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Introduction: generalized anti-refugee violence -- Explaining generalized anti-refugee violence -- An outburst of anti-refugee violence in Conakry, Guinea -- A different approach to counterinsurgency in the forest region of Guinea -- On two competing explanations: co-ethnicity and population numbers -- Not chasing Banyarwanda in southwestern Uganda -- The eviction of 59ers in Kivu, DRC.

Why do some political leaders create and strengthen institutions like title registries and land tribunals that secure property rights to land while others neglect these institutions or destroy those that already exist? How do these institutions evolve once they have been established? This book answers these questions through spatial and temporal comparison of national and subnational cases from Botswana, Ghana, and Kenya and, to a lesser extent, Zimbabwe. Onoma argues that the level of property rights security that leaders prefer depends on how they use land. However, the extent to which leaders' institutional preferences are translated into actual institutions depends on the level of leaders' capacity. Further, once established, these institutions through their very working can contribute to their own decline over time. This book is unique in revealing the political and economic reasons why some leaders unlike others prefer an environment of insecure rights even as land prices increase

Many African countries have undertaken transitions to democratic rule since the early 1990s. While giving many people the rare opportunity to vote in com- petitive and pluralistic elections, there have been limits to the empowering ef- fects of these transitions for many. The paper argues that the continued use of English, French and Portuguese in state and academic activities has minimised the empowering effects of these democratic transitions. The use of such lan- guages contributes critically to limiting the ability of many Africans lacking fluency in them to participate in two important moments that define the possi- bilities and limits of democratic decision-making. First, it limits their ability to participate in discourses that determine what aspects of social realities should be subjected to democratic decision-making and what aspects should be insu- lated from popular participation. Second, it minimises the ability of many to contribute to discourses that define the appropriate ways of contesting what- ever elements of political economies are included in the democratic space. Inter- national politico-economic institutions and external epistemic communities have had excessive influence on these two moments of decision-making. The paper argues that generations of African scholars have collaborated in this process of disempowerment by refusing to take a concerted and determined stance against the dominant role of French, English and Portuguese on the continent. Because of this role, we should regard African scholarship as a force seeking to create a space for itself within a closed discursive and practical space rather than a radical force seeking to eliminate closure of discursive and practical spaces generally.

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AbstractAs the Ebola epidemic ravaged the Mano River Basin in 2014, there was concern in Senegal that the resident Peul community of Guinean origins will cause the spread of the disease to Senegal. These fears went unrealized as the Peul migrants embraced many of the epidemic control and prevention measures, which often distanced them from primordial publics in Guinea. While partly motivated by concern over the dangers of Ebola, Peul migrants embraced these measures also because the epidemic and measures advocated to curb it allowed them to assert greater autonomy in their often-fractious relations with primordial publics in their places of origin in Guinea. Their embrace of these measures suggests a rethink of the emphasis on intercommunal strife, intra-communal conviviality and trenchant state-society chasms, which pervades much work on the political economy of postcolonial Africa and which draws significant inspiration from the work of Peter Ekeh.

When understood as an embedded practice in the Mano River Basin, the issue of mobility need not threaten Ebola Virus Disease epidemic control efforts. Rites of mobility in the Mano River Basin ensure that migrants are often enmeshed in circuits of knowledge and compliance that have important implications for epidemic control. Local hosts, with whom migrants frequently have very intimate relations, often know a lot about their migrant guests and can exercise significant influence over them. If properly engaged by public health officials, these hosts could offer significant leverage in mapping geographies of transmission as well as in promoting compliance with epidemic control measures.