New Books In African Studies

In today’s podcast we talked to Dr. Sandra Greene about her book Slave Owners of West Africa. Decision Making in the Age of Abolition published in 2017 by Indiana University Press. In this book Dr. Greene presents us with the biographies of three individuals who lived in the southeastern corner of what is today the Republic of Ghana between the mid-nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth century. These men became wealthy and prominent in their own communities largely through their trading activities. They had multiple wives and dependents many of whom were slaves. By documenting the lives of these three men—Amegashie Afeku of Keta, Nyaho Tamakloe of Anlo, and Noah Yawo of Ho Kpenoe—Dr. Greene examines the different ways in which they confronted the processes of European colonization and the abolition of slavery. As slaveholders, all three had much to lose from these transitions and yet, they all adopted different positions and strategies. What personal, political and economic factors informed t

In Institutions and Democracy in Africa: How the Rules of the Game Shape Political Developments (Cambridge University Press, 2018), the contributors challenge the argument that African states lack effective political institutions as these have been undermined by neo-patrimonialism and clientelism. Scholars such as Patrick Chabal and Jean-Pascal Daloz have argued that Africa’s political culture is inherently different from the West and that African political system is actually working through what they term “instrumentalization of disorder.” While acknowledging some of the contributions that Chabal and Daloz have made to the understanding of Africa institutions, the contributions in this volume challenge this notion that political life in Africa is shaped primarily by social customs and not by formal rules. The contributions examine formal institutions such as the legislature, judiciary, and political parties and they show the impact of these institutions on socio-political and economic developments in the con

In his new book, Human Rights in Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2018), Bonny Ibhawoh examines the discourse of human rights in Africa. He challenges some of the dominant narratives that focus on ruthless violators and benevolent activists. Crafting the longue duree history of human rights in Africa, he argues that these rights were neither invented during the enlightenment period, nor with the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the postwar period. In his analysis, he draws from African rights tradition that was central in the anti-slavery and anti-colonial struggles. He sees these struggles as human rights histories and challenges the idea that these were merely humanitarian acts. He argues that Africans in the continent and abroad during the abolition, emancipation, colonization, and decolonization processes framed and linked their activism to human rights. The discourse of human rights is so important that it should not be relegated to experts. Ibhawoh’s book is written in a scho

Despite the British being early abolitionists, a significant slave trade remained in the western Indian Ocean through the mid-1800s, even after the cessation of most imperial slave trading activities in the Atlantic World. The British Royal Navy’s response was to dispatch a squadron to patrol East Africa’s coast. Following what began as a simple policing action, Squadron: Ending the African Slave Trade (Overlook Duckworth Press, 2017) is the story of four Royal Naval officers who witnessed and wrote about the rampant slave trading in this region, while attempting to capture slaving vessels and recover enslaved peoples. The book grew from historian John Broich’s passion to hunt down firsthand accounts of these untold stories. Through research at archives throughout the U.K., Broich tells a tale of defiance in the face of political corruption, while delivering thrills in the tradition of high seas heroism. John Broich is the author of London: Water and the Making of a Modern British City, for which he received

Our guest today was Dr. Jennifer Hart who talked to us about her recently published book Ghana on the Go: African Mobility in the Age of Motor Transportation (Indiana University Press, 2016). In this book, Dr. Hart traces the history of automotive transportation in Ghana from the introduction of the first motor vehicles during the early colonial period through the beginnings of the twenty-first century. Ghana on the Go focuses on the emergence and growth of commercial transportation which became the most prevalent way for Ghanaians to experience automotive mobility. Dr. Hart centers her narrative in the personal stories of drivers and passengers to examine how automotive mobility allowed for social and economic mobility building from an existing entrepreneurial culture. She threads these stories with a larger history of political contestation, economic development and state regulation to examine the long-term impact of automotive technology in the evolution of Ghanaian state, society and culture. Dr. Jennife

Kimberly speaks with Dr. Christopher J. Lee about his newest book A Soviet Journey: A Critical Annotated Edition (Lexington Books, 2017). A Soviet Journey was a travel memoir written by South African writer and anti-apartheid activist, Alex La Guma. The memoir describes La Guma’s experiences in Soviet Central Asia, Siberia, and Lithuania. La Guma’s notes on his travels in the Soviet Union in the 1970s provide insight on the lasting impact of the Soviet Union on writers and intellectuals from the Third World. Dr. Lee edited, annotated, and provided an analytical introduction to La Guma’s work. Lee’s addition to the book includes critical analysis of La Guma’s travel memoir. He places La Guma and the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) into the context of the Soviet role in anti-imperial struggle in the Third World and provides depth to our understanding of the African National Congress connection to radical groups like the CPSA. Lee also shows, through La Guma’s writing, how anti-apartheid activists saw the

Today we talked to Seth Markle about his book, A Motorcycle on Hell Run: Tanzania, Black Power, and the Uncertain Future of Pan-Africanism 1964-1974, published by Michigan State University Press in 2017 as part of the Ruth Simms Hamilton African Diaspora Series. Providing extensive insight into the importance of Tanzania in the emergence of a new form of Pan-Africanism in the 1960s, Markle conveys both the character of modern nationhood in Tanzania as well the activists in the diaspora who shaped and were affected by it. Markle highlights the international connections that defined the African Diaspora and Pan-Africanism throughout the 1960s and 70s. His book is a story about the networks and friendships that tie together Julius Nyerere’s Tanzania to the pivotal figures and ideas of the twentieth century, including Malcolm X, A.M. Babu, Stokely Carmichael, and Walter Rodney. Seth Markle is an Associate Professor of History and International Studies at Trinity College. He also serves as the Director of the Hum

AIDS is one of the primary causes of death in Africa. Of the more than 24 million Africans infected with HIV, only about 54% have access to the treatment that they need. Despite the progress made in mitigating this disease in the global north, unfortunately, Africa is left behind. In her new book Doomed Interventions: The Failure of Global Responses to AIDs in Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2018), Kim Yi Dionne examines the obstacles to AIDs interventions in Africa. She challenges the narrative that the failure of these responses is because of insufficient funding or the lack of political will. She argues that designers of these intervention programs are often far removed from the agents who have to implement them and that the priorities between the international organizations who finance these interventions and the local people who have to navigate AIDs in Africa are often misaligned. She makes a case for local actors, priorities, and participation in the design and implementation of these intervention

Boko Haram is one of the most well known global terrorist organizations. They have killed thousands of people and displaced millions of West Africans. While widespread journalistic reporting on the group tries to keep up with their activities, few have placed them in a rich historical context to understand how religion and politics intersect. In Boko Haram: The History of an African Jihadist Movement (Princeton University Press, 2017), Alexander Thurston, Visiting Assistant Professor at Georgetown University, traces the origins of the jihadist group through political events, networks of Islamic learning, and the personal charisma of individual religious leaders. In his previous book, Salafism in Nigeria: Islam, Preaching, and Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2017), Thurston provides background on Salafis in Nigeria that enables us to understand Boko Haram as part of a global Salafi movement. In our conversation we discuss the Nigerian religious field, the characteristics of Salafism and its canonization

The French-Algerian War that erupted in 1954 ended with the emergence of an independent Algeria in 1962, but it was not until decades later that a broader French public turned its attention with vigor to the violence and pain of that conflict. Indeed, the French state only officially recognized the war as a war in 1999. Claire Eldridge‘s From Empire to Exile: History and Memory Within the Pied-noir and Harki Communities, 1962-2012 (Manchester University Press, 2016) interrogates the war’s legacies by focusing on the French settlers and the native military and civilian auxiliaries who fled Algeria in the thousands as French colonialism there came to an end. Examining pied-noir and harki grassroots collective mobilization and memory activism in France after 1962, From Exile to Empire shows that, while the war may have been repressed and silenced in a variety of ways in French society, the conflict was far from “forgotten” for these communities. Addressing material concerns including housing, poverty, and forms

This podcast is usually devoted to book written about the past. The authors may be historians, or political scientists, or anthropologists, or even a member of the human rights community. But we’re almost always talking about a mass atrocity that took place ‘before.’ Sam Totten‘s new book Sudan’s Nuba Mountains People Under Siege: Accounts by Humanitarians in the Battle Zone (McFarland, 2017) is different. The book is a compilation of first hand accounts of people currently working in a crisis area. Some of are doctors, some journalists, some aid workers. Their contributions to the book are intensely personal, recounting experiences caring for the sick, communicating the truth, or simply trying to deliver food amidst the scorching heat and poor roads of the Nuba Mountains. Many are harrowing to read. All inspire a profound respect. But collectively they raise interesting questions. What does it mean to study genocide while being an activist? How can activists raise the visibility of conflicts in far-away pl

I was in graduate school during Bosnia and Rwanda. Like everyone else, I watched the video footage and journalistic accounts that came from these two zones of atrocity. Like everyone else, I wondered how humans could do such things to each other. And like everyone else, I asked in anguish “why can’t we do something.” Much of the scholarship about Rwanda focuses on this question. Most of it is good, solid, passionate work. but as Herman Salton points out, it largely concentrates on nation-states and their interaction with each other. Salton’s new book, Dangerous Diplomacy: Bureaucracy, Power Politics and the Role of the UN Secretariat in Rwanda (Oxford UP, 2017), asks ‘why couldn’t we do something’ through a new lens, that of the UN and its various administrative units. Salton, Associate Professor of International Relations at the Asian University for Women reminds us that the UN, rather than being monolithic or powerless, had (and has) its own internal politics and actors. Salton argues that interactions be

Randy M. Browne in Surviving Slavery in the British Caribbean (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017) uses the overlooked archives of the fiscal, a legal legacy from Dutch colonialism, and protector of slaves to reveal the political dynamics of slavery in the British colony of Berbice during amelioration. By minutely mining these sources, Browne is able to uncover the multifaceted strategies of survival that enslaved people used to attempt to live through the deathtrap of plantation slavery. In doing so, Browne complicates the slave-master relationship and offers an alternative to the paradigm of slave resistance. Louise Moschetta is a PhD student at the University of Cambridge, working on Indian indentured labour in the British imperial world and beyond. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies

In Across Legal Lines: Jews and Muslims in Modern Morocco (Yale University Press, 2016), Jessica Marglin skillfully narrates how Jews and Muslims navigated the complex and dynamic legal system of pre-colonial Morocco. The book, based on Marglin’s doctoral dissertation conducted at Princeton University, traces the history of a Moroccan Jewish family, the Assarafs, ultimately revealing that the boundaries surrounding the states Jewish and Islamic court systems were much more porous than previously thought. Drawing from a vast wealth of archival material from private and public collections across four continents (and in upwards of seven languages), the author shows how increased foreign intervention in this period dramatically changed how Jews engaged with Moroccan law and society. In doing so, Marglin inserts her study into major debates about legal practices and modernity taking place in the fields of North African History and Jewish History alike. Jessica Marglin is the Ruth Ziegler Early Career Chair in Jew

Between 1931 and 1933, French writer Michel Leiris participated in a state-sponsored expedition to document the cultural practices of people in west and east Africa. The Mission Dakar-Djibouti employed some questionable, unethical methods to dispossess African communities of their cultural and religious artifacts and artwork. In his capacity as secretary-archivist, Leiris recorded the events, actions and observations of the mission in great detail, in a daily journal that would become L’Afrique fantome. Leiris was both critical of and to an extent complicit in the exploitative encounter between French ethnographers and the colonized people they sought to study. His journal reveals the tensions between Europe’s claims about the superiority of its civilization and the violence and barbarity of colonialism on the ground. It also bears witness to the process by which some of the holdings in the Quai Branly museum in Paris today, were taken as booty (or in Leiris’ words, “butin”) from the African continent in the

Today we talked with Hilary Matfess about her new book Women and the War on Boko Haram: Wives, Weapons, Witnesses, just recently published by Zed Books in 2017. Drawn from her extensive research and interviews from 2015 to 2017, Matfess’ book attempts to convey the myriad ways in which women have shaped the development and course of the Boko Haram insurgency. She attempts to debunk much of the conventional wisdom surrounding Boko Haram and women, most notably their presentation as victims lacking autonomy, and provides an insightful examination of these women who dominate much of Western perceptions of the African continent. Claiming that violence has been gendered during this conflict, Matfess provides a much needed reexamination of the nature of insurgency and the complexity of gender within Boko Haram. Hilary Matfess is a research analyst, a PhD student at Yale University in the Political Science Department, and a contributor to the Nigeria Social Violence Project at the Johns Hopkins University School of

Most scholars and members of the public believe the process of enslavement was confined to the Western Hemispheric plantation or other locations of enslavement. Sowande Mustakeem’s award-winning Slavery at Sea: Terror, Sex, and Sickness in the Middle Passage (University of Illinois Press, 2016) disrupts that narrative. Mustakeem changes how readers understand the packaging process for how African captives became enslaved once they reached their final destinations. Slavery at Sea reveals for the first time how similar dimensions of land-based slavery were expressed largely on board slaving vessels. By highlighting the lived experiences of those groups most neglected by prior scholars of the Middle Passage—women, children, the disabled, and the elderly—Mustakeem demonstrates how Atlantic slave ships were important areas of development to land-based methods of medical treatment and violence. Mustakeem’s approach to producing history does not end with the writing of Slavery at Sea. As a member of the St. Louis,

Marie Grace Brown’s Khartoum at Night: Fashion and Body Politics in Imperial Sudan (Stanford University Press, 2017) is in many ways a history of fashion in Sudan, but in so many ways, its much more than that. It is the story of women in Sudan, as well as the story of their bodies and movement. Brown weaves together women’s education, women’s health, activism and more through the tobe, a popular, modest form of dress that wrapped around a woman’s head and body. She reads textiles like texts and challenges us to both read existing primary sources differently and seek out new primary sources. Khartoum at Night shows us how the centrality of the tobe shaped everyday life, but how the tobe itself was shaped by continuity and rupture in Sudanese society. What we have as a result is a story that gives agency to its actors and ultimately, the story of imperial Sudan. Nadirah Mansour is a graduate student at Princeton University’s Department of Near Eastern Studies working on the global intellectual history of the

What was the British abolition of the slave trade like in practice? Padraic Scanlan, in his beautifully-written first book, Freedom’s Debtors: British Antislavery in Sierra Leone in the Age of Revolution (Yale University Press, 2017), explores the bureaucratic, economic, and military consequences of translating abolition law into lived reality for the British colony of Sierra Leone. It overturns highly moralistic notions of British antislavery and reveals the murkier, at times frenzied, and extremely profitable realities of abolition that paved the way for an exploitative and violent colonial history in Africa. Louise Moschetta is a PhD student at the University of Cambridge, working on Indian indentured labour in the British imperial world and beyond. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies

Writers have long created networks and connections by exchanging letters or writing back to one another in their poetry and fiction. Letters between Ernest Hemmingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, or Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes, attest to the rich world of intellectual exchange beyond the pages of published works. In Grounds of Engagement: Apartheid-Era African American and South African Writing (University of Illinois Press, 2015), Stephane Robolin examines the conversations between writers on spatial terms. Paying attention to the transnational crossings and circulations of African American and South African writers through their travels, correspondence and published works, Robolin’s study uncovers the metaphoric and sometimes quite literal grounds on which authors in different spaces contested the similar realities of racism and segregation that they experienced in South Africa and the United States. This study weaves together the voices of Langston Hughes, Richard Rive, Peter Abrahams, Richard Wrigh