This collective volume reinterprets the genre of resistance studies, introduces recent conceptual perspectives and considers examples of African (civil) wars and insurgent movements. Contributions... Show moreThis collective volume reinterprets the genre of resistance studies, introduces recent conceptual perspectives and considers examples of African (civil) wars and insurgent movements. Contributions: Rethinking resistance in African history, an introduction, by Klaas van Walraven and Jon Abbink. Part I (Historical perspectives): Resistance to Fulbe hegemony in nineteenth-century West Africa, by Mirjam de Bruijn and Han van Dijk; Colonial conquest in central Madagascar: who resisted what?, by Stephen Ellis; Revisiting resistance in Italian-occupied Ethiopia: the Patriots' Movement (1936-1941) and the redefinition of post-war Ethiopia, by Aregawi Berhe. Part 2 (Social inequalities and colonial hierarchies): Ambiguities of resistance and collaboration on the Eastern Cape Frontier: the Kat River Settlement 1829-1856, by Robert Ross; African mutinies in the Netherlands East Indies: a nineteenth-century colonial paradox, by Ineke van Kessel; Absence of evidence is no proof: slave resistance under German colonial rule in East Africa, by Jan-Georg Deutsch. Part 3 (Violence, meaning and ideology in resistance): The Kawousan War reconsidered, by Kimba Idrissa; 'Sawaba''s rebellion in Niger (1964-1965): narrative and meaning, by Klaas van Walraven; The vagaries of violence and power in post-colonial Mozambique, by Gerhard Seibert. Part 4 (Resistance as heritage and memory): Herero genocide in the twentieth century: politics and memory, by Jan-Bart Gewald; 'Namibia, land of the brave': selective memories on war and violence within nation building, by Henning Melber; Dervishes, 'moryaan' and freedom fighters: cycles of rebellion and the fragmentation of Somali society, 1900-2000, by Jon Abbink Show less
This article describes the origins, the development as well as the current situation of African Studies in the Netherlands. Despite the interesting though limited corpus of travel writing,... Show moreThis article describes the origins, the development as well as the current situation of African Studies in the Netherlands. Despite the interesting though limited corpus of travel writing, colonial ethnography, and missionary testimony in Dutch, the scholarly study of Africa really took off only in the post-1945 period. Several chairs in African studies/anthropology were established at some universities (in Amsterdam, Leiden and Utrecht), and a growing interest in field research in Africa emerged. After World War Two a group of business people founded the Africa Institute in Rotterdam to explore the economic opportunities in Africa, an area of expected new markets. In fact, this institute had two legs. One was the business institute, the other a documentation centre established in Leiden which grew into a full-fleged interuniversity research institute in 1963. The African Studies Centre (ASC) is probably still the hub of Africanist research in the Netherlands. In the last ten to fifteen years, African Studies in the Netherlands has expanded and diversified. The rate of publications has markedly increased. There is also a growing public demand for knowledge and scholarly advice on Africa from various ministries and public agencies. Current problems of African Studies in the Netherlands are shaky funding, changing academic and political fashions, which tend to urge scholarship sometimes into superficiality and short-term concerns, and the lack of job opportunities in academia for fresh PhD holders. The article is based on a paper originally published in 'Africa Forum' on H-Africa, 13 March 2001. Notes, ref Show less
