Between December 2018 and August 2019, political activities in Sudan resulted in the overthrow of the incumbent regime. Despite efforts by the security apparatus to retain control, continued mobilization of Sudanese working peoples ensured civilian participation in the transitional government. How did the organization of Sudanese working peoples lead to the overthrow of the regime and challenge the state? Drawing on the work of Global African thinkers, and analyzing organizational documents, systematically collected media reports on the uprising (2018–2019), and insights from ethnographic fieldwork in Khartoum (2022), I argue that the nonhierarchical coordination of autonomous, self-organized groups - such as the Neighborhood Resistance Committees and Tea Sellers Association - representing different sections of the working poeples was central to the movement’s success. These findings enrich our understanding of the Sudanese revolutionary process by showing how coordinated self-organization served as an asset for political change.

Michael Sata’s presidency in Zambia (2011–14) marked a notable attempt to revive statist development ideas rooted in the country’s postindependence era. While the preceding MMD government had begun reintroducing limited state intervention, its commitment remained constrained. Sata, by contrast, articulated a more assertive vision of state-led development, echoing the UNIP-era model under Kenneth Kaunda. Drawing on policy documents, speeches, and survey data, this article situates Sata’s politics and policies within broader public dissatisfaction with neoliberal reforms and highlights enduring tensions in Africa’s poststructural adjustment era between market-oriented policies and demands for greater state involvement.

There is limited analysis of the adoption of luxury tourism strategies in Africa. Such strategies promise lower ecological impact and higher tourism revenues. Through an analysis of economic data and secondary literature, as well as interviews conducted in Mauritius, Botswana, and Rwanda, this article examines why once luxury tourism strategies are adopted and do not deliver expected results, some countries reverse these strategies while others do not. Contrary to recent African political economy literature, this paper shows that “democratic” governments (Mauritius, Botswana) with shorter-term horizons have more flexibility in adapting their strategies compared to “authoritarian” governments with longer-term horizons (Rwanda).

Podcasting, with its focus on voices, remains a compelling topic for African studies research, which has historically put orality at the center of the field. Recognizing sparse audience inclusion in existing research on African podcasting, the authors conducted focus groups with listeners in urban Ghana to document consumption practices and attitudes toward this form of new orality. Using the concept “deep listening” drawn from participant comments, the researchers theorize that listeners and producers experience a form of sound-mediated, affective resonance from podcasts that utilize audience collaboration and local sonic aesthetics, linking the affordances of openness and freedom to the medium.

Both armed groups and civilians have evoked historical memory in the Katiba Macina and Boko Haram related conflicts. Although not a cause of the conflicts, historical memory informs the perceptions and choices of both fighters and civilians. Based on interviews with members of the armed groups and local civilians, the authors demonstrate that how an individual perceives their own positionality within society and how they perceive their ancestors’ positionality affects how that person reacted to the armed groups’ evocation of historical memory, how they interpreted the source of greater threat, and their own self-protection strategies.

The three books under review converge around state fragility, security concerns, and governance deficits as their organizing theme. This theme, which can be deployed to describe the current cadence of politics in several sub-Saharan African countries, proceeds from the nature of African states and the dynamics of political power as exemplified in the cases of Ghana and Nigeria in the three books. The first, edited by Usman Tar and Bashir Bala is a twelve-chapter anthology on rural violence in Nigeria. The second, which is edited by David Ehrhardt, David Alao, and Sani Umar, is also composed of twelve chapters and explores traditional authority and security in contemporary Nigeria. The first two works illuminate the dimensions of ecoviolence, including farmer-herder violence, banditry, terror, and other forms of conflicts in Nigeria. The third book by Barry Driscoll is focused on Ghana and concentrates on power relations in the decentralized local state. Ghana is a stable state with a subtle but deep-running powerful clientelist network that weaves its operations around party politics.

This article reconsiders V.Y. Mudimbe’s contribution to “decolonial” impulses that are central to current preoccupations in fields such as postcolonial studies. It argues that key concepts developed by Mudimbe, such as the “colonial library,” have been overlooked in these discussions. Further, the article provides insight into important aspects of Mudimbe’s thought on the colonial library by reminding readers of the genealogy he excavates in describing the contours of the colonial library and its continued influence (likened by Mudimbe to a lingering odor) that is still to be dismantled.

This contribution includes an original poem, “Benediction” in tribute of Valentin-Yves Mudimbe and the first translation in English of selections from Les Fuseaux, parfois (1974). Mudimbe authored several collections in the 1970s, and this translation is intended to draw more scholarly attention to his poetic output.