African History Commons^™

The Practice Of Witchcraft And The Changing Patterns Of Its Paraphernalia In The Light Of Technologically Produced Goods As Presented By Livingstone Museum, 1930s - 1973, Friday Mufuzi

Zambia Social Science Journal

In many African societies, there is an ingrained belief that misfortunes are induced by fellow human beings. Often, some family members are accused of being responsible for inexplicable problems. These may include infertility, impotence, miscarriage, lack of success in business, inability to gain promotion, poor crop harvest, sickness, and many others. In all these problems, witchcraft has been blamed. Its continued existence has thrived on human needs, quest for knowledge, desire for power, and more especially the fear of death; and when executing their operations, practitioners often use objects, and, over time, these have undergone several transformations. This paper explores …

Introduction: Zambia’S Postcolonial Historiography, Walima T. Kalusa, Bizeck J. Phiri

Zambia Social Science Journal

No abstract provided.

Reserved Area: Barotseland Of The 1964 Agreement, Mutumba Mainga Bull

Zambia Social Science Journal

As part of the independence constitutional arrangements for Northern Rhodesia, in May 1964 in London, Kenneth David Kaunda, then Prime Minister at the head of the Self Government of Northern Rhodesia signed the Barotseland Agreement with the Litunga of the Lozi people Sir Mwanawina Lewanika III. The Barotseland Agreement of 1964 recognised the Litunga of Barotseland (Bulozi) as the principal local authority for the government and administration of Barotseland, with powers to make laws of Barotseland in respect to matters such as land, natural resources and taxation. The Barotseland Agreement 1964 was abrogated and cancelled by the Zambian Republican Government …

Periodization Of Robert Mugabe’S Land Policy In Zimbabwe, Kenneth Warhurst

Honors Projects in History and Social Sciences

This project explores how Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe handled the culturally vital land issue. Research was conducted using scholarly sources including books and academic articles related to Zimbabwe, Rhodesia, land policy, economic analysis, and governmental legal policies. Information collected was divided into four historical periods based on the major land policies shaping government action. This periodization helps simplify the land issue by contextualizing the vast information surrounding Zimbabwean history. Analysis of government actions during these periods shows the land issue consistently being tied to other goals. The essay argues that Mugabe has used the call of land reform to fulfill …

Musical Influence On Apartheid And The Civil Rights Movement, Katherine D. Power

Student Publications

Black South Africans and African Americans not only share similar identities, but also share similar historical struggles. Apartheid and the Civil Rights Movement were two movements on two separate continents in which black South Africans and African Americans resisted against deep injustice and defied oppression. This paper sets out to demonstrate the key role that music played, through factors of globalization, in influencing mass resistance and raising global awareness. As an elemental form of creative expression, music enables many of the vital tools needed to overcome hatred and violence. Jazz and Freedom songs were two of the most influential genres, …

The 1876 Centennial Exposed: How Souvenir Publications Reveal Contrasting Attitudes Of Race And Gender In The Post-Bellum United States, Hope Hancock

Mellon Scholars' Works

The Centennial Exhibition of 1876 celebrated not only the 100-year anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence but the industrial innovation and reuniting of American society after the Civil War. Using two rare books about the Exhibiton, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Historical Register of the Centennial Exposition, 1876 and The Illustrated Historical Register of the Centennial Exhibition by James Dabney McCabe, Jr., this project compares the portrayal of women and African Americans in the late 19th-century United States.

Book Review: Foreign Intervention In Africa: From The Cold War To The War On Terrror, Felix Kumah-Abiwu

Faculty Research and Creative Activity

No abstract provided.

Interpreting Women’S History Through Museum Relics: Lessons From The National Museum Of Unity Enugu, Bright Alozie, Chimee Nkemjika Ihediwa, Vitalis Nwashindu, John Uchne Ngonadi, John Kelechi Ugwuanyi

Black Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Although women's history surrounds us, women's contributions to history are easily over looked and often unacknowledged. In fact, decades ago, there was what could be referred to as the invisibility of women in any serious study of history in spite of the fact that history itself has not and can never be solely a male preserve. It was not until recently towards the end of the 20th century that women's history began to be studied and documented. However, since the past fifty years, a number of roadblocks still prevent the historian from producing a coherent narrative on women's history as …

The Forgotten Victims: Ethnic Minorities In The Nigeria-Biafra War, 1967-1970, Arua Oko Omaka

Journal of Retracing Africa

The Nigeria-Biafra War attracted enormous international attention not just for the brutal events of the period, but also because of how the conflict was interpreted, especially by foreigners. The ghastly images of victims of the war dominated the international media and roused the world’s conscience. The confl ict took a toll on human lives on both the Igbo and the ethnic minorities in Biafra. While the Igbo tragedy was largely perpetrated in Northern Nigeria, that of the Biafran minorities – Efi k, Ijaw, Ogoja, Ibibio – occurred mainly in their homelands. The gory experiences suff ered by the Biafran minorities …

Conceiving The Tanganyika-Zanzibar Union In The Midst Of The Cold War: Internal And International Factors, Ethan Sanders

History Faculty Publications

To what extent was international pressure placed on Nyerere and Karume to unify their two states in April 1964? The argument made is that even though Americans were initially very pleased with the outcome of the Union—because they thought it would help stem the spread of communism in the region—this was not a Western-initiated plan forced upon East African leaders. Indeed, the evidence shows that Americans were largely in the dark and in fact very frustrated by their lack of influence on the situation. Instead, the Union merely served as a confluence of African and American interests. The internal factors …

Tennessee’S Black Postwar Emigration Movements, 1866–1880, Selena Sanderfer

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Political Aesthetics Of Global Protest : The Arab Spring And Beyond, Pnina Werbner, Martin Webb, Kathryn Spellman-Poots

Independent Volumes

A remarkable feature of the Arab Spring and other protests that followed in Egypt, India, Botswana and the UK, among other places, has been the salience of images, songs, videos, humour, satire and dramatic performances.

This book explores the central role the aesthetic played in energising the mass mobilisations of young people, the disaffected, the middle classes, the apolitical silent majority, as well as enabling solidarities and alliances among democrats, workers, trade unions, civil rights activists and opposition parties.

Comparing the North African and Middle Eastern uprisings with protest movements such as Occupy, the authors bring to bear an anthropological …

Facing The Epokolo : Corporal Punishment And Scandal In Twentieth Century Ovamboland, David Crawford Jones

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation charts the history of corporal punishment in Ovamboland, the north-central region of present-day Namibia. Long used as a method for disciplining cattle thieves, rapists, and men who had impregnated women outside of wedlock, the region's institution of public flogging sparked a scandal in 1973, when the epokolo, the five-foot long thorned branch of the Makalani palm tree, was deployed on members of SWAPO, the leading liberation movement in the territory then known as South West Africa. In the wake of that scandal, and in a rare rebuke of the traditional authorities who had long collaborated with the South …

An Unconventional Challenge To Apartheid: The Ivorian Dialogue Diplomacy With South Africa, 1960-1978, Abou B. Bamba

History Faculty Publications

This article focuses on the dialogue diplomacy that Ivorian President Félix Houphouët-Boigny initiated in the late 1960s to engage apartheid South Africa. Although contemporary observers and subsequent scholars (have) derided the scheme as an act of acquiescence and even betrayal, I argue that Ivory Coast's dialogue diplomacy was neither accommodationist nor dependent on the prodding of neocolonial powers such as France. A Pan-Africanist extension of the home-grown neotraditional practice of Dialogue ivoirienne, the diplomatic initiative never got the backing of other African states. A close analysis of the Ivory Coast's maneuvers in the context of an increasing radicalization of …

Nigeria And Mali: The Case For Repatriation And Protection Of Cultural Heritage In Post-Colonial Africa, Elizabeth A. Klesmith

Notre Dame Journal of International & Comparative Law

Writing in early 2013, Elizabeth A. Klesmith explores the challenges of African nations in protecting their cultural heritage in the post-colonization era. She identifies two major challenges to the preservation of African cultural heritage: the multi-billion dollar global trade in illicit heritage and, in certain parts of Africa, the threat of destruction of cultural treasures during bouts of sectarian violence. Klesmith discusses these challenges utilizing case studies concerning the cultural treasures of Nigeria and Mali. In the case of Nigeria, the country is striving to reacquire artifacts looted from the Benin Kingdom in the late nineteenth century and recently purchased …

Pieces Of A Mosaic: Revised Identities Of The Almoravid Dynasty And Almohad Caliphate And Al-Bayan Al-Mugrib, Rolando J. Gutierrez

CMC Senior Theses

This study seeks to clarify the identities of the Almoravid and Almohad Berber movements in the larger Crusade narrative. The two North African Islamic groups are often carelessly placed within the group identified as “Islam” in discussions about the series of military campaigns that took place not only in the traditional Holy Land but also throughout regions of the Mediterranean such as Spain; this generalized identifier of “Islam” is placed against a much more complex group of generally Christian parties, all of them seen as separate, unique groups under the umbrella identifier of Christianity. This foray into a late 13 …

Migrant Labor, Development, And Hiv In Botswana, William Kearns

HIM 1990-2015

At independence, Botswana was highly underdeveloped and reliant on external capital earned through migrant labor. This presented several challenges to development despite the discovery of diamonds shortly after independence. However, no challenge was greater than the HIV epidemic which came to infect one in four Batswana. This thesis discusses the historical factors which promoted the spread of the virus in the greater context of migrant labor and development within Botswana.

An Analysis Of The Effectiveness Of The Gacaca Court System In Post-Genocide Rwanda, Lauren Haberstock

Global Tides

This article discusses and examines the effectiveness of the Gacaca Court System that was put in place following the Rwandan genocide in 1994. A brief history of Rwanda reveals deeply rooted ethnic divisions between the Hutu and Tutsi people--a factor that would greatly impact pre-genocide and post-genocide Rwanda. Following the genocide, the Rwandan government and international community needed to find a way to deal with the crimes and atrocities committed during the genocide. The Gacaca Court System was implemented in order to do just this. However, lending to flaws inherent with the system, the Gacaca Court System has not effectively …

Debunking The Truth Through A Video Documentary: A Case Study Of Henry Louis Gates' "Wonders Of The African World", Kehbuma Langmia

Department of Strategic, Legal, and Management Communications Faculty Publications

The fact that Black people have in the past and continue to endure untold pain and suffering in the mother continent of Africa and in the Diaspora demonstrates that something is wrong and needs to be righted. Henry Louis Gates’  1999  three-part  video  documentary  series, Wonders  of the  African World (WAW),  funded  by  BBC  and  PBS  and  filmed  on  the  continent  of Africa,examined  this  issue  from  different  perspectives. Professor  Gates,a Harvard-based  African  American  scholar,is  a  renowned  intellectual  and  a cultural critic. Wonders of the African World (WAW) begins with tracing the roots of the ancient Nubians (Blacks in Egypt).  he …

Local Critiques Of Global Development: Patriotism In Late Colonial Buganda, Carol Summers

History Faculty Publications

Interviewed by an incredulous anthropologist in 1955, an elderly Paulo Lukongwa insisted that more than half a century of colonial development policies had brought almost nothing to his country. Writing was new and wonderful, he admitted, and he gave European colonizers credit for cars and bicycles that made travel faster. But otherwise, nothing was new. Martin Southwold, the young anthropologist, suggested that clocks were new, and Lukongwa pointed out that they’d had roosters to wake them up. Surely the gramophone was progress, Southwold asserted, and Lukongwa responded that when they had wanted music, they called people to play—and what was …

Teachers' Expectations And Reading Achievement Of African American Middle School Students, Gloria Denise King Lewis

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

A local and national concern in education is the persistent achievement gap between African American and Caucasian middle school students. Despite numerous reforms, the gap continues to show African American middle school students performing lower in reading. The purpose of this mixed methods study, framed in the theoretical perspective of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, was to examine teachers' expectations and the relationship between those expectations and the educational outcomes of African American middle school children. Data were collected to identify pedagogical practices, examine teacher expectations, and determine the relationship between those expectations and student Criterion Referenced Competency Test (CRCT) scores. Nineteen …

Arab Spring In Tunisia And Egypt: The Impact Of New Media On Contemporary Social Movements And Challenges For Social Movement Theory, Victoria Carty

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

The events of Arab Spring were shocking for those who study societal movements as long-term dictators were swiftly removed from office and a democratic wave hit the region. Although the outcomes of the Arab Spring revolutions are yet to be determined, what we can gleam from these outbursts of collective behavior is that new media platforms played a significant role in the planning and mobilization efforts that brought people onto the streets and posed serious challenges to the existing political systems. This paper examines the importance of the communication field in influencing the political environment and motivating ordinary citizens to …

In Idi Amin’S Shadow: Women, Gender, And Militarism In Uganda, Alicia C. Decker

Ohio University Press Open Access Books

In Idi Amin’s Shadow is a rich social history examining Ugandan women’s complex and sometimes paradoxical relationship to Amin’s military state. Based on more than one hundred interviews with women who survived the regime, as well as a wide range of primary sources, this book reveals how the violence of Amin’s militarism resulted in both opportunities and challenges for women. Some assumed positions of political power or became successful entrepreneurs, while others endured sexual assault or experienced the trauma of watching their brothers, husbands, or sons “disappeared” by the state’s security forces. In Idi Amin’s Shadow considers the crucial ways …

Accidental Witness To History: My Trip To South Africa, Harold I. Abramson

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Before King Came: The Foundations Of Civil Rights Movement Resistance And St. Augustine, Florida, 1900-1960, James G. Smith

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called St. Augustine, Florida, the most racist city in America. The resulting demonstrations and violence in the summer of 1964 only confirmed King’s characterization of the city. Yet, St. Augustine’s black history has its origins with the Spanish who founded the city in 1565. With little racial disturbance until the modern civil rights movement, why did St. Augustine erupt in the way it did?

With the beginnings of Jim Crow in Florida around the turn of the century in 1900, St. Augustine’s black community began to resist the growing marginalization of their community. …

Adventist Medical Mission In Botswana: Toward An Effective And Appropriate Model, Olaotse Obed Gabasiane

Dissertations

Since holistic health is central to Africans, they will seek it from all possible health-care systems that include (1) African traditional medicine, (2) Western-oriented medicine, (3) Christian medical mission, as well as (4) African Independent Churches (AICs) with emphasis on spiritual healing. However, at times this comes with negative consequences.

This research sought to understand why medicalpluralism exists in Botswana and the rest of southern Africa, and why it finds concurrent use by Africans; solutions can help Christian medical missions develop more effective and holistic ways to serve Africans. The research can also help Christian medical missionsunderstand how they can …

Understanding Social Changes In Tanzania: Independence And Loss Of Hegemonic Masculinity In Ruhumbika’S Village In Uhuru, Edith Bwana

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

The transition from colonialism to independence and Ujamaa had great impacts on society—politically, economically and socially. This is discussed in relation to the novel Village in Uhuru (1969) by Gabriel Ruhumbika. Within the backdrop of independence, he explores the social changes that occur in the small village of Chamambo. Through two main characters—namely Balinde and Musilanga— Ruhumbika explores the changing social values. This paper argues that masculinity is a social construct. It will explore how Musilanga serves as a representative of hegemonic masculinity, and how through the actions of his son, he is deprived of this designation, leaving a void …

“In Her Shoes”: Victorian Lady Explorers In Imperial Africa And Their Relationship To Contemporary Travellers Of A Commercialized, Nostalgic Landscape, Mary Smith

History & Classics Student Scholarship

Smith uses the framework of the Cape to Cairo trek to illuminate both the problematic maternalist feminism of early 19th century women, and to draw parallels with contemporary nostalgia for a romanticized and racialized past.

Géotropisme De Chamoiseau, Jean-Louis Cornille

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

There seems to be a strange parallel between the vegetable kingdom in which Patrick Chamoiseau sets his Biblique des derniers gestes and the way the narrative is being played out. The mangrove, with its entangled roots and stems, constitutes a perfect image of the novel, whose multiple branches are no longer anchored in any reality or in a centralised system, but seem moved by a principle which we could call “bibliotropic”, since in Biblique one could easily find traces of Perse, García Márquez, Glissant, Césaire and even of Rabelais. But certain “stems” are more difficult to track within this dense …

Book Reviews, Owen Sichone, Elizabeth Haines

Zambia Social Science Journal

Reviews of:

Death, Belief and Politics in Central African History. By Walima T. Kalusa and Megan Vaughan

Looking For Mrs Livingstone. By Julie Davidson