Pub Date : 2017-08-03DOI: 10.1017/9781316665985.009
M. Lambek
{"title":"Afterword","authors":"M. Lambek","doi":"10.1017/9781316665985.009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316665985.009","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":337749,"journal":{"name":"Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117236568","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-08-01DOI: 10.1017/S0001972017000183
C. Shaw
{"title":"The Gender of Piety: family, faith, and colonial rule in Matabeleland, Zimbabwe by Wendy Urban-Mead (review)","authors":"C. Shaw","doi":"10.1017/S0001972017000183","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0001972017000183","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":337749,"journal":{"name":"Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute","volume":"177 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122906624","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-04-21DOI: 10.1017/S0001972016001091
Reuben A. Loffman
{"title":"A Nervous State: violence, remedies, and reverie in colonial Congo by Nancy Rose Hunt (review)","authors":"Reuben A. Loffman","doi":"10.1017/S0001972016001091","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0001972016001091","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":337749,"journal":{"name":"Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute","volume":"143 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-04-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115087753","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-02-01DOI: 10.1017/S0001972016000772
G. Mann
By putting in the same phrase two phenomena usually considered to be chronologically and conceptually distinct, the title of Benedetta Rossi’s From Slavery to Aid expresses the signal contribution of this compelling work. The product of some twenty years of research in Ader – roughly the southern half of the contemporary Nigerien administrative region of Tahoua – Rossi’s book makes multiple, linked arguments that are not quite accurately captured in its subtitle, Politics, labour, and ecology in the Nigerien Sahel. Nor can they be readily encapsulated in a single review. That said, the book’s central question is why, in this area of the Sahara-Sahel, slavery has proven so resilient and a transformation in labour so elusive in the context of scarcity and ecological adversity. The question, and indeed the circumstance, is particular to the region, which is in turn largely defined by its ecology. Ader straddles the sharp edge of the Sahel. Rain-fed agriculture is feasible, but hardly profitable. Herders practise transhumance. Apart from long-distance trade, which absorbs relatively little labour, there is no productive activity that would support a sustainable wage. In the twentieth century, migration became the clear alternative to penury, particularly given the relatively high wages available in Nigeria, but nearly all migrants were male. In short, labourers are available – in a region in which the population has grown rapidly without ever becoming dense – yet labour is unobtainable or unprofitable. How to square this circle? Coercion. Such coercion, it turns out, has a complex history in Ader. Before the French conquest, local forms of governmentality – a Foucaultian concept to which Rossi is indebted but not wedded – relied on the control of movement rather than of territory. Rossi contrasts this practice of governing mobility, which she terms ‘kinetocracy’, with French ideas of government that were territorially bound, linking populations to specific locales. Through World War I, the former model prevailed. Tuareg ‘chiefs’ of the Iwellemmeden Kel Denneg and Kel Gress, who mastered both mobility and the means of violence, demanded ready access to the scarce resources of sedentary Hausa and Asna communities. They extracted from the peasantry more or less at will, but had little else at stake in the ability of those communities to reproduce themselves. After a brutal (and late) military conquest of the region, French colonizers followed much the same pattern. In a difficult environment very weakly penetrated by capital, they procured labour and extracted resources by force, irrespective of the supposed end of slavery. In short, facing similar ecological constraints but drawing on two distinct governing ideologies, Tuareg chiefs and French officers pursued much the same solution. That began to change in 1946, when such long-standing practices were thrown into question by the abolition of the colonial administrative ‘code’ known as the indigénat, wh
{"title":"From Slavery to Aid: politics, labour, and ecology in the Nigerien Sahel, 1800–2000 by Benedetta Rossi (review)","authors":"G. Mann","doi":"10.1017/S0001972016000772","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0001972016000772","url":null,"abstract":"By putting in the same phrase two phenomena usually considered to be chronologically and conceptually distinct, the title of Benedetta Rossi’s From Slavery to Aid expresses the signal contribution of this compelling work. The product of some twenty years of research in Ader – roughly the southern half of the contemporary Nigerien administrative region of Tahoua – Rossi’s book makes multiple, linked arguments that are not quite accurately captured in its subtitle, Politics, labour, and ecology in the Nigerien Sahel. Nor can they be readily encapsulated in a single review. That said, the book’s central question is why, in this area of the Sahara-Sahel, slavery has proven so resilient and a transformation in labour so elusive in the context of scarcity and ecological adversity. The question, and indeed the circumstance, is particular to the region, which is in turn largely defined by its ecology. Ader straddles the sharp edge of the Sahel. Rain-fed agriculture is feasible, but hardly profitable. Herders practise transhumance. Apart from long-distance trade, which absorbs relatively little labour, there is no productive activity that would support a sustainable wage. In the twentieth century, migration became the clear alternative to penury, particularly given the relatively high wages available in Nigeria, but nearly all migrants were male. In short, labourers are available – in a region in which the population has grown rapidly without ever becoming dense – yet labour is unobtainable or unprofitable. How to square this circle? Coercion. Such coercion, it turns out, has a complex history in Ader. Before the French conquest, local forms of governmentality – a Foucaultian concept to which Rossi is indebted but not wedded – relied on the control of movement rather than of territory. Rossi contrasts this practice of governing mobility, which she terms ‘kinetocracy’, with French ideas of government that were territorially bound, linking populations to specific locales. Through World War I, the former model prevailed. Tuareg ‘chiefs’ of the Iwellemmeden Kel Denneg and Kel Gress, who mastered both mobility and the means of violence, demanded ready access to the scarce resources of sedentary Hausa and Asna communities. They extracted from the peasantry more or less at will, but had little else at stake in the ability of those communities to reproduce themselves. After a brutal (and late) military conquest of the region, French colonizers followed much the same pattern. In a difficult environment very weakly penetrated by capital, they procured labour and extracted resources by force, irrespective of the supposed end of slavery. In short, facing similar ecological constraints but drawing on two distinct governing ideologies, Tuareg chiefs and French officers pursued much the same solution. That began to change in 1946, when such long-standing practices were thrown into question by the abolition of the colonial administrative ‘code’ known as the indigénat, wh","PeriodicalId":337749,"journal":{"name":"Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute","volume":"74 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114677851","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-02-01DOI: 10.1017/S0001972016000784
R. Heinze
{"title":"Unreasonable Histories: nativism, multiracial lives, and the genealogical imagination in British Africa by Christopher J. Lee (review)","authors":"R. Heinze","doi":"10.1017/S0001972016000784","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0001972016000784","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":337749,"journal":{"name":"Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute","volume":"96 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115414150","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-02-01DOI: 10.1017/S0001972016000802
P. Nugent
Inyati Boys’ Industrial and Agricultural Institution. An ‘urbane man’whowas on speaking terms with the local NC, andwho wore a hat as a sign of ‘his distinction’ (p. 55), Njokweni had his hat knocked off by the assistant NC, Tapson, for a perceived display of impudence. Tapping into debates regarding the role of white women in the colonial enterprise, Shutt moves to examine the position of a colonial wife, Rose Comberbach. Shutt details how Comberbach became avocal critic of the policy of cattle culling, undermining white patriarchal prerogatives and ‘racial etiquette’ by speaking on behalf of the African population (p. 72). Continuing with white women, Chapter 3, ‘Etiquette and integration’, examines how white women were perceived as ‘conduits of good manners’ (p. 78), who played a central role in promoting ‘the lessons of racial etiquette’ (p. 91). As Shutt argues, instilling ‘proper’ manners into one’s African servants was seen as part and parcel of being a ‘good Rhodesian’ (p. 98). While Chapter 4, ‘Courtesy and rudeness’, does note that the relative political ‘liberalism’ of the Federation years saw a slight relaxation of the rules of etiquette, on the whole, the regulation of manners continued. Interestingly, Shutt notes that, during this period, the African press was ‘chock-full of stories about ill-mannered whites bullying courteous and deferential Africans’ (p. 119). In Chapter 5, ‘Violence and hospitality’, Shutt notes the increasing irrelevance of white attempts to promote an ‘image of friendly race relations’ (p. 138) in the context of the growing tide of African nationalism. In concluding, Shutt argues for a greater appraisal of ‘white ideals about courtesy and rudeness’ (p. 177), demonstrating that ‘in the end as at the beginning, manners mattered’ (p. 179). Persuasively argued and lucidly written, Manners is an important contribution to the existing literature. In particular, Shutt deserves praise for her judicious treatment of African nationalism, as she does not ‘read’ proto-nationalism where there is scant evidence of it. In summation, this book is likely to have a wide appeal not only to scholars and students of Zimbabwe, but to a broader range of social historians who are interested in understanding the complex ways in which power was exercised in the name of European colonialism.
{"title":"The Fruits of Freedom in British Togoland: literacy, politics and nationalism, 1914–2014 by Kate Skinner (review)","authors":"P. Nugent","doi":"10.1017/S0001972016000802","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0001972016000802","url":null,"abstract":"Inyati Boys’ Industrial and Agricultural Institution. An ‘urbane man’whowas on speaking terms with the local NC, andwho wore a hat as a sign of ‘his distinction’ (p. 55), Njokweni had his hat knocked off by the assistant NC, Tapson, for a perceived display of impudence. Tapping into debates regarding the role of white women in the colonial enterprise, Shutt moves to examine the position of a colonial wife, Rose Comberbach. Shutt details how Comberbach became avocal critic of the policy of cattle culling, undermining white patriarchal prerogatives and ‘racial etiquette’ by speaking on behalf of the African population (p. 72). Continuing with white women, Chapter 3, ‘Etiquette and integration’, examines how white women were perceived as ‘conduits of good manners’ (p. 78), who played a central role in promoting ‘the lessons of racial etiquette’ (p. 91). As Shutt argues, instilling ‘proper’ manners into one’s African servants was seen as part and parcel of being a ‘good Rhodesian’ (p. 98). While Chapter 4, ‘Courtesy and rudeness’, does note that the relative political ‘liberalism’ of the Federation years saw a slight relaxation of the rules of etiquette, on the whole, the regulation of manners continued. Interestingly, Shutt notes that, during this period, the African press was ‘chock-full of stories about ill-mannered whites bullying courteous and deferential Africans’ (p. 119). In Chapter 5, ‘Violence and hospitality’, Shutt notes the increasing irrelevance of white attempts to promote an ‘image of friendly race relations’ (p. 138) in the context of the growing tide of African nationalism. In concluding, Shutt argues for a greater appraisal of ‘white ideals about courtesy and rudeness’ (p. 177), demonstrating that ‘in the end as at the beginning, manners mattered’ (p. 179). Persuasively argued and lucidly written, Manners is an important contribution to the existing literature. In particular, Shutt deserves praise for her judicious treatment of African nationalism, as she does not ‘read’ proto-nationalism where there is scant evidence of it. In summation, this book is likely to have a wide appeal not only to scholars and students of Zimbabwe, but to a broader range of social historians who are interested in understanding the complex ways in which power was exercised in the name of European colonialism.","PeriodicalId":337749,"journal":{"name":"Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute","volume":"218 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126040183","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Photography in Africa: ethnographic perspectives by Richard Vokes (ed.) (review)","authors":"Urte Undine Frömming","doi":"10.1353/AFR.2013.0053","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/AFR.2013.0053","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":337749,"journal":{"name":"Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute","volume":"55 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-12-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133552650","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Becoming Muslim in Mainland Tanzania, 1890–2000 by Felicitas Becker (review)","authors":"Preben Kaarsholm","doi":"10.1353/AFR.2013.0051","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/AFR.2013.0051","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":337749,"journal":{"name":"Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute","volume":"102 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-12-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116116758","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Forest and Labor in Madagascar: from colonial concession to global biosphere by Genese Marie Sodikoff (review)","authors":"Jeffrey C. Kaufmann","doi":"10.1353/AFR.2013.0060","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/AFR.2013.0060","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":337749,"journal":{"name":"Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-12-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130191967","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
anthropological literature. She takes her readers on a wonderful tour along the underbelly of conservation work in order to give them a clear understanding of how labour plays out in a political economy ruled mainly by conservation stakeholders. Sodikoff uses theory to guide the empirical results of her field studies, rather than as an engine hammering down points. For example, she uses Marx’s materialist theory as a touchstone to help her derive insights about the contradictions of conservation, thereby avoiding the reduction of history, societal relations, and labour into a flattened Marxist space of victims and victimizers. Instead she brings the lives of Malagasy, with their limited choices, closer to her readers. Sodikoff has a clear sense of her audience, nurturing our interest in their lives by changing the pace and tenor of the narrative, integrating masterful descriptions of on-the-ground experiences with ethnohistorical scholarship and ethnographic findings. There are few faults worth noting. She might have strengthened her argument by discussing the attack in the conservation literature upon Malagasy loyalty to kin ( fihavanana) in the form of contriving local societal rules (dina) against conservation transgressors. But, in her defence, conservation policy makers only appropriated local rules to serve a conservation master after the ICDP experiments proved untenable. Sodikoff’s field study was done during the ICDP period. It is worth noting that Sodikoff is caught in something of a contradiction herself: that she is a cultural anthropologist who has spent time labouring in the conservation sector, and yet has a deep regard and concern for the sustainability of Malagasy lives vis-à-vis crushing poverty. Too few cultural anthropologists embrace this contradiction and try, as Sodikoff does, to lift their voices above a murmured string of curses aimed at conservation projects. She offers no way out of the contradiction other than embracing it and enlivening the conversation that needs to take place about ‘people and parks’ in the light of the failures of the last conversation that ground to a halt with the inept ICDP projects.
{"title":"The Time of Youth: work, social change, and politics in Africa by Alcinda Honwana (review)","authors":"J. Gilbert","doi":"10.1353/afr.2013.0058","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/afr.2013.0058","url":null,"abstract":"anthropological literature. She takes her readers on a wonderful tour along the underbelly of conservation work in order to give them a clear understanding of how labour plays out in a political economy ruled mainly by conservation stakeholders. Sodikoff uses theory to guide the empirical results of her field studies, rather than as an engine hammering down points. For example, she uses Marx’s materialist theory as a touchstone to help her derive insights about the contradictions of conservation, thereby avoiding the reduction of history, societal relations, and labour into a flattened Marxist space of victims and victimizers. Instead she brings the lives of Malagasy, with their limited choices, closer to her readers. Sodikoff has a clear sense of her audience, nurturing our interest in their lives by changing the pace and tenor of the narrative, integrating masterful descriptions of on-the-ground experiences with ethnohistorical scholarship and ethnographic findings. There are few faults worth noting. She might have strengthened her argument by discussing the attack in the conservation literature upon Malagasy loyalty to kin ( fihavanana) in the form of contriving local societal rules (dina) against conservation transgressors. But, in her defence, conservation policy makers only appropriated local rules to serve a conservation master after the ICDP experiments proved untenable. Sodikoff’s field study was done during the ICDP period. It is worth noting that Sodikoff is caught in something of a contradiction herself: that she is a cultural anthropologist who has spent time labouring in the conservation sector, and yet has a deep regard and concern for the sustainability of Malagasy lives vis-à-vis crushing poverty. Too few cultural anthropologists embrace this contradiction and try, as Sodikoff does, to lift their voices above a murmured string of curses aimed at conservation projects. She offers no way out of the contradiction other than embracing it and enlivening the conversation that needs to take place about ‘people and parks’ in the light of the failures of the last conversation that ground to a halt with the inept ICDP projects.","PeriodicalId":337749,"journal":{"name":"Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute","volume":"53 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-12-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115996760","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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