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73154 results in African studies

Page 17 of 3658

  • Introduction

  • Samantha Balaton-Chrimes, Deakin University, Victoria
  • Book:
    Knowing Ethnicity
    Published online:
    02 March 2026
    Print publication:
    09 April 2026, pp 1-21

  • Summary

    This chapter introduces the supposed problem of ethnicity: that it undermines national cohesion, or is a colonial hangover with no appropriate place in political life. In contrast, I argue that ethnicity is neither inherently desirable nor undesirable; its political effects depend on how it is known and used, and our understanding of how it is known remains underdeveloped. I establish that there is no definitive list of Kenya’s ethnic groups, and we must stop taking for granted what we think we know about ethnicity. I offer the concept of cultivated vagueness – a widespread aversion to resolving the ambiguity of lists of Kenya’s ethnic groups – to understand how ethnic knowledge works and to contrast it with legibility and governmentality. Cultivated vagueness is the response from bureaucrats, civil society, citizens and the state to the conundrum that ethnic knowledge is both common sense and impossible to settle. It also explains how ethnic classifications serve both projects of division and of pluralism. I suggest that attention to the benefits of cultivated vagueness may facilitate the advancement of the latter over the former. The chapter outlines the book’s methodology and chapters.

  • 1 - Making Ethnicity

  • Samantha Balaton-Chrimes, Deakin University, Victoria
  • Book:
    Knowing Ethnicity
    Published online:
    02 March 2026
    Print publication:
    09 April 2026, pp 22-59

  • Summary

    This chapter theorises ethnicity as a mode of thought and identification around which ways of being, acting and relating are organised. It is one among many possible anchors for identification, solidarity and difference, though it is the most prominent in Kenya. I discuss how this became so, describing identity and community before colonialism, and offering a history of how ethnicity organised social life under and after colonial rule, especially around elections. I provide a sketch of varied ethnic identifications in Kenya, demonstrating immense variety, not all of which obviously fit an ethnic framework, and many of which entail politics quite different from the ‘big 5’ which dominate studies of elections. Finally, I situate the case of Kenya in a comparative context, highlighting key features of how ethnic classification has operated in Kenya, including reification, colonial penetration, nationhood, demography, and differences between direct and diffuse effects of identification. This section shows that both ethnicity and its classification can be conducive to pluralism and solidarity in Kenya, but perhaps not in other contexts.

  • Navigating Ambiguity: Reproductive Justice and the Restriction of Abortion Rights, LGBTI+ Rights, and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in Zambia

  • Nomthandazo Malambo, Stephen Brown
  • Journal:
    African Studies Review / Volume 69 / Issue 1 / March 2026
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    06 April 2026, pp. 48-70
    • Article
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  • In Zambia, religious nationalists exploit legal and policy ambiguities to construct abortion and LGBTI+ rights as un-Zambian and un-Christian. This delegitimization narrows the scope of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) to family planning. Drawing on forty-five in-depth interviews with Zambian stakeholders and international aid officials, we argue that while these ambiguities constrain reproductive justice, they also allow activists to advance SRHR by building coalitions that connect advocacy for abortion rights, LGBTI+ rights, and reproductive justice to promote health service access and bodily autonomy for all. In Zambia and elsewhere, such activism and coalition building merit greater attention and support.

  • The Afterlife of Ken Saro-Wiwa: Thirty Years After

  • Cajetan Iheka
  • Journal:
    African Studies Review / Volume 69 / Issue 1 / March 2026
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    06 April 2026, pp. 1-6
    • Article
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  • The Singing Prophet of the Dogon. A Nineteenth Century Voice on Dogon-Fulbe Relations and his Legacy

  • Walter E.A. van Beek, Ibrahima Poudiougou
  • Journal:
    History in Africa , First View
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    06 April 2026, pp. 1-24
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  • The Dogon in Mali cherish a tradition about a nineteeth-century poet/prophet called Abirè Goro. As a blind singer, he roamed the area of the Bandiagara cliff and composed poems that are still part of the funeral rituals. This string of songs, called baja ni, forms a treasure trove of historical information about the relation between Dogon and Fulbe at the time of the Macina realm. Also, Abirè issued prophecies about the demise of the Fulbe that take on a new relevance in the present Dogon-Fulbe conflict, linking the future of the Dogon to Mande traditions.

  • The Legacy of Ngugi wa Thiong’o: A Makerere Perspective

  • Susan Kiguli
  • Journal:
    African Studies Review / Volume 69 / Issue 1 / March 2026
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    31 March 2026, pp. 168-171
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  • Mapping Agricultural Change in Eastern Africa: A Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Approach to Early Imperial Sources, 1857–76

  • Philip Gooding
  • Journal:
    History in Africa , First View
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    31 March 2026, pp. 1-28
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  • This article uses digital Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to visualize changing crop choice over time in nineteenth-century equatorial eastern Africa. It maps the locations of crops mentioned in early imperial sources, using contemporary cartographic representations of the region as a base. This enables a novel visualization of changing agricultural potential and vulnerability to climate variability over time. The maps contextualize the growth of commercial and political centers, a series of famines during years and seasons of below average rainfall, and the well-known environmental challenges of the early colonial period.

  • Reuben Stephen Anywar: An Acholi Intellectual and the Production of Knowledge in Colonial Acholiland

  • Patrick Otim, Martin David Aliker
  • Journal:
    History in Africa , First View
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    30 March 2026, pp. 1-24
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  • In a posthumous publication in 1954, seven years after his death, Reuben Anywar became the second Acholi to publish a book. Acoli ki Ker Megi was released one year after Lacito Okech’s Tekwaro ki Ker Lobo Acholi. Unlike Okech, who received little education, Anywar was among the first northern Ugandan graduates of Makerere College. He became one of the first Black teachers at the prestigious Gulu High School and was the founder and original editor of Acholi Magazine. By the mid-1940s, Anywar was arguably the most towering intellectual in northern Uganda. Yet, existing works overlook his significance in knowledge production. This article seeks to rectify this oversight.

Page 17 of 3658