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}
{"title":"African Theatre 11: festivals by James Gibbs (ed.) (review)","authors":"D. Kerr","doi":"10.1353/AFR.2013.0056","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/AFR.2013.0056","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":337749,"journal":{"name":"Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute","volume":"95 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":"128738650","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":"Human Rights and African Airwaves: mediating equality on the Chichewa radio by Harri Englund (review)","authors":"R. Fardon","doi":"10.1353/AFR.2013.0034","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/AFR.2013.0034","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":337749,"journal":{"name":"Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122319300","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":"Encounters with Witchcraft: field notes from Africa by Norman Miller (review)","authors":"D. Amponsah","doi":"10.1353/afr.2013.0047","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/afr.2013.0047","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":337749,"journal":{"name":"Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute","volume":"150 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122466959","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":"A History of Malawi, 1859-1966 by John McCracken (review)","authors":"Joey Power","doi":"10.1353/afr.2013.0037","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/afr.2013.0037","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":337749,"journal":{"name":"Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute","volume":"55 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122995248","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}
post-war period –and were to have political significance as land hunger and agrarian reform efforts became the catalysts for rural unrest. Chapters follow on the Depression and how this led to the delay of development initiatives. The book also includes a re-examination of the role of various officials whose development and ‘agrarian reform’ efforts stoked rural resistance to colonial and ultimately federal overrule. There are thematic chapters on the urban experience, the establishment of colonial administration and the relationship between town and country. The second half of the book is devoted to the years after 1945 during which Malawi’s peoples faced one of their greatest political challenges –white settler nationalism and the resulting imposition of the Central African Federation. Opposition to this arguably led to the formation of independent Malawi and a particular brand of politics that, in its focus on the need for unity to achieve national liberation, eventually contributed to the emergence of a one-party state. McCracken touches on the development of party and popular politics, the role of violence in political change, and on the impact of the 1959 State of Emergency on reshaping African resistance to colonial rule. He surveys the trajectory of Malawi’s incipient and then aborted labour movement, and the emergence of different factions within the Malawi Congress Party that would ultimately drive post-colonial politics. He does a commendable job of merging archival sources with a growing body of secondary literature on this period and provides considerable insight into the interplay between British and Malawian actors in bringing about a negotiated independence. The book culminates, quite rightly, not with the raising of the flag on 6 July 1964 but with the denouement following the 1964 cabinet crisis and Chipembere’s failed rebellion of 1965. McCracken argues that one cannot help but draw parallels between the latter and the Chilembwe revolt of some fifty years before, not just because both rebellions failed but also in the light of their legacies. Each led to new alliances and political and economic power groupings that would endure – in the latter case, until challenged again in the early 1990s. John McCracken has provided a masterful survey of Malawi’s modern past, encompassing political, economic and socio-cultural perspectives. A History of Malawi is bound to become the go-to text for students and scholars of colonial Malawi and those interested in the foundations of the post-colonial period. It is sure to have considerable local appeal (one hopes future editions will be more affordable), and must surely become a standard reference for those interested in Malawi’s modern history, politics and economics.
{"title":"Sudan Looks East: China, India and the politics of Asian alternatives ed. by Daniel Large and Luke Patey (review)","authors":"G. McCann","doi":"10.1353/AFR.2013.0040","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/AFR.2013.0040","url":null,"abstract":"post-war period –and were to have political significance as land hunger and agrarian reform efforts became the catalysts for rural unrest. Chapters follow on the Depression and how this led to the delay of development initiatives. The book also includes a re-examination of the role of various officials whose development and ‘agrarian reform’ efforts stoked rural resistance to colonial and ultimately federal overrule. There are thematic chapters on the urban experience, the establishment of colonial administration and the relationship between town and country. The second half of the book is devoted to the years after 1945 during which Malawi’s peoples faced one of their greatest political challenges –white settler nationalism and the resulting imposition of the Central African Federation. Opposition to this arguably led to the formation of independent Malawi and a particular brand of politics that, in its focus on the need for unity to achieve national liberation, eventually contributed to the emergence of a one-party state. McCracken touches on the development of party and popular politics, the role of violence in political change, and on the impact of the 1959 State of Emergency on reshaping African resistance to colonial rule. He surveys the trajectory of Malawi’s incipient and then aborted labour movement, and the emergence of different factions within the Malawi Congress Party that would ultimately drive post-colonial politics. He does a commendable job of merging archival sources with a growing body of secondary literature on this period and provides considerable insight into the interplay between British and Malawian actors in bringing about a negotiated independence. The book culminates, quite rightly, not with the raising of the flag on 6 July 1964 but with the denouement following the 1964 cabinet crisis and Chipembere’s failed rebellion of 1965. McCracken argues that one cannot help but draw parallels between the latter and the Chilembwe revolt of some fifty years before, not just because both rebellions failed but also in the light of their legacies. Each led to new alliances and political and economic power groupings that would endure – in the latter case, until challenged again in the early 1990s. John McCracken has provided a masterful survey of Malawi’s modern past, encompassing political, economic and socio-cultural perspectives. A History of Malawi is bound to become the go-to text for students and scholars of colonial Malawi and those interested in the foundations of the post-colonial period. It is sure to have considerable local appeal (one hopes future editions will be more affordable), and must surely become a standard reference for those interested in Malawi’s modern history, politics and economics.","PeriodicalId":337749,"journal":{"name":"Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128380083","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}
nations. These chapters thus address key concerns of the volume in unpacking the detailed mechanics of Asian economic interaction with Sudan and stressing the importance of the past in conditioning these relations. The key endeavour (to which the authors are attuned, if not engaged, here) is to marry such discussion with a more assiduously fine-grained look at the potency of elite Sudanese agency and its local consequences in Asian encounters. In this sense, the chapter on China, Khartoum and the political economy of dam construction is particularly powerful. Many of the themes, theoretical underpinnings and some of the content may be familiar to those who have read the editors’ existing work. But there also is much genuine originality that speaks to policy makers, activists and academics alike. This is an important and worthy book. The depth of detail in the case studies provides a benchmark for those who recognize the imperative to push the Asia– Africa field firmly into the analytical crucible of specific African context and contemporary historical imagination. It should have a place on every Africanist bookshelf.
{"title":"Remaking Rwanda: state building and human rights after mass violence ed. by Scott Straus and Lars Waldorf (review)","authors":"Federica Guglielmo","doi":"10.1353/AFR.2013.0044","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/AFR.2013.0044","url":null,"abstract":"nations. These chapters thus address key concerns of the volume in unpacking the detailed mechanics of Asian economic interaction with Sudan and stressing the importance of the past in conditioning these relations. The key endeavour (to which the authors are attuned, if not engaged, here) is to marry such discussion with a more assiduously fine-grained look at the potency of elite Sudanese agency and its local consequences in Asian encounters. In this sense, the chapter on China, Khartoum and the political economy of dam construction is particularly powerful. Many of the themes, theoretical underpinnings and some of the content may be familiar to those who have read the editors’ existing work. But there also is much genuine originality that speaks to policy makers, activists and academics alike. This is an important and worthy book. The depth of detail in the case studies provides a benchmark for those who recognize the imperative to push the Asia– Africa field firmly into the analytical crucible of specific African context and contemporary historical imagination. It should have a place on every Africanist bookshelf.","PeriodicalId":337749,"journal":{"name":"Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute","volume":"77 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130155951","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}
role in emerging African nationalist organizations’ (p. 169). Indeed, black veterans of the 1939–45 war ‘played an important role in upholding Southern Rhodesia’s colonial state’ (p. 221). Soldiers, but also policemen, were often recruited from marginal regions of Zimbabwe or from neighbouring colonies, and a loyalty to the political order they served was inculcated by the close discipline of camp life, identity with fellow-men in the same uniform, and selfinterest in the economic benefits of continued service, as well as by state propaganda. While nationalist unrest increased in the mid-1950s, RAR soldiers were fighting in Malaya. During the Chimurenga, a large part of the Rhodesian army was black, and their numbers included a handful of African officers commissioned after 1970. Stapleton deals with other important issues: religion and witchcraft; sport; the recruitment of African policewomen to manage female prisoners and also to counter the involvement of women in protest movements; and demands by African policemen for improved conditions of service, which began to be voiced in the early 1940s. At times the evidence and examples listed to make a specific point – for example, on police courage and corruption – could have been shorter to allow for more analysis. In the concluding chapter brief mention is made of the process of integrating the RAR into the new Zimbabwe Army after 1980, a topic which clearly needs more research. But these are small reservations; overall, this is a very useful addition to the studies on police and military in colonial Africa, and is warmly recommended.
{"title":"S is for Samora: a lexical biography of Samora Machel and the Mozambican dream by Sarah Lefanu (review)","authors":"M. Meneses","doi":"10.1353/AFR.2013.0031","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/AFR.2013.0031","url":null,"abstract":"role in emerging African nationalist organizations’ (p. 169). Indeed, black veterans of the 1939–45 war ‘played an important role in upholding Southern Rhodesia’s colonial state’ (p. 221). Soldiers, but also policemen, were often recruited from marginal regions of Zimbabwe or from neighbouring colonies, and a loyalty to the political order they served was inculcated by the close discipline of camp life, identity with fellow-men in the same uniform, and selfinterest in the economic benefits of continued service, as well as by state propaganda. While nationalist unrest increased in the mid-1950s, RAR soldiers were fighting in Malaya. During the Chimurenga, a large part of the Rhodesian army was black, and their numbers included a handful of African officers commissioned after 1970. Stapleton deals with other important issues: religion and witchcraft; sport; the recruitment of African policewomen to manage female prisoners and also to counter the involvement of women in protest movements; and demands by African policemen for improved conditions of service, which began to be voiced in the early 1940s. At times the evidence and examples listed to make a specific point – for example, on police courage and corruption – could have been shorter to allow for more analysis. In the concluding chapter brief mention is made of the process of integrating the RAR into the new Zimbabwe Army after 1980, a topic which clearly needs more research. But these are small reservations; overall, this is a very useful addition to the studies on police and military in colonial Africa, and is warmly recommended.","PeriodicalId":337749,"journal":{"name":"Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute","volume":"41 3-4","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133205520","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":"Intercourse and Crosscurrents in the Atlantic World: Calabar-British experience, 17th-20th centuries by David Lishilinimle Imbua (review)","authors":"T. Green","doi":"10.1353/AFR.2013.0033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/AFR.2013.0033","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":337749,"journal":{"name":"Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute","volume":"103 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121577682","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":"Mother Is Gold, Father Is Glass: gender and colonialism in a Yoruba town by Lorelle D. Semley (review)","authors":"J. T. Willis","doi":"10.1353/AFR.2013.0042","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/AFR.2013.0042","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":337749,"journal":{"name":"Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute","volume":"32 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128598369","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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