Dear Colleagues / Chèr(e)s collègues -As the co-sponsoring organizations, we would like to add our warmest welcome as we greet old friends and make new ones.In the next of a series of biennial scholarly exchanges, we come together once again, as we did in Dakar in 2016, on the African continent to celebrate the interdisciplinary connections that help us situate the locus of knowledge production about Africa's contemporary successes and challenges.The exciting program examines relevant frameworks and practical approaches to the study of Africa's past, present, and future, drawing on work across the humanities and social sciences, from historiography, literature, linguistics, anthropology, politics, and technological transformations to art and popular culture.Please accept our heartfelt thanks for your participation!En tant qu'organisateurs, nous souhaitons accueillir chaleureusement nos anciens amis et en créer de nouveaux.Dans le cadre d'une série d'échanges universitaires biennaux, nous nous réunissons à nouveau, comme à Dakar en 2016, sur le continent africain pour célébrer les liens interdisciplinaires qui nous aident à situer le lieu de production des connaissances sur les succès et défis contemporains de l'Afrique.Le programme passionnant examine les cadres pertinents et les approches pratiques de l'étude du passé, du présent et du futur de l'Afrique, en s'appuyant sur les sciences humaines et sociales: historiographie, littérature, linguistique,
There is a disjuncture between the way social cohesion is understood, and the way government programming has been designed to promote it. As public sector monitoring and evaluation systems expand, and social cohesion has been recognised as a pillar of South Africa's National Development Plan, building consensus on how to measure the most salient components of social cohesion is an important step to supporting more effective and targeted programme development. This article will discuss which indicators measure the condition of social cohesion (e.g. trust, interaction, attitudes towards diversity, equality and participation) as well as the importance of measuring indicators for causal factors and context factors. Through specific examples within public sector programming, the paper looks at the potential to better integrate social cohesion in government programming, and reflect a more accurate conceptualisation of social cohesion principles in public sector results based monitoring and evaluation.
This paper assesses the health care sector in Sierra Leone since the 2014-2015 Ebola crisis, which exposed the weakness of the health system in Sierra Leone, and its limitations to combat the disease. While there have been numerous assessments critiquing the health care sector and examining the varied reasons for its weakness including lack of political will, insufficient resources, as well as the donor driven nature of health care in Sierra Leone, there is need to examine the ways in which the state as well as international partners have responded to these challenges, two years on. The purpose of this paper then, is to examine what has been accomplished, or not, since the outbreak was officially declared over. Our central finding demonstrates that despite the attention and resources devoted to the Ebola crisis and discussions around rebuilding health institutions, very little change has occurred across the sector. What appears to have emerged two years post-Ebola is the re-packaging of old wine in new bottles. Through primary data, namely semi-structured interviews with various stakeholders including Ministry of Health staff, development partners and health care workers, this paper paints a nuanced picture of the current state of health care in Sierra Leone, and situates our findings within the broader body of literature on international humanitarian interventions and health service delivery in developing countries.
Dance societies have long been documented as an important part of social life, providing a platform outside of official power structures where men and women re-work social relations and hierarchies through competitions (Ranger 1975; Fair 2001; Gunderson & Barz 2000; Askew 2002). In Mozambique's northern and central coastal provinces, changing gender and generational hierarchies are being re-worked through women's participation in competitive dance groups that perform tufo - a traditional performance genre. As tufo dancers, women gain access to new forms of mobility through group travel, expanding social networks, and community visibility. However, this increased social power elevates anxieties among men excluded from the labor economy and unable fulfill the “man-as-provider ideal” (Archambault 2016). In this paper, I draw on twelve months' ethnographic research as a member of a dance group in Pebane, Mozambique to discuss how being a tufo dancer-simultaneously revered and feared for their seductive abilities as a muthiana horera (beautiful woman)- can be a form of honor and a significant restriction for women. While gender hierarchies are being contested by women through choreography and lyrics during public competitions, this paper argues that these public articulations of changing gender norms are largely contested and policed within the private sphere-through intimate relationships with friends, family, spouses, and lovers.
This paper, using the case of Boko Haram in Nigeria, examines the impact of technology on future armed conflicts and violent extremism in Nigeria and West Africa. As Africa enters the new digital age, characterized by increasing access to mobile telephoning, internet penetration, 3D printing and the Internet of Things; networking between and among groups with similar ideologies will improve. Results from the author’s recent fieldwork in north-eastern Nigeria are used to shed light on Boko Haram’s activities across border communities in that region where Nigeria’s borders meet those of Niger and Cameroon. Those activities include tactical efforts like mobilizing crowds, disseminating ideologies, recruiting strategic assets, and sharing technical know-how, and have facilitated the transformation of Boko Haram from a dagger-wielding, arrow-shooting group into a deployer of mobile-phone-triggered IEDs, coordinating simultaneous attacks on multiple targets. Undoubtedly, the new digital age guarantees cultural cohesiveness and a more robust outside support that will serve in recruitment, financing, logistics and training. With mobile telephony and internet access providing (dangerous) information and resources to aspiring insurgents, what future awaits Nigeria, West Africa and Africa should Boko Haram gain access to remote controlled flying drones, quadcopters, and other ‘toys’ fitted with homemade bombs and IEDs? What new level of domestic terror would emerge if Boko Haram develops a capacity for cyberterrorism, especially since cyberterrorism affects data and cash, guarantees no risk of personal bodily harm, involves minimal resources commitment, and affords opportunities to inflict a higher level of damage? This study examines these issues and type of responses available to government in dealing with a technology-driven armed conflict and terrorism.
“Three Women (Break the Silence)” is a collaboration between playwright/performer Omotayo Jolaosho, and Vernice Miller, who is directing the project. Drawing from fieldnotes and interview transcripts, “Three Women” examines women's distinct experiences of vulnerability and community within activist collectives. The script and resulting performance unfolds around themes including romantic entanglements, physical wellbeing, humanizing support, and what it means to find one's voice amidst gendered repression. We plan to present a 20-minute excerpt followed by activities to help workshop participants articulate potential uses of performance methodologies in their scholarship. Participants will receive a worksheet and resource pack to aid in the completion of these activities. The workshop will conclude with an open discussion with the audience guided by concerns including:• The role of performance in producing knowledge about African women's lives;• How the epistemological potential of performance extends beyond research encounters in the field;• Performative writing and performance ethnography as dissemination methods that reconfigure and transcend fieldwork experiences; and• The collaborative process of staging performance and the ethical commitments that entails.
Anthropologists have made sound recordings in Africa for more than 100 years, but to date they have mostly been treated as objects to be collected. But what untold stories do these recordings reveal? What can they communicate, and how, and who could own the right to circulate and share this knowledge? In this workshop, an emerging collaborative partnership between the International Library of African Music (SA), the African Urbanism Humanities Lab at the University of Virginia (US), Ntigna Ntaba kaNdoda Development Centre (Keiskammahoek, SA) and Around Hip Hop Live Cafe (SA), our team considers how ethnographic recordings can be 'unleashed' and experienced when activated beyond sound archives. Our projects are based on ongoing research through the world's largest collection of sub-Saharan African recordings: the International Library of African Music, in South Africa's Eastern Cape. Building on approaches from ethnomusicology, sound art, museum studies, community engagement and anthropology and global development studies, the sound stories we trace span from taxis and townships, urban nightclubs to global art galleries and museums, archive shelves to the living choreography of everyday life. While the act of archiving always anticipates future use, we discuss and share ways in which recordings can have new afterlives as sound experiences to be circulated, represented, exhibited and debated. We propose an open workshop forum that will showcase and share some of our practical collaborative outputs to date (including locally-led community archiving initiatives, sound installations, hip hop ciphers and international remix albums), alongside open brainstorming sessions designed to envision future collaborative directions linking institutions, community groups and arts spaces.
This study deals with the role of oral traditions in determining the fate of children “positively” and “negatively” in Amhara region. Since their early age, Amhara males and females in general and children in the study communities in particular are socialized according to gender stereotypes through the traditional verbal arts which associate certain activities and tasks with a certain gender. Tasks associated with men are highly valued because they demand strength and courage, whereas women's tasks are valued less because they are considered as to be ‘harmless' and to demand ‘less energy and strength'. Males are socialized to be brave, dominant, superior and courageous, while females are socialized to be shy, passive, submissive, etc. Children, equally boys and girls are less valued compared to adults. On the other hand, parents need both sexes of their children become successful, obedient and courageous. In general, this study explore how children in Amhara region are socialized through oral traditions (proverbs/ sayings, tales and idiomatic expressions) through which children are praised/discouraged to conform to the norms of the society (how those proverbs/sayings and tales are conveying messages of being obedient, gentle, submissive, dominant, subordinate, wise, patience, etc.). The study was conducted through qualitative research method. In the course of this study, the researcher predominantly employed key informant interview with elderly (men and women) and children (girls and boys) who have lived experiences in positive and negative child socializations as expressed through oral traditions (such as sayings/proverbs and tales/stories). In addition to key informant interview, the researcher consulted books and academic journals related to child socialization.
Anti-environmentalism has gained traction as an emerging theoretical framework. and its impact on understanding the shifting boundaries of knowledge production on gender and environment arenas in Zimbabwe has been eventful and far reaching. Following the need to create jobs and increase gender balance in employment, various theorists have questioned the logic of preserving wetlands where projects that created employment could be erected. Zimbabwe Tourism Authority's Chief Executive Officer and ardent advocate of anti-environmentalism, Karikoga Kaseke, argued that it was irrational to sacrifice potential jobs in order to save a few trees and frogs. This was in response to the heated debate over the desirability of constructing a multi-million dollar Long Cheng Plaza, nicknamed ‘the Frog Hotel', on Harare's wetland. The cost to the environment was considered insignificant compared to the potential for wealth generated by the project. While scholars have written extensively in favour of nurturing the environment, a gap still exists on how to balance the invidious positions between the economics of keeping the swamps intact and building investment projects on wetland areas to offset the country's staggering ninety percent unemployment rate. This paper argues that the setting up of Long Cheng Plaza against pressure from environmentalists has proved that Zimbabwe's efforts towards creation of wealth and reduction of gender disparities have been turned around by this project. This is particularly so in light of the fact that, alongside men, huge numbers of women have also taken up jobs in the shops within the complex. The paper first debates the contestations over changing land use patterns in urban centres, before it proceeds to address the impact of anti-environmentalism on gender and employment using primary documents. It also relies on interviews conducted at the site with various key stakeholders, in addition to secondary sources in ventilating these issues.
The future of food production and its entanglement with conflict is a topic of great concern for coming decades. Climate change will bring more frequent disruptions to agricultural conditions across southern and east Africa, threatening suitable farmlands by processes of desertification and disaster. Meanwhile, the African population is set to rise dramatically and urban zones are ill-equipped to absorb influxes of countryside youth in search of livelihoods outside of agriculture. Moreover, the past decade has been witness to a global ‘rush' of foreign and domestic investments in agribusiness and speculative investment to rural areas – often aided by government concessions for lands already occupied by smallholder farmers – where such operations evict communities, distort informal markets, and introduce contentious crops, chemicals and technologies to local ecologies. This paper draws on 18 months of fieldwork in northern Mozambique among large-scale investments in agriculture, to illustrate the more indirect and less visible ramifications of such investments in the construction of everyday interpersonal and local political conflicts in a setting where boundaries between legal/illegal, public/private and state/corporate interests are blurred. At the height of scholarly and advocacy attention to land grabs and conflict in Africa, Mozambique and its blueprints for rural development occupied the forefront of international concern. However, few studies have accompanied the local realities of agribusinesses wrought by investments over time. In this paper, I focus on a 5,000-hectare corn and soybean project that represents a unique conjunction of Portuguese investment, Brazilian management, and Mozambican labor, elite interests, and regulation. Through extensive involvement with the local community, and privileged access to the directors of the agribusiness, I provide ethnographic description of the day-to-day realities of food production that unsettles popular narratives of colonial continuity, BRICS imperialism, and small-holder exploitation and resistance that have emerged across ‘land grab' politics and discourses in the past decade. This paper has three objectives: 1) to reflect on a local experiences of displacement, theft, and conflict precipitated by the agribusiness project; 2) to trouble common-held narratives regarding agribusiness, resistance, violence and food security; and 3) to explore the case through the ethical lens of ‘conviviality' to helps us interrogate future possible arrangements of land, settlers and belonging in Africa. Conducting participant-observation in land registrar offices, village courts of law, local party leadership, grain trading posts, cooperatives and among encounters between agribusiness and community, I argue that the land investment is largely construed as legitimate and desirable by local producers due to marginal benefits gleaned from wage labor, improved access to inputs, and management's purchasing of crops at more favorable prices. Nonetheless, locals face severe inequalities in power that limit their ability to push their case to a more just outcome. Moreover, perceptions of the company's ‘benevolence' ultimately obscure indirect and sometimes nefarious consequences, including: incentivizing the influx of middle-income urbanite's capital and smallholders' extensification of agriculture in the area; fortifying an emergent commercializing class that is adversarial to local leadership; and sparking a wave of interfamilial tensions over violent theft, as well as divorce and alimony.
'Unsuspecting young South African women are heading overseas to donate their eggs to infertile couples and earn a free international holiday in the process. But, at what cost?' This was the voice-over during a news show in South Africa in 2016 that described the phenomenon of young white South African women going abroad to 'donate' their eggs. Through the media, medical professionals sought to warn 'naïve girls' about 'unscrupulous agencies' taking advantage of them, and in doing so putting them at grave medical risks in 'Third World' clinics. Yet owners of agencies and egg providers themselves countered this imagery; here, the egg provider becomes a far more complex biocitizen who finds an opportunity to combine an act of altruism with an opportunity to earn money and travel. Through interviews with travelling egg providers, doctors and egg agencies, and analysis of public and social media, we analyse these competing discourses critically by situating them within the specific context of egg provision in South Africa. We argue that travelling egg providers' defence of their involvement may challenge some gendered assumptions made by the media and medical staff, but at the same time reaffirm what we call 'gendered bio-responsibilities', or the gendered nature of the emphasis on (individual) responsibilization of biological citizens. By focusing on a relatively understudied aspect of the burgeoning literature on biocitizenship, we argue that the project of biocitizenship assists the expansion and normalization of new biomedical technologies, often without proper emphasis on the disproportionate obligations on the women involved.
Based on a framework of analysis for regional migration governance this chapter assesses regional cooperation on migration and mobility in the Economic Community of Western Africa (ECOWAS) and the Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD) at the Horn of Africa. It studies: (1) The relevance of migration and the main drivers for the incorporation of mobility and migration in the regional agendas; (2) The extent to which migration has been included in specific (formal and informal) regional governance systems; (3) Forms and types of migration that have been the focus for cooperation and the effects of this. The results suggest that the policy focus of regional organisations is strongly related to institutional factors (strength of migration policy mandate, degree of legalisation) and the (internal vs. external) nature of agenda setting. However, in the context of multiple and multi-level interactions on migration, comprising inter-regional diffusion, policy formulations are not easily predictable.
In vivid spectacles touring the southern Sierra Leone countryside, a troupe of former combatants are restaging a blend of Islamic and village hunters' mysticism, once exploited in the name of war and now redeployed in the name of reconciliation, nation-building, and individual empowerment. Al-Hassan Wurie Jalloh served as Deputy National Task Commander in the Civil Defense Forces, a pro-government militia that mobilized the imagery and practices of village hunter traditions in pursuit of local legitimacy and esoteric defense maneuvers including disappearance, metamorphosis, and bullet-proofing. Faced with disarmament and doubtful reintegration at the end of the decade-long war, Jalloh turned to Allah for guidance and was inspired to redeploy his troops as the Warrior Cultural and Mystical Power Dance Troupe. A foreign observer might interpret their acts as nothing more than stage magic and sleight-of-hand, but Jalloh offers not only entertainment, but also models of metamorphosis for Sierra Leone audiences to contemplate and discuss. Jalloh takes full advantage of his spotlight to endeavor to shape his public's views and actions regarding topics ranging from Islamic doctrine and cultural reconstruction to national politics and HIV/AIDS prevention. Yet for all his practiced professionalism, Jalloh's spectacles are constant, improvised renegotiations of his relationships to his viewers and their shifting values. This paper begins by touching on some of the prevailing models of postwar reconstruction that share the national stage with Jalloh, specifically internationalist Judeo-Christian ideals of verbal confession and redemption that have little purchase in Sierra Leonean village life. In contrast, Jalloh demonstrates a model of transformation based not on verbal testimony but on visual revelation. Understood via local epistemology, spectacle is not a unidirectional relationship in which visions are merely transmitted from the seen to the seer, but rather as an event constituted by both the spectated and the spectator. This formulation suggests a moment of encounter and mutual appraisal: an intersection leading to inspection then introspection, on and on in a reiterative loop of continuous reassessment, negotiation, and adaptation. Jalloh's signature act epitomizes this dynamic model of spectacular transformation. After narrating a story of his capture by rebels during the war, he demonstrates his extraordinary escape. Stripped to his shorts and bound in a bag, Jalloh is locked inside a box which is in turn covered by a billowing sheet. When the sheet drops, Jalloh is standing radiantly, not only free of bag and box, but also clad in a uniform: either military fatigues, political party propaganda, or the robes of an Islamic scholar. Through his mystic redressing, Hassan Jalloh assumes forms of martial, political, and religious power. His personal history buttresses these mystic demonstrations, and cumulatively they demonstrate his own ability to move among these different spheres. Both explicitly and implicitly, Jalloh's performances assert that he gained this agency through the chaos of war, rewriting the history of the conflict not only as a era of catastrophic loss but also as an opportunity for redefining oneself and one's society.
Based on historical and ethnographic research, this paper examines the daily schedule, events, and rhythms of a metal washer factory in Johannesburg, South Africa in order to understand the shifting urban landscape of the city as it relates to labor, value, and dreams for the future. More recent work on African cities has argued that these cities are not failed visions of modernity but rather sites of innovation and collaboration that produce new forms of life and work (Simone 2004, Mbembe and Nuttall 2008, De Boeck 2004, Enwezor et al. 2002, Guyer 2011). The paper traces out new and old, ad hoc collaborations in a precarious part of Johannesburg by focusing on a particular factory and contextualizing it within surrounding factory spaces and the larger history of industry, work, and migration routes to the city. Located in the area known as Jeppestown, just east of Johannesburg's inner city, the factory at the focus of the paper continues to operate in the area despite a number of setbacks: robberies, xenophobic attacks, lack of certification, liquidations, and money shortages. Jeppestown, a formerly industrial area, is portrayed in the media and through word of mouth as either on its way to becoming a site of redevelopment by the Johannesburg Development Agency, artists, and private developers, or a crime ridden area and hotbed of Zulu ethnic-nationalism—an area that will either successfully be re-developed or descend into further dilapidation, violence, and crime. The factories, or former factories, in this area are key sites of urbanization and development in Johannesburg at a moment in which local and global social and economic forces are influencing a re-conceptualization of the colonial and apartheid structure of the city. My work examines the multiple temporalities and flows of materials that define this area in a moment of transformation – allowing for a more nuanced understanding of what is recognized as a failed or successful urban space and the economies that accompany that space. Looking closely at the flow of work and employees' dreams and fears, the paper attempts to articulate a particular temporality of transition that is marked by both precariousness and reliability. I attempt to put the particularities of the factory in dialogue with a longer history of Jeppestown in order to think more critically about the processes of urban transformation in the post-apartheid city and the violence and hopes that accompany such processes.
The immediate consequence of the end of the cold war in the late 1980s meant that many African states continue to grapple with severe and sometime extreme economic, as well as social problems. Many cultural values that once had immense significance, as well as other aspects of social and political life have been subjected to various forms of transformations. These social transformations find momentum in the urban and rural landscapes of modern Benin City, the capital of Edo state of Nigeria where traditional religious practices seem to be thriving despite the influence of charismatic Pentecostal churches that dots the landscape. Similarly, the rural/urban dynamics of Benin presents interesting spectacles to viewing these religious as well as social cultural problems, such as those of other African societies. Despite these problems, individuals continue to thrive, supported in large measures by their conscious ideas about patronizing traditional religious outfits for “magico-spiritual” solutions. This essay will explore the veneration of Olokun, the most important deity in the religious pantheon of the Edo people, against the backdrop of the changing relationships between religion, identity and landscape among the Edo speaking people of southern Nigeria.
Burundi's tense electoral period in 2015 changed the face of both political participation and conflict for the country. The elections served as a litmus test for the trajectory of democracy, heavily contested due to the President's decision to run for a third mandate after he was set to step down from power. However, a key element often overlooked in this moment in history is the role that social media played in permanently shifting political strategy, and changing the organization of political activism both within and outside of Burundi's borders. A younger generation using social media to connect amongst themselves found leaders outside of traditional spaces. Moreover, social media became a key avenue for sharing information in the wake of diminishing space for traditional media, such as radio. This paper utilizes data collected prior to and during the 2015 electoral period, including interviews and participant observation, to explore the ways in which a new generation of citizens has harnessed the power of social media as a tool for activism. In particular, the paper explores two themes: the impact Burundian citizens had on the trajectory of the political sphere by engaging in new forms of communication – both within and outside the country, and the power that information sharing gave to citizens during a time when formal institutions were weak. Lessons learned from this case outline key elements about activism that remain understudied, and are relevant far beyond Burundi's borders. The new wave of information accessibility through programs like Whatsapp and Facebook has fundamentally changed how rhetoric and advocacy tactics work within nation-states. Burundi, often overlooked as a country that can teach us global lessons about conflict and democracy, serves as an important case highlighting how new technologies serve to mobilize and inform citizens participating in democracy. How does citizen-led information sharing shape the trajectory of democracy? In a country coming out of a post-conflict period, how does social media allow citizens to reinvent advocacy and empowerment? What are the risks that social media presents in the wake of conflict? This paper seeks to answer these questions from Burundi's case, highlighting contributions of Burundian activists and citizens.
Comprising $11 billion per year and supporting 18 million citizens (33% of the population), South Africa's social welfare program is, by far, the largest in the developing world. With many state distribution programs lagging, social grants have become one of the primary ways that poor Black South Africans experience a break from the colonial and apartheid past. In 2012, the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) contracted a multinational corporation, Net1 UEPS Technologies (Net1), to pay non-contributory, means-tested social to children under 18, adults over 60, and people with disabilities. Paradoxically, this ambitious and progressive redistributive policy – a grand experiment in the tradition of social welfare and cash transfer – has proven to be not only fraught with risk and insecurity but also incapable of addressing the crippling legacies of apartheid. This is largely because South Africa's social welfare program follows the World Bank's “financial inclusion” recommendations: promoting the privatization of welfare distribution through biometrically-secured bank accounts linked to mobile phone technologies and profitable financial products (such as airtime, electricity, insurance, and loans). The challenge of “financial inclusion,” via social welfare distribution, is to regulate the contradictions of simultaneously providing social grants for basic needs, while encouraging recipients to use their benefits to purchase financial products and services. Under these circumstances, “financial inclusion” has come to look a lot like the “company town” – where the same company pays wages, sells products, extends credit, and garnishes wages. In this paper, I follow Sophia, a 36-year old farmworker and mother of four, living the effects of life in debt via her social grant payments. In telling Sophia's story, I examine the history of debt in South Africa through colonial and apartheid labor regimes and, more recently, through social grant distribution. I then discuss how Sophia and a number of other grant holders have attempted to pay off their debts and end their insurance contracts in an attempt to refuse “financial inclusion.” Both SASSA and Net1 make this nearly impossible – framing these women as aberrant, irresponsible, and the constitutive outside of “financial inclusion's” disciplined subjects. As such, I explore how the politics of “financially inclusive” cash transfers reconstitute subject populations – transforming recipients not into “owners,” “entrepreneurs,” or even “beneficiaries,” but rather “debtors” beholden to both predatory companies and government.
