Suchergebnisse

Abstract:This article examines the 2009 deluxe illustrated edition of Lawrence Hill's Commonwealth Writers' Prize– and Canada Reads–winning novel The Book of Negroes , originally published in 2007. It relates the story of Aminata, a West African girl kidnapped and sold into slavery, and her experiences on an indigo plantation in the American south, followed by further displacements to Charleston, Nova Scotia, Sierra Leone, and London. In New York, as the Revolutionary War comes to a close, Aminata becomes the scribe for the Book of Negroes, documenting the Black Loyalists, as well as the slaves and indentured servants of white Loyalists, granted passage by the British to Canada. Hill has commented that the Book of Negroes is an important document about which Canadians are largely ignorant. This desire to circulate knowledge about African-Canadian history through the novel is particularly manifest in the illustrated edition of 2009, where a photograph of the Book of Negroes features prominently, along with countless other images and captions which supplement and interrupt Hill's narrative. This article considers the significance and implications of this "keepsake" or "souvenir" edition, particularly its circulation of knowledge about African-Canadian history through visual pleasure.

With references from political science, the author puts recent African crises, from Libya to the Ivory Coast under the microscope, and sees a turning point in African history in the international community's new determination to encourage democracy.

The writings of African novelist Kourouma explore current African history, but his audience is universal. His four books probe themes of colonization, decolonization, power, corruption, conflict, modernization, & identity. Kourouma is unwilling to blame European colonizers for all of Africa's troubles; Africans have some responsibility. Kourouma's choice of audience & his place in world literature are examined. E. Taylor

Intellectuals and their audiences facing history. The South-African experience of the history workshop (1978-1988).
The experience of the «History Workshop» of Witwatersrand University (Johannesburg) from 1978 is an excellent revealer of the evolution of the populist perception of the South-African intellectuals. The first meeting was a very academic one but the second one with an «Open Doors Day» in 1981 completely changed the relations with the audience. In 1984, the collaboration with the trade-unions and representative associations really led popular culture to play an important role. The new changes are even better mirrored in the 1987 workshop : nationalism took over working classes ideas. But the social history must preserve its autonomy, otherwise it would only serve a pre-established political line.

Presents elements of Belgian foreign policy towards African regions, most notably the Congo, & how these relations have evolved through successive phases. The affective character of cultural relations between Belgium & the Congo maintain an important visibility in Belgian policy, & have informed much of the Belgian motivation to activate diplomatic interventions in African regional conflicts. In light of its awareness of a shared past with Africa, Belgium is noted as having exercised a new term of diplomatic exercises throughout the course of events in recent African history, notably during the Rwanda crisis. It is suggested that as the contingencies of Belgium's past activities in Africa have been fully met & mastered, a new African policy is to unfold along the lines of continued focus on regional action as outlined in the work of the Lumumba Commission to foster greater cooperation between Belgium, Congo, & other African states. 43 References. C. Brunski

Abstract The first question is to know whether or not a history of the environment is possible, when one knows how poor may be the possible sources. A history of rainfalls is a key question for African history. It now exists, including the precolonial era. From the sixteenth century onwards, we know, as well in the Western Sudan as in coastal Angola or in Ethiopia how and when droughts and famines occurred. Nevertheless, precisions grow better and better from the nineteenth century. For the twentieth century, oral inquiries may prove quite useful. History is not predetermined, and in spite of a vulnerable climate, African societies knew, according to their abilities, how to adapt to natural challenges. But a series of factors made things more and more difficult since modern times. The coeval occurrence of long dry periods of time - which was not an innovation - with a dramatic recent population boom — which is quite a new trend - may for the first time result into non reversable ecological change.

Throughout history, nothing has killed more human beings than infectious diseases. Although, death rates from pandemics dropped globally by about 0.8 % per year, all the way through the 20th century, the number of new infectious diseases like Sars, HIV and Covid-19 increased by nearly fourfold over the past century. In Africa, there were reported a total of 4,522,489 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 119,816 death, as of 23 April 2021. The pandemic impacted seriously on the economic and social sectors in almost all African countries. It is threatening to push up to 58 m people into extreme poverty. However, apart from the African poor, the Covid pandemic also affects the growing African middle class, i.e. about 170 million out of Africa's 1.3 billion people currently classified as middle class. Nearly eight million of may be thrust into poverty because of the coronavirus and its economic aftermath. This setback will be felt for decades to come. Moreover, in recent African History also other infectouse diseases like the 1896-1906 Congo Basin Trypanosomiasis with a death-toll of over 500.000 as well as the 1900-1920 Uganda African trypanosomiasis epidemic with 200,000-300,000 death had tremendous negative impact on Africa's societies and economies. Actually, other pandemics, like Yellow Fever, Cholera, Meningitis and Measles - not to mention Malaria - contributed to long-lasting economic downturns and seriously affect the social wellbeing for decades.

The aim of this paper is to give an overall view of the statistical operations used for collecting demographic data in sub-Saharan Africa during colonial times.
The «statistical operations» considered hère, as opposed to the purely administrative procédures, consist of : censuses with complète population coverage and sample surveys ; operations at the national and local levels ; operations with strictly demographic targets and others primarily intended for other purposes but also yielding certain demographic data (population size, structure, change).
Roughly 100 national operations (two thirds censuses, a third surveys) have been identified for the 46 countries reviewed. Two thirds of them were conducted between 1947 and 1966, in the very last years of the colonial era.
The quality of the results yielded by these operations may be open to discussion, but demographically speaking, they are of considérable historical interest, as they are the first results obtained through scientific procedures for a key period in African history.

Displaced peoples, insecurity over food and sanitation, economic devastation, worsening community tensions: the Central African Republic is going through what must be the worst crisis in its history. The existing political mechanism appears helpless. However this serious crisis could provide the opportunity for the international community to reassess its model of intervention with respect to its choices, means and duration of involvement. Adapted from the source document.

This article deals with the place and status of radio local pioneers in the making and the evolution of Northern Cameroon's media landscape and social space. Drawing from history from below, it uses bourdieusian sociology and subaltern studies theories as entries to question the emergence and the social (re)positioning of the first radio local actors in Northern Cameroon's social space. As radio hosts assigned to the production of programs in local languages, these pioneers were second class professional who emerged in the framework of mutations induced by colonization. Thanks to their recruitment in Radio-Garoua - the first radio implanted in the region in 1958 - they constituted a new socio-professional category/class, in a society apportioned between tradition and modernity. Through empirical data provided by three biographies (Ahmadou Abdou, Adam Alhadji and Haoua Siddiki), the study reveals that the trajectories of these pioneers were determined by the French (neo) colonial policies and the perpetuation of Muslim hegemony under Ahmadou Ahidjo's regime (1960-1982). This sociopolitical context contributed in making their social status ambivalent. Benefiting from the cultural capital conferred on them by their belonging to the Muslim community, they integrated the modern society where they were looked upon as subalterns whereas this integration valued their image and status in the traditional society.

South African music : a fuzzy triplet...
South African music can be perceived as the aesthetical embodiment of a broader dream of cultural unity expressed in different representations and ideologies. History shows that it grew out of many contacts between South Africa's different communities ; today's musical forms blend characters borrowed from their cultural traditions. But, because of segregation and apartheid, South African popular music, in spite of its mixity, has acquired a «black» identity that leads supporters of the «white» powers to categorize its practitioners and fans alike as «pro-African» or «anti-apartheid». What is the most complete expression of the common history of South African peoples has therefore been put into the hands of the African majority which is, now, the only group liable to give it back to South Africa as a whole. In this particular respect, as in some others, music participates in the struggle for the liberation of South Africa.

Ghettomen.
The ghettos of Ivory Coast harbor the entire range of illegal practices, from theft to holdups, via drugs and fraud : the sciences. This undergound community is structured around an initiation cycle which turns fistons ("young sons" - inexperienced youths) into vieux pères ("old fathers" - seasoned veterans). The experience starts with a probationary period during which a man must show his heart, his courage, by his ability to go to extremes. He constantly risks death until life once again becomes primordial : the heart dies, and this is the downward phase. No one grows old in the ghetto, which is conceived as a passage where one learns to master a certain number of things : violence, the minss (mind), modern values. The constant swing between the law of the jungle and the law of blood weaves a gang into a tight-knit family. The reference codes revolve around honor and respect for the name — which must be defended under all circumstances. The burning desire for fame, much like that of the heroes of African history, espouses the contemporary vision of the world as a theater of images, where all that counts is media recognition. Fulfillment of the dream lies in the Eldorado of the West, seen as a land of wealth and freedom where all dreams can come true. Illegality is part of this journey through a blood-drenched, deadly utopia from which one emerges into adult society a different person.