This edited volume focuses on mobile phone use in specific African communities, namely those that have a long history of mobility and are regarded as marginal in the national economic, social and... Show moreThis edited volume focuses on mobile phone use in specific African communities, namely those that have a long history of mobility and are regarded as marginal in the national economic, social and/or political context. It was in such regions that the most intensive dynamics were expected to be seen following the introduction of the mobile phone. Contributions: Introduction: mobile margins and the dynamics of communication (Mirjam de Bruijn, Inge Brinkman and Francis Nyamnjoh); Mobilit‚ et moyens de communication au Gu‚ra (Chad) (Djimet Seli); La connexion des marges: marginalit‚ politique et technologie de d‚senclavement en Basse Casamance (Sud du S‚n‚gal) (Fatima Diallo); 'Angola my country, Cape Town my home': a young migrant's journey of social becoming and belonging (Imke Gooskens); Transnational migration and marginality: Nigerian migrants in anglophone Cameroon (Tangie Nsoh Fonchingong); Les femmes hadjaraye du Gu‚ra … l'‚cole de l'alphab‚tisation (Khalil Alio); From foot messengers to cell phones: communication in Kom, Cameroon, c. 1916-1998 (Walter Gam Nkwi); Grandeur ou misŠres des cabines t‚l‚phoniques priv‚es et publiques au Mali (Naffet Ke‹ta); Informationandcommunication technology and its impact on transnational migration: the case of Senegalese boat migrants (Henrietta Nyamnjoh); Identities of place: mobile naming practices and social landscapes in Sudan (Siri Lamoureux). [ASC Leiden abstract] Show less
With a focus on Cameroonian migrants from Pinyin and Mankon who are currently living in Cape Town and the Netherlands, this volume examines the workings of the social fabric of mobile communities.... Show moreWith a focus on Cameroonian migrants from Pinyin and Mankon who are currently living in Cape Town and the Netherlands, this volume examines the workings of the social fabric of mobile communities. It sheds light on how these communities are crafting lives for themselves in the host country and simultaneously linking up with the home country thanks to advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and road and air transport. ICTs and mobilities have complemented social relational interaction and provide migrants today with opportunities to partake in cultural practices that express their Pinyin-ness and Mankon-ness. Pinyin and Mankon migrants are still as rooted in the past as they are in the present. They were born into a community with its own sense of home, moral ethos and cultural pride but live in a context of accelerated ICTs and mobility that is fast changing the way they live their lives. Show less
Physical mobility of people from place to place as individuals or as groups is essentially horizontal, potentially limitless, and generally motivated by the desire and ambition to take advantage... Show morePhysical mobility of people from place to place as individuals or as groups is essentially horizontal, potentially limitless, and generally motivated by the desire and ambition to take advantage of new opportunities for self or group advancement. This mobility is the basis of Grasslanders' communities in Anglophone Cameroon and beyond. In this study of Kom, the second largest kingdom in the Bamenda Grasslands, life histories and rich archival files enlighten the history of mobility in relation to the development of communication technologies. Between 1928, when the St. Anthony's Primary School, Njinikom, Kom was opened and 1998, when the road linking Kom and Bamenda was tarred, the number of people travelling out of Kom and back steadily increased. This spatial mobility was greatly facilitated and accelerated by 'modern' transportation and communication technologies like the roads and vehicles. Such persons were usually among those whose horizons had been widened by other modern agencies of change like the schools and churches which are themselves considered as technologies in this study. Kfaang, a notion of newness, has become the core to understand the flexible identity of Kom people and their appropriation of technologies in their notions of being Kom and a Kom community that transgress international borders. Show less
Based on rich and wide-ranging data, the thesis describes the sensitive issue of the contemporary emancipation trajectories of agro-pastoralist Fulbe in Central Mali. It explores how people are... Show moreBased on rich and wide-ranging data, the thesis describes the sensitive issue of the contemporary emancipation trajectories of agro-pastoralist Fulbe in Central Mali. It explores how people are currently dealing with hierarchies they inherited from past master-slave relations and focuses on the relational dynamics between members of a network of migrants. The importance of mobility to identity is explored by analyzing the tensions that exist among migrants to reproduce or change hierarchical relations in post-slavery societies. Show less
'We cannot imagine life now without a mobile phone' is a frequent comment when Africans are asked about mobile phones. They have become part and parcel of the communication landscape in many urban... Show more'We cannot imagine life now without a mobile phone' is a frequent comment when Africans are asked about mobile phones. They have become part and parcel of the communication landscape in many urban and rural areas of Africa and the growth of mobile telephony is amazing: from 1 in 50 people being users in 2000 to 1 in 3 in 2008. Such growth is impressive but it does not even begin to tell us about the many ways in which mobile phones are being appropriated by Africans and how they are transforming or are being transformed by society in Africa. This volume ventures into such appropriation and mutual shaping. Rich in theoretical innovation and empirical substantiation, it brings together reflections on developments around the mobile phone by scholars of six African countries (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Mali, Sudan and Tanzania) who explore the economic, social and cultural contexts in which the mobile phone is being adopted, adapted and harnessed by mobile Africa. Show less
This Masters thesis is the winner of the ASC's Africa Thesis Award 2008. It deals with changing family relations in African society in the context of intercontinental mobility. Based on many... Show moreThis Masters thesis is the winner of the ASC's Africa Thesis Award 2008. It deals with changing family relations in African society in the context of intercontinental mobility. Based on many stories of migrants in both Mali and the Netherlands, the book reveals some of the negative sides of close family relations and the resulting everyday dilemmas for migrants. In doing so, the concept of family as used in social sciences is criticised, stressing the dynamics of global family practices and an upcoming individualism in Africa. Janneke Barten graduated in International Development Studies at Wageningen University in 2008. She is currently working at IDA Foundation, a non-profit organisation selling medicines in developing countries. Show less
The people of Guéra known as Hadjaraye (from Arabic: the mountain dwellers) have experienced all the atrocities of war and the sufferings of drought that caused them to emigrate. In the early 1970,... Show moreThe people of Guéra known as Hadjaraye (from Arabic: the mountain dwellers) have experienced all the atrocities of war and the sufferings of drought that caused them to emigrate. In the early 1970, the ecological conditions worsened and changed for ever, giving way to cyclic droughts which resulted in chronic famine in the years 1973-1974 and 1984-1985. During the same decade the civil war gained a foothold in this area and ravaged it. Even though the Hadjaraye used to practice traditional migration during peaceful times, another form of migration has been imposed upon them by the new circumstances. A massive outflow of population ensued. Waves of Hadjaraye started moving from one place to another within the Gu‚ra region itself, as well as outside the region and the country. - This constant mobility will definitely yield social as well as cultural and linguistic effects. The study investigates language attitude among the Hadjaraye migrants of the Gu‚ra region in the two neighboring regions of Chari-Baguirmi and Salamat in Chad. - Results suggest that while social integration is successful due to the common lingua franca the host and migrant communities share, the future of the mother tongues of the immigrants is at stake, because they will be spoken in a reduced circle, namely at home only. So, even though at an initial stage they are spoken, in the end they will be gradually abandoned, not in favor of the host regions languages, but in favor of the Chadian Arabic which is also the lingua franca in Chad. Linguistic borrowing, bilingualism, code mixing, code switching are the results stemming from these language contacts. However this depends largely on the attitude of the migrant community. This actually seems to indicate that the immigrants are not likely to pass on their languages to the next generations in the distant future. The ultimate outcome will be the loss of language which will inevitably lead to the loss of identity of the migrants. Show less
In the 1990s a livelihood approach to poverty in Africa emerged, with an emphasis on agency as opposed to structure. Situated in an actor-oriented perspective, the livelihood approach focuses on ... Show moreIn the 1990s a livelihood approach to poverty in Africa emerged, with an emphasis on agency as opposed to structure. Situated in an actor-oriented perspective, the livelihood approach focuses on (poor) individuals and households, aiming at a dynamic and holistic understanding of their actions. This chapter outlines the disciplinary roots of the livelihood approach and its modern articulations. It then argues that a new generation of livelihood studies is needed which politicizes issues of livelihood by putting more emphasis on the analysis of power relations, both on the micro and the meso/macro levels. In addition, the increasing multilocality of African livelihoods, associated with income diversification, multitasking and growing mobility, should be taken into account. The new multilocal networks of African livelihoods could constitute an important undercurrent for the strengthening of African development. Bibliogr. [ASC Leiden abstract] Show less
Bruijn, M.E. de; Dijk, J.W.M. van; Dijk, R.A. van 2001
In the literature on population mobility, mobility has generally been seen as a temporary phenomenon. However, in many instances, mobility rather than sedentarity is the norm. This is illustrated... Show moreIn the literature on population mobility, mobility has generally been seen as a temporary phenomenon. However, in many instances, mobility rather than sedentarity is the norm. This is illustrated in the present chapter by two case studies of so-called 'cultures of travel'. The first case concerns the Fulbe, a nomadic cattle-rearing people, in the Hayre area of central Mali. The Fulbe case demonstrates how mobility has been embedded historically in Sahelian cultures under conditions that are marginal, both from an ecological and an economic perspective. It illustrates how people develop economic and cultural strategies marked by a high degree of opportunism. It shows that Fulbe society is, in fact, organized around mobility. The second case, that of Pentecostalism in Ghana, demonstrates how a specific form of culture acts to bring about a particular form of mobility. In this case, it is not a whole culture that is on the move, but individuals who are mobile for personal reasons. Mobility among Ghanaian Pentecostalists is not yet part and parcel of daily life, but presents an example of how people construct cultural forms and means for dealing with everyday problems of mobility. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum Show less
This chapter examines the deteriorating relations between autochthons and allochthons in the coastal forest area of anglophone Cameroon, present-day South West Province. This province is one of the... Show moreThis chapter examines the deteriorating relations between autochthons and allochthons in the coastal forest area of anglophone Cameroon, present-day South West Province. This province is one of the few regions along the West African coast where a plantation economy was established during the German colonial period (1884-1916). The plantation economy stimulated large-scale labour migration to the coastal estates, particularly from the other anglophone province, North West Province. Following large-scale settlement of northwestern migrants in the South West, the 'autochthonous' population began to resent their increasing domination in demographic, economic and political terms. The present chapter examines why the current obsession with the autochthony-allochthony issue in South West Province relates foremost to relations between inhabitants of the two anglophone provinces. The South-West elite's fear of renewed North-West domination during the political liberalization of the 1990s was one of the main reasons for their incitement of the autochthonous minority against the dominant and exploitative northwestern settlers. Includes bibliographical references, notes, and summary. Show less
The case studies in this book on mobility in sub-Saharan Africa critically discuss dichotomous interpretations of mobility and reject the idea that migration indicates a breakdown in society. They... Show moreThe case studies in this book on mobility in sub-Saharan Africa critically discuss dichotomous interpretations of mobility and reject the idea that migration indicates a breakdown in society. They adopt the approach that sedentary and mobile worlds converge and that mobility is part of the livelihood system of African people. Contents: Mobile Africa: an introduction (Mirjam de Bruijn, Rijk van DijkandDick Foeken) - Population mobility in Africa: an overview (Han van Dijk, Dick FoekenandKiky van Til) - Territorial and magical migrations in Tanzania (Todd Sanders) - Moving into another spirit province: immigrants and the 'mhondoro' cult in northern Zimbabwe (Marja Spierenburg) - Cultures of travel: Fulbe pastoralists in central Mali and Pentecostalism in Ghana (Mirjam de Bruijn, Han van DijkandRijk van Dijk) - Mobile workers, urban employment and 'rural' identities: rural-urban networks of Buhera migrants, Zimbabwe (Jens A. Andersson) - Migration as a positive response to opportunity and context: the case of Welo, Ethiopia (Jonathan Baker) - Multi-spatial livelihoods in sub-Saharan Africa: rural farming by urban households - the case of Nakuru town, Kenya (Dick FoekenandSamuel O. Owuor) - Urbanisation and migration in sub-Saharan Africa: changing patterns and trends (Cecilia Tacoli) - Processes and types of pastoral migration in northern C“te d'Ivoire (Youssouf Diallo) - Mobility and exclusion: conflicts between autochthons and allochthons during political liberalisation in Cameroon (Piet Konings) - Population displacement and the humanitarian aid regime: the experience of refugees in East Africa (Patricia Daley) Show less
The relation of pastoral societies with the 'outside world' has proved to be one of structural deterioration. This poses questions as to the political space remaining for these societies within... Show moreThe relation of pastoral societies with the 'outside world' has proved to be one of structural deterioration. This poses questions as to the political space remaining for these societies within the State arenas to which they nominally belong and the nature of their ethnoreligious identities. The pastoral societies of East Africa, while varied in nature and social organization, still show some common characteristics with regard to religion and political system. The author argues that the principles of clan segmentation, age-group structure, the ritual-cyclical ordering of community life, and decentralized, regionally exercised power will remain more important organizing elements for pastoral societies than purely ideological-religious factors. This is a result of certain macroconditions such as their necessary confinement to marginal areas, their geographical mobility, and their lack of integration into the wider State society in terms of literacy, economic surplus extraction, social mobility, or political representation. The author looks at the 'strategies' of various agropastoral groups in terms of religious response and political action within these macroconditions. He uses the examples of the Boran in Ethiopia and Kenya, the Nuer in Sudan and Ethiopia, and the Surma of southern Ethiopia. Show less
