Research Africa News: December 2nd, 2020

Research Africa News: December 2nd, 2020

 

Diego Maradona: Comrade of the Global South

 

As much as for his genius with the soccer ball, he will be remembered for his willingness to fight power and be a voice for the voiceless.

By Dave Zirin, 11/ 24/ 2020

 

The world mourns today the passing of Diego Maradona, the soccer god and revolutionary from Argentina whose play inspired all manner of poetry and prose. The best description of Maradona’s abilities came from the late Eduardo Galeano, who wrote of Maradona in his book

Read the rest of the story here.

 

Destination wonder: a journey through Ghana’s feelgood fashion world

By Chidozie Obasi

 

Against the backdrop of West Africa’s heritage, Ghana’s fashion scene is culturally rich and diverse. Nestling between Togo and Ivory Coast, it oozes with vital energy. It was once home to the celebrated Yaa Asantewaa, queen mother of the Edweso tribe of the Asante (Ashanti). As Ghana’s history continues to unfold, its precolonial past has woven its essence into the work of its modern artists. Today’s generation of designers explores the depths of the nation’s heritage, without trivialising its value. Through experimentation and by devoting their tradition to the streets of Accra, young designers are bringing Ghana’s colourful culture into sharp focus.

Read the rest of the story here.

 

CAMEROON | WHITE WASHING THE DICTATOR Blog /

By Arne Gillis / MO*02/11/2020

 

In 2020, locking up opposition members and forging ballot papers is passé for dictators. A better strategy is to call in PR companies to boost the reputation of your state abroad. This investigation shows how Cameroonian President Paul Biya uses American companies for that purpose, paid for by the tax money of his own citizens.

Read the rest of the story here.

 

GROUP URGES ATLANTIC SEAFLOOR BE LABELED A MEMORIAL TO SLAVE TRADING

PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 10, 2020 IN RESEARCH

 

BEAUFORT, N.C. – Before deep-sea mining begins on the seafloor in international waters of the Atlantic Basin, a group of scholars is suggesting that a portion of the seabed be marked on maps and charts as a virtual memorial to the estimated 1.8 million Africans who lost their lives at sea during the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the 11 million who completed the voyage and were sold into slavery.

Read the rest of the story here.

 

The Ethical, Epistemological, and Conceptual Need to Resume Fieldwork For the “Covid-19 and the Social Sciences” series, Adam Baczko and Gilles Dorronsoro argue for the necessity of resuming fieldwork.

 

They trace how subcontracting research or shifting to methodologies which are remote in time and space—solutions often touted in the pandemic age—in fact produce unreliable, exploitative, and undertheorized work incapable of accurately analyzing dynamic conditions on the ground. These transformations relate to broader research trends toward neoliberal privatization, and the authors outline how they can be resisted by returning, carefully, to the field.

By Adam Baczko and Gilles Dorronsoro November 19, 2020

 

The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has provided an additional justification—the protection of researchers and their interlocutors—for already existing but ethically, epistemologically, and politically problematic research practices. In fact, as Aymar Nyenyezi Bisoka and Kanisha D. Bond, Milli Lake and Sarah E. Parkinson rightly point out, the novel coronavirus only partially transforms the context for researchers (and individuals) already living in crisis contexts rife with other immediate risks.

Read the rest of the rest of the story here.

 

NEW BOOKS          كتب جديدة

 

Les Sénégalais de Boko Haram

[السنغاليون في جماعة بوكوحرام]

Author : Mamadou Mouth Bane

 

After a careful analysis of terrorism in the Sahel, this book presents the details of the interrogations of suspected Senegalese terrorists who are associated with Boko Haram. The book reveals news and facts that have not been published before because they fall under the secrecy of the investigation. The author reveals the process of recruiting candidates for Jihad, their motivations, the financing of their activities, their travels, their routes which led them to Northern Nigeria, and to the court of Aboubacar Shekau, at the head of Boko Haram. The author also addresses the approach of the Senegalese authorities in the fight against terrorism and suggest perspectives for a better management of this problem.

Publisher: Harmattan Sénégal, 2020.

 

Collected Poems

[مجموعة شعرية]

Author: Bernard Levinson

 

Poems from Bernard Levinson’s four published collections as well as a new unpublished collection are gathered together into one volume, Collected Poems. Those previously published collections are From Breakfast to Madness (Ravan Press 1974); Welcome to the Circus (Justified Press 1991); I See You (Southern College Publishers 2001) and I Dreamt I Was Flying (Nimrod Publishers 2007).

Publisher: Hands-On Books, South Africa, 2020.

 

The Pan-African Pantheon

[البانثيون الأفريقي]

Author/ (Editor): Adekeye Adebajo

 

This collection of lively biographical essays examines historical and contemporary Pan-Africanism as an ideology of emancipation and unity. The volume covers thirty-six major figures, including well-known Pan-Africanists such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, Amy Ashwood Garvey, C.L.R. James, George Padmore, Kwame Nkrumah, Frantz Fanon, Steve Biko, and Thabo Mbeki, as well as popular figures not typically identified with mainstream Pan-Africanism such as Maya Angelou, Mariama Bâ, Buchi Emecheta, Miriam Makeba, Ruth First, Wangari Maathai, Wole Soyinka, Derek Walcott, V.Y. Mudimbe, Léopold Senghor, Malcolm X, Bob Marley, and Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. The book explores the history and pioneers of the movement; the quest for reparations; politicians; poets; activists, as well as Pan-Africanism in the social sciences, philosophy, literature, and its musical activists. With contributions from a diverse and prominent group of African, Caribbean, and African-American scholars, The Pan-African Pantheon is a comprehensive and diverse introductory reader for specialists and general readers alike.

Publisher: Manchester University Pres, 2021.

 

Sports in Africa, Past and Present

[الرياضة في أفريقيا: الماضي والحاضر]

Author/ (Editors): Todd Cleveland, Tarminder Kaur, and Gerard Akindes

 

Since the late nineteenth century, modern sports in Africa have both reflected and shaped cultural, social, political, economic, generational, and gender relations on the continent. Although colonial powers originally introduced European sports as a means of “civilizing” indigenous populations and upholding then current notions of racial hierarchies and “muscular Christianity,” Africans quickly appropriated these sporting practices to fulfill their own varied interests. This collection encompasses a wide range of topics, including women footballers in Nigeria, Kenya’s world-class long-distance runners, pitches and stadiums in communities large and small, fandom and pay-to-watch kiosks, the sporting diaspora, sports pedagogy, sports as resistance and as a means to forge identity, sports heritage, the impact of politics on sports, and sporting biography.

Publisher: Ohio University Press, 2020.

 

The Algerian War, The Algerian Revolution

[الحرب الجزائرية والثورة الجزائرية]

Author: Vince, Natalya

Examines how the most recent research has revisited key events of the Algerian War and brought forward new approaches and themes. Brings together an engaging account of its origins, course and legacies with an incisive analysis of how interpretations of the conflict have shifted and why it continues to provoke intense debate. Assesses the historiography of the end of a colonial empire, the rise of anti-colonial nationalism and their post-colonial aftermaths.

Publisher: Palgrave, 2020.

 

Africa Every Day Fun, Leisure, and Expressive Culture on the Continent

[الحياة اليومية في أفريقيا: المرح والترفيه وثقافة الكلمة في القارة الأفريقية]

Author: (Editors) Oluwakemi M. Balogun, Lisa Gilman, Melissa Graboyes, and Habib Iddrisu

 

Africa Every Day presents an exuberant, thoughtful, and necessary counterpoint to the prevailing emphasis in introductory African studies classes on war, poverty, corruption, disease, and human rights violations on the continent. These challenges are real and deserve sustained attention, but this volume shows that adverse conditions do not prevent people from making music, falling in love, playing sports, participating in festivals, writing blogs, telling jokes, making videos, playing games, eating delicious food, and finding pleasure in their daily lives.

Publisher: Ohio University Press, 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.