Search

Which party uses violence to influence election outcomes? There are two existing perspectives that have offered responses to this critical question. One is a more popular position indicating that the incumbent party, more than the opposition party, makes use of violence with the aim of rigging elections; the other is a more radical perspective that suggests that electoral violence is more associated with the weakest party than with the incumbent. This paper seeks to contribute to the ongoing debate and to advance the argument suggesting the dominance of the incumbent in the use of violence to rig elections. With evidence sourced from well-trusted reports from independent election monitors, this paper shows with case studies from Nigeria at different electoral periods that, in terms of influencing election outcomes, the incumbent has been more associated with violence during elections than the opposition. It is further argued in the paper that the existing nature of executive power in Nigeria provides a plausible explanation for the incumbent’s violence during elections.

In the nineteenth century, Paris is considered the intellectual capital par excellence to which foreigners flock following the creation of a large European center of oriental studies called the School of Oriental Languages, founded in 1795. In this institution, the Arabic language occupies an important place. Because of this craze for foreign languages, publishers specialize in this field. This is the case of the Challamel publishing house, which published from 1859 to 1866 the first Arab newspaper in Paris, Birjīs Barīs, Anīs al-Jalīs [The Eagle of Paris]. This clearly original journal in both form and substance is founded by a team that shares the same ideas in favor of interfaith dialogue. This collaboration hides an amazing adventure that we propose to discover through this paper. What is the originality of this first Arab newspaper in the context of the Second Empire, a newspaper that wanted to be a “bridge between the West and the East”? What is the contribution of each of its contributors? Finally, what is the role and impact of Birjīs Barīs in France and elsewhere?

After a brief overview of the development of the Mexican Mahjar press during the first three decades of the 20th century, this paper addresses two crucial debates of the migrant transregional public sphere in the 1930’s and 40’s. The first documented diasporic mobilization around the Great Arab Revolt in British Palestine (1936-1938). The political and social crisis that the Revolt articulated in the Mashriq triggered a storm of press coverage in the Mexican Mahjar which effected a qualitative shift in representation. Palestine was radically transformed. Initially cast as a geography of recreation characterized by natural beauty and Christian pilgrimage to the Holy Land, it became the axis of a heated debate around ‘the Palestine question’ and its moral geography. In this process, ways of representing Jewish populations also changed. They ceased to be understood through an Ottoman history of coexistence of religious traditions in the Mashriq, resignified as a homogeneous people, vector of the imperialist project of European Zionism. Coverage of the Revolt elicited no echo from the mainstream Mexican press or interlocution from the Phoenicianist Maronite migrant notability. The debate failed to engage the Mexican Mahjar with Palestinian ‘Arab futures’, except perhaps in the modality of spectacle. In contrast, in the economically difficult and politically impoverished climate in the wake of the Great Depression, the second key debate was a decade-long conversation across the migrant community and Mexican ideologues of mestizaje about the desirability, or not, of Mashriqis as permanent residents of Mexico and the limits to their integration into the mestizo nation. Notables mobilized modernist Nahda narratives to appropriate ancient Phoenician colonization of the Mediterranean, situating Arab migrants in Mexico as partners to local Spanish descent (criollo) elites in a common civilizing effort over mestizos and Amerindian populations.

This paper explores the relationship between bird omens that occur in both the Sanskrit Gārgīyajyotiṣa Aṅga 42 and the Akkadian Šumma Ālu and related Cuneiform tablets. After an overview of the Sanskrit omens and their source, the study proceeds to compare the Indian and Mesopotamian bird omens with special reference to the omens of the crow in order to show that the series of Akkadian omens and Sanskrit omen verses share a common conceptual paradigm. A list of the different omen birds and animals mentioned in the Gārgīyajyotiṣa occurs in an appendix.

This paper explores the diverse links between land and power under conditions of conflict in Afghanistan, taking into account the complexities of Afghan society. These complexities are structured around interconnecting informal institutions and personalised relationships, culturally specific, diverse and shifting patterns of social relations, and spatially specific patterns of land ownership inequalities. The paper draws on a decade of empirical fieldwork in Afghanistan and recent work on livelihood trajectories and the opium economy. An understanding of the evolution of land ownership and access issues needs to be associated with an appreciation of diverse and potentially contradictory long-term drivers of change in the rural economy. The first of these long-term drivers of change relates to the effects of conflict, not only on land but also of water access under conditions of an increasingly scarce water supply. The second driver relates both to the roles played by village elites and to the structural contrasts between villages located in the mountains and in the plains, with the latter displaying major inequalities in land ownership. The third driver relates to the declining economic role of land in rural livelihoods, given long-term agrarian change and falling farm sizes. An understanding of history is fundamental to explaining these phenomena. How such conflicts play out, and which social groups or individuals they involve, also depend to a large degree on spatial positioning.

The discourse on “environmental conservation” is highly dynamic and has generated controversies of epic proportions in conservation sciences and environmental anthropology. Given the nebulous nature of conservation, coupled with the varying interpretations evoked by the deployment of the concept across different disciplines, a more robust understanding of the notion calls into question its practical manifestations and application in particular situated contexts – particularly within the conservation sciences and environmental anthropology. In Zimbabwe, conservation by the state has tended to favour and privilege Western scientific models at the expense of the “indigenous” conservation practices of local people, as informed by their indigenous epistemologies. This paper thus represents an attempt to rethink conservation in Zimbabwe, adopting the Norumedzo communal area in south-eastern Zimbabwe as its case study. The choice of Norumedzo is based on the fact that this is one area where the highly esteemed and delicious harurwa (edible stink bugs, Encosternum delegorguei) are found. As a result of these insects being valued as “actors” and the appreciation shown to both Western and indigenous epistemologies, conservation in the area has enjoyed considerable success. To this end, this paper lends support to the arguments of Walter Mignolo and Ramon Grosfoguel in their advocacy for critical border thinking in issues of knowledge regarding environmental conservation.Der Diskurs zur “Bewahrung der Umwelt” ist ausgesprochen dynamisch und hat in den Umweltwissenschaften und in der Ethnologie zu ausufernden Kontroversen geführt. Angesichts des schwer abzugrenzenden Gegenstandsbereichs und der unterschiedlichen Interpretationen innerhalb der verschiedenen Disziplinen sollte eine schärfere Konturierung des Begriffs seine konkreten Erscheinungsformen und seine Anwendbarkeit in spezifischen Kontexten einbeziehen – insbesondere innerhalb der Umweltwissenschaften und der Ethnologie/Kulturanthropologie. In Zimbabwe stützt sich der öffentliche Naturschutz bevorzugt auf wissenschaftliche Ansätze, die im Westen entstanden sind, und schenkt Praktiken der Umweltbewahrung lokaler Bevölkerungen, die auf ihren hergebrachten Wissenssystemen beruhen, wenig Beachtung. Dieser Beitrag stellt daher einen Versuch dar, den Umweltschutz in Zimbabwe neu zu denken, und zwar unter Bezugnahme auf das Norumedzo-Gebiet im Südosten Zimbabwes. Es wurde deshalb gewählt, weil hier die sehr geschätzten und schmackhaften Harurwa (essbare Stinkwanzen, Encosternum delegorguei) gefunden werden können. Weil diese Insekten als „Akteure“ gesehen werden und sowohl im westlichen als auch im lokalen Denken einen hohen Stellenwert genießen, war der Umweltschutz in dieser Region ausgesprochen erfolgreich. In diesem Sinne unterstützt der vorliegende Beitrag die Argumente Walter Mignolos und Ramon Grosfuguels, die dafür plädieren, zur Bewahrung der Umwelt auf kritisches und die Wissenssysteme überschreitendes Denken zu setzen.

This paper investigates how the political socialisation of North Korean defectors (NKDs) in North Korea affects their adjustment in South Korea. This project is based on a survey of 106 NKDs and interviews with some of the respondents and South Koreans who help NKDs. An account is given of the history and resettlement of NKDs in South Korea, including the difficulties they experience. Furthermore, the paper describes the political ideology of self-reliance (Juche) and heavily monitored lives to which NKDs have been exposed in North Korea. The research finds that resettlement can be significantly affected by self-reliance ideology and heavily monitored lives. When NKDs in South Korea realised the deceptive reality of self-reliance ideology, they adjusted better than those who maintained the Juche point of view. Being brainwashed by Kim Jong-il’s regime caused NKDs to develop distrust and become individualistic. Due to having antipathy and hatred towards their enemies, they were inclined to be critical, aggressive, and negative towards South Koreans. Many also held a Manichean mindset and tended to avoid attending seminars and training meetings. The negative influences of their former lives in North Korea have generally had a great effect on their resettlement in South Korea.

For many oil-bearing communities in petro-states around the world, the net effects of oil exploration have not only been devastating, but have also highlighted the double standards that are often applied by oil multinational corporations (MNCs). These organisations are far more likely to demand environmental and social mitigation efforts in the developed world than they are in a developing country. This paper seeks to demonstrate how the continued irresponsible activities of oil MNCs – specifically Shell – have fuelled restive conditions of ethnic militancy, brazen human rights abuses, environmental degradation and unsustainable peace in the Niger Delta. The paper particularly assesses the impact of the 2009 amnesty programme that was initiated to halt the downward spiral into violence in the Niger Delta and resolve the region’s socio-economic challenges. The conclusion of this paper canvasses for greater social-ecological justice as a way forwards in addressing the Niger Delta conflict.Die Erdölexploration hatte weltweit nicht nur verheerende Auswirkungen in den Ölförderregionen, sondern es wurde auch deutlich, dass Multinationale Unternehmen (MNU) im Ölsektor vielfach mit zweierlei Maß messen: Sie sind viel eher geneigt, in den Industrieländern Anstrengungen zur Milderung von Umwelt- und sozialen Schäden einzufordern als in Entwicklungsländern. Dieser Beitrag versucht aufzuzeigen, auf welche Weise die nach wie vor verantwortungslosen Praktiken von Öl-MNU – insbesondere von Shell – zum Aufbrechen latenter ethnischer Spannungen und zu schamlosen Menschenrechtsverletzungen, zur Umweltzerstörung und zur Gefährdung des Friedens im Niger-Delta beitragen. Die Autoren untersuchen insbesondere die Wirkungen des Amnestieprogramms von 2009, das initiiert worden war, um die Gewaltspirale im Niger-Delta zu durchbrechen und die sozioökonomischen Probleme der Region zu lösen. Im Ergebnis plädieren sie für größere soziale und ökologische Gerechtigkeit, um einer Lösung des Konflikts im Niger-Delta näher zu kommen.

This paper reconstructs the history of the Fortunato da Costa family, from the first appearance of its constituting members in Portugal, during the Napoleonic invasion of 1808, through the nation’s political turmoil of the late 1820s and early 1830s, the family’s relocation to São Tomé and Príncipe around 1838-1839, amidst significant Creole-metropolitan tensions on the islands, as well as “intrusions” from the British Anti-Slave Trade Squadron, to its settlement in Angola during an intense period of illegal slave trading and the transition to legitimate commerce, until 1859, when the last known member passed away. The story of the Fortunato da Costa family is an odyssey stretching over half a century, marked by some of the most important processes in Atlantic history. Negotiating these historical developments was anything but easy sailing: in fact, for some it created a series of contradictions, at times leading to the kind of dark moments that families often face. Reconstructing the lives of this unique family thus also presents us with a particularly striking example of the human condition in all its frailties, with a story that is far from unilinear.

Apart from compacting the entire world into a global village, the phenomenal breakthrough in technology, with its universally acknowledged impact of fast-tracking an unprecedented knowledge expansion, has, in turn, made the entire gamut of human society and life primarily knowledge-driven to such an extent that the most fundamental to the minutest human activities are now propelled by technology-inspired knowledge. Given its quest for development, Africa is inevitably within the fray of this critical bend in human history. However, the extent to which this seemingly beneficial development has influenced the thinking trajectory and perception of African youths vis-à-vis their preparedness for the task of development is open to debate. In this context the present paper argues that, in spite of its admittedly beneficial impact, the technology and knowledge expansion has far-reaching negative implications for the socialisation, psychological satisfaction and potential of African youths to contribute effectively to the nation-building process. Identifying family values, language and indigenous marriage system as the hardest-hit African cultural elements, the paper essentially posits that the technology and knowledge expansion represents a furtherance of cultural imperialism, having increased the African youth’s propensity for Western values such that their life-defining decisions are mainly shaped by Western culture as against their indigenous African culture. It concludes that the emergent reality is a deepening of the intensity of underdevelopment of Africa and a widening of the gulf between the Continent and other leading regions of the world, thus expanding the frontiers of African paradoxical contradiction, namely a mix-grill of knowledge expansion and underdevelopment.

How can one really get involved in any given society without mastery of its language? This seemingly innocuous question, which refers to modes of political participation, sheds light on the cornerstone of political participation for “Tunisians abroad.” Beyond that, it also highlights their alternative relation to the local Tunisian colloquial/vernacular. While this relationship may at times enhance their status as outsiders, it also enables them to shift the goal posts of national borders. Building on this hypothesis, the paper analyses the uses of language by two groups from the diaspora which have risen to power: the diaspora of exiles and the ‘brain-drain’ diaspora. Regarding the former, exclusive socialization for decades in their country of exile has meant they have adopted new languages and use different variants of the Arabic language, which they learn through encounters with militants and other people, from North Africa to the Middle East. This paper argues that this unprecedented situation renders the old binary opposition between secular Francophones and Islamist Arabic speakers more complex. The brain-drain diaspora represents another facet of the power nexus in Tunisia: many of its elements have since “returned” to take over the current technocratic government, and have also developed a different relationship with language, which has impacted upon both the codes of politics and identity codes in Tunisian society.

In 1989, a replica of the Great Sphinx of Giza was photographed passing in front of the Statue of Liberty. This image recalls neglected imperial histories and challenges global models of center and periphery. A similar encounter occurs at the beginning of Ameen Rihani’s work Arabian Peak and Desert: Travels in Al-Yaman, where the early twentieth century Syrian American scholar writes of a chance meeting with a “man from the Yaman.” Their conversation is brief, yet it colors the travel narrative that follows. In this paper, I read these encounters together to situate moments of “reply” to Orientalist discourses. These encounters simultaneously reproduce and displace Eurocentric histories and epistemologies by creating a space that is both within and outside modern narratives of progress. This paper analyzes the two encounters and proposes montage as a method for reexamining literary and visual texts.

This article stems from the workshop Pensieri nomadi, corpi in movimento. Exploring InFluxes and Cultures in Motion, that took place in Torino on 16th October 2014 with the aim to activate interdisciplinary lines of research, that can useful in investigating and examining the globalized world we live in, as well as create a bridge between research in the academic flied and activism in the territory. The novel Ādigrām upākhyān (The chronicles of Ādigram) by Hindi writer Kuṇāl Siṃh has been food for thought for this paper, as it presents some features that can be analyzed as nomadic thinking and that deal with the posthuman condition in the context of the clash between State Government and local population in West Bengal. The aim of the paper is an illustration of some possible links between the discourses of posthumanism and postcolonialism in the literary context. I will discuss issues of knowledge, democracy, and hi/storytelling addressed in the novel, drawing on VC Seshadri, Shiv Visvanathan, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Donna Haraway, and Rosi Braidotti.

This paper undertakes a five-year review of the management of oil revenues in Ghana since the commencement of oil production in 2010. Using reports from the Petroleum Transparency and Accountability Index, official records from key state agencies, and interviews with core individuals within the petroleum sector, the paper assesses the quality of transparency and accountability in the management of Ghana’s oil revenue. It argues that even though some progress has been made in the transparent and accountable use of oil revenues, more can be achieved if certain critical bills are passed and proactive interventions pursued without further delay on the part of government and policymakers within Ghana’s petroleum sector. These would help prevent both potential social conflict that may result from a lack of information on how oil revenues are utilised and the corrupt use of oil funds by politicians and people in authority within the oil industry.

This paper examines the development and change of Arab media discourse since mid-1990s. The paper looks at how the production and consumption of media discourse have changed dramatically in the Arab world over the last decade or so, notably in relation to taboos such as religion, governance and gender. The paper argues that transnational Arab media, particularly al-Jazeera, have contributed to this change by adopting a liberal and critical approach when dealing with Arab taboos. This change is clearly reflected in the new discourse adopted by both the Arab public and Arab media. Such a discourse practice shapes and is shaped by a new Arab social, cultural and political practice.

This paper intends to analyze the origins of Ibâḍî law in Baṣra and its relationship with Sunnî tradition during the early centuries of Islam. Some important questions will be examined, for example whether or not the Ibâḍî fiqh developed independently from the Sunnî legal tradition, what role the early Ibâḍî authorities played, or whether the role given to Jâbir b. Zayd in the formation of Ibâḍî fiqh should be accepted. My paper will focus on the case of the zakât on cattle. In the manuscript called Aqwâl Qatâda b. Di‘âma, we find a tradition which states that the zakât is due on cattle when a niṣâb (minimum amount) of five animals is held, as for camels. This is the first account preserved in the Ibâḍî source on niṣâb al-baqar (the minimum quantity for cattle). According to the teachings of the Prophet to Mu‘âdh b. Jabal, Sunnî schools used to fix the niṣâb amount at 30 head of cattle, and the Shiʿî followed the same rule. My intention is to explain these discrepancies between Sunnî and Shiʿî school, on one hand, and the Ibâḍî legal tradition on the other hand.

This paper seeks to understand the influence of social context in the process of knowledge production and how, implicitly or explicitly, it also shapes the choice of themes, theories and concepts, leading to simulations and dissimulations, presences and absences. Taking Cape Verde as a case study, specifically studies of this archipelago conducted in the social sciences and humanities, in the most part by Capeverdean researchers, the present paper reveals an almost complete lack of relevant analytical categories such as "social class" "race" and "ethnic/ethnicity" in explaining the social formation of Cape Verde. In contrast, concepts such as "identity", "culture", "nation", and "Capeverdean-ness" tend play a central role.

This paper seeks to bring to light the life of Joaquina, a woman who was a slave in the Amazon region during the 19th century, and through this lens to give a broad overview of an intricate web of social, economic and cultural power in which slaves were bound. Slaves were the least privileged class social of social actors and flight from captivity was one of the options they could resort to in attempting to transform their situations. The paper also reflects on the role of women enslaved in urban environments and their strategies for obtaining letters of manumission, as well as the meanings of freedom and itsimportance in the disintegration of slavery as a social institution.

This paper investigates the role of environmental social movements and NGOs in the struggle for democracy in Nigeria. In particular, it examines how environmental issues, specifically in the oil-rich Niger Delta, have come to symbolise the Niger Delta communities’ craving for greater inclusion in the political process. The paper argues that because of linkages to the nature of economic production, environmental crises have been particularly useful in driving the democracy discourse in Nigeria. By linking environmental crisis to democratisation and the interactions of power within the Nigerian federation, NGOs and social movements have been able to gain support for environmental causes. This may, however, have dire implications for the environmental movement in Nigeria. Because ownership, not necessarily sustainability, is the central theme of such discourse on resource extraction, social movements may not be framing the environmental discourse in a way that highlights its unique relevance. The paper concludes by making a case for alternative methods of framing the environmental discourse in a developing-world context like that of Nigeria.Dieser Beitrag untersucht die Bedeutung umweltpolitischer Bewegungen und Nichtregierungsorganisationen (NRO) für den Kampf um Demokratie in Nigeria. Insbesondere widmet er sich der Frage, inwiefern Umweltthemen, speziell im ölreichen Nigerdelta, inzwischen das große Bedürfnis der Bevölkerung reflektieren, stärker in den politischen Prozess einbezogen zu werden. Umweltkrisen haben den demokratischen Diskurs in Nigeria ganz besonders vorangebracht, weil sie zu den Grundlagen der ökonomischen Produktion in Beziehung stehen. Indem soziale Bewegungen und NRO die Umweltkrisen mit dem Demokratiedefizit und den Machtstrukturen innerhalb Nigerias in Beziehung setzten, fanden sie auch Unterstützung in Umweltfragen. Dies könnte allerdings negative Folgen für die nigerianische Umweltbewegung haben. Denn das zentrale Thema eines sozialen Diskurses zum Abbau von Ressourcen ist die Eigentumsfrage und nicht notwendigerweise die Nachhaltigkeit; wird der Diskurs von sozialen Bewegungen bestimmt, wird die einzigartige umweltpolitische Relevanz möglicherweise nicht ausreichend herausgestellt. Der Autor plädiert für eine alternative Themensetzung im umweltpolitischen Diskurs in Entwicklungsländern wie Nigeria.

Since Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed, its border with Uganda has become a hub of activity. Contrasting developments on the Ugandan side of the border with those on the South Sudanese side, the paper draws on empirical fieldwork to argue that the CPA has created new centres of power in the margins of both states. However, in day-to-day dealings on either side of the border, South Sudanese military actors have become dominant. In the particular case of Arua and the South Sudan–Uganda border, past wartime authority structures determine access to opportunities in a tightly regulated, inconclusive peace. This means that small-scale Ugandan traders – although vital to South Sudan – have become more vulnerable to South Sudan’s assertions of state authority. The experience of Ugandan traders calls into question the broad consensus that trade across the border is always beneficial for peace-building. The paper concludes that trade is not unconditionally helpful to the establishment of a peaceful environment for everyone.Seit Unterzeichnung des Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) im Sudan hat sich die Grenze zwischen Südsudan und Uganda zu einem lebendigen Drehkreuz entwickelt. Gestützt auf eigene Feldforschungen stellen die Autoren die Entwicklungen in den Grenzregionen beider Länder dar, wo seit Abschluss des CPA neue Machtzentren entstanden sind. In den alltäglichen Geschäftsbeziehungen entlang der Grenze dominieren allerdings militärische Akteure. Im konkreten Fall von Arua und der südsudanesisch-ugandischen Grenze bestimmen Machtstrukturen aus Kriegszeiten den Zugang zu Handelsgelegenheiten, die in der Nachkriegsphase noch starken Regulierungen unterliegen. Ugandische Kleinhändler – für die Versorgung des Südsudan von zentraler Bedeutung – sind in dieser Situation zunehmend durch Eingriffe der neuen südsudanesischen Staatsmacht gefährdet. Die Erfahrungen der Händler aus Arua stellen den breiten Konsens infrage, grenzübergreifender Handel sei für einen Friedensprozess grundsätzlich förderlich. Die Autoren kommen zu dem Schluss, dass Handelsbeziehungen nicht in jedem Fall dazu beitragen, ein friedliches Umfeld für die gesamte Bevölkerung zu schaffen.

This paper takes a critical look at the view that the Internet can serve as a laboratory of political experimentation for reconfiguring the repertories of political actions. The overall discourses on information and communications technology (ICT) are too often focused on technology and infrastructure, when the question of its use should be central. In order to comprehend how ICT can serve as a democratic enhancer, this paper critically examines the African anthropology of the state and of the public sphere. It captures the African endogenous productions of political modernity and the subsequent way ICT is appropriated and indigenized by African local instances. African states and civil societies do not fit into prescriptive Western paradigms. In order to encourage the effective use of new technologies, this paper has developed the so-called “African model of ICT practice”, which proposes a set of hypotheses that aim to enable the effective usage and integration of ICT within the democratic process in the context of an African self-defined political reality.Dieser Beitrag unterzieht die Vorstellung, das Internet könne als Labor für politische Experimente dienen, um neue politische Aktionsmöglichkeiten auszuloten, einer kritischen Prüfung. Nach Ansicht der Autorin sind die übergreifenden Diskurse zu Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien (IKT) allzu oft nur auf Fragen der Technologie und Infrastruktur konzentriert, während die Frage nach ihrer Anwendung im Zentrum stehen sollte. Um zu erhellen, inwieweit IKT demokratiefördernd wirken können, verweist sie auf die historische Konstituierung von Staat und Öffentlichkeit in Afrika, die endogene Herausbildung politischer Modernität und die entsprechenden Formen lokaler Aneignung und Anpassung von IKT. Staat und Zivilgesellschaft in den Ländern Afrikas entsprechen nicht den vorgegebenen westlichen Modellen. Die Autorin entwickelt ein “African model of ICT practice“ und legt Hypothesen dazu vor, wie eine effiziente Einbeziehung und Anwendung von IKT in demokratischen Prozessen im Rahmen der selbstdefinierten politischen Realitäten Afrikas möglich wäre.

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.

The paper examines the emergence of Islamic Feminism in Kuwait, based on the writings and personal accounts of leading Islamist women activists. It begins with an analysis of the socio-political factors that led to the creation of Islamic groups in the 1980s. It then outlines the role of women in the growth of the Islamic movement and shows how the contradictions between women’s contributions to the Islamic cause and the secondary role they play within the Islamic organizations controlled by men were conducive to the rise of Islamic feminism in the 1990s. The paper also demonstrates how the involvement of islamist women in the struggle for suffrage forging a coalition with liberal women activists had played a decisive role in changing the position of islamist groups towards the enfranchisement of women. The last two sections of the paper look at the participation of islamist women activists in the re-definition of the dichotomy between the public and private spheres and at their involvement in the process of interpretation of Islamic sources, known as Ijtihâd. The paper concludes that the engagement of islamist women activists in the discourse of women’s rights can be powerful agent of change towards a more egalitarian society.

The collection of A.M. Duggan-Cronin photographs at the University of Cape Town has experienced mixed fortunes since it was acquired some seventy years ago, being displayed proudly at one moment and stowed away in embarrassment at the next, only to be exhibited again for some new purpose. This paper looks at the original context of Duggan-Cronin's The Bantu Tribes of South Africa in political, anthropological and aesthetic terms; and it examines the first volume on The Bavenda (1928) in some detail. The paper argues that Duggan-Cronin may be shown to have constructed his photographs of African subjects in certain ways apparently to create a specific image of Africa that had obvious political connotations. This primitivising image made a forceful contribution to the 'Native Question', which was the most important single issue of South African politics of the mid-twentieth century. However, given the openness of visual communication, on the one hand, and change in political circumstances, on the other, the Duggan-Cronin photographs show that, over time, the same image can serve apparently quite contradictory purposes.

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.

Spanish law and customs established different ways by means of which slaves could obtain freedom. These ways were widely used and amplified by slaves's own demands. In addition of the best known "deeds of freedom", Buenos Aires' slaves often petitioned to change masters sheltered by the legal institution of the "sale papers". In both the the "deeds of freedom" and the "sale papers", settling the slave's price became a difficult operation, a new arena of dispute.

This paper explores the decision-making processes used by the inhabitants of Goma during the Kivu Crisis in October 2008. The paper’s aim is twofold: After providing a short history of the October 2008 events, it seeks in the empirical part to distinguish and clarify the role of rumours and narratives in the setting of violent conflict as well as to analyse their impact on decision-making processes. As the epistemological interest lies more on the people who stay rather than those who flee, in the second part the paper argues that the practice of routinization indicates a conscious tactic whose purpose is to counter the non-declared state of exception in Goma. Routinization is defined as a means of establishing order in everyday life by referring to narratives based on lived experiences. Die Autorin des Beitrags untersucht Entscheidungsfindungsprozesse der Einwohner von Goma während der Kivu-Krise im Oktober 2008. Nach einer kurzen Geschichte der Ereignisse wird im empirischen Teil des Beitrags die Rolle von Gerüchten und Erzählungen für die gesellschaftliche Szenerie gewaltsamer Konflikte aufgezeigt und voneinander abgegrenzt und ihre jeweilige Bedeutung für Entscheidungsfindungsprozesse analysiert. Da sich das Forschungsinteresse der Autorin in erster Linie auf den Teil der Bevölkerung richtet, der am Ort des Geschehens bleibt, und weniger auf den, der sich zur Flucht entscheidet, wird im zweiten Teil des Beitrags die Praxis der Routinisierung hervorgehoben, eine bewusste Strategie der Betroffenen, um mit dem nicht-deklarierten Ausnahmezustand in Goma umzugehen. Routinisierung wird als Mittel definiert, die alltägliche Ordnung aufrechtzuerhalten, indem man auf Erzählungen gelebter Erfahrung zurückgreift.

This paper attempts to show how nationalism has served to transcend political, social, economic and cultural challenges in Ethiopia. Nationalists in Ethiopia have attempted to harness national cohesion against threats from both within and outside of Ethiopia. External threats have always provided an opportunity to mobilize the citizens and suppress internal dissent in the name of national identity. This paper discusses different forms of nationalism in Ethiopia and attempts to demonstrate that in the conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia, though territory and economic issues indeed played a role, to reduce the causes of conflict merely to these two factors is a mistake. This conflict has to be approached from a political-psychological aspect as well. Unless there is a change in the expression of nationalism and in the perception of national identity, it will be difficult to address the dynamic of the Eritrean-Ethiopian border conflict and find lasting solutions. Dieser Aufsatz will aufzeigen, wie Nationalismus dazu nützlich war, politische, soziale, wirtschaftliche und kulturelle Herausforderungen in Äthiopien zu überwinden. Nationalisten in Äthiopien versuchten, sich den nationalen Zusammenhalt gegen interne und externe Bedrohungen zunutze zu machen. Bedrohungen von außen haben stets eine Möglichkeit geboten, die Bürger zu mobilisieren und interne Auseinandersetzungen im Namen der nationalen Identität zu unterdrücken. Der Aufsatz behandelt verschiedene Formen des Nationalismus in Äthiopien und will darlegen, dass im Konflikt zwischen Eritrea und Äthiopien, in dem territoriale und wirtschaftliche Fragen zwar tatsächlich eine Rolle spielten, es gleichwohl falsch ist, die Ursachen des Konflikts allein auf diese beiden Faktoren zu reduzieren. Dieser Konflikt muss ebenso von einer politisch-psychologischen Seite behandelt werden. Ohne einen Wandel der Formen des Nationalismus und der Wahrnehmung der nationalen Identität wird es schwer sein, mit der Dynamik des Konflikts zwischen Eritrea und Äthiopien umzugehen und dauerhafte Lösungen zu finden.

Eighteen years after the change of power and the ushering in of the second Ethiopian republic in 1991, the political process in Ethiopia has, according to most observers, rigidified and largely closed the space for representative democracy. This paper will look at the main organizing political ideas or ideology of the current Ethiopian republic and to the nature of its governance techniques in the face of domestic and international challenges with reference to the debate on “failing” or “fragile” states. The new “social contract” defined after 1991 and codified in the 1994 Constitution is precarious. Dissent and ethno-regional resistance to federal policies are dealt with mainly by coercion and discursive isolation. Oppositional forces voice the need for a rethinking of the organizing ideas and institutions of the second republic in order to enhance political consensus and a shared political arena, but get little response. The paper will sketch an interpretation of governance in Ethiopia, focusing on the dilemma of reconciling local and modernist political practices, and will discuss the status of “republican” ideas, in name important in Ethiopia but mostly absent in practice. Explicit debate of these ideas is usually sidelined – also in academic commentaries – in favour of a focus on the ethno-federal ideology of the Ethiopian state. Das Jahr 1991 sah die Inauguration der 2. Republik in Äthiopien, diesmal als föderal-demokratische statt wie bisher als Volksrepublik. Achtzehn Jahre nach dem Machtwechsel besteht bei den meisten Beobachtern Konsens über die Probleme im politischen Prozess des Landes. Konstatiert wird die Rückkehr zu einem stark autoritären Regime, das eine repräsentative parlamentarische Demokratie so gut wie unmöglich macht. Der Artikel präsentiert eine Analyse der wichtigsten allgemeinen ideologischen Grundsätze der heutigen äthiopischen Republik und ihrer führenden Partei. Unter Einbeziehung der wachsenden Kritik im In- und Ausland (Gebergemeinschaft) und der Diskussion über „fragile“ oder „scheiternde Staaten“ wird die Herrschaftspraxis in Äthiopien untersucht. Der neue „Gesellschaftsvertrag“ von 1991, kodifiziert in der neuen Verfassung von Dezember 1994, ist prekär und wird nicht mehr akzeptiert. Parteipolitische und ethno-regionale Opposition der föderalen Politik gegenüber wird aber standardmäßig beantwortet mit Repression, diskursiver Isolation und Marginalisierung. Eine öffentliche Debatte über die ethno-föderale republikanische Formel und den Staatsaufbau wird kaum toleriert, vielleicht weil die Machthaber selbst keine Alternative sehen (wollen). Der Artikel legt eine Interpretation des ethno-föderalen Verwaltungssystems in Äthiopien vor, die auf das noch immer nicht gelöste Problem der Harmonisierung von lokalen und modernen Elementen der politischen Praxis in einem Entwicklungsland rekurriert, und macht einen konzeptuellen Vorschlag über den Status der nominell für wichtig gehaltenen, aber in der politischen Praxis abwesenden „republikanischen“ Prinzipien des äthiopischen Staates. Dabei empfiehlt sich im allgemeinen eine explizitere Debatte dieser Prinzipien und Ideen statt der, heute auch in der akademischen Diskussion ziemlich „überforschten“, ethno-föderalen Aspekte des Staates.

On November 22nd, 1974, the United Nations General Assembly promulgated resolutions No. 3236 and No. 3237, recognizing the political, cultural, and socio-economic rights of the Palestinian people, and formalizing the PLO’s participation in the General Assembly as an observer. These important resolutions were issued following the historic speech given by the President of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Yāsir ʿArafāt, on November 13th, 1974, before the United Nations General Assembly. This paper consists in the rhetorical and linguistic analysis of the main argumentative strategies employed by the Palestinian leader in his speech to achieve his perlocutionary goals. Specifically, the analysis is carried out on the basis of the methodological tools developed by Perelman and Olbrecths-Tyteca in The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation (1969). The Perelmanian tools are applied to ʿArafāt’s Arabic speech in order to determine the rhetorical techniques employed to build the audience’s agreement and to persuade them about the necessity to accommodate his people’s requests. From this research emerges the in-depth knowledge that the speaker has of his audience, addressing, from time to time, a particular or a universal audience, in an attempt to reach an agreement that is as broad as possible. For this reason, the speaker carefully chooses the language through which to convey his message, excluding the Islamic formulas and lexicon, which usually characterize his speeches. Furthermore, the agreement with the public is established through the repeated reference to universal values, which allow him to place the Palestinian question in a framework shared by the audience. Finally, the present study illustrates the copious argumentative strategies that ʿArafāt employs to generate a change of perspective on the Palestinian question, facilitating the process of persuasion.

With the flames of racial and ethnic discrimination glowing vehemently everywhere, the present study probes into the representation of color-based discrimination in Egyptian movies. It depicts the stereotypes and value judgments taken as norms characterizing black people in Egyptian movies. The paper's methodological approach is both qualitative and quantitative. Quantitatively, a structured questionnaire on Microsoft forms consisting of three questions that are related to Movie watching habits, stereotyping, and attitudes & future recommendations, was used to elicit 75 viewers' reactions toward the negative representation of black people in Egyptian movies. Qualitatively, the researchers analyzed some scenes that were extracted from six Egyptian movies. The quantitative findings showed that some of the participants have a typical stereotype about black people based on what they watch in the movies and recommended representing them in a better way in the future. The qualitative findings revealed inter-discoursal characteristics of racist discourse in Egyptian movies. The conclusions and recommendations call upon global media hubs and social media platforms to help combat and eradicate racism through banning the production of TV programs and shows that condone racist beliefs and practices.

This paper presents a comparative study of the linguistic data collected during fieldwork in three Arabic-speaking towns in Morocco: Larache, in the north; Temara, on the central Atlantic coast; and Berkane, in the east. The goal of the article is twofold: first of all, it aims at highlighting the new dialectological findings made by analysing the three corpora separately; secondly, it attempts to clarify, by means of a comparative analysis, if there is evidence of a modern koine spreading from the urban areas in Central Morocco to other regions of the country. To these purposes, seven variables pertaining to the levels of phonetics, verbal and nominal morphology are selected for cross-analysis among the three corpora. Previous dialectological data on the same and other Moroccan areas are then taken into account to advance hypotheses on the spread and the ancientness of the identified phenomena of linguistic variation, and their more or less likely connection to the modern koine. The results show that, while there is indeed a certain degree of convergence among the three towns (with Berkane being the least involved in the converging trend), some of the phenomena identified could be explained as accommodation to other varieties having common features with the inter-urban koine, while others could be the result of mutual rather than one-way convergence. More sociolinguistic data are needed to clarify the doubts raised by the analysis.

Numerous examples of ghazal poems include metaphorical images describing the altered body of the lover. The yearning for love, passion, disappointment, languish: each stage of the love affair can change the lover appearance. Even more, the alteration can affect also his perception of the beloved body: due to the intensity of the love experience, his sensory perception could end to intertwine, by blending or intermingling his different sense modalities. The verbal transposition of such a visionary state often requires the poet to employ widely rhetorical devices, and particularly synesthesia, in order to enhance the multiple perception of his audience. This paper will focus on the use of this figure in the love poems from the Siculo-Arabic poetic repertoire (10th-12th centuries). In fact, these authors frequently combine the figurative use of words with synesthetic effects, thus involving the reader in a vivid experience: a multilayered text articulating a multisensory perception.

This article explores Antun Saʿadeh’s campaign to establish the Syrian Social Nationalist Party among Syrian and Lebanese migrants in the Americas. Diasporic press sources from Argentina and Brazil indicate that the Syrian Nationalists continued to foreground Saʿadeh as a figure whose authority derived in part from a youthful following. The support of the young distinguished him from other leaders, or zuʿamāʾ, and in particular from the late-Ottoman notables whose command over anti-imperial politics was increasingly contested in the 1930s and 1940s. Syrian Nationalist recruitment in South America, and subsequent polemics with local public figures that it inspired, revealed ambivalences in this narrative of a transformative youth politics. The relationship between young nationalists and the leaders who claimed to galvanize them was both celebrated and called into question. These anxieties coincided with doubts about the contributions of mahjar print culture and associational life to nationalist mass movements. In this way, youth rhetoric reflected a transnational middle-class reckoning with interwar popular politics. In tracing the mobility of a political imaginary that pitted youthful nationalists against incumbent elites, the paper proposes a new reading of the politics of notables framework itself as one among several forms of interwar middle-class worldmaking.

This papers explores various types of adherence to Islam in the Indian sub-continent during the Colonial period, taking as a case-study Sindh, an area corresponding to the Delta of Indus. The starting hypothesis is that the use of specific languages, either classical (Arabic and Persian) or vernacular (Sindhi dialects) corresponded to types of local knowledge without being hermetic. The paper evaluates the role of various languages in the construction of religious identities, and later in the nationalist movements that led to the birth of India and Pakistan in 1947.

This paper aims at analyzing how the State Department of the United States assessed the two main Angolan liberation movements between 1960 and 1961, and how it decided, in a short timespan, which deserved its support, for being "pro-Western", and which was to be fought by all possible means, for being "communist". Rebuffing the spread notion according to which the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) was, as early as then, linked to the Soviet Union and other countries from the so-called "Communist bloc", this paper seeks to demonstrate how the sources of information used - as well as a host of impressionistic and subjective issues, framed by an exacerbated, and somewhat unrealistic, anticommunism - influenced the United States diplomatic officers¿ perceptions, contributing to establish a system of alignments between the liberation movements and the Cold War divides which would last for almost thirty years.

Death is a subject that is emphasized frequently and in different ways in various social contexts throughout the world. In Angola, during the prolonged civil war, death was frequently discussed by the media, by politicians and by researchers. However, very little is known about the manner in which those who endured the war, in diverse local cultures and with varying individual experiences, perceived death and its rituals. This paper focuses on attitudes about death among women who faced the loss of male family members in the war. Analyzing the situation of Handa women in southern Angola, the paper focuses on the sentiments and emotions that emerged during wartime, linking these to mortuary rituals, especially those that seek to cleanse and restore.

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 Casa Branca terreiro is one of the oldest in Bahia, and, according to oral tradition, it was founded after a voyage to Africa undertaken by two early priestesses, African freedwoman Marcelina da Silva and her ialorixá, the latter remembered only by her ritual title, Iyá Nassô. Until now, there has been very little historical evidence to clarify the lives of these two women or to support (or discredit) their legendary trip. The present paper presents newly uncovered data tracing the life history of Marcelina da Silva, from her early experiences as a slave in Bahia in the 1830s and the political context of her journey to Africa with her daughter, Maria Magdalena, and Iyá Nassô. It also chronicles Marcelina's rise to wealth and power during a second stay in Bahia that began in the 1840s and details her participation in a transatlantic network of Nagô (i.e. Yoruba) freedmen active in promoting the orixá religion in Brazil, a group which also included other crucial figures in the history of candomblé, such as the babalaô Bamboxê Obitikó. The paper also presents important new information about Iyá Nassô and her life in Bahia.

In Yoruba account of predestination, a moulded body, already infused with the spirit of life by Olodumare (the supreme being), goes to pick an Ori (the bearer of destiny), before his or her birth. The destiny so chosen, ascribed or imposed, encapsulates the successes and failures which the human being is meant to unravel during his or her course of existence in this world. Considering some arguments on the metaphysical question of personal identity, the paper observes that it will be difficult to establish a case of personal identity between the person who chose a destiny in isalu orun (heavenly abode) and the one who is assumed to be unravelling it in this isalu aye (earthly world). The paper concludes that it will be difficult to establish a case for predestination if a relationship of identity cannot be easily established between the two entities

This paper discusses slave families and the power relationships between freedwomen and their former masters in the interior of Bahia during the second half of the nineteenth century, namely in the Arraial do Brejo Grande (presentday Ituaçu), in the Southwest of Bahia. Focusing on the case study of two slave families and examining the freedwomen´s court battles with their former masters for custody of their children, the paper seeks to provide insights into the dynamics and complexity of life in the Bahian semiarid at the end of the nineteenth century

In multilingual South Africa, language use is more often than not a matter of choice than of ability. The application of indigenous languages like isiXhosa seems nevertheless less preferable in certain social contexts such as the job environment, where English is seen as the language of “success and status” (Casale and Posel 2010: 58). This paper probes the relationship between an isiXhosa language identity and career chances for university graduates. It examines, in a micro study, how young graduates from Fort Hare University in East London perceive the role and conception of English and isiXhosa for identity construction with a focus on employment opportunities. This view is contrasted with local employers’ perceptions on the matter. The interviews show that the dominance of English in the workplace as a global and “neutral” language remains largely unquestioned. In conclusion, the paper provides suggestions for further research into the role of indigenous languages in the South African business environment, on a broader scale.

The present paper describes three Syrian midwives and four Syrian doctors who lived in the nineteenth-century Syrian colony of New York City. Midwifery has been entirely overlooked in Middle Eastern migration studies, although, like peddling, it played an important role in the economic independence of Syrian women, offering them the chance to earn their own living and stand somewhat outside the strictures of both American and Syrian societies. Midwifery came under assault from outside the Syrian community in the early years of the twentieth century—when the medical establishment, aided by a virulent press, made midwifery illegal—as well as from inside, where the pressures to assimilate contributed to the demise of the traditional midwife and her replacement by western-trained doctors. All of the Syrian doctors who lived in the colony were trained at Syrian Protestant College (now American University of Beirut), and their western medical knowledge and authority played a role in the movement to marginalize midwives.[i] [i] This paper is the second in a series that foregrounds aspects of the nineteenth-century Syrian colony of New York as portrayed in my book, Strangers in the West: The Syrian Colony of New York City, 1880-1900 (New York: KalimahPress, 2015).

Following the geopolitical changes in the Balkans during the 19th century, the modernising effort undertaken in the Ottoman Empire had important spatial effects. The traditional settlements grew and attracted new population strata and modern economic activities. In the wider area of East Mediterranean similar processes have been accounted for mainly in coastal cities (and to a lesser extent in inland cities) giving rise to urban élites with increased spatial demands (requirements). The study of urban growth and development and of the role played by non-muslim communities and public initiatives, can contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the changes experienced by local societies. This paper proposes to study the planned expansion of three cities in the European provinces of the Empire, now under Greek sovereignty. These are Volos and Kavala, in which the Greek orthodox communities created new suburban districts, and Salonika (Thessaloniki), in which an impressive expansion took place thanks to the combined initiative of the Ottoman municipality and the non-Muslim communities. All three cases illustrate the dynamic process fuelled by the Reforms and the decisive moves of the non-Muslim élites to apprehend and use the new institutional framework to their advantage, while investing in land and building. The paper will examine the involvement of the local groups and authorities, the spatial characteristics of the new districts, the new building types, land uses and forms of urban landscape, in the light of written sources, technical documents and town plans, and surviving architectural heritage.

The present paper describes the main steps retracing the emergence and development of the Algerian scientific research sector between 1962 and 1994. It also suggests answers to the following questions: did the post-independence research policy, particularly from 1971, allow for the development of the required autonomy for researchers ? What are the relationships between State and Science ? Which continuities and ruptures can be defined after the years 1960 ? Which are the obstacles towards a relative autonomy in scientific practices ? Using the study of a scientific association which has existed in Algeria for more than a century, this paper will try to show that science in Algeria reveals historical, socio-political, cultural and economic changes which have affected Algerian society since its origins ; it will also show the contradictions of politics towards science.

This paper tries to account for the views on modern science by some Egyptian scientific leaders in a period when knowledge coming from Europe had already held a role for several decades in relation to the organization of the state. The time period studied in the paper predates the British occupation which brutally interrupted the ongoing process, namely, the taking in charge by the Egyptian themselves of their scientific fate. Texts emanating from the various movements which popularized science among the population, in particular, the writings of the astronomer Ismâ'îl Mustafâ, allow the researcher to understand, in relation to the scientific milieu of the time, the strong will to inscribe scientific development in a historical continuity rather than as something perceived as fundamentally foreign. Science then would be considered among the permanent values of the Islamic civilization.