The author examines the traumatic fate of the African woman in the patriarchal African royal oligarchy and the conspiracy of women against themselves within this realm, in the play Jakadiya by Ahmed Yerima (2017). The disposition of women in the royal establishment is oppressive. This paper is anchored on the principle of Thomas Carlyles’s The Great Man Theory, and Molara Ogundipe-Leslie’s Stiwanism, an African variant of the feminist ideology which advocates women’s social inclusion in Africa. In Jakadiya, Yerima portrays and laments the objectification of women by the royal patriarchy. The main protagonists are two slave consorts, who are only to satisfy the sexual urge of the monarch, but not allowed any aspirations in life. In Jakadiya, Yerima relates the utter injustice that the patriarchal system in Africa commits against women aided, however, by women against fellow women. The dramatist suggests that Africa cannot progress in the age of globalization with feminine dehumaniza-
This paper examines how the Turkana follow (and do not follow) rules and norms in negotiations about their livestock entitlements. Previous studies on livestock ownership in African pastoral societies tended to concentrate on the ideological and legal levels of property relations, namely, norms, rules and institutions. Although these rules and norms indicate what actions are appropriate and desirable, people do not necessarily follow the rules and norms unconditionally, because they are effective only in specific contexts. The metaphor of “bundle of rights” has been utilized in the literature to describe how people have overlapping, complicated and multiple rights in livestock. However, the “bundle of rights” has been examined only on the ideological and normative levels. This paper demonstrates how the Turkana tenaciously negotiate in daily practice to persuade others of their legitimate entitlement to livestock. Rules and norms are only evoked to assert the logic and explanation in these negotiations. Likewise, the “bundle of rights” does not exist as a tangible, unchanging entity. It always emerges “performatively” in the process of a negotiation at a specific time and place. This author advocates the position that it is essential to thoroughly scrutinize the Turkana daily practice of negotiations in order to understand livestock property rights in the Turkana and other African pastoral societies.
Grasscutter (Thryonomys swinderianus) has been a subject of domestication for the past several decades in West and Central Africa. In Ghana, attempts are being made to intensify the domestication efforts because grasscutter meat is a delicacy and huge agribusiness opportunities are expected. Tameness and reproductive ability are two important traits that underlie any successful animal domestication event. Androgen receptor gene has been reported to influence behaviour and fertility. The objective of this study was to identify genetic polymorphism in the androgen receptor gene that is likely to influence tameness and reproductive traits. Tissue samples were collected from a total of 116 including 81 domestic and 35 wild grasscutters in Accra and Mankessim, respectively, and genotyped at the androgen receptor glutamine repeat (ARQ) locus. Results of this study showed that ARQ ranges from six to 19 repeats and heterozygosities (H) were 0.769 and 0.778 for domestic and wild females respectively, indicating that this locus is highly polymorphic in grasscutters. As this locus influences transcriptional activity of the androgen receptor gene, these polymorphisms could influence tameness and reproductive traits in grasscutter. However, further studies are required to test the association of these polymorphisms with phenotypes.
The impact of intercultural contact in African societies may be well articulated by examining personal names bestowed to children. The contact between different cultures yields different naming systems, apparent in the trends in personal names of children in the Nyakyusa community in Tanzania. Qualitative analysis of a sample of 220 personal names collected by the author yielded three layers: a layer of names with words and clauses with meaning in Nyakyusa language, another layer of names starting with mwawhich indicates the descent of the family, and yet another layer of nativized English, Swahili and/or Christian names. The findings were consistent with another sample of 786 names of primary school pupils in rural areas, foreign names accounted for about 60 percent of all names outnumbering, by far, the indigene names. It may follow that most parents in the Nyakyusa community opt for foreign names rather than native ones. This paper is a testimony that traditions in the Nyakyusa naming system are diminishing.
The article examines the unexplored challenging role of youth in the traditional approaches of conflict resolution in Africa. Using Côte d’Ivoire as a case study, this article explores the relationship between intergenerational roles and conflict resolution. Traditionalist anthropologists tend to found the strength of the customary mechanisms on the dexterity and knowledge of elders, but serious doubt remains about the effectiveness of this traditional practice. In Côte d’Ivoire, as young Kroumen challenge their own traditions of peacemaking, they hinder the efficiency of customary approaches to resolve the 1999 conflict between the Kroumen and the Lobi-Dagara. In 2006 the Kroumen ritual of Bodior was performed and was supposed to seal reconciliation and social cohesion after the deadly conflict but, recent fieldwork reveals lingering mistrust and tensions 10 years after this ritual.
Vegetable cultivation remains an essential component of local people’s livelihoods. However, marked trend shifts in the varieties of vegetables due to large-scale commercial vegetable farming of exotic varieties in the broader market economy have resulted in the gradual disappearance of biodiversity involving vital species. The present study examined the situation of vegetable crop farming in three agro-ecological zones of Cameroon. Data were collected from a random sample of 235 respondents (177 farming households and 58 farm input wholesalers) by means of structured questionnaires. Vegetables were observed in both single and mixed cropping systems in all agro-ecological zones. Traditional vegetables such as African nightshade, waterleaf and Fluted pumpkin (okomobong) dominated in the Buea and Ebolowa areas. Over 51% of the vegetable farmers were women, although there was a rising population of men farming particularly in the Bafoussam area. Farmers remarked that pests and diseases followed by lack of good seeds were the main obstacles to vegetable farming. The study therefore points to the need for modification of the microenvironment and changing farming practices. Hence, strategies to fight poverty and malnutrition in Cameroon should include the promotion of traditional leafy and fruit vegetables by providing good quality seeds and variety screening trials.
The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC),(1) which has long been a leading reference case in transitional justice (TJ), has recently become a focus again in research into post-TJ social change. While its beginnings mainly focus on practical questions of success or failure for each TJ case, TJ studies have moved to more local-oriented topics, such as politics, perceptions, and reactions by local actors. This paper sets its analytical direction in this vein, starting to review the TRC in probing the conflictive motivations and actions of political stakeholders during the TRC’s active period. Being affected by such local politics, the TRC could not achieve what it held as official objectives. Incompleteness in the TRC’s outcomes has naturally been criticised by observers, yet after the end of the official programme, the incompleteness would turn into a catalyst for new movements by civil society actors. We incorporate the concept of propagation of movement repertoire from social movement theory to understand the unexpected legacy of the TRC and draw the current social actions that spontaneously suture the incompleteness of the TRC’s activities.
Anthropologists have described the remarkable contemporary hunter-gatherer resilience to environmental degradation and global capitalism. The literature is abundant in detailed accounts of how foragers respond to changes as observed by ethnographers. By contrast, relatively few studies exist on how the local people perceive and rank the socialecological risks and acknowledge the indigenous strategies they call upon. This paper examines how the Chabu foragers in Ethiopia perceive socioecological risks and their coping strategies under dramatic culture change. Freelists and unstructured interviews with adult men and women indicate that deadly diseases and sporadic food shortages due in part to encroachments of immigrant farms and coffee plantations as the highest ranked threats to their survival. Despite these challenges, the Chabu values of sharing and helping others, flexibility in adopting new subsistence knowledge and practices, and their extensive ecological knowledge about the forest provided them with the strategies to withstand difficult times. The Chabu perception of risks and the cultural identity reflected in their survival strategies enhance our understanding and provide potential insights into the diverse challenges facing contemporary foraging societies.
Despite numerous studies on the potential functions of Faidherbia albida, farmer’s contexts and practices in the tree use are largely unknown. The study described how the Sereer reshaped their techniques of foliage and branch collection for fodder and fuelwood in response to socio-economic changes. Married men turned to fattening livestock to highly increase its cash value, and promoted foliage growth through careful pruning to use as fodder. However, it became prevalent for married women to debark the standing trees for easier fuel collection, which caused the trees to die. Men at first did not make a public outcry, because they appreciated the women’s endeavors in fuelwood collection and small retail to provide foodstuffs. Whereas the villagers could not immediately resolve the disharmony between the logics of market economy and subsistence, they eventually coped with the debarking problem by applying the national Forest Code, which lead to a new method of outer bark collection, which was easy but also kept trees alive. Paying attention to people’s attempt against resource scarcity and emerging problems among the different social actors is important to understand the dynamics and sustainability of farmed parklands.
This paper describes three cases of homicide compensation in a local farming community of the Îgembe, one of nine sub-groups of the Kîmîîrû-speaking people in the Kenyan central highlands. These cases were observed from 2001 to 2015. According to Îgembe indigenous law, the clan is the primary entity for transacting matters related to homicide compensation. In these cases, the agnatic Athimba clan was involved as a party in various ways. The Athimba people organised a compensation process during inter-clan negotiations with their counterpart clan, and in cooperation with the other two indigenous institutions of the Amîîrû community: the îchiaro brotherhood and the Njûriîncheke council of elders. While all three cases were discontinued without reaching a conclusion, the Athimba clan has accumulated knowledge of Îgembe indigenous law from its experiences with homicide compensation; at the same time, the Athimba have developed a sense of clanship over the past fifteen years. Their fifteen years of experiences were informed by a widely shared structural history, and the regional politics of the Îgembe community. While their situations required that they take action as a clan, their unity was not something already given, but something that had yet to be achieved and was often disputed.
The minority problem has been a major issue of interest at both the micro and national levels. Aside from the acclaimed Yoruba homogeneity and the notion of Ile-Ife as the cradle of Yoruba civilization, relationships between Ife indigenes and other communities in Ife Division (now in Osun State, Nigeria) have generated issues due to, and influenced by, political representation. Where allegations of marginalization have not been leveled, accommodation has been based on extraneous considerations, similar to the ways in which outright exclusion and/or extermination have been put forward. Not only have suspicion, feelings of outright rejection, and subtle antagonism characterized majority–minority relations in Ife Division/ Administrative Zone, they have also produced political-cum-administrative and territorial adjustments. As a microcosm of the Nigerian state, whose major challenge since attaining political independence has been the harmonization of interests among the various ethnic groups in the country, the Ife situation presents a peculiar example of the myths and realities of majority domination and minority resistance/response, or even a supposed minority attempt at domination. This study examines the nature of relationships between Ile-Ife and its surrounding communities, all of which are organized using a nomenclature that has been variously called Ife Division, District, Constituency, or Zone since 1946. It examines the claims or allegations of marginalization vis-à-vis efforts at integration and accommodation over a period of time with the aim of determining trends and/or changes or shifts, along with their underlying causes and implications. Given that political accommodation mostly goes beyond ethnic or sub-ethnic factors and defies majority–minority permutations, this study contends that building bridges across ethnic or sub-ethnic divides will enhance reciprocity and the eventual accommodation of the supposed minority.
