African Languages and Societies Commons^™

Challenges To Democratic Inclusion And Contestation Of Space: Contemporary Student Activists In Transforming South Africa, Momo Wilms-Crowe

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Twenty-four years into democracy, in a time marked by stark inequality and rising levels of political disillusionment, student activists are key players in the pursuit of a more just, more equitable, and more democratic South Africa. Using universities as spaces to contest, disrupt, and challenge the status quo, student activists challenge narratives of youth political apathy and act as agents of change, encouraging society to meet the goals established in the 1996 Constitution, the document enshrining the very promises they were born into believing would be their reality. Through mobilization and organizing, student actors boldly engage in questions of substantive …

Who And What Is Amazigh? Self-Assertion, Erasure, And Standardization, Alexis Colon

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This research focuses on the identity of the indigenous peoples of Morocco, or the Amazigh. While this culture has endured different iterations of colonization, self-assertion and activism in favor of preserving culture and improving conditions for Amazigh can often be viewed as controversial to the elites of Morocco. This controversy, however, does not stop Moroccans from proclaiming their Amazigh background or portraying their culture. This paper aims to describe qualitative data taken from numerous interviews on the subject of self-identification of Amazigh and different hopes and expectations for the continuation of the language and culture of Amazigh among common peoples.

Sufis In A 'Foreign' Zawiya: Moroccan Perceptions Of The Tijani Pilgrimage To Fes, Joel Green

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The purpose of this ISP is to investigate Moroccan perceptions of sub-Saharan members of the Tijaniyya during the completion of their religious pilgrimage to Fes. The relationship between Moroccans andTijani pilgrims is particularly complex as it occurs at an intersection of various identities, most prominently including race, religion, class and nationality. This project focuses on Moroccans who work in the area surrounding the shrine of Ahmed al-Tijani and either market their business towards Tijani pilgrims or frequently serve Tijani pilgrims as customers. In the course of interviews with five Moroccans, three major themes emerged: 1. Condemnation of Tijani religious practice. …

Missing Youth: The Absence Of The Young Moroccan Voice In The Nation, Reid Leiter

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Morocco has long maintained stability in a region historically known for fluctuating sociopolitical climates, considerably in part to a robust constitutional monarchy. However, the 20 February movement that coincided with the 2011 Arab Spring showed that the government is vulnerable to an energetic, organized, and a vocal youth population. Now, seven years after a constitutional referendum aimed at installing more democratic processes was passed, the growing youth populous feel more detached from their nation than ever, ignored by the government and monarchy, and ultimately lacking a voice in Moroccan politics. By excluding their voice and ignoring their opinions, the government …

Renegado: Immigrant Identities And Aspirations Of White Muslim Converts In Morocco, Paul Williamson Kiefer

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

If one turns over enough stones in Morocco, they will come across hundreds of Western converts to Islam, most of whom are white. Some are obvious: one might spot a blue-eyed Belgian wearing a jellaba on a train to Fes or a Danish woman in a hijab running a bakery in central Casablanca. Others might be mistaken for tourists, like an American woman with her hair pulled back into a ponytail seated in the corner of a high-end café in Rabat. These converts are immigrants, and most chose to live in Morocco as a form of hijra, or migration for …

Amjambo Africa! (September 2018), Kathreen Harrison

Amjambo Africa!

In This Issue... Eid Al-Adha .......................... Page 2

Results Conference ................Page 2

Host Community....................Page 3

World Refugee Day................Page 8

National Night Out ................Page 9

November Elections.............Page 13

Arabic Summer School ........Page 15

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Conflicting Neo-Colonialist Narratives In The Representation Of Africa In Ngugi And Naipaul's Novels, Weiping Li, Xiuli Zhang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their article "Conflicting Neo-colonialist Narratives in the Representation of Africa in Ngugi and Naipaul's Novels" Weiping Li and Xiuli Zhang analyze the conflicting neo-colonialist narratives by comparing the different representations of the post-independent Africa between Ngugi's Petals of Blood and Naipaul's A Bend in the River. The multiple narrators in Petals of Blood expose imperialists' continuing domination of Africa, while the limited third person narrator in A Bend in the River blames the African people for the deterioration and chaos of the African society. One from an insider's perspective, the other from the outsider's, Ngugi and Naipaul thus form …

Review Of Making Refuge: Somali Bantu Refugees And Lewiston, Maine By Catherine Besteman, Ellen Block

The Journal of Social Encounters

Catherine Besteman conduced fieldwork in the late 1980’s in the small village of Banta in southern Somalia. Implausibly, she was reunited with many of her former friends and interlocutors in Lewiston, Maine two decades later, laying the ground for this impressive ethnographic study. In Making Refuge, Besteman traces the experiences of Somali Bantu refugees from Somalia, through the Kenyan refugee camps, and to their resettlement in the United States. She shows how the prevailing view of refugees as “apolitical, docile, and dependent recipients” (Pg. 29), and as passive and grateful objects of humanitarian aid is both misconstrued and morally deficient. …

The Role Of The Traditional Somali Model In Peacemaking, Hudda Ibrahim

The Journal of Social Encounters

In this paper I explore the mediation and reconciliation efforts of traditional Somali elders. I also discuss why traditional elders have been effective peacemakers in Northern Somali (Somaliland) but not in Somalia. I argue that four factors comprising an "insider-partial mediation" approach in Somaliand helps to explain why it was effective there. In conclusion, this paper shows that the traditional Somali approach of peacemaking is a viable and effective approach to mitigating conflicts in Somalia.

Parting The Waters Of Bondage: African Americans’ Aquatic Heritage, Kevin Dawson

International Journal of Aquatic Research and Education

Since the 1960s, when the United States Center for Disease Control began compiling racial statistics on drowning death rates, it has been painfully obvious that African Americans are far more likely to drown than their white counterparts. While segregation denied black people access to most public swimming pools and racial violence transformed natural waterways into undesirable places for swimming a leisure, perceptions that swimming as an “un-black” or “white” pursuit have marginalized its acceptability within African American communities. “Parting the Waters of Bondage” is an original article based on decades of the author’s historical scholarship. It seeks to reduce the …

Amjambo Africa! (August 2018), Kathreen Harrison

Amjambo Africa!

In This Issue...

Rwanda Bean Coffee ............ Page 7

Congolese Celebration..........Page 8

Cape Verde Celebration........Page 9

South Sudanese Celebration Page 10

Service Listings - Cut Out & Keep! .....................................Page 13/14

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

America’S Inconsistent Foreign Policy To Africa; A Case Study Of Apartheid South Africa, Olugbenga Samson Ojewale Mr

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study lays bare the inconsistencies in the United States of America’s Foreign Policy, and how it contributed to the longevity of apartheid in South Africa. Michael Mandelbaum opined that America’s foreign policy post-Cold War era drifted from containment to transformation.1 America became involved with transferring their democracy and constitutional order to the countries they entangled with in running those countries’ internal governance. Instead of war, America preached and practiced proper, organized governance. Thus, America’s foreign policy to Europe and Asia post-Cold War was all about democracy and protection of fundamental human rights. However, the role of America’s Foreign Policy …

Amjambo Africa! (July 2018), Kathreen Harrison

Amjambo Africa!

In This Issue...

Profile: Angela Okafor........ Page 10

Know Your Rights ................Page 12

Families Separated at the Southern Border...............Page 12

Critical Contextualization: A Case Study Of Lobi Funeral Rites In Burkina Faso, Boubakar Sanou

Journal of Adventist Mission Studies

"It is very difficult to be relevant in our Christian witness if we do not know and address the issues with which the people we are trying to reach are wrestling. For the gospel to meaningfully engage recipients with the purpose of transforming their worldviews, Christian witnesses must always encode the biblical message in such a way that its content remains faithful to biblical principles but also makes sense to its receptors in terms of its relevance. Such new experiences often challenge them in their social location. The rationale for this is that because the gospel is always received from …

Can I Get An “Amen”? Affirming The Contemporary Ghanaian Usage Of Amen, Agana-Nsiire Agana

Journal of Adventist Mission Studies

"Altogether then, the claim that amen as used in the instances we have discussed is inappropriate is found to lack firm biblical or etymological foundation. Neither does the suggestion that if it is a vestige of African worship culture then that provides a reasonable ground for thus condemning it. While it is recognized that amen is often babbled from mental laxity, it is suggested that the problem lies not in amen, as a word, but in the person, as a worshipper. Amen is a rich word, capable of communicating a spectrum of positive human intellectual and emotional responses to worship; …

African Christian Leadership: Realities, Opportunities, And Impact, David K. Penno

Journal of Adventist Mission Studies

"African Christian Leadership is a well-organized, well-written report on some very significant research about leaders and the practice of leadership in the African church. The methodology allowed the researcher to hear from a broad spectrum of African Christians. One criticism of the study could be that a sample of church leaders and members in majority Muslim countries of North Africa were not included in the study, but this might be understandable due to the already vast scope of the project. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in leadership in the Christian context, and especially as practiced …

Defining The Issue: Social Movements' Framing Strategies In Neocolonial Senegal, Ezra M. Alltucker

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This study examined framing strategies of protest movements in Dakar Senegal, particularly those focused on issues of foreign exploitation. Two major groups were surveyed, FRAPP and Cos M23, with interview notes and transcripts forming the basis of frame analysis. The findings showed that Cos M23 utilized a narrow frame that focused on linking certain sets of behaviors to being a good citizen, while FRAPP created a larger discursive framework in which diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational framing strategies were present in order to both link France and western imperialism to issues as well as induce the general public to take actions …

The Role Of Bilingualism On Affix Borrowing: The Case Of Nominal And Verbal Derivation In Chimalaba, Hamisi Amani, Abel Y. Mreta

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

This paper describes an interesting case of the role of bilingualism on affix borrowing from Kiswahili into Chimalaba. The data were collected through interviews, previous collected corpora, native narratives and targeted elicitations. Thomason’s (2001), Borrowing Scale (BS) and the Principle of Functional Explanation (PFE) guided the analysis. The BS predicts the level of intensity of contact with possible socio-historical factors for borrowing of particular structural features, whereas the PFE through a Multi-Causation Model (MCM) specifies the interplay of factors in promoting structural borrowing in a hierarchy. The findings indicate that bilingualism plays an intermediary role in promoting affix borrowing in …

The Writer And Africa’S Post-Colonial Crisis: Ideology, Language And Representation In Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’O’S A Grain Of Wheat, Nicholas Kamau-Goro

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

This article attempts a re-reading of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s A Grain of Wheat within the broader context of Africa’s cultural history. Faced with the reality of the failure of the post-colonial state to deliver on the promises of independence, the author is confronted with a dilemma: how does he transcend the disillusion and sense of despair engendered by this failure? To answer this question, I read the novel through the prism of post colonial theory to illustrate how Ngũgĩ’s attempts to mediate Africa’s post-colonial crisis precipitates a review of his ideological stances leading to a jettisoning of the liberal humanist …

The Space Gap, Access To Technology, And The Perpetuation Of Poverty, Tyler A. Way

International ResearchScape Journal

No abstract provided.

The Creation Of Traditional African Dance/Music Integrated Scores, Doris Green

Journal of Movement Arts Literacy Archive (2013-2019)

African dances are among the oldest dance traditions in existence; their structure is uniquely different because the movement therein is inseparable from the music that governs the movements. The music is associated with the spoken language of the people, which makes it virtually impossible for outsiders to comprehend the music of different African countries. In Africa there is no dance that is not accompanied by some form of music from the voice to orchestras of different percussive instruments. For centuries the dance/music of African people has been passed between generations by a mouth to ear process. Any society that is …

Amjambo Africa! (June 2018), Kathreen Harrison

Amjambo Africa!

Welcome to Amjambo Africa! Welcome to Amjambo Africa! We are Maine’s free newspaper for and about New Mainers from Sub-Saharan Africa.

Amjambo Africa! is here to help New Mainers thrive and to help Maine welcome and benefit from our new neighbors.

Amjambo Africa! will serve as a conduit of information for newcomers as they navigate life in Maine.

Amjambo Africa! will include background articles about Africa so those from Maine can understand why newcomers have arrived here.

Amjambo Africa! will profile successful New Mainers from Sub-Saharan Africa in order to give hope to those newly arrived as well as make …

Let's Speak Bolom! The First Sherbro Primer: A Graphic Introduction To The Sherbro Language Of Sierra Leone, George Tucker Childs, Abdulai Bendu

The Sherbro Language and Culture of Sierra Leone

The Sherbro wring system uses a number of non‐English symbols that are explained in Appendix A at the end of the book. They are the standard symbols used in wring all other Sierra Leone languages (including Krio). The first obvious difference from English is that the symbols used to represent Sherbro vowels have quite different pronunciations from the leers used to represent vowel sounds in English. Other differences are relatively minor.

The book is organized as follows. After these prefatory remarks appears the text itself, which is divided into three sections and a set of appendices.

The first section, “The …

‘I Am Rwandan’: Unity And Reconciliation In Post-Genocide Rwanda, Laura E. R. Blackie, Nicki Hitchcott

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Drawing on a corpus of ten oral interviews with survivors and perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, we examine how the government’s policy of unity and reconciliation has shaped post-genocide identities and intergroup relations in local Rwandan communities. By focusing on the relationships between individuals and the national post-genocide narrative, we show how the socio-political context in Rwanda influences how people locate themselves and how they ascribe rights and duties to and in relation to others. Specifically, we use positioning theory as an interpretive lens to argue that individuals view adherence to the government’s post-genocide narrative …

Radical Social Ecology As Deep Pragmatism: A Call To The Abolition Of Systemic Dissonance And The Minimization Of Entropic Chaos, Arielle Brender

Student Theses 2015-Present

This paper aims to shed light on the dissonance caused by the superimposition of Dominant Human Systems on Natural Systems. I highlight the synthetic nature of Dominant Human Systems as egoic and linguistic phenomenon manufactured by a mere portion of the human population, which renders them inherently oppressive unto peoples and landscapes whose wisdom were barred from the design process. In pursuing a radical pragmatic approach to mending the simultaneous oppression and destruction of the human being and the earth, I highlight the necessity of minimizing entropic chaos caused by excess energy expenditure, an essential feature of systems that aim …

Eritrea And The Migration Dilemma In The Horn Of Africa, Elizabeth Stark

International ResearchScape Journal

The state of Eritrea is gradually losing its population. A variety of human rights violations including mandatory indefinite conscription is contributing to many Eritrean citizen’s choice to flee. Those that do flee, tend to go to Sudan or Ethiopia as there is a long historical and cultural connection between the three countries. Additionally, Sudan and Ethiopia have a variety of laws and institutions in place to help the various refugees they take in. However, while there is this legislation, refugees are still vulnerable segments of the population that face many troubles. This shared history, culture and the legal protections afforded …

Correspondence: Letter Of Apology To Dr. Chikane, Desmond Tutu

Archbishop Desmond Tutu Collection Textual

A letter of apology written by Archbishop Tutu to Dr. Chikane and copied to the ex TRC Commissioners. Undated and handwritten.

Documents: Up + Running, Desmond Tutu

Archbishop Desmond Tutu Collection Textual

Handwritten notes. Four pages.

Honoring The South African Khoi-Khoi People, The Crew Of The S.S. Mendi And Xhosa Poet S.E.K Mqhayi Through Translation, Denise Macquire

Publications and Research

The overall purpose of this research was to show the origin and relationship of the Xhosa language between the Khoi-Khoi People, S.E.K. Mqhayi, and the crew on the S.S Mendi. They all had one thing they suffered from language discrimination. Most important the research also attempts to show how a language can die out when native speakers have no cultural capital.

Speech: The Handover. Presentation Of Archbishop Tutu's Gift To Unf President John Delaney, Oupa Seane

Archbishop Desmond Tutu Collection Textual

Speech given by Oupa Seane before the presentation of the Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s gift to University of North Florida President John Delaney. May 2, 2018. Typewritten with handwritten notes.