African Studies Commons^™

Climate Change And Darfur: A Holistic Security Approach, Salma Sakr

Capstone and Graduation Projects

Climate change is a non-traditional security issue that has evolved into an existential global security threat through its transnational nature. It has direct human security implications that through time turns into indirect traditional security ramifications, which results in higher rates of intrastate conflicts along with regional spillover impacts that destabilizes the geopolitical landscape. Through a comparison of the contexts in Darfur in 1983 and 2003 along with the repercussions that Darfurians face nowadays, I argue that climate change, as a threat multiplier, is the main driver of armed conflicts in Darfur through inter-communal competition over the scarcity of resources that …

The Colonial Origins Of Institutions In Mauritanina, Mahfoudha Sidelemine

Graduate Research Conference (GSIS)

This paper examines and evaluates the state of development in Mauritania, a former French colony in West Africa. The drivers of (under)development that the paper focuses on are institutions. By focusing on institutions as the main factors that determine the development process of the country, I also focus on the colonial origins of institutions. Hence, in this paper, I draw on Acemoglu and colleagues’ argument on the origin of colonial origins of institutions as they identify two types of colonial institutions—Inclusive and Exclusive (Acemoglu et.al.2001). However, in this research, I argue that there is a third type of institution the …

Countering Russian Disinformation In Africa, Illia Snigur

Graduate Research Conference (GSIS)

Illia Snigur’s ODU Research Conference Paper on topic of Russian disinformation in Africa region. That paper briefly describes Russia's economic interests in the African region, why it is beneficial for the Russian Federation to use its soft power, and what role Wagner PMC plays in the African region.

Cultural Factors Associated With Human Trafficking Of Girls And Women In Northern Tanzania: The Case Of Arusha Region, Rehema John Magesa

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Human trafficking is persistent in many regions of Tanzania despite different efforts to reduce the practice by the Government and other stakeholders. Girls and young women are more affected by this practice in violation of their human rights than men and boys. This study explored the cultural factors attributing to the trafficking of girls and women in Northern Tanzania. The study involved 400 girls and young women for a quantitative and qualitative study on cultural determinants of human trafficking. The study found the following cultural practices pushed girls and women towards situations in which they could be trafficked: female genital …

David Versus Goliath: The Power Of Weakness In Asymmetric Warfare—Lessons From History, Nicholas K. Petaludis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Under what conditions do violent nonstate actors (VNA) succeed against states? Why does David sometimes beat Goliath? Since at least the time of Thucydides and the Peloponnesian Wars, the realist narrative in international relations measures power primarily in relative, coercive, and deterrent terms. Strong states should accordingly face fewer constraints and enjoy more options while pursuing their national interests. Unconventional warfare, and its subsets of terrorism and insurgency, should—given these circumstances, end in VNA failure. Sometimes, however, VNAs find success. By comparing the literature on historical and current case studies, I propose that a set of preconditions and two mechanisms …

Misinformation In Countries With Limited Technological Literacies: How Individuals In Sub-Sahara Africa Engage With Fake News, Gregory Gondwe

Communication Studies Faculty Publications

In an event where the problem of information access is almost terra incognita, the derivate challenge is whether too much information is bad. Most research suggests so, yet very few attempts have been made to examine the digital inequalities and literacies that shape how an individual is exposed, consumes, shares, and ends up believing in fake news. This study builds upon focus group data from six sub-Saharan countries to examine how people in sub-Saharan Africa engage with misinformation. This study focuses on variations in digital access and literacy, which indicate how individuals in Africa are exposed to, consume, spread, and …

Written Out : The Silencing Of Regina Gelana Twala, Joel Cabrita

Ohio University Press Open Access Books

Systemic racism and sexism caused one of South Africa’s most important writers to disappear from public consciousness. Is it possible to justly restore her historical presence?

Regina Gelana Twala, a Black South African woman who died in 1968 in Swaziland (now Eswatini), was an extraordinarily prolific writer of books, columns, articles, and letters. Yet today Twala’s name is largely unknown. Her literary achievements are forgotten. Her books are unpublished. Her letters languish in the dusty study of a deceased South African academic. Her articles are buried in discontinued publications.

Joel Cabrita asserts that Twala’s posthumous obscurity has not developed accidentally …

Volume 9, Number 1 Front Matter

Zambia Social Science Journal

No abstract provided.

Introduction: The Life And Legacies Of Kenneth Kaunda In Southern Africa, Mary Mbewe, Marja Hinfelaar, Duncan Money

Zambia Social Science Journal

Zambia’s first President, Kenneth Kaunda (known widely as KK), passed away on 17 June 2021 at the age of 97. This marked the end of an era for many, and not only in Zambia. Kaunda belonged to the last of a generation of African leaders who fought for independence from colonial rule and had his own brand of political and economic philosophies (Cheeseman and Sishuwa, 2021). Given the momentous occasion of the passing of one of Africa’s biggest icons, as editors we felt it was timely to organise a conference dedicated to Kaunda and his legacy, which took place in …

Elusive Empowerment: Emerald Mining In Ndola Rural Under Kenneth Kaunda’S One-Party State, Alexander Caramento, Agatha Siwale-Mulenga

Zambia Social Science Journal

One of the hallmarks of Kenneth Kaunda’s tenure in office was the nationalisation of Zambia’s large-scale copper mines. Yet after the Matero Reforms of 1969, which purported to empower Zambians through the public ownership and management of the country’s largest export industry, President Kaunda and his colleagues curiously decided to partner with a foreign investor (Hagura Mining) in the 1980s to develop the emerald mining sector in Ndola Rural (now Lufwanyama), while Zambian artisanal and small-scale miners (ASM) were sidelined. Drawing upon archival documents, newspaper coverage, and a select number of interviews, this paper seeks to examine this apparent shift …

Kaunda And The Liberation Of Namibia: Towards An Assessment, Chris Saunders

Zambia Social Science Journal

When he died in June 2021, Kenneth Kaunda was widely hailed for his support for Southern African liberation movements. This paper considers the case of Namibia and the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) and asks how Kaunda went about trying to bring about the liberation of Namibia in the 1970s and 1980s. He initially let SWAPO military operations take place from Zambia. SWAPO had its headquarters in Zambia in the 1970s, and many thousand Namibian refugees settled in Zambia. In international fora Kaunda gave SWAPO full support, and he backed the establishment of a United Nations (UN) Institute for …

Arming Zambia In The “Dark Forest Of International Politics”: Kenneth Kaunda, Britain, And Arms Diplomacy, 1963-1971, Jeff Schauer

Zambia Social Science Journal

From the breakup of the Central African Federation in 1963 until the departure of British officers and trainers in the early 1970s, Kenneth Kaunda led the Zambian government in negotiating arms purchases from British arms manufacturers, with the assistance of the British government. These transactions were intimately connected to security guarantees against Rhodesian aggression that Kaunda negotiated with the former colonial power, and British attempts to foster Zambian foreign policy and technological dependency. While this decade of negotiations had its origins in the contentious local distribution of military resources at the end of Federation, by the time it ended, it …

Renewing A Nation: The Impact Of The African Diaspora On The African American Family, Culture And The Black Church, Lolita R. Gilmore-Randall

Doctor of Ministry

Despite the notion the past can never be removed, disassembled or altered, variant versions of African American history continue to serve as a fluid document in time without accountability, acknowledgement, or consciousness of the liabilities associated with the African diaspora. Studies show an estimated 12.5 million African men, women, and children were forcibly transported as part of the transatlantic slave trade, an egregious act that remains impactful to this day. African Americans represent 12% of the American population, but constitute 2.3 million, or 34%, of the total 6.8 million in correctional facilities. Though African American children make up 14% of …

Amjambo Africa! (January 2023), Kathreen Harrison

Amjambo Africa!

In this Issue

War in eastern DRC ............2-3

Updates from Africa ................4

Depression/refugee camps...... 5

Editorial .....................................6

Amjambo Arts: Phuc Tran ......7

Advice: Someone to trust .....8-9

In 7 languages

Notable inaugurations .....10-11

Coastal resilience ...................11

All about the Workforce ........12

Financial literacy/New Year ..12

Legislative Update ..................13

MCA Giraffe awards ..............14

Tips & Info ..............................15

Year in Review .................. 16-17

Health & Wellness.......18-23, 25

Protecting vision

Health in winter

In 7 languages

Portland Adult Ed. .................27

Abolitionist movement ..........27

Languages are similar ............27

Ukrainian perspective ...........28

Zambia’S Missing Narrative Of Structural Adjustment, Michael Gubser

Zambia Social Science Journal

In 1991, Zambia launched one of the most orthodox structural adjustments programs (SAPs) in Africa. The last and longest chapter of its fitful history with the IMF and World Bank, Zambia’s SAP commenced during the euphoria following the ouster of long-time President Kenneth Kaunda, when it was presented as the only strategy for dealing with the country’s economic collapse. What followed was one of Africa’s most striking experiments with rapid liberalisation, leading to budgetary stabilisation and increased investment but also sudden unemployment and impoverishment. If in retrospect liberalisation seems inescapable, given the ballooning debt of Kaunda’s last years, Zambians at …

A Participatory Drone Mapping And Critical Physical Geography Of Water Security For Irrigation In Northern Ghana, Dinko Hanaan Dinko

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Dam discourse frequently incorrectly assumes that their emergence unilinearly translates to an expansion of economic opportunities while not considering how dams become sites for the reproduction of inequality and injustice. This dissertation investigates how the politics of irrigation water access are nested in a complex web of physical materialities of the 'natural' environment and power relations, with lived consequences on differentiated social identities in semiarid Ghana. The research draws on transdisciplinary perspectives from political ecology, embodiment, critical physical geography, and mixed methods, including interviews, focus group discussions, surveys, participatory drone mapping, and laboratory analysis of soil biochemical properties. The study …

No. 86: Pandemic Remittance Shocks And Resilience In The South Africa-Zimbabwe Migration Corridor, Jonathan Crush, Godfrey Tawodzera

Southern African Migration Programme

This report sets out to test the conflicting global and local narratives about the impact of COVID-19 on remittance flows in the South Africa-Zimbabwe migration corridor. Remittance pessimism vanished during the second year of the pandemic as data indicated that remittances had not suffered the predicted collapse. Given survey findings, including the survey reported on here, about the depressed earning and remitting capacity and behaviour of migrants during the pandemic, there was no obvious explanation as to why remittances had not plunged in 2020. In search of a resolution to this pandemic paradox of stable or increased migrant remittances and …

Revolution, Conflict, Revolt, Uprising, Among Other Adjectives: Resistance Movements In Colonial Sudan, Edibeth Mencía Roy

History - Master of Arts in Teaching

I. Synthesis Essay………………………………3

II. Primary Documents and Headnotes……….21

III. Textbook Critique……………………………30

IV. New Textbook Entry………………………...33

V. Bibliography…………………………………..36

Growing Up Ghanaian: The Well-Being Of Ghanaian Children In The United States And Ghana, Akua Bemma Opoku

Dissertations and Theses

Children’s subjective well-being is a child’s judgment of their well-being. Subjective well- being can have positive and negative indicators. Positive indicators include but are not limited to safety, feeling happy, and feeling excited. Negative indicators include but are not limited to lack of safety, lack of confidence, and sadness. Children’s ethnic background and their relation to their ethnic background may influence their subjective well-being. Research focusing on ethnic identity and child well-being has found positive associations. Research has also found a relationship between the context of family, school, peers, religion, community, and ethnic identity. This comparative phenomenological study aimed to …

Understanding Financial Inclusion: A Comparative Analysis Of Financial Mechanisms In Uganda, Amari Huang

CMC Senior Theses

Financial inclusion is a critical means of empowering individuals to improve their own lives, and Uganda provides an excellent case study for examining various financial mechanisms in a developing country context. This thesis investigates four such mechanisms: formal banks, microfinance institutions, mobile money, and contribution clubs. The analysis is conducted using five criteria to evaluate their level of inclusion: (1) quantitative coverage, (2) standard of living, (3) gender, (4) education, and (5) social capital. The findings of this research suggest that the examined financial institutions can be seen as steppingstones, with each leading to the next, from contribution clubs to …