African Affairs - recent issues

'Condoms Cause Aids': Poison, Prevention and Denial in Venda, South Africa

McNeill, F. G. — 2009-06-18

This article presents a critique of the position that South Africans are engaged in a process of collective HIV/AIDS denial. Ex-President Mbeki's well-documented belief that HIV does not lead to AIDS, and that South Africans are not dying of AIDS-related disease, has been used by academics and journalists to explain the widespread public silence around the pandemic. The article argues that the complex social processes employed to create and maintain the avoidance of open conversation around HIV/AIDS are rooted, not in Mbeki's denialism, but rather in conventions through which causes of death can, and cannot, be spoken about. Through case studies of poisonings and public performances by HIV/AIDS educators, the article demonstrates that by invoking public silence and coded language, ‘degrees of separation’ are constructed that create social distance between individuals and the unnatural cause of another's death. Far from a collective denial, acts of public silence and obfuscation should be read as protestations of innocence: attempts to drive a wedge between open, public knowledge of death and potential implication in the increasing number of AIDS-related fatalities. HIV/AIDS prevention policies based on inadequate understandings of this wider context have given rise to the social construction of peer educators – and condoms as their central symbol of prevention – as vectors of the virus.

The Emergence of a Somali State: Building Peace from Civil War in Somaliland

Walls, M. — 2009-06-18

At a time when Somalia is widely viewed as a political and humanitarian disaster, it is significant that the north-western territory of Somaliland has installed a comparatively stable government and held a series of elections that have been declared ‘relatively free and fair’ by observers. This article considers a key period in the establishment of the current system of state, from the 1991 collapse of the Siyaad Barre regime to the 1993 conference in the northern town of Borama which saw the transition from an interim military government to civilian administration. While the Borama conference did not end conflict in Somaliland, it resulted in an interim constitution that eventually enabled a more lasting peace, along with popular elections for local government, President, and Lower House of Parliament. The article argues that the success of the 1991–3 process was built on a set of deeply embedded social norms that emphasized the importance of dialogue between antagonists; a willingness to accept that the most complex grievances would be set aside indefinitely to avoid the contentious process of negotiating compensation payments; the opening of space for the intervention of mediators; and a sustained commitment to consensus building in preference to divisive voting. In short, local resources have been employed effectively in the cause of achieving a lasting peace and what appears to be a viable system of democracy.

Comrades 'Back on Track'? The Durability of the Tripartite Alliance in South Africa

Beresford, A. — 2009-06-18

The article examines the Tripartite Alliance in South Africa, drawing on in-depth interviews with members of the National Union of Mineworkers employed by Eskom, South Africa's electricity parastatal. The article challenges the widespread argument that the alliance is heading for an inevitable break-up by interrogating the resilience of workers’ support for the ANC. It is argued that workers continue to identify a broad range of aspirations with the party and that the ANC thus remains the primary figurehead of political and social change in these workers’ political imaginations. Exploring the attitudes of Eskom workers towards the ANC's presidential succession battle, it is shown that workers continue to hold the ANC as an organization to be sacrosanct: the failures of the ANC government were considered to result from the failure of individual leaders to meet their expectations of representation, mediation, and accountability within the post-apartheid democratic era, rather than any irredeemable ideological shortcoming of the ANC itself.

Experts and Expertise in Colonial Africa Reconsidered: Science and the Interpenetration of Knowledge

Beinart, W., Brown, K., Gilfoyle, D. — 2009-06-18

Africanists have long criticized the social construction, and consequences, of technical knowledge. Colonial science was seen as a particularly problematic enterprise, moulded by authoritarian colonial states, wherein science ‘delineated the relationship of power and authority between rulers and ruled’. Much the same critique has been applied to post-colonial experts and expertise, becoming almost paradigmatic in the literature. This article seeks to re-open this debate, pointing to the diverse and changing location of scientists; the salience of scientific work in constructing categories and understandings for historians and social scientists; the value of trying to understand scientific explanations, as opposed simply to analyse their application in coercive policies; and the degree to which experts have sometimes incorporated local knowledge. The article draws examples from veterinary science and policy in southern Africa, and seeks to move beyond the inversions of colonial thinking in post-colonial analysis and provide instead a platform for interdisciplinary research strategies.

Healing The Scar? Idealizing Britain in Africa, 1997-2007

Gallagher, J. — 2009-06-18

This article examines the British government's commitment to Africa during Tony Blair's time as Prime Minister. Drawing on interviews with politicians from across the political spectrum and with officials involved in Africa policy, it shows how British work and relationships in Africa are described in thin and highly idealized ways, depicting a project seemingly able to transcend ordinary politics. The article suggests that this idealization of Africa has been valued by state actors for the ways in which it appeared to connect them to a ‘good’ and ‘noble’ cause, and in particular the way it enhanced their perceptions of the capacity and potency of the British state.

Peace and Power Sharing in Africa: A Not So Obvious Relationship

Mehler, A. — 2009-06-18

Peace accords usually involve top politicians and military leaders, who negotiate, sign, and/or benefit from an agreement. What is conspicuously absent from such negotiations is broad-based participation by those who should benefit in the first place: citizens. More specifically, the local level of security provision and insecurity production is rarely taken into account. The analysis of recent African peace agreements shows important variations in power-sharing devices and why it is important to ask who is sharing power with whom. Experiences with power sharing are mixed and far less positive than assumed by outside negotiators.

Kivu's Intractable Security Conundrum

Vlassenroot, K., Raeymaekers, T. — 2009-06-18

Notes and News 1 January 2009 - 30 June 2009

2009-06-18

The British Empire and the Second World War, by Ashley Jackson

Killingray, D. — 2009-06-18

Strength beyond Structure: Social and historical trajectories of agency in Africa, edited by Mirjam de Bruijn, Rijk van Dijk, and Jan-Bart Gewald

Stapleton, T. — 2009-06-18

The African Jihad: Bin Laden's quest for the Horn of Africa, by Gregory A. Pirio

Rotberg, R. I. — 2009-06-18

Fighting the Greater Jihad: Amadu Bamba and the founding of the Muridiyya of Senegal, 1853-1913, by Cheikh Anta Babou. Sufism and Jihad in Modern Senegal: the Murid Order, by John Glover

Ross, E. — 2009-06-18

The Problem of Money: African agency and Western medicine in northern Ghana, by Bernhard Bierlich

van der Geest, S. — 2009-06-18

Picturing Pity: Pitfalls and pleasures in cross-cultural communication - image and word in a North Cameroon mission, by Marianne Gullestad

Schneider, J. — 2009-06-18

The Intestines of the State: Youth, violence, and belated histories in the Cameroon Grassfields, by Nicholas Argenti

Mentan, T. — 2009-06-18

Urban Legends, Colonial Myths: Popular culture and literature in East Africa, edited by James Ogude and Joyce Nyairo

Olaoluwa, S. S. — 2009-06-18

The Silence of Great Zimbabwe: Contested landscapes and the power of heritage, by Joost Fontein

Pikirayi, I. — 2009-06-18

Re-living the Second Chimurenga: Memories from Zimbabwe's liberation struggle, by Fay Chung

Mbiba, B. — 2009-06-18

Our Dream Deferred: The poor in South Africa, by Abebe Zegeye and Julia Maxted

Butcher, S. — 2009-06-18

Bibliography

Barringer, T. A. — 2009-06-18

A Select List of Articles on Africa Appearing in Non-Africanist Periodicals: January to March 2009

Barringer, T. A. — 2009-06-18

West Africa's International Drug Trade

Ellis, S. — 2009-03-09

Since the publication in 2007 of a report on West Africa's role in the illegal cocaine trade from Latin America to Europe, considerable media attention has focused on Guinea-Bissau in particular as a country infiltrated by drug interests. However, West Africa has a long history of involvement in the international drug trade, that has been dominated by Nigerian interests especially. Consideration of this history may help stimulate a debate in historical sociology that will illuminate both the nature of involvement in the drug trade itself, and also larger questions about the long-term formation of the state.

Dala or Diaspora? Obama and the Luo Community of Kenya

Carotenuto, M., Luongo, K. — 2009-03-09

As members of the ethnic group to which the American President's paternal family belongs, Luo people in Kenya and in the diaspora have been eagerly claiming Barack Obama as ‘their own’ since 2004. This embrace speaks to a range of ethno-political developments in Kenya throughout the twentieth century. Luo identity has been primarily constituted within a diasporic context, beginning with the large-scale labour migrations of the early twentieth century and continuing with the activities of the ‘dot.com’ generation into the present. Simultaneously, patrimonial politics constituted along ethnic lines have rendered Luos political outsiders and heightened the urgency of securing a powerful patron. Given these two trends, Luo people at home and abroad have reached into the diaspora with hopes of finding their biggest ‘Big Man’ in the figure of Barack Obama.

Counting the Cost: Gold Mining and Occupational Disease in Contemporary South Africa

McCulloch, J. — 2009-03-09

Gold mining has been central to the success of South Africa's economy. That labour intensive industry has relied heavily on migrant workers for its profitability. In the past decade, scientists in Johannesburg and Cape Town have identified a pandemic of the serious occupational disease silicosis among gold miners. Litigation currently before South African courts raises the possibility of a class action by hundred and thousands of miners against the major corporations such as Anglo American. If successful that litigation may well change work regimes in the mining industry. This article explores the role of migrant labour, state regulatory authorities and science in hiding a pandemic which probably spans the 20th century.

The Uses of Ridicule: Humour, 'Infrapolitics' and Civil Society in Nigeria

Obadare, E. — 2009-03-09

As post-military ‘democratic’ regimes across Africa perpetuate norms and practices that were characteristic of the previous openly authoritarian era, humour and ridicule have emerged as a means through which ordinary people attempt to deconstruct and construct meaning out of a reality that is decidedly surreal. In Nigeria jokes serve a double function as a tool for subordinate classes to deride the state (including its agents) and themselves. Jokes are therefore a means through which an emergent civil society, ‘behaving badly’, subverts, deconstructs, and engages with the state. Yet, for all its significance as a form of agency, humour has been neglected in the civil society literature, partly because of the mentality which frames civil society in terms of organizations (humour is not organized), and partly because of its almost exclusive attention to the ‘civil’ attributes of civil society (humour is, inter alia, rude). This article argues for incorporating humour into the civil society discourse, and suggests that doing so will enrich civil society analysis by focusing on both the constructions of sociality and their associated politics, and the hidden spaces in which most of visible political action originates.

Urban Protest in Burkina Faso

Harsch, E. — 2009-03-09

Burkina Faso has embarked on a course of decentralization in which elected local governments are assuming a share of decision making over a range of services and activities previously under central authority. But many of these municipalities have also become sites and targets of popular contestation, a reality that has rarely been acknowledged in the official discourses of decentralized governance. By employing social movement research methods, this article examines more than 200 public demonstrations, marches, sit-ins, strikes, riots, and other forms of protest over local issues in 31 of Burkina's urban municipalities, from 1995 to 2007. It finds that both local government reactions and the protests themselves are strongly influenced by the national political context. The analysis highlights some of the main grievances raised by protesters, from opposition to police violence and merchants’ frustrations over the management of marketplaces, to residents’ concerns about municipal corruption and resistance to neighbourhood displacement resulting from urban ‘modernization’ schemes. By challenging the performance of Burkina's municipal councils and mayors, ordinary residents are exercising ‘voice’ and seeking to give some real substance to notions of participatory decentralization.

Re-Engineering Rural Society: The Visions and Ambitions of the Rwandan Elite

Ansoms, A. — 2009-03-09

This article analyses the Rwandan elite's visions and ambitions for a wide-ranging re-engineering of rural society. The post-1994 political elite has few links to rural society and the peasant way of life, and sees little room for small-scale peasant agriculture in Rwanda's economic future. The article shows how current Rwandan policy makers aim to realize three social engineering ambitions: first, to transform the agricultural sector into a professionalized motor for economic growth, centred on competitive and commercial farm units; second, to artificially upgrade rural life by inserting ‘modern’ techniques and strategies into local realities, while hiding true poverty and inequality; and, finally, to transform Rwanda into a target-driven society from the highest to the lowest level. The article points to the (potential) dangers, flaws, and shortcomings of this rural re-engineering mission, and illustrates how the state as the engineer ‘hovers’ above the local without consulting those affected. It concludes that contemporary polices are unlikely to be conducive to poverty reduction.

Briefing: Chronicle of a Death Foretold: The Collapse of the Chad-Cameroon Pipeline Project

Pegg, S. — 2009-03-09

Making Nations, Creating Strangers: States and citizenship in Africa, edited by Sara Dorman, Daniel Hammett, and Paul Nugent

Engeler, M. — 2009-03-09

Votes, Money and Violence: Political parties and elections in sub-Saharan Africa, edited by Matthias Basedau, Gero Erdmann, and Andreas Mehler

Kuenzi, M. — 2009-03-09

Africa in Russia, Russia in Africa: Three centuries of encounters, edited by Maxim Matusevich

Eribo, F. — 2009-03-09

Africa's Hidden Histories: Everyday literacy and making the self, edited by Karin Barber

Nkwi, W. G. — 2009-03-09

The English in West Africa, 1691-1699: The local correspondence of the Royal African Company of England, 1681-1699, Part 3, edited by Robin Law

Behrendt, S. D. — 2009-03-09

Slavery and the Birth of an African City: Lagos, 1760-1900, by Kristin Mann

Austen, R. — 2009-03-09

Beyond Plunder: Toward democratic governance in Liberia, by Amos Sawyer

Boas, M. — 2009-03-09

The First Islamic Republic: Development and disintegration of Islamism in the Sudan, by Abdullahi A. Gallab

De Waal, A. — 2009-03-09

Mulele et la revolution populaire au Kwilu (Republique Democratique du Congo), by Benoit Verhaegen, Jean Omasombo, Edwine Simons, and Francoise Verhaegen

Loffman, R. — 2009-03-09

Security Dynamics in Africa's Great Lakes Region, edited by Gilbert M. Khadiagala

Petersen, J. L. — 2009-03-09

Surrogates of the State: NGOs, development, and Ujamaa in Tanzania, by Michael Jennings

Brennan, J. R. — 2009-03-09

South Africa in Africa: The post-apartheid era, edited by Adekeye Adebajo, Adebayo Adedeji, and Chris Landsberg

Hentz, J. — 2009-03-09

Gaining Ground: 'Rights' and 'property' in South African land reform, by Deborah James

Ramutsindela, M. — 2009-03-09

Bibliography

Barringer, T. A. — 2009-03-09

A Select List of Articles on Africa Appearing in Non-Africanist Periodicals: October to December 2008

Barringer, T. A. — 2009-03-09

Democratization, sequencing, and state failure in Africa: Lessons from Kenya

Branch, D., Cheeseman, N. — 2008-12-26

In order to complement ongoing current empirical research, this article draws wider lessons from the crisis that grew out of the disputed Kenyan presidential election of December 2007. Looking beyond the immediate trigger for the subsequent violence – namely, the election itself – the paper instead locates the roots of the crisis within three historical trends: elite fragmentation, political liberalization, and state informalization.The origins of each can be traced to the style of rule employed by Daniel arap Moi. Even though his first government of 2002–5 perpetuated these trends, President Mwai Kibaki failed to recognize their implications for national unity and the exercise of power in 2007. The article then addresses the sequencing debate within the literature on democratization, identifying the lessons that can be taken from the Kenyan case for other states. Kenya has shown again that political liberalization is a high-risk activity that can produce unintended side-effects. Drawing on examples from other African states, we argue that the processes of democratization and reform can be undertaken simultaneously, but that this twin-tracked approach requires institutional reforms not yet undertaken by a large number of African polities.

Jacob Zuma, the social body and the unruly power of song

Gunner, L. — 2008-12-26

This article tracks the life of the song ‘Umshini Wami’ (My Machine Gun) adopted by Jacob Zuma, the President of the African National Congress, since early 2005. It explores the wider implications of political song in the public sphere in South Africa and aims to show how ‘Umshini Wami’ helped Jacob Zuma to prominence and demonstrated a longing in the body politic for a political language other than that of a distancing and alienating technocracy. The article also explores the early pre-Zuma provenance of the song, its links to the pre-1994 struggle period and its entanglement in a seamless masculinity with little place for gendered identities in the new state to come. It argues too that the song can be seen as unstable and unruly, a signifier with a power of its own and not entirely beholden to its new owner.

'We ourselves, we are part of the functioning':: The ICC, victims, and civil society in the Central African Republic

Glasius, M. — 2008-12-26

As a new justice institution, the International Criminal Court needs to gain legitimacy not just with states, but also in civil society, both at the global level and in the societies in which it intervenes. This article, based on interviews, NGO documents, newspaper articles, and participatory observation, looks at civil society relations with the ICC in relation to its most recent and least publicized investigation, in the Central African Republic (CAR). It charts the role of civil society organizations, local and international, in the opening of the investigation, and it discusses the initial responses of civil society figures and victims in the CAR to the investigation. It finds that, unlike in any of the other situations, the ICC's involvement in the CAR has been largely instigated by local civil society figures, and that, as a result, it operates in a quite receptive context. However, the slow pace of investigations and trials, the meagre outreach to date, and the Court's probable lack of capacity to provide victims with physical and material security are long-term challenges to its ability to meet local expectations of justice.

The plundering of Zambian resources by Frederick Chiluba and his friends: A case study of the interaction between national politics and the international drive towards good governance

van Donge, J. K. — 2008-12-26

This article analyses the accusations that have emerged since 2001 of predatory behaviour during the presidency of Frederick T. Chiluba (1991–2001). It advocates a detailed analysis of the practices that have come to light in order to move beyond a generalized interpretation of the persistence of predatory elites in Africa. Three specific themes appear. First, there is a danger of oversimplification of these conflicts as between the international community and national governments. The political struggles tend to be more complicated than generally presented, and international involvement meshes with local political struggles. Second, predatory behaviour or corruption is a social process that is embedded in wider national and international networks. It is therefore difficult to locate culpability exactly in clearly designated protagonists. Third, there is a danger of imputing an economic and political rationality to this behaviour which may best be designated as theft. The overall theme of the article is that there are important national cultural influences in the way these predatory practices are dealt with. These are obfuscated by a blander critique identifying partial reform that leaves predatory elites untouched.

Be like bees - the politics of mobilizing farmers for development in Tigray, Ethiopia

Segers, K., Dessein, J., Hagberg, S., Develtere, P., Haile, M., Deckers, J. — 2008-12-26

Based on long-term ethnographic research, this article analyses the relations between local politics and farmers’ participation in rural development in Tigray (Ethiopia). It takes an actor-oriented approach and focuses on local government officials and farmer representatives, who mediate between the government agencies that undertake rural development programmes and the farmers whom they address. To reach the target numbers of programme beneficiaries, these local development brokers ‘mobilize’ farmers to participate. They capitalize upon the historical legitimacy of the 1975–91 revolution against the military Derg dictatorship in which the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), now heading the national government, and Tigray's rural population successfully joined forces. They revitalize farmers’ collective memory of this alliance and reinvent the revolutionary grassroots institutions through which it was realized. The effects of mobilization on participation in development are most evident among farmers who are members of the TPLF. A TPLF-development nexus arises, structuring local political career opportunities along the lines of development. The case study attempts to contribute to an empirical understanding of the entanglement of local politics and local development brokerage in rural African societies.

The 2008 Ethiopian local elections: The return of electoral authoritarianism

Aalen, L., Tronvoll, K. — 2008-12-26

The Royal African Society

2008-12-26

A history of violence: The state, youth, and memory in contemporary Africa

Loffman, R. — 2008-12-26

Britain in Africa, by Tom Porteous

Chris, M. — 2008-12-26

Grasping Africa: A tale of tragedy and achievement, by Stephen Chan

Attree, L. — 2008-12-26

Navigating Youth, Generating Adulthood: Social becoming in an African context, edited by Catrine Christiansen, Mats Utas, and Henrik E. Vigh

Peters, K. — 2008-12-26

Beautiful/Ugly: African and diaspora aesthetics, edited by Sarah Nuttall

Fumanti, M. — 2008-12-26

African Filmmaking: North and south of the Sahara, by Roy Armes: Black and White in Colour: African history on screen, edited by Vivian Bickford-Smith and Richard Mendelsohn

Oyedeji, M. M. — 2008-12-26

Cities in Contemporary Africa, edited by Martin J. Murray and Garth A. Myers

O'connor, A. — 2008-12-26

Socio-economic Challenges: The African context, by M. Henry Kyambalesa

David, M. — 2008-12-26

L'Afrique des grands lacs: dix ans de transitions conflictuelles, annuaire 2005-2006, edited by Filip Reyntjens and Stefaan Marysse

Straus, S. — 2008-12-26

The Congo Wars: Conflict, myth and reality, by Thomas Turner: The Congo: Plunder and resistance, by David Renton, David Seddon, and Leo Zeilig

Stearns, J. — 2008-12-26

Friends for Life, Friends for Death: Cohort and consciousness among the Lunda-Ndembu, by James A. Pritchett

Rasing, T. — 2008-12-26

Gukurahundi in Zimbabwe: A report on the disturbances in the Matabeleland and the Midlands, by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace

Roberts, S. — 2008-12-26

To Subsidise My Income: Urban farming in an East-African town, by Dick Foeken

David, M. — 2008-12-26

Precolonial Nigeria: Essays in honor of Toyin Falola, edited by Akinwumi Ogundiran

Olukoju, A. — 2008-12-26

Bibliography

Barringer, T. A. — 2008-12-26

A select list of articles on Africa appearing in non-Africanist periodicals: July to September 2008

Barringer, T. A. — 2008-12-26