This book is based on Tamia Botes’s Master’s thesis ‘Where Have the Midwives Gone? Everyday Histories of Voetvroue in Johannesburg’, winner of the African Studies Centre, Leiden’s 2021 Africa... Show moreThis book is based on Tamia Botes’s Master’s thesis ‘Where Have the Midwives Gone? Everyday Histories of Voetvroue in Johannesburg’, winner of the African Studies Centre, Leiden’s 2021 Africa Thesis Award. This annual award for Master’s students encourages student research and writing on Africa and promotes the study of African cultures and societies. At the heart of a complex network of knowledge sits the Voetvrou — a black autonomous midwife who looks after the health of and nurtures new life in her community. She mentors others in these practices and, in this way, shares her knowledge across communal lines. But who is the Voetvrou? What is her history? What constitutes being a Voetvrou? How does one become a Voetvrou? Harriet Deacon (1998) identifies a broad shift in power relations between medical men and black autonomous midwives in the nineteenth-century Cape Frontier. These relations were underpinned by growing racialism at legal and institutionalised levels and effectively squeezed black women out of the practice of midwifery — hence their apparent disappearance from public archives from 1865 onwards. However, these black autonomous midwives have not disappeared. This research asks: Where have the midwives gone? Show less
The Khoisan of the Cape are widely considered virtually extinct as a distinct collective following their decimation, dispossession and assimilation into the mixed-race group ‘coloured’ during... Show moreThe Khoisan of the Cape are widely considered virtually extinct as a distinct collective following their decimation, dispossession and assimilation into the mixed-race group ‘coloured’ during colonialism and apartheid. However, since the democratic transition of 1994, increasing numbers of ‘Khoisan revivalists’ are rejecting their coloured identity and engaging in activism as indigenous people. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Cape Town, this book takes an unprecedented bottom-up approach. Centring emic perspectives, it scrutinizes Khoisan revivalism’s origins and explores the diverse ways Khoisan revivalists engage with the past to articulate a sense of indigeneity and stake political claims. Show less
J. Abbink produced a new bibliography on Ethiopian-Eritrean studies in society and history. It is a by- product of research he did on these countries in the past five years and is the ultimate... Show moreJ. Abbink produced a new bibliography on Ethiopian-Eritrean studies in society and history. It is a by- product of research he did on these countries in the past five years and is the ultimate volume in the series. The volume covers the period from 2016 to July 2022 and contains all the crucial references to recent work in history, archaeology, sociology, anthropology, economics, agricultural studies, politics, international relations, environmental studies, religious and cultural studies. Also prominent are themes like the Nile Basin, (regional) conflict, food (in)security, gender relations, demographic developments, urban life, arts & crafts, and pastoral societies.A brief introduction situates the bibliography in the wider field of Ethiopian-Eritrean studies and clarifies the underlying criteria of inclusion and organization of the references. As much as possible, the individual references also contain a link to their digital publication website. The work is concluded with an author name index and is published as an E-book only. Show less
ASA Online provides a quarterly overview of journal articles and edited works on Africa in the field of the social sciences and the humanities available in the ASC library. Issue 58 (2017).... Show moreASA Online provides a quarterly overview of journal articles and edited works on Africa in the field of the social sciences and the humanities available in the ASC library. Issue 58 (2017). African Studies Centre Leiden. Show less
ASA Online provides a quarterly overview of journal articles and edited works on Africa in the field of the social sciences and the humanities available in the ASC library. Issue 59 (2017).... Show moreASA Online provides a quarterly overview of journal articles and edited works on Africa in the field of the social sciences and the humanities available in the ASC library. Issue 59 (2017). African Studies Centre Leiden. Show less
ASA Online provides a quarterly overview of journal articles and edited works on Africa in the field of the social sciences and the humanities available in the ASC library. Issue 57 (2017).... Show moreASA Online provides a quarterly overview of journal articles and edited works on Africa in the field of the social sciences and the humanities available in the ASC library. Issue 57 (2017). African Studies Centre Leiden. Show less
This book is based on Pedzisai Maedza's Master's thesis 'Theatre of testimony: An investigation in devising asylum', winner of the African Studies Centre, Leiden's 2014 African Thesis Award. This... Show moreThis book is based on Pedzisai Maedza's Master's thesis 'Theatre of testimony: An investigation in devising asylum', winner of the African Studies Centre, Leiden's 2014 African Thesis Award. This annual award for Master's students encourages student research and writing on Africa and promotes the study of African cultures and societies. The use of testimonies in performance is enjoying increased artistic and critical popularity and has a long and rich tradition on South African stages. Both internationally and locally, emerging and established playwrights working on migration and refugee issues are seeking to incorporate the testimony of asylum seekers into their work. This necessitates a critical reflection of the influences that shape and structure the staging of these testimonies. This study argues that increased migration and the growing number of asylum seekers arriving on South African shores, has motivated at times violent interaction between host communities and the newcomers. These incidents have inspired a distinct trend of testimonial performances around the concept of asylum. This study uses narrative analysis to read examples of contemporary theatre of testimony plays that examine this phenomenon. It examines how playwright positioning informs the structuring of asylum testimonies on stage, in addition to contextualizing the ethical and moral complexities the playwright’s positionality places on their practice. Through three case studies, the study interrogates how playwright positioning informs notions of authorship, authenticity, truth, theatricality and ethics. Furthermore, it investigates the challenges that speaking for ‘self’ and speaking for the ‘other’ place on testimonial playwrights. Show less
ASA Online provides a quarterly overview of journal articles and edited works on Africa in the field of the social sciences and the humanities available in the ASC library. Issue 60 (2017). African... Show moreASA Online provides a quarterly overview of journal articles and edited works on Africa in the field of the social sciences and the humanities available in the ASC library. Issue 60 (2017). African Studies Centre Leiden. Show less
This book is based on Enid Guene Master's thesis 'Copper, Borders and Nation-building: The Katangese Factor in Zambian Economic and Political History', runner-up in the African Studies Centre,... Show moreThis book is based on Enid Guene Master's thesis 'Copper, Borders and Nation-building: The Katangese Factor in Zambian Economic and Political History', runner-up in the African Studies Centre, Leiden's 2014 African Thesis Award. This annual award for Master's students encourages student research and writing on Africa and promotes the study of African cultures and societies. The Copperbelt has, for about a century, formed the economic backbone of the two countries that host it: the Republic of Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Zambian and Congolese Copperbelts share long-standing economic, social and political ties, resulting in their histories being peppered with points of interconnections. Yet, there exists no integrated history of the Copperbelt. This tendency to see the Copperbelt as not one but two entities has to do with several factors, at the root of which is the Copperbelt’s distribution over two countries. This created an artificial division in the eyes of many observers, a division which, crucially, was reflected in academic research. The Zambian and Congolese Copperbelt have traditionally belonged to two distinct academic traditions, one English-speaking and the other French-speaking. As a result, there has been a tendency to overlook the actual interplay that existed between them. This interplay is what the present narrative proposes to investigate, going from pre-colonial linkages to the circumstances in which the border was set up and the patterns of migrations that the appearance of two competing and neighbouring mining centres engendered. The influence of these processes on Zambian political development will also be considered. Show less
This work is another instalment of a scholarly bibliography in the social sciences and history of Ethiopia and Eritrea, produced at the African Studies Centre (University of Leiden). It is the... Show moreThis work is another instalment of a scholarly bibliography in the social sciences and history of Ethiopia and Eritrea, produced at the African Studies Centre (University of Leiden). It is the fifth and last publication by the author on this subject, and is only published as an E-book (The other volumes - of 1991, 1995, 2003 and 2010 – were first published in print form). The bibliography gives a representative choice of the most important and insightful scholarly contributions (and also some of the more ‘popular’ material written for wider audiences) of the past five years, which have seen a notable acceleration of work and many new insights into the dynamics of the North-East African region. While fairly complete on a number of themes, citing the most authoritative titles, the work is obviously not exhaustive in its coverage. It provides, nonetheless, an essential starting point for research work, reference and teaching on the societies, culture and history of Northeast Africa. Show less
In this work, I attempt to contribute to the future of African and intercultural philosophy. This is undertaken by a comparative appraisal of the late lamented Kenyan philosopher Henry Odera Oruka... Show moreIn this work, I attempt to contribute to the future of African and intercultural philosophy. This is undertaken by a comparative appraisal of the late lamented Kenyan philosopher Henry Odera Oruka's (1944-1995) philosophic sagacity, and intercultural philosophy as conceived by Dutch intercultural philosopher Wim van Binsbergen. Oruka (1990a) identifies four main trends in contemporary African philosophy: ethnophilosophy, professional philosophy, nationalist-ideological philosophy, and philosophic sagacity or sage philosophy. He later added hermeneutic and artistic/literary trends (Oruka 1991). I review the debate on the existence, nature, and identity of African philosophy and posit the relevance of intercultural philosophy to contemporary African philosophy. I examine the major issues around ethnophilosophy with a reading of Tempels and Kagame and the main criticisms, especially those of Oruka, in a bid to posit his rationale for endorsing philosophic sagacity. I focus on Oruka's philosophic sagacity and the methodology used in investigating it. I attempt to answer two main questions: what is sage philosophy and how does one distinguish it from the other forms of philosophy that are available in Africa? African sage philosophy or philosophic sagacity commonly refers to the body of thought produced by persons considered wise by their communities. Oruka categorizes these wise persons into two groups: folk sages and philosophic sages. Folk sages are well versed in the popular wisdom, culture, and beliefs of their people. They are essentially conformists with the communal set-up. They are folk sages because they do not transcend the celebrated folk wisdom of their people. They remain at the first order of sage philosophy: popular wisdom. Philosophic sages are those that seek rational foundation and critically evaluate commonly held cultural beliefs. They are able to transcend the communal beliefs of their societies by taking a critical and rational distance. When interviewed by a professional philosopher, they are able to provide balanced answers on various themes, such as the nature of the Supreme Being, the nature of death, the nature of time, the concept of the person, the meaning of freedom and equality, the nature of education, and so on. This triggers Oruka to compare them to Western philosophers in spite of the fact that some of them are unable to read or write. He dismisses ethnophilosophy as a collective mode of philosophizing and endorses the individual sage as the valid mode of philosophizing. This, according to Oruka, is standard African traditional wisdom, which obtains in the African context. I also employ post-modernist (post-structuralist) and other criticisms of Oruka's philosophic sagacity and show how post-modernist ideas (deconstruction of single identity, Western hegemony, and bounded culture) are used as a bridge to my proposal of intercultural philosophy. I identify globalization as one of the most important socio-political and cultural developments in our contemporary world that needs philosophical scrutiny. I examine Oruka's philosophic sagacity and the orientations of several African philosophers to see if they can stand the test of time. This permits me to invite African/intercultural philosophers to think beyond local to global sagacity. I attempt to go beyond their positions by exploding their contentious conception of culture and examining whether intercultural communication is possible or not. This is achieved through a discussion of intercultural philosophers such as Ram Adhar Mall and Wim van Binsbergen. Finally, I identify the main challenges for the contemporary African/intercultural philosopher. The challenges are enormous, but we need to create an intercultural framework in a bid to go beyond borders. I propose an intercultural hermeneutic, one that is couched in counter-hegemonic discourses and that will allow us to cross borders, as the globalization process requires us to do. Show less
ASA Online provides a quarterly overview of journal articles and edited works on Africa in the field of the social sciences and the humanities available in the ASC library. Issue 53 (2016). African... Show moreASA Online provides a quarterly overview of journal articles and edited works on Africa in the field of the social sciences and the humanities available in the ASC library. Issue 53 (2016). African Studies Centre, Leiden. Show less
Two developments in Africa have generated an extensive literature. The first focuses on investment and land grabbing and the second on the formalization of rural property rights. Less has been... Show moreTwo developments in Africa have generated an extensive literature. The first focuses on investment and land grabbing and the second on the formalization of rural property rights. Less has been written on the impact of formalization on land grabbing and of land grabbing on formalization. Recently, formalization has been put forward to protect the rights of pastoralists and farmers. Leaders in Tanzania have argued that it will free up land for investors that is unused by villages and generate new jobs and improved livelihoods through contract farming while minimizing land grabbing through greater transparency. Others argue that formalization is being promoted to facilitate land grabbing with state-imposed boundaries evicting villagers off land formerly under village control for sale to investors. Proponents assume that securing individual property rights will allow villagers to determine how to best use or dispose of their property. However, this implied notion of voluntarism can deny the hegemonic forces that can be embedded in markets. Unequal power dynamics in market transactions can transform formalization from a protective force into a means of dispossession. These power dynamics operate through various channels, such as juridical capture or influence, control of national and local discourse regarding land use and users, influence or control of land allocation and demarcation process, alienation of smallholders' control over rights of land use, and strategies that promote forced sales of land by the poor. Along these lines, dispossession may not simply be the physical loss of land but the loss of certain rights to land, or in other words, not to land grabbing but what some have termed 'control grabbing' or 'labor grabbing'. Proponents of land titling therefore promote unproblematic visions of customary tenure systems, which ignore both unequal power dynamics due to unequal initial endowments (of power in the form of influence, access, and assets) and the result of such dynamics: formalization converted to an instrument for dispossession. Show less
Private wildlife conservation is booming business in South Africa! Nick Steele stood at the cradle of this development in the politically turbulent 1970s and 1980s, by stimulating farmers in Natal ... Show morePrivate wildlife conservation is booming business in South Africa! Nick Steele stood at the cradle of this development in the politically turbulent 1970s and 1980s, by stimulating farmers in Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal) to pool resources in order to restore wilderness landscapes, but at the same time improve their security situation in cooperative conservancy structures. His involvement in Operation Rhino in the 1960s and subsequent networks to save the rhino from extinction, brought him into controversial military (oriented) networks around the Western world. The author's unique access to his private diaries paints a personal picture of this controversial conservationist. Show less
Land is a crucial yet scarce resource in Rwanda, where about 90% of the population is engaged in subsistence farming, and access to land is increasingly becoming a source of conflict. This study... Show moreLand is a crucial yet scarce resource in Rwanda, where about 90% of the population is engaged in subsistence farming, and access to land is increasingly becoming a source of conflict. This study examines the effects of land-access and land-tenure policies on local community relations, including ethnicity, and land conflicts in post-conflict rural Rwanda. Social relations have been characterized by (ethnic) tensions, mistrust, grief and frustration since the end of the 1990-1994 civil war and the 1994 genocide. Focusing on southeastern Rwanda, the study describes the negative consequences on social and inter-ethnic relations of a land-sharing agreement that was imposed on Tutsi returnees and the Hutu population in 1996-1997 and the villagization policy that was introduced at the same time. More recent land reforms, such as land registration and crop specialization, appear to have negatively affected land tenure and food security and have aggravated land conflicts. In addition, programmes and policies that the population have to comply with are leading to widespread poverty among peasants and aggravating communal tensions. Violence has historically often been linked to land, and the current growing resentment and fear surrounding these land-related policies and the ever-increasing land conflicts could jeopardize Rwanda's recovery and stability. Show less
