ would be mediated through disciplines that are not the strongest areas in African diaspora studies, as seen in this book. In addition, the editors argue that the African diaspora must be studied with emphasis on ‘African diaspora intellectual genealogy’ and with an ‘overlapping, comparative perspective’. By this, I assume they mean that more work must go into locating and drawing upon texts and non-discursive expressions by founding thinkers in all parts of the African diaspora. The tensions within the ‘intersections’ of this volume come closest to resolution in the accomplished chapter by British-born Jayne Ifekwunigwe, who uses an anthropologist’s touch to show how Europe today intertwines the consequences of colonial, postcolonial, and globalized diasporas; she shows how the parallels and links of diaspora within Africa assist in the understanding of Europe. This critical and revealing gem of an essay, marginalized in a section on regional diasporas, works precisely from the margins to convey the most comprehensive picture of the diaspora as a social object of study and an intellectual frame of analysis. It comes closer than any other to answering the question of how diaspora studies advance beyond area studies. The volume as a whole reflects a courageous effort: it goes beyond empirical specifics of the African diaspora to provide an interim report on intellectual work crossing the boundaries of national units and disciplinary boxes. At this level, the book is deserving of the closest scrutiny by those seeking to influence the directions of humanistic scholarship. Regardless of whether the disciplinary centers adopt this expanded framework, what keeps diaspora scholarship moving ahead is partly the inherent interest of work at that scale and especially the global social consciousness of black people, most notably the communities and scholars of the ‘new African diaspora’, now found all over the world.