Collaborators, Patriots, and Resistance: Wolaita Women’s Struggle Against Exclusion Under Repressive Policies (1941–1974)
Introduction The study covers the history of women’s struggles between 1941 and 1974. The year 1941 is adopted as a watershed in the study of Wolaita women’s struggle (1941-1974) owing to its coincidence with the new policies of Emperor Haile Selassie, which dramatically affected the socio-economic and political lives of women (Proclamation, 1942; Proclamation, 1944). Secondly, it is also associated with the consolidation of the imperial power in Wolaita, an area which was not effectively controlled by the Ethiopian government before the Italian occupation (1936-1941) (Hodson, 1927, pp. 26-30; Stingand, 1910, pp. 297-298 ). The major historical event that led to the selection of 1974 as a reference point for this study was its coincidence with the downfall of the imperial system. Following the liberation of Ethiopia from Italian colonial rule in 1941, Emperor Haile Selassie initiated various socio-economic and political reforms aimed at modernizing the country in line with the prevailing domestic and international realities (Zewde, 2002, pp. 189-209). However, the post-liberation condition in Wolaita, one of the peripheral areas of southern Ethiopia, was markedly distinct from the pre-1936 period, particularly in terms of political stability, cultural interactions, and economic transitions. The anarchy that emerged after the defeat of the fascist Italian forces created a vacuum that necessitated rapid administrative reorganization to safeguard both expatriates and locals from rising criminal threats (ASZWAO, 1951 E.C.; Pankhurst, 1968, p. 102). During the Italian occupation (1936-1941), Wolaita had been identified as one of eight key commercial agriculture areas that attracted Italian agri-entrepreneurs, leading to the initial introduction of mechanized farming. Although subsistence agriculture remained dominant, the seeds of commercial agriculture and land commodification had already been planted (ASZWAO, 1963 E.C.; Larebo, 1990, p. 318; Marcus, 1994, pp. 150-151; WMMAC, 1950 E.C.). Despite these economic changes, Wolaita society remained largely underprivileged in all aspects of economic, political, and social life. Nonetheless, exposure to foreign actors, missionaries, anti-fascist combatants, settler-colonial administrators, and traders brought new social ideas and global outlooks to the region. International allies of Ethiopia, particularly Britain, exerted pressure on the emperor to protect Protestant religious rights, but women’s rights were conspicuously absent from the diplomatic agenda (Donham, 1986, p. 45; Pankhurst, 1968, p. 96; Proclamation, 1942; World Bank, 1948, pp. 57-58). Haile Selassie’s post-war reforms largely neglected the particular socio-economic needs of ordinary Wolaita women, despite their active participation in resisting the Italian occupation. The imperial land reforms of the 1940s and 1950s did little to challenge or rectify deep-rooted gender inequalities (Babanto, 1979, pp. 44-46; Crummey, 1999, pp. 240-242; Guidi, 2013, p. 3). In reaction to these shortcomings, Wolaita women engaged in various forms of resistance, such as running away to the lowlands to escape serfdom, organizing protest demonstrations, and occasionally participating in acts of open defiance. The reasons behind these struggles were multifaceted, influenced by customary laws, evolving state policies, and changing societal expectations. Land-related grievances, particularly those excluding women from ownership and inheritance, were central to women’s movement in the imperial era (Berhane-Selassie, 1999, p. 222). Yet, scholarly interpretations of Wolaita women’s resistance strategies remain divided. Some scholars such as Chema argue that Wolaita women uniformly opposed imperial reforms (Chema, 2012, p. 435), while others like Bisrat Lema suggest that some forms of collaboration with state actors and missionaries were equally present (Lema, 2011, p. 32). Such historiographical divergence underscores the necessity of reconstructing women’s historical agency in a way that includes both resistance and strategic alliances (Philps, 2005, p. 25). Accordingly, this study questions prevailing narratives that depict Wolaita women only as victims or adversaries. Rather, it aims to explore the nuanced dynamics of their resistance and cooperation with the government, religious bodies, and political groups between 1941 and 1974. It explores critical questions regarding the political participation of Wolaita women, their reactions to gender-biased land tenure systems, the socio-cultural impact of modern education, and the motivations behind linking local resistance to broader national liberation movements beginning in the 1960s. Research Method This study was conducted in the Wolaita Zone of southern Ethiopia. Wolaita Zone is inhabited by more than 2,030,366 people, including females and males (Abbink, 2010, p. 1092; Central Statistics Authority, 2016; Dana et al., 2020, p. 7). Geographically, Wolaita Zone, the homeland of Wolaita people, is situated between latitudes 06°51′ and 07°35′ North, and longitudes 37°51′ and 38°51′ East (Haile, 2018, p. 4). The term Wolaita denotes the people who speak the Wolaita language; part of an Omotic language group that belongs to an Afro-Asiatic language family (Abesha & Mohapatra, 2019, p.554). In the second version, the term represents a place where the people of Wolaita live. The position of Wolaita on the map of the Horn of Africa had been precisely located by Alessandro Zorzi and others since 1525 (Borelli, 1890, p. 361; Chrowford, 1955, p. 95; Krapf, 1860, p. 47 ). The people of Wolaita were governed by the Aruja, Wolaiyta Malla, Tigre Malla dynasties since ancient times (Amado, 2010, pp. 104-109). Lastly, the kingdom of Wolaita was converted to a vassal kingdom in 1894 during the period of King Tona (Bureau, 1990, pp. 51-53). Like most societies in Africa, traditional Wolaita society was characterized by patriarchy, in which men’s social, economic, and political interests were prioritized (Chiatti, 1984, p. 108). The society celebrated the birth of males due to their importance in defending the community from traditional enemies. It was believed that the growing dominance of warriors (heroes) led men to regard women as inferior beings (Babanto, 1979, pp. 44–46; Chiatti, 1984, p. 108; Crummey, 1999, pp. 240–242; Guidi, 2013, p. 3). However, pre-colonial Wolaita society managed to minimize discrimination against women through parallel gender institutions. These included Ayyatetta (honoring motherhood), Gimuwwa (women’s property ownership rights), and Çimatta (a women’s socialization union), which corresponded to men’s institutions such as Awatetta (honoring fatherhood), Dala (property rights), and Çaçça (friendship unions), respectively (Abbink, 2010, p. 1091; Hidoto, 2009, p. 168). After the incorporation of Wolaita into Ethiopia in 1894, the value of these parallel gender institutions declined due to the lack of structural
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Social Commerce in Rufisque (Senegal): Strategies for Building and Securing Customer Trust
Introduction[1] Electronic commerce, also known as online commerce or e-commerce, is described as a form of remote selling that takes advantage of digital resources (Barba et al., 2011). As such, it represents both an evolution and a revolution in commerce. It is an evolution of commercial interactions as it is in line with the continuity of what was already happening with distance selling, where exhaustive product catalogs were distributed to customers. At the same time, it constitutes a revolution in commerce thanks to the medium on which it is produced: unlike traditional distance selling, it marks a transition from paper to digital. As a result, the material and geographical barriers that previously hindered distance selling are gradually diminishing in e-commerce (Barba et al., 2011). E-commerce is referred to as social commerce when it is practiced through social media of Web 2.0[2]. Indeed, it is a sub-component of e-commerce, a combination of both commercial and social activities. It is characterized by the use of social media platforms to facilitate transactions and e-commerce activities. Additionally, it supports social interactions and user contributions to content (Liang & Turban, 2011). E-commerce provides countries with an opportunity to participate in global markets, open new avenues for diversifying national economies, and create employment opportunities for young people (UNCTAD, 2023). In Africa, it remains a booming sector thanks to the development of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and the increasing accessibility of social media platforms. However, Africa ranks last in the global e-commerce market (Ducass & Kwadjane, 2015), accounting for only 2.2% of the sector (UNCTAD, 2018). This situation is attributed to the high cost of broadband services, the over reliance on cash, lack of consumer trust, limited digital skills among the population, and the minimal involvement of governments in promoting e-commerce (UNCTAD, 2021). In Senegal, the government has integrated the development of e-commerce into the Digital Senegal Strategy 2025 of the Emerging Senegal Plan (PSE) and, more recently, into the New Technological Deal. While some internationally renowned companies have successfully established themselves, e-commerce remains more developed in the informal economy, thanks to classified ads from individuals, aggregator websites, and social media platforms (UNCTAD, 2018). Banking penetration and financial inclusion rates in Senegal remain low, despite the existence of a solid banking sector and a well-developed network of microfinance institutions (MFIs). The strict banking rate, which refers to the percentage of the adult population with an account in a bank, postal services, national savings bank, or the Treasury in Senegal, increased from 19.0% in 2018 to 22.5% in 2022 (BCEAO, 2023). Given this slow progress, tontines (community investment and solidarity systems), solidarity funds, and mobile bankers remain the most commonly used practices. To promote electronic payments in both the public and private sectors, the Senegalese government has collaborated with technical and financial partners such as the United Nations Capital Development Fund’s Mobile Money for the Poor and the Better Than Cash Alliance. This has led to a rapid expansion of electronic payment systems, facilitated by mobile telephony and financial service providers (UNCTAD, 2018). The adoption of mobile wallets in Senegal has been driven by the rising mobile phone penetration rate, with 19.1 million mobile phone subscriptions—representing over 114% of the country’s population. As Fall and Birba (2019) point out, Kenya’s successful experience with its M-PESA[3] have prompted Senegal to start using mobile money under the name Orange Money since 2010. Meanwhile, the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) has taken the initiative to strengthen access to financial services for vulnerable populations through a second-generation medium, commonly referred to as “mobile money”. Today, people prefer to use cell phones for payment and money transfers. In the WAEMU, 73% of micro-entrepreneurs, 57% of small-scale farmers, 52% of young people, and 44% of women use mobile money services in 2022 (BCEAO, 2023). Within the Union, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Senegal rank first, closely followed by Benin, Burkina Faso, and Mali. Between 2020 and 2022, these countries were the main drivers of mobile money growth in the region. The use of mobile money services increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. New users are now using these services for their daily needs. Since 2020, Senegal has recorded a very high mobile money diffusion index (MMPI), with a prevalence exceeding 0.80 (Awanis et al., 2022). E-commerce is increasingly practiced through social media platforms, which offer a sales model that aligns with the needs and purchasing realities of the Senegalese. These platforms seem to give a more interactive, even more human, and social dimension to online commerce by offering customers the opportunity to negotiate prices and engage in direct discussions with sellers. On traditional e-commerce sites, however, prices are generally not up for discussion. Traditional e-commerce has been hindered by buyers’ lack of trust in sellers, as these platforms often operate with seller anonymity, providing limited information about vendors (Diallo et al., 2020). The likelihood of honoring someone else’s trust increases when both parties are significantly more satisfied than before (Orléan, 2000). To maintain their reputation with buyers, suppliers must fulfill their commitments to consumers (Billand, 1998). According to D. Kreps, the informational gap between buyers weakens reputation. The buyer’s trust in a seller means that the buyer is certain or reasonably confident that the seller’s pursuit of self-interest will lead them to honor their commitments. Orléan (2000) refers to this phenomenon as the “game of trust”. Indeed, economic theory analyzes this situation by assuming that both buyers and sellers are perfectly rational, meaning they always act in ways that maximize their utility. If one or both parties have rational doubts about the credibility of the other, the cooperation will not occur. Therefore, the seller must reassure the buyer of their good faith by offering a form of guarantee. This arrangement fosters “the production of trust and the emergence of cooperation” (Billand, 1998, p. 9). This guarantee could be a contract signed and handed over to the buyer. As a result, he will be taken to court in the event of betrayal on his part.
The Maintenance of Patriarchal Order Through Silencing: Literary Territories of Female Subordination in Cameroon
Introduction To perceive writing as a social act that represents and reproduces reality raises the following question, on the scale of a literary event in the northern part of Cameroon: Is it permissible for a young woman to write about her desire to escape the patriarchal prison through clumsily edited[1] fictional statements that are perceived as being too factually inclined? A quarrel, set against the backdrop of a seemingly unimpressive literary work, is the occasion. The authority of these words, whose youthfulness is obvious, lies in the art the author employs in her ability to convey, through writing, a truth that is strictly and radically anchored in a personal trajectory and experience that she makes intelligible. This occurrence is captured by the notion of patriarchal violence, understood here as the violence experienced by girls and women within patriarchal systems (Habeas Corpus Working Group, 2006)[2]. The perpetrators include fathers, brothers, uncles, family friends, husbands, partners, ex-husbands, peers, teachers, coaches, colleagues, neighbors, supervisors, but also strangers. It is physical (MacKinnon, 2007) and the symbolic aspects have been inscribed in the mechanics of masculine domination by Pierre Bourdieu (1997). In its many forms, gendered violence serves an ideological function, as Rona Kaufman demonstrates, to create, maintain, or avenge the loss of patriarchal power, ultimately ensuring female subordination[3]. At the heart of this literary production is the creative resilience[4] of an emerging writer, Marzouka Oummou Hani, who, in her first novel, choose among other subject, to depict certain forms of patriarchal violence. The sociopolitical and administrative reception of her work is caught up in a system designed to uphold patriarchal order and enforce silence. In line with work on the mechanisms and dynamics of invisibilization, marginalization, and silencing of cadets of all kind[5], it becomes clear that the injunction to silence operates within an ecology of patriarchal positions and stances. Three specific attributes amplify the transgressive power of this young female writer’s voice: she is a high school student, a Muslim, and from northern Cameroon. Her novel, deemed transgressive, is seized by a patriarchal system of domination, not by issuing a fatwa, but by bringing the case to court in pursuit of a judicial condemnation of the young author. Beyond the purely linguistic dimension and value of the text, and beyond the youth—or even the relative immaturity of the narrative-the controversy sparked by this literary release is a powerful tracer of the dynamics of self-determination under the control of patriarchal forces, particularly when they are the work of social cadets. At the root of the controversy is the publication of a novel in which the author, a 17-year-old high school graduate, recounts the life of Astawabi, confronted with oppressive patriarchy and the various forms of gender-based violence at work in rural spaces, using as a reference point a village in the commune of Bélel in the Adamaoua region. The reception from the community of Idool, a village explicitly named in the book, is hostile and accompanied by a heavy legal process, in which the young author is ordered to pay 150 million FCFA as compensation. Various negotiations were conducted, and a settlement reached under the active mediation of Asta Djam Saoudi, Director of Performances and Creative Industries at the Ministry of Arts and Culture. Both the lawsuit initiated by the community and the intervention of the Cameroonian government raise questions about state regulation of the power of women’s literary expression. This episode reveals the weight of constraints surrounding the narration of different forms of violence, whether overt or hidden, experienced by women in African societies, especially young women. It also prompts reflection on the cost of breaking away from structures that, in various ways, seek to silence them (Lashgari, 1995). The process of novelization, through which a claim to freedom of expression emerges, sometimes places literary value in tension with socio-historical and anthropological truth. The claim of the fictional nature for the narrative becomes an intrinsic value of the work. This tension between the artistic merit of a work and the truthfulness of writing reflects a situated and meaningful process of composition and structuring. Subject to certain rules, the freedom to write led Guy de Maupassant to express skepticism, asking, “What are these famous rules? Where do they come from? Who established them? By what principle, authority, and reasoning?” (Maupassant, 1887, p. 17). These questions take on a particular significance in spaces where the authority of fictional speech, about beings and things, is determined by practical and symbolic structures that are sometimes overwhelming. As Josette Gaudreault-Bourgeois rightly notes, “The novel creates its own rules, its own laws” (Gaudreault-Bourgeois, 2018, p. 104)[6]. We must recognize that the confrontation between literary power and rules of all kind, formal and informal is constructed in a disciplinary space, as demonstrated by a social history of the literary field and the legitimate figure of the African writer. Claire Ducournau details the material and symbolic mechanisms that enable authors’ publication and recognition, shaped by transnational dynamics but also marked by unequal exchanges between them (Ducournau, 2017). Beyond these external power dynamics within the literary field and the various postcolonial biases that run through them, it seems important to emphasize the importance of the internal factors at play (Dabla, 1986; Wynchank & Salazar, 1995; Lawson-Hellu, 2008; Ndiaye & Samujanga, 2004), particularly the weight of literary commitment as a key criterion for the value of writing (Kouvouama, 2004; Kesteloot, 2012; Leperlier, 2018). Nocky Djedanoum emphasizes that writers’ commitment to fighting barbarism “can lead to death, if not forced exile”. The vast majority of them have dipped and continue to dip their pens in the ink of resistance. It is no coincidence that literature emerges as the major expression of freedom in Africa” (Djedanoum, 2004, p. 12). Two Cameroonian literary figures, from different eras, illustrate this vividly: Mongo Béti and Patrice Nganang. The first’s writer activism journey was marked by frustrations and setbacks, including his first return from 32 years of exile in 1991 (Kemedjio, 2016), while the second, both a scholar and
African Studies: Publisher Data for Understanding the Research Landscape
Introduction Research can only be truly inclusive and global if voices from all locations, genders, ethnicities, backgrounds, and areas of experience are heard and represented across all stages of knowledge production and academic publishing. The academic publishing process plays a key role in supporting the dissemination and impact of high-quality research within the research lifecycle, but it can also be a propagator of inequality. Collyer (2018) surmises the fundamental contribution made by publishing as its capacity to assist with the establishment and maintenance of knowledge networks and disciplines, while also drawing attention to academic publishing as being ‘equally implicated in the isolation or marginalization of specific social groups and the inhibition of alternatives to mainstream knowledge production’ (Collyer, 2018, p. 69). As any journal Editor will no doubt attest, the effective running of a journal is an intricate and multi-layered pursuit, extending far beyond administrative duties into a deep commitment and engagement with the issues facing the research community with which they are intrinsically connected. African Studies is no different in this respect, and questions of diversity, inclusion, equity, and representation continue to be embedded within the fabric of editorial processes and decisions made by the editorial teams of African Studies journals and their publishers. For researchers, especially those early in their careers, comprehension of the journals publishing landscape in their field can often be murky, with scholars viewing the path to publication as being obfuscated by mysterious processes and systems, guarded over by enigmatic Editors, Editorial Board members and peer reviewers. Contemporary academic publishing has even been compared to a vortex (Wasserman & Richards, 2015), with papers sitting within a black hole once submitted. An author, particularly if their paper is rejected, may find it difficult to situate their experience within the wider publishing landscape. Having worked with the African Studies community for 15 years in my role at Routledge, Taylor & Francis (T&F), far from clandestine collectives, I have found the editorial teams of these journals to be vibrant clusters of researchers, sharing an innate commitment to bringing new research to their community, supporting the development of Early Career Researchers (ECRs), and being keen to provide a space for diverse voices to be heard. To address the perceived opacity of journals publishing, in this paper my intention is to lift the curtain somewhat on publishing processes and systems, and to share analysis of data pertaining to the T&F core African Studies journals portfolio. I am not an academic researcher, and these primary data are only available to me because of my position within an academic publishing company, with such in-depth data not usually made available externally. In this article I provide context of current knowledge production, publishing trends, and citation metrics, and analyze data to illustrate patterns and changes in Editors and Editorial Boards, submissions, published research content, acceptance rates, peer reviewers and usage. As such, this paper offers unique insights into the world of publisher data and how it is being, and can be, used. Behind the oft-perceived veil of editorial decision making and peer review, there are myriad systems, processes and technological developments invested in by commercial publishers. Aside from online submission and peer review systems and portals, most of these tools are internal-facing and not visible to authors, but enable publishers to collect, collate and analyze data down to a very granular level. Revenue from subscriptions, Open Access (Article Publishing Charges (APCs) and transformative (“Read and Publish”) agreement allocations) and other income streams are invested back into the work by developers, analysts, and other publishing staff to improve the publishing process for authors, Editors and reviewers. These ongoing innovations allow commercial publishers such as T&F to track and examine essential data on journal publishing trends, working closely with librarians, journal Editors and society partners, and enriching the research ecosystem. The tools and systems available to commercial publishers such as T&F mean that extensive, up-to-date data, both quantitative and qualitative, can be collected from research communities at every stage of the publishing process. In an age of predatory publishing, where it can be difficult to separate fact from fiction online, the significance and value of ensuring that reliable, accurate data is available to inform decision making on all levels cannot be understated[1]. Scholars publish their research for a number of reasons, including to contribute knowledge to their field, to raise their profile, and for professional obligations. In deciding where to publish, academics must consider who they are trying to reach and what type of impact they are looking to make, and decide on the most appropriate route for communicating their research. For an academic in the 2020s, there are a multitude of dissemination channels available, from traditional research articles and special issues, to shorter form journal content, monographs, edited collections, conference proceedings and Open Access (OA) platforms[2]. More informally, and reaching both academic and lay audiences, a researcher may engage with blog posts, social media, webinars, personal and organizational websites, and association newsletters, as well as the “brave new world” (Williams, 2023) of digital newsletter platforms such as Substack. Even within academic publishing a range of content types exist, from pictorial works, exhibition reports, media reviews and even haikus[3], to methods, data notes and registered reports, not to mention video abstracts and video articles[4]. To ensure consistency in the naming of article types, articles published with T&F journals align to a taxonomy of nearly 50 different article types[5]. The phrase “publish or perish” is commonly heard across the African Studies research community, as in other fields of study[6]. Academics based in many African countries contend with higher education systems that for the most part prioritize teaching over research and burden scholars with heavy teaching workloads. Combined often with budget cuts, a scarcity of resources and/or curtailing of academic freedom, academics may have limited time and energy to produce research outputs. Kilonzo and Magak (2013) argue that a significant amount of the substandard work submitted for academic publishing is attributable to the professional pressure to publish,
Democracy and Insecurity in the Sahel: An impossible Cohabitation?
Introduction “Free Kossyam[1]!”, “Roch out!”, “Enough is enough!”. These were the main slogans chanted by demonstrators on November 27, 2021 in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. Later, on January 21, 2022, Yéli Monique Kam, president of an opposition party, urged the army to “take its responsibility” when it came to the security crisis.[2] These people were more or less covertly inviting the army to take power. Yet Burkina Faso’s President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré had just been re-elected in the first round of the November 22, 2020 presidential election (Saidou & Bertrand, 2022). He would later be overthrown on January 24, 2022 by Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba. The latter was in turn overthrown on September 30, 2022 by Captain Ibrahim Traoré[3]. Mali, another Sahelian country in crisis, also witnessed a coup on August 18, 2020 against President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, who had been re-elected in 2018 for a second term. More recently, on July 26, 2023 in Niger, General Abdourahamane Tiani overthrew President Mohamed Bazoum who had been elected for a first term in April 2021.[4] What these coups have in common is that they all took place in a context of insecurity[5] and “entangled crises” (Olivier De Sardan, 2023; Bagayoko, 2021; Englebert & Lyammouri, 2022). These interruptions in the democratic order raise the question of the ability of democracy to manage the security crisis. Can this be interpreted as an impossible cohabitation between democracy and insecurity? In other words, is democracy incapable of regulating insecurity? In political science, the concept of democracy was for a long time approached from a minimalistic perspective (Schumpeter, 1972; Mair, 2011). A maximalist current has developed, highlighting aspects such as equality and participation (Mayer, 2010). More recent works focus on the quality of democracy in terms of procedures, content and outcome (Diamond & Morlino, 2004). The theoretical approach of this article is to apprehend democracy from all its angles, be it its electoral, participatory, consensual, deliberative or liberal dimensions (Pilet & Tomini, 2018, p. 171). The democratic order refers to the existence of political institutions established in accordance with the Constitution and the principles of constitutional convergence laid down by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).[6] The stability of this democratic framework in the face of insecurity is measured by the continuation or not of these institutions: the government, the parliament and the judicial power. A breakdown in the democratic order occurs when elected leaders (President of the Republic, Members of Parliament) are removed from office and replaced by non-elected leaders, whether civilian or military. The concept of insecurity is approached here through the lens of terrorism, which is defined as the use of violence by irregular armed forces to achieve political goals (Collins, 2016; Hampson, 2008). This political violence pertains to the “new wars” (Kaldor, 2006) due to its asymmetrical and transnational nature (B. Lutz & J. Lutz, 2016, p. 313). Terrorism represents a new challenge for regimes emerging from the “third wave of democratization[7]” in Africa (Villalon & Idrissa, 2020; Loada & Weathly, 2014; Bratton & Van de Walle, 2002). Previously, these democratization trends began to ebb towards the end of the 1990s with the emergence of “hybrid regimes” (Coman, 2018; Diamond & Plattner, 2010; Diamond, 2002), paving the way for the “third wave of autocrats” (Alizada et al., 2021; V-Dem Institute, 2023). In the Sahel, this decline in democracy has been accentuated by terrorism over the past decade, and more recently by the Covid-19 crisis[8] (Landman & Di Gennaro Splendore, 2020; Rapeli & Saikkonen, 2020; Maltosa, 2021). The literature that deals with the links between democracy and security has been dominated by the liberal thesis according to which “democracies do not wage war against each other” (Cornelia, 2008). Several works have discussed this thesis, sometimes corroborating it, sometimes nuancing it, or even calling it into question (Doyle, 1986; Paris, 2009, pp. 40-51). According to Rummel (1997), democracies are less prone to internal violent conflicts.[9] For Piccone (2017a), fragile democracies tend to record more crime than consolidated democracies and autocracies. While in consolidated states and democracies such as the USA and Canada, terrorism has led to the restriction of democratic freedoms (Daniels et al., 2001), in Sahelian states, it is the very democratic order that is threatened by this security threat. While terrorism in the Sahel has been analyzed from various perspectives (Bagayoko, 2021; Bukarti, 2023; Idam & Emeh, 2022), its implications for democratization remain insufficiently explored from a comparative perspective. This article aims to help fill this gap by analyzing the cases of Niger, Nigeria, Mali and Burkina Faso over the period of 2010 to 2023. These cases present similarities and contrasts. For the past ten years or so, democracy in Nigeria and Niger had been coping with insecurity, before the latter country entered a military transition in 2023. In Mali, on the other hand, insecurity has already led to three coups since 2012, while Burkina Faso recorded two in just one year alone –the year 2022.[10] This article is based on data from a literature review and a series of scientific meetings. On the first point, the literature analyzed concerns democratization and the links between democracy and insecurity and terrorism in the Sahel. The second is a personal summary of the debates which took place during four scientific meetings at which we presented papers on democracy and insecurity. The first was the colloquium on transitional regimes organized on February 5, 2022 in Ouagadougou by a consortium of civil society organizations.[11] The second meeting was the Interdisciplinary Congress on African Studies (COAFRO) organized from May 26 to 27, 2022 in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.[12] The third meeting was the sub-regional seminar on elections in times of crisis, organized from December 7 to 9, 2022 in Ouagadougou by the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI). The fourth meeting was the regional symposium organized by the Institute for Governance and Development (IGD) in Ouagadougou from December 13 to 15, 2022. Discussions with social and legal scientists, security experts and political and electoral practitioners helped refine the
Rediscovering Mahdi Elmandjra: Reflections on the Global South, Development, Technopolitics and Knowledge Production
Introduction Throughout history, humans have been captivated by the idea of predicting the future. Yet, it was only in the post-war period that this took the form of a mature academic discipline, futures studies, with a global, institutional, systemically embodied status (Kristóf & Nováky, 2023). At the turn of the century, reflections on climate change as a perfect moral storm, baffling signs of technological singularity and knowledge explosion amid increasing complexity, and peak levels of uncertainty and ontological insecurity, all have heightened the imminent need for methods and tools of foresight. A sense of post-modern, liminal vertigo, partly due to the quasi-erosion of demarcation between when the present ends and the future begins, has further increased interest in the discipline. This year, the World Futures Studies Federation (WFSF), the organization created to promote the development of this discipline, celebrates its 50th anniversary. And so, in the last fifty years or so , futures studies have developed in both quantitative and qualitative terms, and have moved beyond “predicting” the (singular) future, to “mapping” and “shaping” alternative (plural) futures (Inayatullah, 2013). But in these same last fifty years or so, futures studies have largely been confined to the Western world –hereafter the Global North. In Africa as in most parts of the Global South, as Olugbenga Adesida (1994) wrote almost two decades ago and which still holds in some way, “the future [was] actually being sold because of immediate preoccupation with crisis management and lack of foresight.” For a continent that stands at a pivotal juncture in its development trajectory, such as Africa, futures studies are of utmost importance to support strategic decision-making. Yet, besides a few scarce exceptions, the discipline still did not take root in the continent’s research and academic institutions –a dozen to date. In fact, up until the early 1990s, Africa did not have any research centers dedicated to futures studies. At the continental level, only a few futures’ thinking exercises took place, such as the 1979 Monrovia Symposium on the Future Development Prospects of Africa Towards the Year 2000, and the 1980 Lagos Plan of Action, mostly driven by visionary individuals in their own capacity or from within the United Nations (UN) and/or Organisation of African Unity (OAU) systems. Among these visionaries was Mahdi Elmandjra (1933–2014), one of the pioneers of future studies from Morocco, Africa and even the Global South. Over half a century, and throughout a long career in international institutions, Elmandjra was an engaged scholar, fulfilling the responsibility of intellectuals in the Chomskyian sense, as he dedicated his lifetime to theorizing change (and emancipation) in the then called Third World. His contributions were always provocative, tackling burning issues such as imperialism and neo-colonialism, globalization, global governance and justice, cultural values and dialogue, development, education and knowledge production, etc. Hence, Elmandjra, as a norm entrepreneur and, assuredly, the pioneer of futures studies in Africa, is a compelling entry point into our examination of how the continent is shaping its destiny in a changing world order. A Short Biography of Mahdi Elmandjra Mahdi Elmandjra started his career in the 1950s in the public service in Morocco, before joining the UN–a system of which he would later become a sharp critic–where he occupied senior roles from 1961 to 1981, especially in the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and UN Development Programme (UNDP)[1]. He was one of the first presidents of the WFSF (1977–1981) then of Futuribles International (1981–1990)—one of the first research centers in the world dedicated to futures studies. He was also the founding president the Moroccan Association of Future Studies and the Moroccan Organization of Human Rights, and sat on the boards of various Moroccan, African and international organizations including the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco, the World Academy of Art and Science, the World Academy of Social Prospective, the African Academy of Sciences and the Pugwash Movement and Council for the Society for International Development. Elmandjra wrote extensively, both long essays and short newspaper/journal articles, and several of his publications have been translated into different languages. His many publications include the following books [Arabic and French titles are hereby translated to English]: The United Nations System (1973); No Limits to Learning (Report of the Club of Rome) (1979); Reclaiming the Future: A Manual on Futures Studies for African Planners (prepared for UNDP) (1986); Islam and the Future, (1990); The First Civilizational War (1991); Retrospective of the Futures (1992); Cultural Diversity: Key to Survival (1995); Cultural Decolonization: The Challenge of the 21st Century (1996); Regionalization of Globalization (1999); Humiliation in the Age of Mega-Imperialism (2003); Dialogue of Communication (2005); The Value of Values (2006). Throughout his career, Elmandjra received several distinctions and awards, including: the Curzon Prize of French literature at Cornell University (1953); the Rockefeller Award for International Relations at the London School of Economics (1955); the Order of Independence of the Kingdom in Jordan (1959); the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France (1970); Grand Medal of the French Academy of Architecture (1984); the Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France (1985); Order of the Rising Sun (III), Japan (1986); the Medal of Peace the Albert Einstein International Academy (1991); and the Award of the World Future Studies Federation (1995). Reclaiming Africa’s Future(s) Elmandjra was one of the first voices that challenged the knowledge base of futures studies as “a monolithic entity driven by ‘Western’ interests” (Slaughter, 1996). His activism was particularly important in supporting the WFSF, under the auspices of UNDP, in the promotion of “African futures constructed by Africans” (Cole, 1994). Most importantly, it was thanks to his Report on the Desirability and Feasibility of Establishing an African Institute for Advanced Public Policy Analysis and Future Studies published in 1980 that African leaders and academic institutions started to open up to the discipline (Rezrazi, 2023). Eleonora Barbieri Masini (1998), a leading figure of futures studies herself gave Elmandjra credits for his exceptional efforts in disseminating foresight methods in Africa. Throughout the 1980s, Elmandjra has been active in fostering African-led future studies initiatives as promoted in
African Social Activism and The Rise of Neo Pan-Africanism: A look at the UPEC Summit
Introduction On Monday, 23 July 2018, the Senegalese capital, Dakar, hosted the first Université Populaire de L’Engagement Citoyen (UPEC), a Pan-African summit of social movements under the auspices of Y’en a marre, Project South, Filimbi, and Lucha among others. This gathering was in line with similar Pan-African events that took place in other African countries, namely, the 60th anniversary of the All-African People’s Conference and the 8th Pan-African Congress organized in Ghana in 2018 and in 2015 respectively. In total, fifty-five social movements from thirty countries were represented in Dakar. As Fadel Barro, a member of the organizing committee, declares: “the UPEC […] brought together Africans divided by colonialization, religions and ethnic barriers. Anglophones, Francophones, Arab-speaking and Portuguese-speaking people interacted using the common language of hope” (Barro, 2018). Activists across the African continent and the Diasporas were able to transcend the current political environment that prevented them from examining and furthering the Pan-African movement (Barro, 2019). The premise of this historical gathering occurred two years earlier in Gorée Island, when Y’en a marre mobilized activists from Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte D’Ivoire, Congo Brazzaville, Chad, DRC, the Gambia, Madagascar, and Senegal to discuss the state of African social activism with a focus on challenges, solutions, and demands. One of the major achievements of the gathering was the formation of a Pan-African platform for social movements called Afrikki, which officially launched at the end of the UPEC summit. Another key initiative was the creation of a structure that protects and shelters African activists threatened by national political forces.[1] As Barro declares, the objective of this transnational network is to “allow social activists to advance the Pan-African cause and discourse and allow social movements to deal with issues that are not only domestic but also affect the continent as a whole” (Barro, 2019). I argue that the organization of UPEC and the formation of Afrikki represent a turning point in the history of modern African social activism[2] and an important milestone in what I term Neo Pan-Africanism[3]. Neo Pan-Africanism, which I present as the most recent phase of Pan-Africanism, is led by young social activists mostly from Francophone Africa rather than politicians, political institutions, or Western-educated elites. These Neo Pan-African activists inscribe their struggle in a renewed Pan-African framework as they seek to decolonize Africa’s relationship with the West, perpetuate democratic transitions across the continent, and rebuild strong diasporic relationships globally.[4] In this regard, I attempt to respond to several questions: what is Neo Pan-Africanism? How is it different from earlier utterances of Pan-Africanism? Who are the main actors of this contemporary manifestation of Pan-Africanism? How do the UPEC and Afrikki mark a turning point in Pan-African social activism? And finally, why do I consider Francophone Africa as the driving force behind Neo Pan-Africanism? In answering these questions, I argue that Y’en marre and similar activist movements are currently spearheading “Neo Pan-Africanism,” a new phase of Pan-Africanism. In this regard, Francophone Africa has become the epicenter of 21st century Pan-Africanism enabling social activists to collectively push for good governance, fight against neo-colonial processes and build new transatlantic cooperation. In doing so, these activists acknowledge the endeavors of the previous generations of Pan-Africanists who continue to be a source of inspiration for their contentious politics (Dimé et al, 2022). In addition to its political engagement, Neo Pan-African activism centers critical global issues such as environmental politics with a focus on black ecologies, foreign exploitation of natural resources, monetary sovereignty (specifically the abolition of the CFA currency), sexual and gender-based violence, and the repatriation of stolen African artifacts. Similarly, international mobility, police brutality and the rejection of colonial legacies are equally important for the Neo Pan-African agenda (UPEC Proceedings, 2018).[5] As the delegates present at UPEC declare: African social movements and the African diasporas argue that borders and languages inherited from colonization should no longer divide Africans. They pledge themselves to campaign bluntly for the abolition of all obstacles to the free movement of Africans on their continent. The social movements of Africa and its diasporas recognize the primordial place of African women in the development of Africa throughout history. At the same time, women are still subject to discrimination and atrocities of all kinds, including sexual and gender-based violence. African social movements condemn all these forms of discrimination and cruelty (Afrikki, 2018). This extract from the Declaration of Dakar echoes renewed interests in the defense of Black sovereignty, mobility and human rights by a young and Afro-optimist generation that engages Pan-Africanism with more inclusivity. The paper first defines and contextualizes Neo Pan-Africanism as a continuation of earlier (20th century) engagements with the Pan-African concept and movement. It then examines the involvement of Y’en a marre and contemporary African activists in the rise of Neo Pan-Africanism with a particular focus on the organization of the UPEC where African and Diasporic activists symbolically ushered in a new era and agenda for 21st century Pan-Africanism. Finally, the paper will interrogate three trends that emerged as a result of the 2018 UPEC summit and their potential impact on the future of Neo Pan-Africanism. This study is grounded on a Pan-Africanist theoretical framework. The fieldwork for this research was conducted in Senegal (between 2017 and 2021) and Atlanta (2022-2023) and Burkina Faso (summer 2023). Interviews were my primary mode of gathering data, but I was also a participant-observer, as an active participant in the 2018 and 2020 UPEC gatherings. My strong relationship with the Y’en a marre movement allowed me to develop a network that facilitated my access to social activists from Senegal, DRC, Burkina Faso, Madagascar, The Gambia, Kenya, Sudan, Chad and The United States. I therefore conducted a dozen interviews. Additionally, I examined recorded presentations given by summit participants to better understand their conceptions of social activism and Pan-Africanism. The interviews confirmed my hypothesis that Africa’s youth are developing “New Pan-African Spirit” encouraged and facilitated by their engagement with digital technology. This study also draws from the interventions, speeches and declarations made during the first and
Dis-Augmentation
The Dis-augmentation series by the artist photographer Elise Fitte-Duval constitutes the iconographic thread that runs through this issue. The body is my starting point for thinking about our relationship with the living. I try to approach social realities through the marks they leave on the body, as a subjective experience that is part of the construction of our world. I try to deal with the idea that the space we occupy, in which we circulate, permanently interacts with our bodies in movement. The body, the point of contact between humans and the world, is halfway between the interiority and exteriority that it encompasses. Thus, it is the fundamental place of an encounter, the one that humans have at every moment with others and the uni- verse. When I cannot photograph other people, I turn to my immediate environment, the city. I am therefore a body in relation that photographs the living. If “the Black body” is the first theatre of operations, then I am in line with the artistic preoccupations of the Caribbean world that forged me: being and place, the body (from the point of view of the reconstruction of its image, but also the body as narrative medium). Why the city and the body? Because, as the philosopher Denetem Touam Bona says: “There is an intimate relationship between the way a society treats its living environments and what it does with its dreams”. Dakar is a fascinating, bubbling, but also frightening city, an expression of where our moder- nity is leading us. The urban boom in Dakar is the very. Born in Martinique, Élise Fitte-Duval has been living and working in Senegal for the past twenty years. She graduated from the École d’arts plastiques de la Martinique in 1989 and from the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs de Paris with a specialisation in photography in 1996. She pursues a photographic research of narrative forms in which she explores the human, the social and the urban. She was awarded the Casa Africa prize for a woman photographer at the Rencontres photographiques de Bamako 2011. Until 2018, Élise Fitte-Duval was the photography editor at PANAPRESS, a pan-African press agency, based in Dakar. Links: https://www.geantesinvisibles.com https://www.fondation-clement.org/decouvrir-les-expositions/exposition-collective-visions-archipeliques https://aica-sc.net/2016/10/21/elise-fitte-duval-la-photographie-comme-document https://aica-sc.net/2016/10/21/elise-fitte-duval-la-photographie-comme-document http://dakar-bamako-photo.eu/fr/fitte-duval-biographie.html https://www.sandramaunac.com/fr/projets/dakar-corps-a-corps https://www.africanphotographynetwork.org/elise-fitte-duval https://www.facebook.com/ker.thiossane/posts/2085279318161039 https://www.manege-reims.eu/les-artistes/faustin-linyekula-studios-kabako https://www.au-senegal.com/IMG/article_PDF/Corps-et-ames-a-la-Galerie-Atiss,2739.pdf https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7fUzq3RRbg&t=819s
Africa in the Colonial Horizon of Western Modernity (1652–2000)
Should a writer just sit in a room churning out novels to be sold in the United States, or become a wandering minstrel? None of these cities are sacred to us, they cannot be—New York, Paris, London, Lisbon—they are other peoples’ cities, so when we as African writers look at them they are all primarily colonial centers, and now they are also places for us to meet. Ama Ata Aidoo (1993). Se conoce para vivir y no por el mero hecho de conocer (Knowing is for living and not for the mere fact of knowing). Gunther Rodolfo Kusch (2008: 89). I would like to take this opportunity to honor the legacy of Valentin Y. Mudimbe’s The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge (1988). There are a few reasons I am taking this route. One reason is the many conversations we have had since I joined Duke University in 1993 and what I have learned from his argument that Africa was and is an invention of the Western imaginary. The second is that I would like to position his thesis in productive dialogue with Edmundo O’Gorman’s La invención de América: El universalismo de la cultura de Occidente (1958). For Mudimbe, Michel Foucault was a guiding source of his argument. For O’Gorman it was Martin Heidegger. Both are linked by the geo-political legacies of coloniality, confronting philosophy with gnosis (wisdom is more than knowledge) in the first case, and reducing Western universalism to its true size in the second. Both struggled with the totalitarian totality of knowledge and the colonial legacies of Western modernity and civilization. Both reveal that responding to the Eurocentrism of philosophy in the first case and to Western historical universalism in the second does not mean returning to a pristine past, but rather moving forward in the present to and through decolonial reconstitutions of the destituted. These are the only chances we have now. It means being grounded in the spiritual soils of local material histories, a soil that could also be the mobile and nomadic experiences of migrants and refugees. Though Mudimbe’s work is rooted in the African experience and O’Gorman’s in those of the Americas (not to be confused with the US), neither insight is closed within borders or bound in time: for them as well as us, the past is gone and the future doesn’t exist”[1]. In Africa and the Americas, the processes of reconstitution follow different paths to confront a common intruder that arrived at different times in different places. First Nations and diasporic Africans were (next to diasporic Europeans) constitutive demographics of America from 1500 to 1800. Consequently, different trajectories engaging gnoseological (knowing) and aesthesic (sensing) reconstitution have emerged on account of the specificities of each local history invaded, intruded or interfered with through Western expansion and its machinery of destitution. The reconstitution of the destituted is underway today on the planet built on local histories, languages, memories and praxis of living, which includes the growing involvement of migrants and diasporic communities, particularly in former Western Europe and the US. The planetary diversity of these processes have one element in common: they respond to intervention and interferences of coloniality hidden under the banner of modernity. I see this journal, and the initiatives behind it, as one case in point. The era of the abstract universal is still there but crumbling; the era of pluriversality and multipolarity is rising. Introduction The image of Africa in the colonial horizon of modernity came to me, although not yet conceptualized as such, during the years investigating and writing The Darker Side of the Renaissance: Literacy, Territoriality and Colonization (1995). It came to me effortlessly in two ways. First, it was connected to the last two chapters of the book devoted to exposing the inventing of the global distribution of land mass and water by naming the four continents (Africa, Asia, America and Europe). I stress invention to detach myself from the long-held belief that the map represents the territory and the idea that when planet earth first appeared in the West in the concept of the solar system and in the scene of the universe, it was already made with the four said continents and the major oceans (named Indian, Mediterranean, Atlantic and Pacific in Western cartography). The well-known world maps of Gerardus Mercator and Abraham Ortelius (orbis terrarium) stamped the image of these four continents and water masses into our collective imagination, consolidating the idea that the planet is what the maps say it is. The map makers, printers, distributors and users did not say, “This is what we think the planet looks like,” but presumed what they believed it to be it was just that. In an article I published in 1993, “Misunderstanding and Colonization,” I wrote the following: The very idea that land and people unknown to a European observer constituted a “new” world only because the observer in question did not know about it brings to the foreground the larger issue of the arrogance and ethnocentrism of an observer for whom what is unknown doesn’t exist. Mudimbe’s Invention struck a chord. I sensed that Mudimbe faced some concerns, which he did address by producing the African archive and covering the memories of French and British colonization. I felt in Mudimbe’s argument as though I had a traveling companion: we did not know each other then, yet we walked in the same direction, following the paths of our own local histories, confronting global designs. Echoes of his book were also heard in the contemporaneously published Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Decolonising the Mind (1986), and even more so the argument of Mexican-Irish historian and philosopher Edmundo O’Gorman published three decades before. O’Gorman’s 1958 landmark book La invención de América: El universalismo de la cultura occidental was then and remains today a pillar of my own conception of the world order since 1500. In retrospect, pluriversality was emerging. As I already mentioned, Mudimbe reached the conclusion that Africa was not discovered but