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What does it take for a citizen movement to topple a deep-rooted authoritarian regime? This paper analyses the successes and failures of citizen-led social media campaigns in Zimbabwe. Using data drawn from an extensive ethnographic study of 50 WhatsApp and Facebook communities, this paper studies the conditions under which citizen activism, particularly those movements that originate on social media, become street protests that can effectively unseat an illegitimate regime. I find that the success of recent movements – evidenced by policy changes and increased citizen participation – is in part because of the rise of a youth citizenry that does not feel indebted to the liberation struggle. Zimbabwean born frees are more willing to take political risks by speaking candidly about politics online and mobilizing their peers.

Bustling mototaxis are a pervasive phenomenon on Goma’s streets and their emergence and proliferation is highly linked to the context of the protracted violent conflict in Eastern Congo. By highlighting the nexus of physical and social mobilities, work, and leisure, this paper aims to analyze the different trajectories of young mototaxi drivers that go beyond concepts of “being stuck” (Sommers, 2012) and focus instead on their ways of working towards the future. In contrast to prior research, this paper shows that being young in the city does not necessarily lead to “abject futures” or condemn youth to an endless “waithood” that results in “social death”. Based on ethnographic data I have gathered since 2008, I will trace the different ways young mototaxi drivers make sense of the ontological continuum of being young and becoming an adult. By centering on their everyday life worlds, I argue that motards have more options than simply ending up at a dead end.

This paper is based on 10 months of field work between 2009 and 2014 in Cape Verde, and provides an overview of the anthropological literature in which motor vehicles and African roads are studied as social phenomena. Until the end of the twentieth century, most ethnographies have failed to focus on the countless social processes linked to the development of mobility by road and the motorisation of transportation in Africa, or on the role played by cars and roads as symbols of a globalised modernity. The paper reviews the research by authors who, from the 1930s onwards, mention African roads and the use of motor vehicles as spaces in which social situations and processes take place. The several symbolic and instrumental dimensions of the motorisation of road transportation in Africa are discussed as well.

This paper aims to analyse some of the changes and social transformations occurred in recent years in the internal dynamics of the Felupe (or Joola-ajamaat), an agrarian society in the north-west of Guinea-Bissau. Well adapted to the environment, the Felupe have the necessary knowledge and techniques that allowed them to maintain food security and social cohesion for centuries. This society currently faces sudden changes of parameters such as climate changes, world market prices instability or reduction in labour availability. Based on literature review and field work carried out during 2009 and 2012, this paper identifies the strategies adopted by this society to respond to the constraints inherent to the dynamics of globalization.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute in understanding issues related to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Sub-Saharan Africa. The paper demonstrates that even though multinationals strategies participate with economic and social development, there still is much to do given environmental, social and economic expectations. The case of Areva discussed here illustrates the discrepancy that exists between such companies’ CSR strategies and the local conditions in which they evolve (armed conflicts, poverty, social inequalities, air pollution, environmental degradation, water contamination, etc.). Therefore, two challenges are essentials. On one hand, MNCs should take into account external costs of their activities and participate in projects that improve social and economic welfare. On the other hand, in case of accentuated opposition between MNCs and stakeholders (civil society, social partners, NGOs, etc.) public regulations could orientate corporate actions in a more responsible social development process.

This paper is a study of the images and patterns on ifa divination trays from Isale-Oyo. The paper also explains some ifa paraphernalia. The paper establishes that ifa trays from Isale-Oyo bear distinctive features when compared with other ifa trays in Yorubaland such as those of Ijebu and Osogbo. Central to this study is the iconographic description and interpretations of Isale-Oyo divination trays. Data were collected through direct interviews with divination tray owners. Photographs of the trays were also taken. The investigation revealed that:Divination trays from Isale-Oyo combine features found on both Ijebu and Osogbo trays.The Esu figure continues to occupy the top central position on Oyo divination trays, even though with representational variations elsewhere in Yorubaland.Some divination trays in Oyo carry no decorations on their borders, and in some recent cases, ceramic plates are now used for divination.

According to the philosopher Stephen Toulmin there is a standard account of modernity which gives primacy to the written over the oral, the universal over the particular, the general over the local and the timeless over the timely. This paper draws from Toulmin to argue that accounts of modernity in Africa are based on the assumptions of the standard account of modernity to deny modernity to Africa even though these assumptions inhere in actual practices as the analysis of the work of a non-governmental organization operating in Mozambique seeks to document. The paper will therefore argue that modernity is real and that it shows its reality in the way in which particular social conditions and categories are done, i.e. through meanings, methods, motives and the management of the social relationship which they bring forth.

The aim of this paper is to analyze information based on a survey of young urban people in the city of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, looking at the way in which their position is clearly articulated in urban social dynamics. The hypothesis defended is that the emergence and evolution of the youth group stresses a movement which is at the heart of the reproduction and transformation of the entire society. To better understand the historical function of youths, the sketch of this sociology of generations will revisit the theoretical notions and make a critical comparison of this polysemic conceptualisation of a practical process in the roots of evolution. This dynamics is only visible in the observation of individual and collective strategies, but simultaneously represents the ratio of youths in the ancient order of things. It is the collective social position, the youthful social ideal and the forms of generational stabilization in the general course of history. The paper ends with a presentation of a theoretical attempt to formulate a strictly sociological design of the concept of “youths”, which will enable practical usage of a category hitherto marked a priori by common sense.

This paper looks at such youthful cosmopolitan aspirations among Manjaco of Guinea-Bissau and Lauje in Sulawesi. It is often argued that these attempts at worldliness reflect claims for equal rights of membership in an unequal global society. Yet, an aspiration to worldliness also entails their assertion that we are, or at least should be, like them. This paper suggests that Manjaco and Lauje might seem to want to look like us but they talk very differently about what they expect of us in a world we mutually make.

This paper examines social reproduction strategies of Mozambican families who have one or more membersin entrepreneurship activities and simultaneously one or more members with a university degree. By examining the interrelations between these different variables and units of analysis (entrepreneurs, individuals with a universitydegree and families) this paper will reflect on the dynamic processes through which families deploy their social reproduction strategies. The focus will be on factors that, on a family level, conditioned individual training and professional options and how the latter originated changes in family relationsand their structures. The author concludes her argument focusing on the complexity and non-linearaspectsof cultural and social changes in Mozambican families and how these characteristics conditionprofessional choices and entrepreneurship activities at an individual level.

The renewed relationship between the European Union (EU) and the African Union (AU) presents a platform for mutuality of benefits and responsibilities. Regional security is one area where both can learn based on recent and present experiences. The EU can learn from the AU from the post-Arab Spring arms proliferation, which led to internal conflicts, transborder crimes, and insurgency across Africa. The AU, on its part, can learn from the EU on civil governance, leadership, and transborder checks. The Regional Security Complex Theory aids our understanding of regional security. This paper examines some challenges confronting both regions and recommends panaceas of mutual benefits.

The Memorandum of Understanding between the African Union (AU) and the Regional Economic Communities (REC) and Regional Mechanisms (RM) signed in 2008 identifies subsidiarity as an ordering principle of the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA). This was the first reference to the subsidiarity principle within the African context in a process of diffusion from the European context. Through process tracing and an analysis of hard and soft law documents of APSA this paper identifies that imitation was the mechanism of diffusion in 2008 in a process led by African agency and with Europe as a normative power. This result contributes to an investigation into the challenges that the APSA faces into becoming fully operational.

Widely recognized as Africa's most complex war, even dubbed Africa's First World War, the current conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo «Stems from the wave of violence and mass-displacement unleashed by the Rwandan genocide in 1994» (APPG 2001: 6). This paper outlines the broad contours of the DRC conflict(s) in international, national and local terms. In particular, it aims to provide a full context to the Inter-Congolese Dialogue (Sun City, South Africa, on 25 February 2002) by exploring the overlapping «local» contexts in which tensions arise. Focusing on Eastern DRC, the paper also highlights the ever-shifting nature of alliances, and reflects on the challenges that need to be confronted if peace is to be given a chance.

This paper will discuss some issues related to what would be the “necessary university” for a country of the PALOP (Portuguese-speaking African countries) taking as example a Regional and Urban Economics course taught in an undergraduate programme in Economics. The main argument is that it is almost impossible and useless for the universities of these countries to train people with the same profile of an academic out of the so-called world-class universities. Because of this, the PALOP would look for alternative models. The first issue discussed is the definition of the profile expected for the graduates; secondly is what should be offered to them among the options from regional science; finally, what are the most appropriate methodologies and techniques for learning this subject. The text emphasizes the need for adopting teaching methodologies based on solution of problems such as the PBL (Problem Based Learning).

The Republic of Guinea-Bissau (RGB), a fragile state marked by a context of political and institutional instability, has since 1993 carried out the Strategic Planning for the Health Sector (SPHS). Sectoral strategic documents – National Plans of Sanitary Development (NPSD) – demonstrate a capacity for resistance to governmental adversities. This longitudinal policy review has a double purpose, namely to analyse the SPHS processes and to guard these memories to allow an understanding of the trajectories in question. This paper concludes that the SPHS mainly responded to the requirements of funding institutions, and it has not always been implemented. The NPSD III (2018-2022) aims to reverse this situation by implementing a strategy which aims to integrate the different health actors.

In this article, we analyse patterns of turnout and electoral choices of Cape Verde’s citizens in different types of elections, looking at all legislative, presidential and local elections held between 1991 and 2016, and testing four hypotheses derived from the second-order election model about differences in terms of turnout, number of spoiled/blank papers, results for the incumbent party and the electoral success of smaller parties. Our results show that, in what regards turnout and electoral behaviour, local elections present the features of second-order elections much more clearly than the presidential elections in this semi-presidential regime. However, this pattern does not necessarily mean that voters look at the latter as less second-order, but since they often took place in the honeymoon period of the legislative electoral cycle, it may only mean that there were lower incentives to punish the incumbent and/or disengage from political participation.

The main objective of this paper is to critically address the existing rural development model in Mozambique focusing on the Nacala Corridor by analyzing the dynamics, external and internal actors, rural development strategies and policies in the region. Some trends and implications of the region’s development model were identified: land grabbing and appropriation of natural resources, resulting in involuntary migrations and deterioration of the quality of life and intensification of poverty levels of the poorer classes, presence of strategic alliances that disproportionately allow accumulation of wealth among different social classes, the emergence of investment and cooperation of actors from the Global South with strategic alliances with actors from the Global North and a resulting intensification of Mozambique’s economic dependence.

From a sociological perspective, this paper focuses the interactions of the state of Guinea-Bissau on three levels of power relations. The first one focuses the position of the national state vis-à-vis multilateral forces in environmental issues. The second level analyses some patterns of interaction between the national state, NGOs and other partners in socioenvironmental policies. The third is the local level in which degraded environmental circumstances, related to floods, generate a collective suffering. The study concludes that the intra-communitarian bonds create strategies for mutual support. However, the institutional management of catastrophes continues to express the soft state in Guinea-Bissau.

In the Portuguese-Speaking African Countries (PALOP), facing both the intense urban expansion triggered after independence and the difficulty in producing structural responses, cities have become spaces of social refraction, increasingly creased by the unstoppable growth and consequent reproduction of social vulnerabilities and exclusion. This paper therefore aims at mapping out the challenges and strategies adopted in the fight for the ‘right to the city’ in the capital cities of the PALOP, as well as their impact on poverty reduction, namely by focusing on issues such as the difficulty in planning in the face of political instability, major public investments and (de)centralization of power, dependency on external financing, the possession of the land and the regularization of informal settlements. This text, starting from examples of Lusophone African cities, discusses the urban social and spatial challenges, the diversity of policies and actions to overcome poverty, as well as the roles of the different stakeholders in these processes, thus trying to discuss mechanisms for an effective ‘right to the city’.

This paper aims to find the reasons why South African senior military officials were eager to reach an agreement with Portugal to set up a plan for the defence of Southern Africa in 1970, which culminated in the ALCORA alliance. Notwithstanding regional and global settings, stemmed from Cold War, and other political factors, it is possible to argue that the Exercise ALCORA resulted from South Africa’s mistrust of the Portuguese ability to defeat insurgents in Angola and Mozambique. The argument considers the year from 1968 to 1969 as pivotal between the informal collaboration relationship and the perceived requirement to establish a formal one. We conclude that due to Angola’s and Mozambique’s strategic value, we may admit that South Africa wanted to have control over her future in leading a military arrangement that would evolve into the economic, social and political dimensions. Since Exercise ALCORA’s focus was counterinsurgency, a military agreement as its first step was logical, notwithstanding the problem of racial policies.

Cape Verde has become increasingly a destination for international migrants from continental West Africa. The aim of this paper is to explore migration of Senegalese to the Cape Verdean island of Boa Vista with a focus on migration decisions and remittances and attempts to link it with the broader migration and development debate. It starts with a review of the literature on empirical findings and theoretical approaches examining migration as a method of risk minimization and links between migration and development. In the second part these approaches are reviewed in the light of empirical evidence about migration processes and flows of remittance between Senegal and Cape Verde. The importance of Cape Verde as a destination for international migrants from West Africa has increased considerably since the millennium. This article present data examining the motives for emigration and immigration and the characteristics of the remittances sent by migrants.

This paper discusses the issue of emigration in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) through the analysis of two case studies, Cape Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe, with similar paths in terms of independence and formal political processes but with considerably different levels of development. To do so, the article analyses the interaction between a multiplicity of distinctive economic, social, and cultural factors that affect the paths of these two countries. To inform the analysis, two theoretical dimensions are discussed: one related to the classification of this group of countries on the basis of their development strategies and another to the evolution of theories of migration.

The geo-climatic conditions of Cape Verde are extremely adverse to agriculture and therefore a major cause for the high dependency on food imports and vulnerability to prices dictated by international markets. The rise in food prices increases the difficulties of access to food and the risk of food insecurity for families. This paper seeks to identify the local factors of resilience that enable Cape Verde to deal with rising international food prices and the responses of rural households. One of the practices to address the adverse agricultural conditions is the diversification of sources of income. These sources include emigrant remittances that show the strong family ties of migrants, especially in families with weaker agricultural resources and in female headed households.

In this paper we try to evaluate the weight of some of the most important traumas that shaped the Portuguese imperial history in the formation of collective memory and in the construction of the national identity narrative. As reference points, we took successively the disaster of Alcácer-Quibir, the desegregation of the Portuguese-Brazilian empire, the English ultimatum of 1890 and the final decolonisation (with the strong resistances it aroused). ln the conclusions, the paper attempts to characterise the collec­ tive memory shaped by those traumas — seeing in it a wounded memory ar a sick memory, not capable of making the correspondent mooring work. Finally, one makes a brief allusion to the relation between memory and historiography, evaluating the latter's capacity to transform the bipolar character of the Portuguese identity narrative, always balancing between depression and euphoria.

Forced labor in colonial Angola was infamous for its cruelty, even among colonial regimes in Africa. As a result of civil war, however, little research has appeared that explores how former laborers remember their servitude in shared stories and oral narratives. Collecting these memories is critical for Angolan historiography because the last generation of forced laborers (from the 1950s) is dying at increased rates. Based on an extensive oral history project conducted by the author in Benguela, Huambo, and Bié provinces (February-June 2006), this paper analyzes how Angolan forced laborers remember their servitude and recounts their various strategies for survival, including personal stories of escape and the encoding of resistance in song. In addition to documenting and analyzing common tropes among their memories, this paper argues that the gendered nature of their work regimes determines (and differentiates) the memories of these men and women nearly a half-century later.Memories of colonialism are also complicated by the tremendous suffering of the civil war years, and the failure of independent Angola to meet many of the expectations generated by independence. This paper argues that current realities influence how and what former laborers remember about forced labor and Portuguese colonialism.

This paper examines the African experience with forced labor in colonial Mozambique, where the administration developed a labor regime that resembled a ‘modern slavery.’ Both contemporary observers and subsequent scholarly research have used the modifying ‘modern’ to describe types of forced labor and to draw distinctions from older forms of slavery. This work aims to historicize notions of free labor in the midst of a broader atmosphere of coercion and to make sense of the silence of certain actors on the question of slavery. The paper explores the ways in which African in Mozambique considered colonial labor practices, with an emphasis on questions of dignity, honor and degradation.

This paper analyses the engagement of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in the collaborative governance of education policies in Cabo Verde. In contrast with the mainstream view of CSOs as opposition groups separate from the state, the paper frames them as integrative parts of the collaborative governance process. CSOs’ collaboration with the government in education policy-making generates a (societal linking) social capital in the form of understanding, shared norms, and mutual trust among the various stakeholders within the education system. Such capital is an important resource to guarantee the proficiency and efficiency of education policies.

This paper argues that the postcolonial revolution in knowledge about gender and power relations has not touched the agricultural sector nor literature. Using the validation data from a medium-n qualitative data study in Amhara and Oromia, Ethiopia, the paper presents a case study on farm gate selling to show how a nuclear family model is shaped by power relations that are seeded in the colonial past and yet are reproduced in the present. Ethiopian men do not share resources equally with their wife/family. So, women need to ‘help themselves’ to the stored harvest to manage the household’s needs. The paper shows how food security projects, and even those that aim to reduce post-harvest loss can be socially and economically disruptive.

The purpose of this paper is to trace the evolution of development aid in Malawi from 1964, when the country became independent, to date. It also analyses sustainable development in the light of democracy in Malawi and local reactions to the former by the citizens. The paper contends that development aid needs to be linked to the notion of local development in Malawi. It notes that development was a key word that was popularly used during the reign of the founding president of Malawi, Dr Kamuzu Hastings Banda (1964 to 1994). For Banda, it was critical to have development which simply meant food security, decent housing and clothes. The paper also pays attention to local actors’ responses to development aid.

External interventions in conflicts are prescribed to be peace-promoting mechanisms, but their effects seldom de-escalate conflict intensity. Based on the balance of capabilities theory, this paper tests the effects that the type of intervention, military or diplomatic, and the target of the intervention, partisan or neutral, has on conflict intensity. In the case of Somalia, for the period 1991 to 2010, the results suggest that neutral interventions, either military (humanitarian) or diplomatic, can lead to lower conflict intensity, but if partisan and military they lead to higher conflict intensity. If partisan and diplomatic and provided to both sides of the conflict they have no effect on conflict intensity. The conclusion is that peace competes with other objectives of external interventions.

From the beginning of the second half of the Twentieth century, sport started to develop as a significant form of recreation in Mozambique. The influence of neighbouring territories under British rule, the international contacts that residents of Beira and Lourenço Marques enjoyed, and the great facility with which sports were followed in the colonial capital led to a considerable rise in the practice of sports by the younger members of the so-called ”civilized population”, which included the Chinese. Thus, a veritable movement for the promotion of a sports culture developed, evidenced by the formation of clubs and associations. This paper begins by describing the history of the practice of sports and the evolution of sports institutions in the colonial society of Beira City, and goes on to describe the involvement of the Chinese community in federated and amateur sport.

In this paper, we describe the many football fields of São Tomé and Príncipe. We do not seek to anthropomorphize soccer pitches, but try to look at these fields as historical documents and as texts related to the evolution of the country. Indeed, the evidence of political and social changes can be seen in the diversity of football fields. In its own way, these soccer fields are a source of historical and social knowledge, suggesting the development of a narrative that takes them to mark the political and social changes in the archipelago that have occurred since the colonialism period to the post-independence era.

The post-war transition in Angola has involved small shifts in strategies of elite accumulation to maintain the status quo and deepen the internal concentration of power and wealth. This paper hypothesizes that Angola is at the beginning of a fundamental political-economic shift – away from the peripheral rentier economy and towards an indigenous system of capitalist accumulation. Recent developments in the oil and oil services sectors such as the push for increased local content, or “Angolanisation”, show that the elite is engaged in a process of reinventing itself. Unfortunately, the tendency of the transition is towards the further entrenchment of the power of the Angolan elite and increasingly unequal distribution of wealth under the emerging social relations of production and accumulation.

The present paper aims to analyze the construction of the yorùbá religious identity in two of the diaspora’s historical moments. The first of these is the slave trade to Brazil, which gave rise to the “nàgó” identity in eighteenth-century Bahia de Todos os Santos. The second case-study refers to the contemporary yorùbá diaspora in Lisbon, which came about due to employment opportunities in the globalized labor market. The purpose of this article is to stress how an African culture has accommodated to new sociocultural contexts and entered into dialogue with exogenous elements. I conclude by examining the specific tools with which the yorùbá people operated an “invention of tradition”.

This article analyzes the individual and family trajectories of Mozambicans who have attended universities in Portugal. It seeks to understand the factors that have influenced their educational background and the impact that higher education in Portugal has had in terms of their identity formation. The paper also analyzes issues related to the cooperative social networks influencing their decision to pursue higher education in Portugal, their integration into Portuguese society, and their subsequent reintegration and professional careers in Mozambique. Finally, the article addresses the impact that higher education of Mozambicans in Portugal has had on the national development of Mozambique.

This text examines the racialization of Mozambican society around the social boundaries between the overwhelming black majority and the mestizo/”mulatto” minority. This phenomenon varies between mutual acceptance (neutral meaning) and mutually derogatory stereotypes (negative meaning). Certain negative stereotypes associated with the figure of the ”mulatto” include, “the mulatto has no national flag” (which dates from the transition to Mozambique’s independence, 1974-75) and “the mulatto is a mechanic or a thief” (which dates from the first half of the 1990s, during the transition from a wartime one-party state to a post-conflict multiparty system). In this paper, I will propose that the symbolic instrumentalization of the ”mulatto” minority has been useful to tame the anxieties of the black majority.

While by no means an exhaustive account, this article discusses the influence of Africa on the economy of Salvador, Brazil’s third most populous city and the largest concentration of people of African origin outside the continent. This paper details the findings of fieldwork that examined how religious cults such as Candomblé have become vehicles for folklore-inspired economic activity. It hopes to present an approach that results in a deeper economic and anthropological understanding of these phenomena.

This paper aims to present a social political approach of the constraints and challenges arising from the peace process of Cabinda Agreement negotiated in Brazzaville, on July 13-15, 2006, and signed on August 1st of the same year between the Government of Angola and the Cabindan Forum for Dialogue (FCD), in an attempt to resolve the territorial independentist/separatist dispute initiated since 1975.

What is modernity for the youngsters in Abidjan today, in the era of globalization? What are the loci of this modernity and how do they express it? How do these abidjanian youngsters construct themselves as modern beings (individuals)? The relation of the youngsters to modernity is considered as the daily (re)constructed consequence of their ordinary actions. Based on individual interviews and regarding the results of previous studies, this paper examines ordinary and routine social practices so-called modern by the young themselves in order to grab their understanding of modernity. It appears that the common linguistic expressions and the daily practices of the young abidjanese are creative of an imaginary of modernity.

Today’s Angolan youth’s experiences of life are shaped both by conflict and new hopes. This applies to those who were born and raised in rural areas – the most affected by war – as well as to urban youth, with more access to modernity but whose future is equally under permanent threat. War and uncertainty affect the way young people face the future, limiting their possibilities takeoff making decisions about their lives. Peace has brought about new opportunities but also many challenges. Based on qualitative data collected in Angola, this paper analyses the challenges young people are facing nowadays in Angola, their expectations and aspirations for the future, and how the idea of modernity is shaping them.

Informal and formal can be seen as «dual economies» of African countries. Governments often concern themselves with the formal, while development agencies often support the informal. This paper discusses the full landscape of entrepreneurship, considering both sectors, and the range from small to large within each. It queries whether or not there can be movement within and between sectors, and if the «rages to riches» upward movement, as seen in developed countries, is possible in developing ones. The range of women in traditional micro enterprises to the emerging new generation of African women owners of large‑scale companies are discussed in particular, but the research applies to both men and women. A paradigm of the entrepreneurial landscape will be presented with variables that consider demographics; types of typical enterprises and firms; product sourcing and markets; start‑up capital; and movement within and between the sectors. Some conclusions are that the informal‑formal distinction has been useful to disentangle the landscape, but movement between may not be substantial other than minor taxation for sites and services because of the entry requirements of capital, education, business networks, etc. Similarly, within the formal sector of small to medium to large businesses, there is some movement but they too are limited by access to capital, networks, market intelligence and niches, and product innovation. Nevertheless, there is a growing cadre of women at the top who both confound researchers/donors and provide role models for success within their societies.

The informal sector has assumed a significant importance, particularly in developing economies of Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Some specialists consider its inception and flourishing as a natural reaction to the economic repression that took place in many of those countries where the state control over prices, interest and exchange rates were predominant, as well as the control over goods and services markets which, those analysts believe, limited private initiative and the free running of the markets. More recent studies, mainly in countries like Mozambique in which structural reforms are under way in the last 15 to 20 years, acknowledge that the informal sector emerges and prospers as a counterweight of the liberalization process and the opening of those economies to outside influences and foreign investment, constituting a sort of exhaust pipe through which the unemployment generated by the advent of privatisations flows and where the unemployed wait for the ripening of an endogenous process aiming at the creation of a national/local entrepreneur. As a matter of fact, operating outside the boundaries of the tax system and off the official records system, the informal sector in those countries represents however a qualitative leap in relation to the subsistence economy – where the family sector (households) produces, fundamentally, for self‑consumption and does the barter of eventual surpluses, for it is inserted on an exchange economy based on monetary‑trade relations where the financial intermediation through micro‑finance schemes, most of them also on an informal basis, plays a relevant role. The retrospective treatment of these matters, as well as the problematic analysis on the capacity of the informal sector to generate, by itself, the necessary elements in order to achieve the competitive accumulation of capital as well as the creation and consolidation of national entrepreneurs in Mozambique is the aim of this paper. It deals with the connections between the informal sector, micro‑finance, and the national entrepreneurship, in a context of growing regional integration and the internationalisation of the Mozambican economy under the winds of globalisation.

Over the last 25 years there have been significant changes in the Luanda’s urban landscape due to the prolonged civil war and the political and economic transformations. There was a decline in the formal supply of road transport and this provided the opportunity for the arrival and accelerated growth of minibuses as the most fitting means of urban transport. This changing process also gave rise to new actors, to new models for exploiting the activity, new forms of employment contracts and new forms of social organization. This communication explores the emerging nature of Luanda’s minibus taxi industry. The purpose of this study is to assess how far these activities contribute to satisfying the mobility needs of Luanda’s population, to generating household income and employment and to the professional and social integration of a large number of Luanda’s citizens. A further objective is to identify the actors involved, the kinds of relationships that exist as well as the patterns in working activities. This paper describes and characterizes the above mentioned transformation process, based on a bibliography review, direct observation and information collected in the field from September 2003 to August 2004. Systematic direct observation, made on more than 50 trips on short and long routes, has been another important source of information. Results are also reported from documental analyses and from a series of in‑depth interviews with institutional actors and with the main operators involved in the activities (fare collectors, drivers, owners, passengers).

During the first half of the twentieth century, Portuguese Colonial anthropology was almost completely centered in biological anthropology. The so called «Escola do Porto» («Oporto School») founded by the well reputed Doctor of Medicine, Professor Mendes Correia, conducted all the Overseas «Anthropological Missions», officially institutionalized by the colonial government. The most well succeeded Research Campaign was coordinated by one of his disciples, Santos Júnior, who was also a Doctor and Lecturer at the Oporto Faculty of Medicine. Between 1937 and 1956, Mozambique Anthropological Mission carried out an extensive anthropometric survey of the African populations from the colony. Ethnology, or basically ethnographic collection, was disregarded, left in the hands of curious dilettantism of the several colonial officers, missionaries, soldiers, administrative technicians, merchants and landowners. The important role assigned to Biological Anthropology in relation with Portuguese colo­nial enterprise is the central issue addressed in this paper. And subsequently, trying to under­stand why, during the second half of the twentieth century, was Biological Anthropology so suddenly substituted by Colonial Ethnology.

After a protracted conflict, societies have to cope with the need of promoting reconciliation and peace consolidation, in order to prevent the resurgence of violence. Several mechanisms have been developed to address human rights’ violations, which go far beyond the national judicial systems: specific international courts; truth and reconciliation commissions; programmes for reparation of victims and reintegration of ex-combatants and war crimes perpe­trators; traditional and local mechanisms of conflict resolution. This paper addresses reconcil­iation and justice issues in three different post-conflict situations in sub-Saharan Africa (Rwanda, Mozambique and Sierra Leone) highlighting the approaches and responses adopted in each one of them.

For many years, the idea that the civil war ravaging Mozambique was led by a mercenary army at the service of external interests was unquestioned. It was not known that Renamo had a social basis of rural support and that agricultural production constituted a funding source for the war. After Independence, the Frelimo Party-State provoked a social, economic, political and cultural destructuring of rural societies, leading an authoritarian and centralized project of development and nation-building that jeopardised fundamental rights of citizenship. The joining the war of part of the population could thus be seen as an attempt to conquer these rights.Through two contrasting case studies, in this paper I intend to unveil the strategies of social and economic reproduction that made it possible for populations to survive during the conflict and to recreate their livelihoods in the aftermath, as well as the multilayered ways the affirmation of citizenship rights can take on.

The introduction by the editor of this issue informs about the international conference which originated the collection of papers presented here. It tries to locate these studies in the context of the international debate on the structure of, and changes in, politics in Africa. Distinguishing between the discussion on structure and that on the subjective dimension, it refers to what seems to be in this context the core contribution of each article. It points out the merits as well as the limitations of the collection and emphacises the importance of continuous and intensified empirical research articulated with a theoretical elaboration aimed at overcoming the present shortcomings in this field.

The wide-ranging impact of HIV/AIDS on demographic trends and socio-economic development of African countries deserves renewed attention and additional research. HIV/AIDS severely undermines the development prospects of many African countries, most of which have recorded shockingly high prevalence rates of the epidemic. In the years to come, Sub-Saharan Africa is far more certain to experience further demographic changes that would continue to impact negatively on development trends. The epidemic is decimating human capital and institutions, perpetuating intergenerational poverty and inequality, and threatening the security of populations and countries. In this regard, it has become one of the most serious challenges facing African countries. This paper asserts that in high HIV prevalence countries, the majority of which are in Sub-Saharan Africa, the size, composition, structure and distribution of populations have experienced profound mutations. The new demographic structure has a direct and significant bearing on all facets of sustainable development. It is therefore essential to examine how these demographic modifications affect efforts towards socio-economic progress.

In this paper, the author attempts to describe how, during the two years of bloody conflict which confronted the newly-born State of Eritrea with its old «mother-country», Ethiopia, the two former allies and «brotherly» countries used war as an open way of acknowledging tense past between them and in the country at large. Between May 1998 and December 2000, when the peace accord was signed in Algiers, the two countries launched an extremely violent propaganda war which accompanied and sustained the fighting in the field. This «war of words» was aimed not only at defending the rights of each country over the disputed border areas, but at projecting as well the newly-found national identity and consolidating its internal perception. A public use of the past came to be enacted in an attempt to realign the historical identities of the countries and to adapt them to the new geo-political settings which came about with the demise of the previous Ethiopian regime in 1991.

Since March 1991, Sierra Leone has experienced continuous civil strife culminat­ing in a protracted civil war, leading to widespread destructions of infrastructures and property, and the death of thousands of people, many more injured and over half of the population displaced. Three peace accords were signed in 1996, 1997 and 1999 in Abidjan, Conakry and Lame respectively. However, these agreements did not bring peace. In this paper, the author situates the reasons and the nature of the conflict, the events leading to both government and rebel leaders declaring in January 2002 the end to conflict. Finally, he looks at Sierra Leone following the formal declaration of an end to the war.