Research Africa News: August 4th, 2020
Black Lives Matter resonates with Africans pushing for decolonisation
By Rosebell Kagumire Published June 29, 2020
The brutal murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery in the United States have become a tipping point—galvanising the movement to end racial injustice across the world. The message of Black Lives Matter is echoing in neighbourhoods, cities and quarters that have long been indifferent to the realities of Black people. And it’s no surprise that in Africa, there is a reawakening of the struggle for decolonisation and racial justice.
In many African countries the idea of protests often threatens the ruling political elite who inherited the colonial power structures created by imperialism, including policing and punishment.
Get the full report here.
Recovering the lost heritage of emergency relief
By Mitchell Edwards
Across sub-Saharan Africa, the insidious impact of COVID-19 is being felt less in the lungs than in the stomach. From Nigeria to Kenya, the implementation of draconian measures has reportedly kept “confirmed” cases low, but at the disproportionate expense of those already struggling to make ends meet.
Read the rest of the article here.
The networks and hidden procedures that keep discrimination alive in academia
Josh Busby, 2020-07-12
George Floyd’s murder was another in a long series of acts of police brutality against black men. His death upended complacency, silence, and fatigue about racism, propelling people to protest against discrimination in the middle of a deadly pandemic. The Black Lives Matter movement may be the largest in US history. The conversation about racism has reached academia with hashtags such as #Blackintheivory. This moment has spurred scholars to ask trenchant questions about the links between foreign policy and militarization of police forces. Many scholars have pointed to the racist legacy of IR theory and the way it informs how we study IR today. This dialogue is important and political scientists certainly recognize it as such. We also see scholars in other disciplines shining a bright light on discriminatory practices, raising questions of how the discipline itself contributes to systemic racism. They ask white scholars to do their own work to become anti-racist and to stop gaslighting scholars who have the courage to spotlight racist practices.
Read the rest of the story here.
NEW BOOKS كتب جديدة
Mission Foundations and Other Essays: Biblical and Missiological Studies from Malawi
[مهمة الارساليات ومقالات أخرى: دراسات عن الكتاب المقدس والبعثات الدينية في ملاوي]
Author: Jonathan Nkhoma
The first two essays in this book examine the biblical and philosophical basis for mission in the post-modern world, emphasising the experiential quality of mission over against the rational. Subsequent essays discuss various aspects of mission with a focus on the Malawian context. They highlight the impact of missionary work on the formation, shaping and developments of Malawi as a national state. Other essays examine various issues in New Testament scholarship including images of the Historical Jesus and how these relate to wisdom and apocalyptic traditions.
Publisher: Mzuni Press, Malawi.
Poetry in Praise of Prophetic Perfection: A Study of West African Arabic Madih Poetry and its Precedents
[الشعر في خدمة المديح النبوي: دراسة الشعر العربي في غرب أفريقيا]
Author: Oludamini Ogunnaike
Oludamini Ogunnaike, assistant professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia, explores this abundant heritage in Poetry in Praise of Prophetic Perfection. In this social setting praise poetry draws from traditional Islamic materials but also employs patterns and concepts from West Africa sources and practices. Ogunnaike translates numerous poems and contextualizes them within a deep intellectual well of Sufi thought. He also places these poems within the realm of lived religious practice and presents them as part of everyday contemporary life in West Africa. In our conversation we discuss the place of praise poetry as a genre, the broader literary tradition it relies on, Sufi theology, the wider intellectual heritage of West Africa, Ibrahim Niass and the Tijaniyyah order, audiences recitations and readings, the functions of these poems in practice, the process of translation, and how these sources might be used in classrooms.
Publisher: Islamic Texts Society, 2020.
No More to Spend: Neglect and the Construction of Scarcity in Malawi’s History of Health Care
[ليس هناك ما ينفق: مسائل الإهمال وظاهرة الندرة في تاريخ الرعاية الصحية في ملاوي]
Author: Luke Messac
This book challenges the inevitability of inadequate social services in twentieth-century Africa, focusing on the political history of Malawi. Using the stories of doctors, patients, and political leaders, Luke Messac demonstrates how both colonial and postcolonial administrations in this nation used claims of scarcity to justify the poor state of health care. During periods of burgeoning global discourse on welfare and social protection, forestalling improvements in health care required varied forms of rationalization and denial. Calls for better medical care compelled governments, like that of Malawi, to either increase public health spending or offer reasons for their inaction. Because medical care is still sparse in many regions in Africa, the recurring tactics for prolonged neglect have important implications for global health today.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2020
Religions in Contemporary Africa: An Introduction
[الأديان في أفريقيا المعاصرة: مقدمة]
Author: Laura S. Grillo, Adriaan van Klinken, Hassan J. Ndzovu
This book is an accessible and comprehensive introduction to the three main religious traditions on the African continent, African indigenous religions, Christianity and Islam. The book provides a historical overview of these important traditions and focuses on the roles they play in African societies today. It includes social, cultural and political case studies from across the continent on the following topical issues: Witchcraft and modernity Power and politics Conflict and peace Media and popular culture Development Human rights Illness and health Gender and sexuality With suggestions for further reading, discussion questions, illustrations and a list of glossary terms this is the ideal textbook for students in religion, African studies and adjacent fields approaching this subject area for the first time.
Publisher: Routledge, 2019.
Decolonization, Development and Knowledge in Africa: Turning Over a New Leaf
[التحرر من الاستعمار والتنمية والمعرفة في أفريقيا ]
Author: Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni
This provocative book is anchored on the insurgent and resurgent spirit of decolonization of the twenty-first century. The author calls upon Africa to turn over a new leaf in the domains of politics, economy, and knowledge as it frees itself from imperial global designs and global coloniality. With a focus on Africa and its Diaspora, the author calls for a radical turning over of a new leaf, predicated on decolonial turn and epistemic freedom. The key themes subjected to decolonial analysis include: (1) decolonization/decoloniality – articulating the meaning and contribution of the decolonial turn; (2) subjectivity/identity – examining the problem of Blackness (identity) as external and internal invention; (3) the Bandung spirit of decolonization as an embodiment of resistance and possibilities, development and self-improvement; (4) development and self-improvement – of African political economy, as entangled in the colonial matrix of power, and the African Renaissance, as weakened by undecolonized political and economic thought; and (5) knowledge – the role of African humanities in the struggle for epistemic freedom.
Publisher: Routledge, 2020.
Comprendre Senghor: Une thèse poétique de la Négritude
[ الشاعر والرئيس سنغور: أطروحة شعرية لفهم نزعة الزنوجة]
Author: Waly Latsouck Faye
This is a second volume of the trilogy entitled Comprendre Senghor, which is an attempt to read through Léopold Sédar Senghor legacy and work. He was a poet and a politician. Chants d’ombre, the first collection of these published poems, is a the starting point to understanding his whole persona, his vision of the world, and his interaction with it. It helps us bring out the socio-cultural values in the Serer world view. This new volume will build on the previous one and hopefully into a better understanding of the man and his work.
Publisher: Harmattan Sénégal, 2020.
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Research Africa (research_africa-editor@duke.edu) welcomes submissions of books, events, funding opportunities, and more to be included in the next edition.
