African Studies Commons^™

Quels Écrivains Francophones Pour Quelles Normes ?, Daniel Delas

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

With the benefit of historical hindsight, the rise of endogenous linguistic norms, justified in literary practices, can be reassessed. The firstg eneration of African writers such as Camara Laye and Léopold Sédar Senghor, because of their normative educational background, favoured exogenous French standards in their writing. Yet, Kourouma’s fiction is a turning point which initiated new literary practices, borrowing much from ordinary ways of speaking. Does it mean that French in Africa now follows endogenous norms? Without vouching for it, one can at least state the importance of recognizing African literature in French as a major form of expression.

De Quelques Normes Esthétiques Endogènes Non Légitimées : Exemples De La Littérature Aja-Fon Du Bénin, Jean-Norbert Vignondé

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Uusing endogenous aesthetic norms as critical tool, we do not purport to evaluate the avatars of the French language outside of the Hexagon. instead, we locate the languages of the “periphery,” and particularly the Aja-Fon language of Benin, at the center of our inquiry to examine the means by which those languages move away from a text initially constructed on the basis of Western endogenous norms. We proceed to show that only “community intellectuals” can create a dialogue between truly endogenous norms and the universal culturesince“intellectuals by qualification” are often only capable of reproducing the exogenous norms of the Western …

Écriture Et Oralité Dans L’Oeuvre De Calixthe Beyala, Gloria Nne Onyeziri

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

A reading of several works of Beyala will help us consider the way orality works for African women and to suggest new forms of the symbolic representation and of narrative framing drawn from the speech of the people. Reference to their African culture, to their consciousness of cultural identity, helps characters such as Édène, Loukoum and Beyala to define themselves and to lay claim to a critical and self-confi dent voice. They learn from orality the ways of saying of the wise, what is to be retained and transmitted through traditional culture and what aspects of collective memory are better …

Redefining Nairobi's Streets: Study Of Slang, Marginalization, And Identity, Mungai Mutonya

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

This study attempts an analysis of a restructured Swahili variety spoken by Nairobi's street community: Kinoki. Adapting tools of sociolinguistic inquiry and focusing on Kinoki's divergence from the dominant urban slang, Sheng, the study discusses attitudes toward divergent terms referencing the street community, street activities, and law enforcement officials. Results indicate that street children, unlike their school-going peers living in the city's low-income neighborhoods, redefine pejoratives that devalue and stigmatize street people and their lifestyle. Instead, Kinoki empowers the marginalized community to construct a positive identity, to ameliorate representations of street lifestyle, and to redefine neologisms that reference in-group ( …

Ethnosymbolism And The Dismemberment Of The State In The Horn Of Africa: The Ethiopian Case Of Ethnic Federalism, Assefa Mehretu

International Conference on African Development Archives

The paper has three major objectives. The first is to do a critical review of the current largely antagonistic narratives of ethnic instrumentalism in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa that have ultimately led to the balkanization of the state and caused serious political instability and fratricidal conflicts with traumatic and costly consequences in the region. The second is to do a critical review of the policy of the current Ethiopian government to implement ethno-territorial formations under the rubric of killils (Amharic for territorial enclosures), and to demonstrate how this may seriously vitiate national integration along compatible cultural and economic …

Soleil, Sexe Et Vidéo: La Comédie Populaire Aux Antilles, Françoise Naudillon

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

The comedy of manners presented in the form of play or in the form of sketches or playlet by the medium of videos and DVDs is a phenomenon that develops in Guadeloupe, Martinique and Guyana, but also in France. These productions are the link between communities in the Creole area (Guadeloupe, Martinique and Guyana) and the outside (metropolitan France and diaspora). They will be analyzed for their popular and scholarly features between erudite comedy and farce, between traditional and postcréolitaire cultural affirmation, between Creole and French, between Italian theatre and yardplay, between creole comedy and vaudeville, between negropolitan diaspora and …

H. M. Chauke Research Of African Hlengwe People, Happyson William Matsilele Chauke, Tillerman Houser

ATS Digital Resources

This is a collection of historical and cultural research works about the vaHlengwe people of Zimbabwe, created by Happyson Chauke before his untimely death by a hit and run driver in 2009. It was compiled by his friend Tillman Houser, who spent 35 years as a missionary to Zimbabwe under the Free Methodist Church. The bulk of the collection is comprised of the book entitled: "The miracle of Lundi Mission: lest we forget."

L’Espace Sexué Dans Riwan Ou Le Chemin De Sable De Ken Bugul, Antje Ziethen

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

In Riwan ou le chemin de sable by Ken Bugul, the protagonist lives in the interstice between her own house and that of her husband’s, between the life of a woman educated in Europe and the life of a wife subjected to the laws of mouridism. In her circular movement along the sandy road evoked in the novel’s title, she gradually creates a space that allows her to reconcile the two facets of her identity. Merging different genres, stories and languages, the text itself enacts the symbolism of the road as a transitional sphere.

Murambi Et Moisson De Crânes Ou Comment La Fiction Raconte Un Génocide, Josias Semujanga

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

This article shows how literary fiction is able to narrate the event of genocide so as to shatter the rational explanations of the world that are the accepted framework for discourse. It studies two texts written on the Rwandan genocide: Murambi by Boubacar Boris Diop and Moisson de crânes by Abdourahman Waberi.

La Représentation Du Politique Dans La Littérature Gabonaise, Jean René Ovono Mendame

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

From which viewpoint do Gabonese writers relate to the realities of the political and social policies of their country and what place do political players occupy in their works? Why do they hesitate so much to denounce the problems of their society? Why is there such a pronounced silence within their literary works? This article raises these delicate and complex questions. The report produced on the evolution of Gabonese writing affirms that writers’ silence is the product of self-censorship. They are condemned to fear saying anything, not only because of potential reprisals, but because they are, for the majority, political …

South Sudan: Civil Service, Training And Development, Aggripa Wajo

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Cultural Context Of Research: Child Labor And Daily Life In Tanzania, Erica Bertolotto

Inquiry Journal 2006

No abstract provided.

Globalization And Structural Adjustments In Sub-Saharan Africa, Joe L.P. Lugalla

The University Dialogue

No abstract provided.

Trop De Soleil Tue L'Amour : Une Expression De L'Écriture Du Mal-Être De Mongo Beti, Rodolphine Sylvie Wamba

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

The classical and dissident African writer Mongo Beti perpetually uses the theme of man’s quest for freedom in everything he does. In fact, the philosophy of “Rubénism” is found in each of his works. Given that man must survive in the “ocean of shit” he lives in, the writer, using a popular language, freely chooses to add some humour to everyday life. Thus, the text we studied appeared as a genuine thriller, complete with comedy and tragedy, which presents a deviation from more formal writing. This is the main idea of this analysis, which consists of showing Trop de soleil …

Cattle, Co-Wives, Children, And Calabashes: Material Context For Symbol Use Among The Il Chamus Of West-Central Kenya, Alan J. Osborn

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

This paper examines systemic contexts for symbol use among the Maa-speaking Il Chamus in the Lake Baringo region of west-central Kenya. The systemic context for symbols and material culture consists of the environmental constraints and behavioral responses that characterize pastoralist life in East Africa. The author's interest in this problem developed in response to Ian Hodder’s work among the Il Chamus, Pokot, and Tugen in the Baringo District. Unlike Hodder, however, the author argues that symbols and their use in East Africa can be more productively explained from a materialist perspective. Specifically, it is proposed that symbols affixed to certain …

Representing African Music, Kofi Agawu

Publications and Research

Of all the currents of change that have swept the humanities during the last half-century, the most far-reaching revolve around language. Philosophy, history, and literary criticism, among other language-based disciplines, have developed what is often presented as a largely unprecedented self-consciousness about representation. The message to scholars in nonlanguage-based disciplines is clear: to be taken seriously, one can no longer view language as a transparent window to an objective reality but must confront the foundational political and ideological baggage of the medium itself, as well as its constant slippage in the hands of the producer.

Music In The Funeral Traditions Of The Akpafu, V. Kofi Agawu

Publications and Research

"Nna lo senu kuwe, fie oresire somoloo?" ("Who laid a mat for him, so that he slept so deeply?") With this rhetorical question, the Akpafu of Southeastern Ghana initiate a period of public mourning occasioned by the death of one of their number.1 The philosophic significance of death in Akpafu culture is twofold. First, it marks the completion of the earthly cycle of existence, birth-circumcision-puberty-marriage-death. Second, it opens the door to a higher, spiritual realm in which the deceased, as an ancestor, takes his place alongside the lesser gods and the Supreme Being in the higher reaches of the hierarchy …

The Sasswood Ordeal Of The West Atlantic Tribes Of Sierra Leone And Liberia: An Ethnohistoriographic Survey, Sarah Louise Davies

Dissertations and Theses

The sasswood ordeal of poison presents a divinatory ritual which has been used in criminal cases by the traditional African of Sierra Leone and Liberia. For at least six hundred years, the peoples of these present countries have imposed this strictest of ordeals on their moral transgressors; and the practice has survived, despite the protestations of nineteenth-century missionaries and the encroachment of the western world.

The investigation of the historical evidence of the sasswood ordeal among the West Atlantic tribes of Africa has three basic purposes. First, because of the paucity of interpretive data on the sasswood ordeal, the primary …