African Historiography Research Articles

African Historiographies: What History for which Africa?

Journal Article African Historiographies: What History for which Africa? Get access African Historiographies: What History for which Africa? edited by Bogumil Jewsiewicki and David Newbury. Sage Publications, London, 1986. 320pp.£33 hardback. ISBM 08039 24984. RAY JENKINS RAY JENKINS North Staffordshire Polytechnic Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume 86, Issue 342, January 1987, Pages 123–124, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a097857 Published: 01 January 1987

African Historiographies: What History for Which Africa?

African Historiographies: What History for Which Africa?

African Historiographies: What History for Which Africa?

African Historiographies: What History for Which Africa?

Local Imperatives and Imperial Policy: The Sources of Lord Carnarvon's South African Confederation Policy

In the 1870s Lord Carnarvon, the British secretary of state for the colonies, attempted to unite the colonies and republics of South Africa into a selfgoverning (that is, settler-governed) dominion under the British flag, which he hoped would extend northwards to the Zambezi. So grandiose a scheme was clearly something more than the attempts at imperial retrenchment that earlier proposals for union had been. But there is little agreement among historians on the reasons for it. Until the publication of Goodfellow's work in 1966,1 the standard work on the subject was C. W. de Kiewiet's The Imperial Factor in South Africa.2 De Kiewiet, the least dogmatic of historians, gave no single or definite answer to the question of why Carnarvon wanted to confederate South Africa. Perhaps he gave the greatest stress, as Carnarvon himself did, to the necessity for a uniform native policy, the desire for which on Carnarvon's part De Kiewiet tended to see in humanitarian terms. De Kiewiet, like his mentor, W. M. Macmillan, belonged to what might be called the Liberal-Imperial school of South African historiography, which saw the imperial connection as a counterweight to settler rapacity and lamented that it had not been more effective. The view that the motive, or even a motive, behind Carnarvon's confederation scheme was a desire to protect the black population of South Africa from the whites, is not one that can survive a reading of Goodfellow. He makes it clear that the impulses behind it were not at all liberal. The South Africa Act of 1877, as originally drawn up by Carnarvon and his advisers, was more restrictive than that drawn up by white South Africans in 1910, since it excluded non-whites from representation in the federal Assembly. One of the objections of the Cape ministry to Carnarvon's scheme was to its retrograde and illiberal nature.3 Goodfellow's own conclusion, following Robinson and Gallagher,4 is that Carnarvon's interest in South Africa arose essentially from its strategic position on the route to India, and that confederation was intended to ensure continued

Farmers, Randlords and the South African state: Confrontation in the Witwatersrand Beef Markets, c. 1920–1923

The pervasive importance of gold mining in modern South Africa has become embedded in South African historiography. Despite this, little research has been done to ascertain its impact on the other major sector of the economy, agriculture.The gold mines had a profound effect upon one particular branch of agriculture – beef farming. The mines purchased large amounts of beef and were able to use their buying power to confront beef farmers in the marketplace. In the recession following the First World War, the mines were caught in a profitability crisis that was to lead to the Rand Revolt in 1922. One of the ways in which mining attempted to ease its position was by cutting back on the cost of the meat it supplied to its African labour force. This initially involved co-operation with a powerful cold-storage company, big ranchers and a number of smaller farmers to form a Meat Producers Exchange. This fragile alliance fell apart when farmers, themselves on the verge of bankruptcy, attempted to take control of the Exchange and raise beef prices. The farmers failed and in 1923 the exchange collapsed.The victory of the mining and cold-storage companies rested on a number of factors. Farmers were unable to organize effectively because of the defection of ranchers to the mines. Changing economic conditions in 1922 and 1923 permitted the mines to terminate their co-operation with beef farmers. Finally the mines were able to call upon the state for support. The state ensured the demise of the Exchange and the defeat of the beef farmers. In the process it showed itself capable of intervening decisively to protect the interests of certain sections of capital.

Writing "Independent" History: African Historiography, 1960-1980

Writing "Independent" History: African Historiography, 1960-1980

West African Historiography and the Underdevelopment of Biography

West African Historiography and the Underdevelopment of Biography

Written ethnographie sources and some problems connected with their use in African historiography∗

(1986). Written ethnographie sources and some problems connected with their use in African historiography. Scandinavian Journal of History: Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 55-69.

Writing "Independent" History: African Historiography, 1960-1980

Writing "Independent" History: African Historiography, 1960-1980

Writing "Independent" History: African Historiography, 1960-1980

Writing "Independent" History: African Historiography, 1960-1980

Feeding the common people of Johannesburg, 1930–1962

The experience and everyday struggles of the common people constitute a vibrant theme in the new wave of African historiography which is influencing South African studies. The present analysis represents a contribution to a popular historical geography and focuses upon the world of the coffee-cart traders of Johannesburg, a community of street traders engaged in supplying food and drinks to Black workers in the city. Coffee-cart traders occupied a niche in the urban economy which opened as a result of the shortcomings of existing suppliers, the Native eating houses, and of the meagre provision of feeding facilities for Black employees at the workplace. Themes of concern are the growth and organization of the trade, the characteristics of the trader community and their struggles to maintain and extend this ‘informal sector’ business as a means of livelihood in the city.

Une histoire maritime africaine est-elle possible ? Historiographie et histoire de la navigation et de la pêche africaines à la côte occidentale depuis le XVe siècle.

J.-P. Chauveau — Is a Maritime History of Africa Possible? Historiography and History of African Navigation and Fishing on the West Coast since the i$th Century. Historical works dealing with African societies' relationship to the sea indicate that they ignored the marine milieu or even found it repulsive. The recurring environ-mental and historical arguments supporting this 'fact' are examined and criticized from the view-point of their inner validity. It is quite exceptional to find it examined in itself. Even so, such an examination is biased by the representative interference of external factors—mainly the 'great inland history' and the European expansion. The 'maritime fact' is held for null or negligible simply because it cannot be conceived within the frame of African historiography and its attendant notions. In opposition to this interpretation, we are proposing an outline reconstruction of West African maritime history from the Mauretanian to the Nigerian coast. The existence of marine foci before the coming of the Portuguese and their conti-nuity up to the 2oth century are presented in their relation with the main environ-mental and historical factors. The conclusion sets forth the hypothesis that, far from being unilaterally determined by the 'European factor', West African maritime history has been a precondition of Afro-European contacts and an important element in the development and shaping of European settlement. That is not without consequences touching the historical interpretation of the relations between 'economies-worlds'. (A note by G. Chauvet on The Repartition of Pathogenic Risks bound to Vector Endémies in Relation to Phytoclimatic Milieus is appended to this paper.)

Social History and the Revolution in African and Asian Historiography

Social History and the Revolution in African and Asian Historiography

Descent groups, chiefdoms and South African historiography

A number of impressive historical studies by a group of young South African scholars has recently appeared, seeking to apply new insights in tracing the effects of the imposition of colonial rule over the indigenous peoples of the sub-continent. 1 Some of these authors, notably Slater, Hedges, Guy, Bonner, Hamilton and Wright, seek, as a starting point of their analyses, to establish the nature of the 'mutation' to chieftainship that must have occurred from a previous period in which there were no chiefs. These works focus mainly on the Nguni, especially the incorporative states of Zulu and Swazi; others, like those of Peires on the Xhosa and Delius on the Pedi, tend to assume chieftainship as given and take their analyses from there. The difficulty of reconstructing a process that occurred before written records were available has driven these writers to the work of anthropologists and there is no doubt that their studies have gained a useful cutting edge thereby. This is particularly so in their realisation of the pervasive importance of kinship in these pre-colonial societies especially the way in which marriage can be used to create and maintain alliances that may have a more political referent. But anthropological concepts are tricky things to handle; a full appreciation of the social reality 'on the ground' would seem to be a sine qua non for real insights into the dynamics of social life (something historians lack through no fault of their own) and some of the attempts to apply ethnographic models to their data have been flawed, however anthropologically sophisticated they may appear. This paper addresses itself to the crucial problem of the development of chieftainship among South African Bantu-speaking peoples from a hypothesised earlier stage and to the subsequent role of 'kinship' in the centralized polities. It does not purport to provide a definitive answer to these problems but

Sleeping sickness in the history of northeast Congo (Zaire).

The examination of responses to epidemic disease can reveal important social history. At times of epidemics, the true nature of social relations is often clearly revealed when different sectors of a society are brought into conflict (Morris 1976; Musambachime 198 1; Briggs 196 1; Richards 1983). The subject of disease in the historiography of Africa had been generally ignored until 1978. Whether one agrees with some scholars that disease, especially when epidemic, is a causative agent in history or accepts the view that epidemics act as mirrors or magnifying glasses to reveal elusive social history, I think it is impossible to deny the vital role of disease in history (Dols 1977; Gallagher 1983; Hartwig and Patterson 1978; McNeill 1977). 1 am studying the social history of northeastern Congo (Zaire) and the southern Sudan between 1892 and 1940 and the various ways in which Africans and Europeans reacted to sleeping sickness epidemics.

Modes of Production and Modes of Analysis: The South African Case

(1985). Modes of Production and Modes of Analysis: The South African Case. Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des etudes africaines: Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 30-37.

South African Historiography and the Cape Archives

In the last decade and a half, the historiography - though not the society - of South Africa has been transformed. In 1970, there was not the same vitality that then characterised much of the historical work north of the Zambesi. In 1984, Southern African historical studies are by far the most lively anywhere in the continent. Indeed, even if with their typical parochialism those who survey modern trends in historiography have not noticed it, many facets of the so-called “new” social history are peculiarly well represented in the South African literature. The spectacularly fast urbanisation of South Africa since the mineral revolution at the end of the last century and the concomittant intensification of capitalist agriculture have naturally provided subjects enough, and they have been worked out with an exemplary attention to detail and texture. Perhaps the driving force behind this work has been a concentration on the ways in which Africans, both in town and in the countryside, were able to make and remake their worlds, in conflict with and in the interstices provided by the racist white society and government.

Precolonial Economic Change among the Tlhaping, c. 1795-1817

South African historiography has been transformed over the past decade by the revisionist or radical school of history. The change reflects a more modern emphasis on the world economy and the processes of dependency and underdevelopment. Influential in that advance have been the writings of Colin Bundy, the Palmer and Parsons volume, Roots of Rural Poverty, and the essays and lively exchanges published in the Review of African Political Economy. 1 As Shula Marks and Anthony Atmore have pointed out, however, the primary concern of these scholars is not unlike the question posed by Afrikaner historians over a decade ago: how has it come about that so small a number of whites has been able to impose itself on a far greater number of African peoples to achieve its present position of dominance, exploitation and power?2 Critics of the revisionist school maintain that to properly understand the restructuring of social formations, one must move beyond the limited focus on capitalist penetration and examine the precolonial antecedents. As Martin Chanock has observed:

Contours of Slavery and Social Change in Africa

THE PAST GENERATION OF AFRICANIST SCHOLARSHIP, with its profound revision in interpretation of African social change, has raised questions about previous notions that change in precolonial Africa stemmed primarily from influence of Europeans and other outsiders. According to old view-the vision of Africa-societies in tropical Africa changed at no more than a glacial pace, except under relentlessly growing pressure of European intrusion. That this vision of eternal Africa survived until relatively recent times, if only among scholars whose work centered on other regions, is illustrated by H. R. Trevor-Roper's famous characterization of African history as study of the unrewarding gyrations of barbarous tribes in picturesque but irrelevant corners of globe. A remarkable corpus of recent research has demonstrated, in contrast, dynamic and innovative characteristics of precolonial African societies, particularly in political, economic, and religious arenas. ' As a result of this new literature, Atlantic slave trade-that major avenue of contact between Africans and Europeans from mid-fifteenth through late nineteenth centuries-must now be viewed in a substantially different context. The present study focuses on impact of Atlantic slave trade on precolonial African societies. In more general terms, it reconsiders slave trade in terms of relative importance of domestic and external sources of African social change. In addition to summarizing research on slavery and slave trade, I hope to show, on one hand, how canons of African historiography have conditioned interpretations of role of trade in slaves and to indicate, on

Methodology in South African historiography: A defence of idealism and empiricism1

This article seeks to clarify some issues raised by Marxists in their critique of the “liberal” historians of South Africa. It argues that the liberal school was marked, first, by certain political commitments, and, secondly, by an allegiance to the method of “empirico‐idealism”. This method is based on three principles: methodological idealism, methodological individualism, and empiricism. (1) “Methodological idealism” is distinct from causal idealism, the belief that consciousness determines the organization of society for productive purposes. It is rather the assertion that historical explanation cpnsists of rethinking the thoughts of past historical figures. This view is compatible with causal materialism as well as with causal idealism. (2) “Methodological individualism” asserts that the historical process is the product of the thoughts and actions of individuals, and that historians must recreate these thoughts and actions with individuals (whether known or anonymous) in mind. (3) “Empiricism” does ...