• Transnational Chinese Beautyscapes: Ghetto Glamour and Fake Beauty in Abidjan

  Basile Ndjio (SAGE Publishing, 2024-08-01)

  This article explores how beauty and fashion practices and imagination have evolved in Ivory Coast since the early 2000s, using secondary sources and ethnographic research conducted in Abidjan in 2017. In addition to identifying alternatives to prevalent Western norms of beauty and style, the article highlights the expansion of Chinese beautyscapes and the ongoing Sinonization of local fashion and aesthetic cultures. It also draws attention to the contradictory features of bobaraba , a term increasingly used to describe Chinese-made clothing and beauty accessories. Though bobaraba is praised as a ghetto glamour and an expression of the urban poor's participation in the global consumer culture, it is frequently viewed as “fake beauty” intended to create an illusion of beauty. This article demonstrates that Chinese consumer goods are increasingly influencing contemporary African fashion culture, beauty ideals, body stylisation, and even sexuality.
• Whither “African Economics” Imaginaries? Eleven Precepts on Its (Im)possibility

  Oluwatosin Adeniyi (SAGE Publishing, 2024-08-01)

  Africa has historically occupied, and remains almost fixed at, the fringes of global knowledge production. Its battle to recover itself amid the stacks of epistemic injustices heaped on it, especially by its encounters with slavery and colonialism, rages on. Despite this grim picture, this article shows that, more recently, African Psychology has somewhat claimed its rightful place as an academic field within some leading universities in Africa. The absence of a deliberate and active disciplinary push or sustained contestations in economics on the continent is the key lacuna spotlighted in this article. However, I recognise that deciding whether African Economics is necessary must involve the mobilisation of the grit and talents of all academic economists on the continent as well as other geographies. This notwithstanding, and to foreshadow likelihoods, I imagine via this article what an erstwhile elusive African Economics might comprise. I do this by outlining and discussing eleven precepts that might serve as pointers to herald it. These precepts have multifarious implications for training and research in economics, especially in African universities, which are briskly expounded.
• The Aftermath – What Future for African Studies (in Europe?). A View From Behind the Scenes of ECAS9

  Steven van Wolputte; Michael Thomas Bollig; Martina Gockel; Clemens Greiner; Noah Kahindi (SAGE Publishing, 2024-08-01)

  In the spring of 2023, the ninth European Conference on African Studies (ECAS) took place in Cologne. Though not unexpected (or unusual) this event sparked critical comments and questions. As the organisers, we understand and appreciate this criticism. We, therefore, felt the need to respond to at least some of them, partly because we also asked ourselves many of these questions before, during, and after the conference. At the same time, we want to call for a certain degree of pragmatism when it comes to organising an event this size by providing a look behind the scenes.
• Book Review: by Vlavonou, Gino

  Tim Glawion (SAGE Publishing, 2024-08-01)
• Struggles over Resource Access in Rural Tanzania: Claiming for Recognition in a Community-Based Forest Conservation Intervention

  Mathew Bukhi Mabele; Ulrike Müller-Böker (SAGE Publishing, 2024-08-01)

  This article draws insights from access, claim-making and critical environmental justice scholarships to reveal how community-based conservation (CBC) may provide strategic openings for marginalised individuals to claim recognition. Empirically, we ground it in the context of a Sustainable Charcoal Project in rural Kilosa, Tanzania. In our study villages, Ihombwe and Ulaya Mbuyuni, the project provided an opening for the marginalised to claim recognition based on contested migration-and-settlement histories. These histories produced intra-community differentiation as firstcomers (mis)used the project for political domination, cultural status and material benefits. When the project opened governance spaces, latecomers embraced CBC institutions and processes as strategic openings to contest their marginalisation and claim for recognition. We suggest that CBC may produce political benefits where (mal)recognition of rights to resource access occurs as some people hold a sense of belonging more to the land than others.
• Book Review: by Wang, Yuan

  Rong Wen; Shisong Jiang (SAGE Publishing, 2024-08-01)
• Civilian Agency and Service Provision Under Rebel Rule: Evidence from Côte d'Ivoire

  Giulia Piccolino (SAGE Publishing, 2024-08-01)

  In rebel-held territories, public services often continue to be delivered, although rebels rarely have the administrative capacities to provide them. Although the literature on rebel governance has emphasised rebel-led institution building, many rebel groups rely on existing institutions or establish collaborative arrangements with civilian actors, who often play a key role in revitalising public services. Drawing from extensive research in formerly rebel-held Côte d'Ivoire, I argue that the availability of services provided by pre-existing institutions, the strength of civilian demands for public services and the strategic interests and ideological orientation of the rebels contribute to explain variations in how services are provided. While direct rebel rule in Côte d'Ivoire was infrequent, rebels often supported and facilitated civilian-led initiatives. The case of Côte d’Ivoire highlights the importance of revising the concept of rebel governance and broadening the understanding of civilian agency in war beyond cooperation or non-cooperation with armed groups.
• West African Pidgin: World Language Against the Grain

  Kofi Yakpo (SAGE Publishing, 2024-08-01)

  West African Pidgin (“Pidgin”) is a cluster of related, mutually intelligible, restructured Englishes with up to 140 million speakers in Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Equatorial Guinea, and The Gambia. Spoken by just few thousand people two centuries ago, “modernisation” and “shallow social entrenchment” have driven the transformation of Pidgin into a “super-central” world language. Demographic growth, migration, the expansion of West African cultural industries and economies, and people-to-people contacts are likely to expand Pidgin further. Already the largest language of West Africa, Pidgin may be spoken by 400 million people by 2100. The rise of Pidgin goes against the grain. World languages like English, French, Chinese, or Arabic mostly spread through colonisation, elite engineering, and state intervention. The trajectory of Pidgin, therefore, holds great potential for exploring the dynamics of large-scale natural language evolution in the twenty-first century.
• Retraction Notice

  SAGE Publishing, 2024-08-01
• Extra-Regional Return Migration to Africa: A Systematic Literature Review

  Desmond Ofori Oklikah; Senanu Kwasi Kutor; Elmond Bandauko; Akosua Boahemaa Asare; Reforce Okwei; Amanda Odoi; Godwin Arku (SAGE Publishing, 2024-08-01)

  As global economies become increasingly interconnected, the movement of people across borders has intensified, generating significant debate on the implications for both sending and receiving countries. Amid this debate, studies continue to report the return of some migrants to out-sourcing countries. While extra-regional return migration (henceforth, return migration) to Africa has received scholarly attention, there is no periodic systematic literature review to establish emerging themes on this topic. In this paper, we use standard procedures to analyse twenty peer-reviewed articles published between 2000 and 2022. From the findings, it emerged that return migration is a complex process shaped by multiple factors, such as family considerations and policies. The findings also highlight the differential experiences of returnees as they reintegrate into life in their home countries. Therefore, stakeholders should provide the necessary policy support to enhance the contributions of returnees to development.
• Politics at Play: TikTok and Digital Persuasion in Zimbabwe's 2023 General Elections

  Oswelled Ureke (SAGE Publishing, 2024-08-01)

  Zimbabwe's August 2023 elections were held against the backdrop of outcry over the outcomes of previous elections, which opposition political parties accusedthe ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front party of rigging. Access to the public media is among the issues of contestation. Opposition political parties claim that they are not given equal space for campaigning purposes. Social networking sites such as X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook have recently provided spaces for political communication, where all parties have unfettered access to the electorate. Recently, TikTok has emerged as a popular social networking site, rivaling established applications in terms of its uptake, particularly among youths. Research on the social media application suggests that it is largely used for trivial purposes and does not contribute to critical dialogue. However, lately there is evidence that TikTok is being used for “serious” purposes, including activism. The study sought to find out how political actors in Zimbabwe used the TikTok platform for political communication in the run-up to the 2023 elections. The paper also examines the nature of digital persuasion on TikTok and how this enriches or trivialises political discourse. Findings show that TikTok was used to urge Zimbabwean youths to register to vote as well as to provide visual evidence of the good and the bad associated with particular political parties, as they competed for voters. It was used as a politainment tool, combining political messaging with the entertainment affordances of TikTok.
• Quality, Access, and Voice in African Studies Publishing: Smoothing the Path to Bigger Changes

  Tim Glawion (SAGE Publishing, 2024-04-01)
• Decolonial Dilemmas: The Deception of a “Global Knowledge Commonwealth” and the Tragedian Entrapment of an African Scholar

  Yusuf K. Serunkuma (SAGE Publishing, 2024-04-01)

  There are multiple initiatives and efforts to grant African scholars “global visibility” – as part of the decolonisation agenda. These efforts have included aiding and enabling African scholars to publish in journals of international renown, speaking or curating courses at Ivy League universities, and being experts on issues about Africa in international media. Other efforts include collaborations and citations in discourses about Africa. While these efforts and opportunities are intellectually and practically irresistible to a scholar from the subaltern world – as are to those offering and facilitating them – they are actually counterproductive to a decolonisation project. The positive energy they generate obscures the histories and power dynamics that govern so-called global spaces and audiences of knowledge production. Problematically presented as benign and benevolent spaces for participation in the “global knowledge commonwealth,” from which mutual understanding grows, and racism and exploitation could be ended, global spaces/audiences, rather grow out, and are core parts of the revolving doors and constantly mutating infrastructures of colonialist hegemony and control.
• Book Review: by by Paice Edward

  SAGE Publishing, 2024-04-01
• State Capacity and Elite Enrichment in Uganda's Northeastern Periphery

  Karol Czuba (SAGE Publishing, 2024-04-01)

  In the mid-2000s, Uganda's authoritarian National Resistance Movement (NRM) regime set out to extend state control over Karamoja, a long-neglected region in the northeast of the country. This effort has involved large-scale deployment of security personnel, investment in an expansive administrative system used to subdue the local population, and construction of physical infrastructure that connects Karamoja with the rest of Uganda and facilitates the exploitation of the region's natural resources by members of the political elite. Government bodies in Karamoja capably perform functions that benefit the NRM elite and regime; other government responsibilities, notably for public service provision, have been assumed by non-state organisations. This article shows that the unevenness of state capacity in the region is the result of a coherent strategy that the regime has implemented across Uganda; developments in Karamoja illuminate this strategy and, thereby, help to account for the apparent incongruity of the country's political system.
• Nigerian Electoral Black Market: Where Do Party Switchers Go and Why Does It Matter?

  Victor Agboga (SAGE Publishing, 2024-04-01)

  With most existing research on party switching concentrating on the drivers of defection and the electoral performance of defectors, this research sheds light on the events that occurred after MPs switched parties but before voters sanctioned them in the next election. Using Nigeria as a case study, I discover that instead of establishing their own parties and banking on their personal popularity for electoral victory as some have speculated in new democracies, switchers strive to stay within the dominant parties, thereby challenging generalised narratives of weak parties in Africa. Through the utilisation of qualitative and quantitative data from elite interviews and an original dataset, I equally discover that name recognition and fiercely contested primaries make dominant parties in Nigeria simultaneously the net gainers and losers of party defectors. Additionally, evidence shows that while switchers are more likely to get ballot access than non-switchers, they similarly become targets of party retaliation.
• Marriage and Memories of the Slave Trade Among the Ejaghams of Cameroon's Cross River Region

  Maurine Ekun Nyok (SAGE Publishing, 2024-04-01)

  Using interview data collected from communities in Cameroon's Cross River region, this study examines the experiences of “slave descendants” in their marriages/attempted marriages with “freemen.” Using theories from Mary Douglas and Erving Goffman to analyse their stories, I demonstrate that while “slave descendants” are legally permitted to marry members of “freeman” origin, in practice, some cultural privileges are stripped from those who choose to intermarry, especially impacting those of “freeman” origins. Among “freeman” individuals, beliefs exist that marrying a “slave descendant” can limit their social and cultural potential. For example, they believe such marriages will contaminate the purity of their bloodline. Correspondingly, I discovered that many “slave descendants” aspire to unions with “freemen,” despite discrimination and rejection, to give their children a “half-pure” blood identity. They believe that giving their children this “half-pure” blood identity helps improve their future prospects.
• A Transformative Social Policy Perspective on Land and Agrarian Reform in Zimbabwe

  Clement Chipenda (SAGE Publishing, 2024-04-01)

  Land and agrarian reform in former settler colonies is an overlooked aspect of social policy, especially in the African context. This is, however, changing with the recognition that it is a policy instrument with functional equivalents to other conventional forms of social policy. Since the cataclysmic COVID-19 pandemic exposed the shortcomings of conventional social policy approaches, a renewed interest in land and agrarian reforms has emerged. Increasingly there has been a call for the decolonisation of social policy in Africa and for transformative social policy (TSP) initiatives, which privilege local needs and policy perspectives. With scholarship crystallising around possibilities of post-pandemic social policy transformation, this article explores lessons that can be learned from Zimbabwe's agrarian welfare regime in dealing with the challenges of rural poverty and inequality. Using empirical evidence gathered from the Goromonzi and Zvimba districts in Zimbabwe and the analytical lenses of the TSP framework, this article argues that land reform beneficiaries in an agrarian welfare regime have better opportunities for the enhancement of their welfare and wellbeing, as well as their productive and reproductive capacities. Arguably, the pandemic highlighted that access to land enhances the resilience of land reform beneficiaries and surrounding communities. Land access can be utilised to overcome rural poverty and inequality, which makes it critical for inclusive and sustainable growth.
• Divine Mandates and Political Realities: Exploring Power, Religion, and Transition in The Gambia

  Danielle Agyemang; Vilashini Somiah; Khoo Ying Hooi (SAGE Publishing, 2024-04-01)

  This article analyses the role of religious symbolism and religiosity during The Gambia’s autocracy (1994–2017) and its democratic transition (2017–2023). Former autocratic ruler, Yahya Jammeh, exploited religious symbolism to legitimise his authority, leading to crackdowns, extrajudicial punishment, and political repression. Drawing on community engagements and interviews with 61 civil-society members, political actors, community stakeholders, and girls in rural and urban areas across The Gambia’s West Coast Region, the findings highlight the influence of cultural and value systems, particularly the intersection of religion and politics, in shaping the country’s autocracy. Exploring some of the nuances of religious ideology and religious symbols concerning the state, The Gambia’s political history allows for deeper examinations of power dynamics within the broader cultural and societal context. By adopting a multidimensional perspective of power that incorporates religion, cultural values, and ethnic dimensions, this article offers new perspectives for analysing power structures and transformations in diverse socio-political settings.
• Book Review: by Judith Bachmann

  Insa Nolte (SAGE Publishing, 2024-04-01)

View more