African History Commons^™

Exploring Ghana's Strategies For Stability:Lessons For Postwar Reconstruction, Wilmot Nah Adekoya

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Between 1990 and 2005, the state of affairs in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, including Liberia, remained fragile due to continuous civil unrest and war. Although peace initiatives were initiated, progress toward peace has remained minimal. Ghana, one of the nations in Sub-Saharan Africa, has continued to demonstrate significant stability and progress in the midst of civil and political conflicts in the sub-region. Currently, little research exists on how Ghanaians managed to remain stable, while countries in the sub-region continued to experience civil unrests and wars. Using Eisenstadt's theory of sociological modernization as the theoretical foundation, the purpose of this holistic …

The Color Of Memory: Reimagining The Antebellum South In Works By James Mcbride Through The Use Of Free Indirect Discourse, Janel L. Holmes

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the use of interior narrative techniques such as free indirect discourse and internal monologue in two of James McBride’s neo-slave narratives, Song Yet Sung (2008) and The Good Lord Bird (2013). Very limited critical attention has been given to these neo-slave narratives that illustrate McBrides attention to characterization and focalized narration. In these narratives McBride builds upon the revelations he explores in his bestselling memoir, The Color of Water (1996, 2006), where he learns to disassociate race and character. What he discovers about not only his mother, but also himself, inspires his re-imagination of the people who …

Marriage By Force? Contestation Over Consent And Coercion In Africa, Annie Bunting, Benjamin N. Lawrance, Richard L. Roberts

Ohio University Press Open Access Books

With forced marriage, as with so many human rights issues, the sensationalized hides the mundane, and oversimplified popular discourses miss the range of experiences. In sub-Saharan Africa, the relationship between coercion and consent in marriage is a complex one that has changed over time and place, rendering impossible any single interpretation or explanation.

The legal experts, anthropologists, historians, and development workers contributing to Marriage by Force? focus on the role that marriage plays in the mobilization of labor, the accumulation of wealth, and domination versus dependency. They also address the crucial slippage between marriages and other forms of gendered violence, …

Citizenship, Belonging, And Political Community In Africa: Dialogues Between Past And Present, Emma Hunter

Ohio University Press Open Access Books

Africa, it is often said, is suffering from a crisis of citizenship. At the heart of the contemporary debates this apparent crisis has provoked lie dynamic relations between the present and the past, between political theory and political practice, and between legal categories and lived experience. Yet studies of citizenship in Africa have often tended to foreshorten historical time and privilege the present at the expense of the deeper past.

Citizenship, Belonging, and Political Community in Africa provides a critical reflection on citizenship in Africa by bringing together scholars working with very different case studies and with very different understandings …

The Tunisian Revolution: Empire And The Power Of The Multitude, Caroline A. Burns

Master's Theses

The self-immolation of Mohammed Bouazizi ignited the revolution that would oust Tunisian dictator Ben Ali in 2011. The momentum of the revolution in Tunisia spread ideas, tactics, and revolutionary chants across borders to various parts of the globe. The speed and intensity of the revolution dominated the attention of the unsuspecting global community. In order to understand the conditions under which this revolution transpired, I use Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's theory of Empire to show how the contemporary global system functions. Through the historical development of Tunisia and concurrent rise of Empire emerges "the multitude," the heterogeneous manifestation of …

Genocide In German South West Africa & The Herero Reparations Movement, Melanie Bracht

Senior Theses

During my spring 2015 Semester at Sea voyage, the ship docked in Walvis Bay, Namibia for five days. Prior to the voyage, I knew nothing about Namibia’s history. I was surprised to learn of its treacherous past and the role Germany played in shaping its political and economic condition. I took a tour of the Himba settlement, driving hours across the barren, dry land to a small circle of huts. Women cover their skin with red clay and continue the tradition of sauna bathes, never bathing in water in their entire lives. The Himba culture was captivating and it was …

The Legal Framework Of Contracting: Gender Equality, The Provision Of Services, And European Public Procurement Law, E.K. Sarter

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

The article examines the legal framework of public contracting in the EU. It argues that while European public procurement law explicitly allows for measures to foster gender equality be taken into account in public tendering, European legislation and jurisdiction also impose limits to the range of these measures.

The Decolonization Of Christianity In Colonial Kenya, Amanda Ruth Ford

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Kenya was an unusual case within the larger narrative of decolonization in the British Empire. The presence of white settlers, the relative newness of the colony, and the particular way in which the British pursued the civilizing mission all combined to make the end of empire particularly violent for all parties involved. Independence in Kenya was precipitated by a bloody civil war, known as Mau Mau, and the imposition of martial law by the government for almost a decade. In the midst of this chaos, the Church of England’s missionary body, the Church Missionary Society worked to protect their converts …

Groundings Volume Two, Issue Two

Groundings

This is the full issue of Groundings Vol. 2, Iss. 2. It includes a wrap of both the 12th Annual Walter Rodney Symposium and the 3rd Annual Walter Rodney Speakers Series; a piece by Jesus Chucho Garcia that honors the late Norman Girvan; the official Save the Date for the 13th Annual Walter Rodney Symposium; information on the republication of The Groundings with My Brothers; a photo-narrative by Julian Plowden on the student protests at the Atlanta CNN Center; we then have 3 pieces surrounding the Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry by Wazir Mohamed, Anne Braithwaite, and Rohit Kanhai, …

Authentically African : Arts And The Transnational Politics Of Congolese Culture, Sarah Van Beurden

Ohio University Press Open Access Books

Together, the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium, and the Institut des Musées Nationaux du Zaire (IMNZ) in the Congo have defined and marketed Congolese art and culture. In Authentically African, Sarah Van Beurden traces the relationship between the possession, definition, and display of art and the construction of cultural authenticity and political legitimacy from the late colonial until the postcolonial era. Her study of the interconnected histories of these two institutions is the first history of an art museum in Africa, and the only work of its kind in English.
Drawing on Flemish-language sources other scholars have …

Crossing The Color Line : Race, Sex, And The Contested Politics Of Colonialism In Ghana, Carina E. Ray

Ohio University Press Open Access Books

Interracial sex mattered to the British colonial state in West Africa. In Crossing the Color Line, Carina E. Ray goes beyond this fact to reveal how Ghanaians shaped and defined these powerfully charged relations. The interplay between African and European perspectives and practices, argues Ray, transformed these relationships into key sites for consolidating colonial rule and for contesting its hierarchies of power. With rigorous methodology and innovative analyses, Ray brings Ghana and Britain into a single analytic frame to show how intimate relations between black men and white women in the metropole became deeply entangled with those between black women …

'Grounding' Walter Rodney In Critical Pedagogy: Toward Praxis In African History, Seneca Vaught

South

This essay attempts to address the dilemma of theory and praxis, what Freire referred to as “mere verbalism,” by examining one historical instance of critical pedagogy in history education. This essay argues that Walter Rodney’s curriculum, as detailed in his syllabi on “Historians and Revolutions” and "Groundings," helps educators better understand how to more effectively bridge the gap between a critical pedagogical theory and praxis in African history. Using Rodney as an example of a critical pedagogy theorist and practitioner, this essay explores how concerned historians (and those who use history as a basis for teaching) can traverse traditional disciplinary …

Guide To Resources On Africa, Ida E. Jones

Moorland Spingarn Research Center Publications

No abstract provided.

Diamonds In The Rough : Corporate Paternalism And African Professionalism On The Mines Of Colonial Angola, 1917–1975, Todd Cleveland

Ohio University Press Open Access Books

Diamonds in the Rough explores the lives of African laborers on Angola’s diamond mines from the commencement of operations in 1917 to the colony’s independence from Portugal in 1975. The mines were owned and operated by the Diamond Company of Angola, or Diamang, which enjoyed exclusive mining and labor concessions granted by the colonial government. Through these monopolies, the company became the most profitable enterprise in Portugal’s African empire. After a tumultuous initial period, the company’s mines and mining encampments experienced a remarkable degree of stability, in striking contrast to the labor unrest and ethnic conflicts that flared in other …

The Emergence Of The Gullah: Thriving Through ‘Them Dark Days’, Brian Coxe

Masters Essays

No abstract provided.

Science And Charity: Rival Catholic Visions For Humanitarian Practice At The End Of French Rule In Cameroon, Charlotte Walker-Said

Publications and Research

This paper explores the conflict between local expressions of Christian charity and new theories of scientific humanitarianism in the final years of French rule in Africa. Compassionate phenomena inspired by Catholic social organizing had transformed everyday life throughout French Cameroon’s cities and villages in the interwar and postwar years, and yet, in 1950, poverty, crime, poor public health, and social tensions remained prevalent. Seeking a more deeply transformative approach to social rehabilitation, ecclesiastical leaders in the Catholic Church in Europe and French foreign missionary societies in Africa partnered with international medical and scientific organizations in order to invigorate charity with …

A Light In Darkness, Oscar Micheaux: Entrepreneur Intellectual Agitator, Airic Hughes

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Oscar Micheaux was a luminary who served as an agent of racial uplift, with a unique message to share with the world on behalf of the culturally marginalized African Americans. He produced projects that conveyed the complexity of the true black experience with passion and creative courage. His films empowered black audiences and challenged conventional stereotypes of black culture and potential. The legacy of Oscar Micheaux is historically unparalleled among his contemporaries. He transcended traditionally held perspectives about what black people could accomplish. The consciousness within his work still heavily influences black entertainment today. This study seeks to add to …

‘Be Nice To People’ – Grandmother’S Advice Could Fix Many Of World’S Problems, Anthony Major

UCF Forum

As I began to write this column, my ears were ringing with the news story of another senseless shooting. This time it’s of nine people at the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C.

“Ain’T No Real Pimps Out There No More”: Street-Involved Women’S Characterizations Of Men Who Facilitate Street-Based Sex Work, Susan Dewey, Rhett Epler

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

Drawing upon five years of ethnographic research with over 100 Denver, Colorado women involved in street­‐based sex work and drug use, this paper explores what the women's discursive framings of men who facilitate women's sex work activities reveal about the exclusionary social and criminal justice practices that shape their lives.

Traitor Or Pioneer: John Brown Russwurm And The African Colonization Movement, Brian J. Barker

Graduate Masters Theses

The end of the Revolutionary War proved to be a significant moment in United States history. Not only did it signal the birth of a new nation, but it also affected the institution of slavery. Wartime rhetoric such as "All men are created equal," left the future of American slavery in doubt. Northern and mid-Atlantic states began to implement emancipation plans, and the question of what to do with free blacks became a pressing one. It soon became apparent that free blacks would not be given the same rights as white Americans, and the desire to have blacks removed from …