The great silver mining centers of Potosí, Porco, and Oruro in the Bolivian highlands have long formed an important focus for understanding the Spanish colonial world, both for the colonial... Show moreThe great silver mining centers of Potosí, Porco, and Oruro in the Bolivian highlands have long formed an important focus for understanding the Spanish colonial world, both for the colonial imagination and for the contemporary historian. In comparison with the contexts of production and exchange based around these mining centers, however, their wider contexts of mobility and logistics within the altiplano and the valleys leading west to the Pacific coast have been comparatively under-investigated by historians and archaeologists alike. The following chapter considers these peripheral and ‘interstitial’ landscapes and the communities they constituted (particularly as they articulated with prehispanic legacies of mobility and infrastructure), while also synthesizing some of the recent research on the archaeology of the colonial south-central Andes. The resulting discussion highlights some of the ongoing tensions between a focus on urban and rural environments, between different scales of analysis, and between textual and archaeological sources of historical data. Show less
A rising against French colonial rule in central Madagascar (1895-1898) appeared in the 1970s as a good example of resistance to colonialism, sparked by France's occupation of Madagascar. Like... Show moreA rising against French colonial rule in central Madagascar (1895-1898) appeared in the 1970s as a good example of resistance to colonialism, sparked by France's occupation of Madagascar. Like many similar episodes in other parts of Africa, it was a history that appeared, in the light of later African nationalist movements, to be a precursor to the more sophisticated anticolonial movements that eventually led to independence, in Madagascar and elsewhere. In the light of the later history of nationalism, however, it is instructive to revisit the rising of the 'menalamba' (red shawls) in Madagascar and to reconsider the episode. Notes, ref., sum. [Book abstract] Show less
Access to land is increasingly becoming a problem in Africa as a result both of population growth and tenure reforms. The standard argument for tenure reform centres on the role of uncertainty in... Show moreAccess to land is increasingly becoming a problem in Africa as a result both of population growth and tenure reforms. The standard argument for tenure reform centres on the role of uncertainty in discouraging investment on land held without long-term security. The rationale for this 'replacement' paradigm, however, can be questioned on economic, ecological and social grounds. The history of land tenure reform in Kenya, especially that of group titles in the semiarid areas, is a case in point. The Maasai pastoralists, in particular, have lost huge amounts of land, first to the Boers and other white settlers under colonialism, and now they face an influx of agricultural groups and large-scale capitalist farmers following the individualization of land held under statutory group title in the wake of the failure of the group ranches introduced in the late 1960s. The commoditization of land and the creation of a land market have led to a rapidly growing stratification in the Maasai area. A number of lessons can be drawn from the Kenyan experience, in particular of group tenure, for land reform policy in postapartheid South Africa, viz. interventions should build on local land tenure practices; group titles can be instrumental in assisting large groups of less well-off people; and movement toward individual tenure reform should be initiated only when technical and socioeconomic conditions warrant it. Show less
