This Malian case study joins an expanding body of literature that challenges prevailing state-centred and institutional approaches to both political authority and legitimacy. In contrast with... Show moreThis Malian case study joins an expanding body of literature that challenges prevailing state-centred and institutional approaches to both political authority and legitimacy. In contrast with classical representations of the state as the hierarchically supreme institutional locus of political authority in society, a heterarchical political order gradually emerged in Mali. The state increasingly operated as one of the institutions amongst many non-state equals involved in the exercise of public authority and performance of key statehood functions. The first part of this thesis reveals that the Malian state increasingly relied on non-state actors to counter recurrent security threats. The core part of this case study demonstrates that prominent democratic institutions have not enhanced Malian state legitimacy as expected from their official mandates and in ways predicted by theory. Quite to the contrary, the democratic structure seems to have actually weakened the position of the state vis-à-vis non-state power poles in Mali’s heterarchical context. Show less
Since the mid-eighties, Cameron has been going through a serious economic crisis. In the same years it has witnessed the proliferation and flourishing of Pentecostal groups-most of them coming in... Show moreSince the mid-eighties, Cameron has been going through a serious economic crisis. In the same years it has witnessed the proliferation and flourishing of Pentecostal groups-most of them coming in from Nigeria and with a gospel of prosperity as opposed to the gospel of asceticism of classical Pentecostalism. Earlier Pentecostal groups, which had adopted asceticism, are shifting to this new gospel. The rise and spread of Pentecostalism during this period of the crisis, coupled with the mass defection from the established churches could be interpreted as a public sign of dissatisfaction by Christians with the way the established churches have gone about addressing the spiritual and material needs of their followers. As a strategy of not loosing members to Pentecostal groups, mainline churches are gradually adopting the attractive doctrines and practices of Pentecostal groups. Within this period, Cameroon has also been going through a difficult democratization process, which most observers and the public attribute to government__s reluctance to introduce genuine democratic institutions. Mainline churches have been at the forefront of efforts to see a truly democratic society take root in Cameroon. While these churches are making this contribution, Pentecostal churches maintain a more or less neutral position on political issues. Show less
The 1850s, the discovery of new regions of Africa gradually brought the western world knowledge of the African peoples inhabiting them, and of their cultures. Increasing attention was given to... Show moreThe 1850s, the discovery of new regions of Africa gradually brought the western world knowledge of the African peoples inhabiting them, and of their cultures. Increasing attention was given to objects used by these Africans in their everyday life, and the relatively short period from 1855 to c. 1880 saw a remarkable development in this respect. Soon, it was impossible to imagine travel books without their illustrations showing articles of use from the newly opened West Central African region, and ethnographical museums had begun collecting these objects. Dutch museums also participated in these acquisitions. This research describes the growth of ethnographic interest as shown in international accounts of travel in foreign parts. The fascination with indigenous objects as described in travel accounts - especially where cult statues were concerned - constitutes a gauge of the extent to which people were becoming interested in the ‘morals and customs’ of African peoples. Then follows a description of the Dutch museums’ policy on the acquisition and documentation of objects, which was partly based on the travel accounts mentioned above.We shall recount how, during the last days of the slave trade, many thousands of objects flowed into Dutch museums from the extensive coastal region of West Central Africa. After the Colonial Museum in Haarlem and the Royal Cabinet of Curiosities (Koninklijk Kabinet van Zeldzaamheden) in The Hague had led the way in 1876 and 1877 respectively, halls and depots in the ethnological museums in Leiden, Rotterdam (the Diergaarde) and Amsterdam (‘Artis’) were gradually filled with these African ethnographic items, the collection and description of which had begun to be carried out in a scholarly manner. At that time virtually all the international accounts written about travels in Africa were in the possession of the Dutch ethnological museums. The attention of museum curators was thus drawn to these ethnographic items, and on several occasions curators utilised the descriptions and illustrations published in the travel accounts as guide books for their own procedures. The collections included objects that illustrate daily life: household articles, hand weapons, throwing weapons, chiefs’ headdresses, masks for members of secret societies, (gun)powder holders, ornaments, bags, footwear, decorated ivory derived from elephant and hippopotamus teeth, and especially various cult statues. The Afrikaansche Handels Vereeniging (AHV, the African Trading Association), later to become the Nieuwe Afrikaansche Handels Vennootschap (NAHV, the New African Trading Society) after 1880, played a key role in the transportation of these objects. With the assistance of good will from the boards of directors for the AHV and NAHV, the museums were successful in winning company agents to their collecting cause, and these agents tried their best in far-away Africa to gain a name as donators of objects to the Dutch museums. While a good deal of distaste for, and criticism of the ‘morals and customs’ of ‘the negro’ was still to be read in the scholarly literature (which at that time included travel accounts), the passion for collecting took possession of the ethnographic museums. The correspondence we encounter in museum archives provides a picture of the competition between institutes, occasionally engaging in skirmishes on the subject of collecting objects deriving from this African heritage. These disputes concerned African objects that appeared to run counter to the westerners’ view that ‘the negro’ civilization was inferior to their own. However, there was no conflict between this underestimation and the passion for collecting. The last section of this investigation concentrates on the views of that period on the way in which these West Central ethnographic objects could be fitted into a survey of more or less evolved ‘races, species and peoples’. The main question here concerns the extent to which indigenous objects, and especially cult statues (minkisi) collected in the West Central coastal area, were supposed to support the western belief that Africans were less civilized in comparison with other ‘races’. With the aid of sources deriving from the history of these Dutch collections, we will show the way in which these objects were used in order to demonstrate the ‘African’s’ superstition and lack of artistic sensibility, and thus his lower level of civilization. The ethnographic museums in Leiden, Rotterdam and Amsterdam exhibited their African collections together with the clear message that African material culture represented an inferior civilization. Nonetheless there was also space for a certain value placed on some objects, where these were regarded as rare and exotic. Just as in previous centuries, objects made of basketwork or decorated ivory were prized as beautifully made and beautifully shaped curiosities. Other research was needed to support and underpin this view of ‘inferiority’. For example, the State Ethnographic Museum in Leiden (which later became the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde) collected ‘negro skulls’ as well as articles of use, in the interest of craniology with its measurements of skulls, a wide-spread branch of physical anthropology in that period. The results of these investigations were intended to link the physical characteristics of ‘the negro’ with the ethnographic collections, in order to show what ‘the negro’ represented in the cultural sense as well. Show less
Deze studie beschrijft een politiek-historisch proces en vormt een bijdrage aan de systematische studie van internationale territoriale conflicten vanuit het gezichtspunt van de politieke... Show moreDeze studie beschrijft een politiek-historisch proces en vormt een bijdrage aan de systematische studie van internationale territoriale conflicten vanuit het gezichtspunt van de politieke geografie. Tevens worden aspecten van het Europese imperialisme van de late 19e eeuw nader verklaard. De conflicten tussen Frankrijk en de Association Internationale du Congo (AIC) en tussen Portugal en de AIC over de opdeling van Centraal-Afrika, een proces dat plaatsvond in de periode 1875-1885, dienen als voorbeelden. Het boek bestaat uit drie delen. In deel 1 komen de theoretische en methodologische aspecten aan de orde. Deel 2 bestaat uit de case-study. Hoofdstuk 3 behelst de beleidsbepaling. De hoofdstukken 4, 5 en 6 behandelen de beleidsuitvoering van de factoren die rechtstreeks bij de territoriale conflicten betrokken waren: Leopold II, Frankrijk en Portugal. In hoofdstuk 7 staat de conflictoplossing centraal. Deel 3 bestaat uit ‚‚n hoofdstuk. Eerst wordt nagegaan in hoeverre de theorie‰n van toepassing zijn op dit onderdeel van de opdeling van Afrika. De conclusie is dat ze meer zeggen over de afloop van dit stukje opdelingsgeschiedenis dan over het ontstaan ervan. Die afloop betreft het gehele proces van de opdeling van Centraal-Afrika, en wordt geanalyseerd met behulp van de begrippen en modellen uit hoofdstuk 2. Show less
In the first part of this essay the development of the study of African history is sketched, and the historical studies written by professional African historians from 1955 to 1972-3 are analysed.... Show moreIn the first part of this essay the development of the study of African history is sketched, and the historical studies written by professional African historians from 1955 to 1972-3 are analysed. Special attention is paid to the manisfestoes of the 1960s, programmatical declarations of what African history should be and how it should be written. Part two traces in detail what historical studis were actually produced in the fifteen years that followed independence in one particular West African country, Nigeria Show less
