African Historiography Research Articles

‘Africa is dying and no one gives a damn’: combating colonial historiography with revisionism, temporality in Tade Ipadeola’s The Sahara Testaments

ABSTRACT The colonial historiography of Africa renders the continent historyless, oriental, and primitive. This cultural misrepresentation of Africa has dominated Western imagination and influenced the relationship of the West with Africa for a number of decades, while traces of this prejudice still subsist till now. Like other Africanist writings that repudiate jaundiced colonial African historiography, Tade Ipadeola’s The Sahara Testaments (2012) offers a literary theorisation for interrogating the historiography through revisionism and temporality. Ipadeola assumes the role of a historical revisionist, making efforts to rectify Western ahistorical perception of Africa through empirical historical events, sites, and panjandrums. He uses the power of poetry to reinvigorate Africa’s past, projecting it as a tool to rebuild the future of the continent. As a revisionist, he refuses to accept the traditionalist colonial perspective of African historiography that is pro-West, but calls for a revisit and celebration of Africa’s past as a defining moment in the history of a continent relegated to the margins of global economy and development. Drawing on Ipadeola’s position, this article contends that Africa’s history should reflect triadic temporal linearity, rather than limiting its historical development to then and now, because doing so is self-defeating.

Introduction: ‘Pluralizing North African historiography: Susan Gilson Miller and the history of Morocco’

ABSTRACT In this introduction, we chart the intellectual journey of Susan Gilson Miller and discuss her scholarly contributions to the field of North African Studies, Moroccan historiography and Moroccan Jewish history. We note Miller’s long commitment to foregrounding Maghribi voices, including female and minority accounts. Miller’s work on the Jewish communities of Morocco in particular has skillfully shown the complex position of these communities across time and space. Using Arabic sources, as well as French and Spanish pre-colonial and colonial archives, Miller also deployed the analysis of urban space to document and write communal histories. These local threads of Miller’s work interweave with larger historical concerns to create a unique global approach to her historical subjects.

General Labour History of Africa: Workers, Employers and Governments, 20th–21st Century

General Labour History of Africa: Workers, Employers and Governments, 20th–21st Century

Erasing the Nation

The story of conqueror South African historiography relies on the ebbs and flows of narrative clichés and tropes. The main narrative arcs relate to historiographies that frame the understanding and analysis of conqueror South Africa. These historiographies interpret history as forming part of an epistemological paradigm of conqueror South Africa: a historiography that does not question the ethical right to conquest. This article focuses on the interpretations of African Nationalism by proponents of the liberal and Marxist historiographic traditions and critiques the way in which these historiographies depict and characterise African Nationalism. This historical characterisation bears an influence in current political and social discourse in conqueror South Africa: African Nationalism is relegated to a misguided moment in history, something to be reflected upon from a distance, an irrelevant phase in the long walk to a multiracial and cosmopolitan South Africa.

The Silent Tangom�o : Fictions of Intermediation Along the Rivers of Guinea

In the first decades of the sixteenth century, the Portuguese Crown issued a succession of increasingly hostile regulations targeting a class of outlaw traders operating at the fringes of the Empire in West Africa: the tangomãos. A Creole adaptation of the Arabic tarjumān, or translator, the tangomãos were interpreters in the broadest sense, insofar as they served an intermediary role socially, commercially, and linguistically, and were a dominant presence in the critical commercial zone along coastal Upper Guinea. This essay first traces an itinerary of appearances of this enigmatic figure over several generations, offering an integrated profile of the tangomão as interpreter and commercial intermediary and situating them with regards to central themes of precolonial West African historiography such as hospitality, brokerage, and creolization. In so doing, this article will also give an account of the pivotal role they played in the assembly of the trading machine that made Upper Guinea the formative site of the Iberian-led first great wave of the Atlantic slave trade. The central argument is that the tangomãos was deployed ambivalently in Portuguese documentation as a figure of both suspicion and utility—and that this ambivalence was productive for emergent ideological formations of large-scale slave-trading.

Correlates and Consequences of the 1918 Influenza in South Africa

AbstractWe study the demographic and economic correlates of the 1918 influenza or “Spanish flu” that killed an estimated 6% of South Africa's population. While the pandemic has received some attention in South African historiography and from social scientists in other contexts, little is known about its long‐term impact on the country. Bringing together data from a range of new sources, including population and agricultural censuses, household surveys, and the voters’ rolls, we provide analyses that show, first, the factors that (do and do not) predict flu mortality across South Africa's magisterial districts, and, second, suggest some important consequences of the flu. Our results reveal a large but short‐lived demographic shock, and detectable, if small scale, long‐term economic consequences.

The Historical Role of African Churches in the Healing Systems in Mbeya Region from the 1980s to the Present

Abstract This paper presents a historical analysis of health care services through African churches in Mbeya Region, Tanzania from the 1980s to the present. In particular, it examines the influence of African churches in healing diseases spiritually. It analyses the changes in health care services in Mbeya Region, and the dominance of African churches in health services. It also shows how health care services are provided, and the successes and challenges related to health care services in African churches. Methodologically, the paper is based on a careful analysis of oral interviews, archival documents and secondary data. It argues that African churches emerged in Mbeya in the 1920s in response to the historical churches that operated in the region from the 1890s. The paper notes that diseases have been a significant factor throughout African history. Controlling disease was an important aspect of change in different historical periods. Unfortunately, historians have rarely paid attention to the involvement of African churches in health care services. This paper covers the strategies used by African churches in health care services, such as preaching on healing methods from the Bible. Through healing services, leaders of African churches are able to transform their own lives, but not all individuals are healed. This paper makes a contribution to the historiography of Africa by identifying the role of African churches in healing systems.

Notes on Contributors

Notes on Contributors

The Collection, Authentication, and Use of Oral Evidence in African History

Several works on this subject have substantially established that oral evidence is a reliable source in African historiography. But it is not sufficient for such works being Africanist responses to Eurocentric postulations that pre-literate African societies, lacking Western-written sources, had no history. Though such works have improved our knowledge of the relevance of oral tradition in the reconstruction of African history, African oral tradition has been criticized by Western scholars. To this end, the article departures from most works on African oral historiography whose attentions are on the relevance of oral evidence in African history. Rather, it provides a manual on the process of engaging in the collection, authentication, and use of such oral data as to ensure that it is a credible source for writing African history. It is argued in the article that pre-literate African history will be more credible after critically scrutinizing data derived from oral evidence.

Groundwork for the Practice of the Good Life: Politics and Ethics at the Intersection of North Atlantic and African Philosophy

Groundwork for the Practice of the Good Life: Politics and Ethics at the Intersection of North Atlantic and African Philosophy

The Repatriation of the Black Consciousness-Oriented Movements Archives to Fort Hare

ABSTRACT This paper unravels the problems and challenges faced by the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) during the repatriation of its archival material to Fort Hare. One argument that this paper makes is that the politics of archival repatriation and preservation are linked intrinsically to broader questions of South African politics and historiography. There is however an underlying point of more general significance. An acute awareness about the making of any archival collection is essential, particularly in the context of the highly contested and controversial field of South African liberation politics. In this context, the author argues that most heritage sites and monuments erected in the post-apartheid South Africa are a reflection and celebration of ANC history and heritage. Considering this, it is possible for individuals to conclude that the repatriation of the BCM consignment to Fort Hare is of no significance and that no lessons can be drawn from this experience. Yet, the BCM experience is equally important in further understanding the nuances and challenges of the repatriation of archival material.

Adding the Dots and crossing the Ts: A historiographical overview of African theatre history

The historiography of Africa has often needed an update or review because it is no news how African history was constructed; a product of colonial and anthropological records. Due to this, attention was not paid to occurrences, especially the arts which were of no interest to either the colonial administration or the Anthropology researcher. It took combined efforts of the then Organization of African Unity (O.A.U.) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to deconstruct the misconceptions created through an eight-volume of a General History of Africa between 1964 and 1999. These attempts by African historians to correct the damage exclusion and distortion of facts about Africa and Africans is laudable, however, a gap still remains. The historiography of African theatre which has its foundation in Africa’s oral traditions is minimal. A continent of such diverse artistic performances needs a huge representation of both indigenous and external theatrical traditions in Theatre History. Using the desk review approach, ideological criticism and content analysis, this paper argues that the lack of expertise in decoding indigenous language and expressions and fear of misrepresentation are the sources of the minimal presence of African Theatre Historiography.

‘No Longer Required for Operations’: Troops’ Repatriation to West Africa after the Second World War, 1945–1950

ABSTRACT This paper deploys the historical method to critically examine the delayed post-war repatriation of West African troops from the Middle East and Southeast Asia. This previously neglected theme in the historiography of Africa and the Second World War is studied in detail. Delayed and slow troops’ repatriation had bred anxiety in the metropolitan capital, indiscipline, including mutiny and passive mutiny, in the Far East as well as lowered the prestige and rating of the imperial power in the estimation of the colonised. The study questions the official attribution of the delay solely to shipping difficulties. It demonstrates that the lack of shipping space was not the obstacle to the speedy repatriation of troops. Rather there was no decision to repatriate the troops up to the time of the sudden Japanese surrender on 15 August 1945. It thus views the phenomenon as a deliberate strategy to facilitate the deployment of the soldiers for post-war garrison duties and as an army of occupation in furtherance of British strategic imperial designs in Malaya and Java. Thus, slowing down the return of West African servicemen to a long anticipated, volatile post-war militant nationalist scene was part of a broader strategic, imperial objective. It was committed to driving Britain’s renewed yearning to rebuild, or at least defend what was left of its crumbling Empire.

An Overview of African Food Historiography, 2013 to Present

An Overview of African Food Historiography, 2013 to Present

So-Called Indigenous Slavery: West African Historiography and the Limits of Interpretation

So-Called Indigenous Slavery: West African Historiography and the Limits of Interpretation

Nigerian Forces Comforts Fund, 1940–1947: “The Responsibility of the Nigerian Government to Provide Funds for the Welfare of Its Soldiers”

AbstractThis study seeks to make an original contribution to the historiography of Africa and the Second World War. It examines the efforts of the Nigerian government and the British Army towards the welfare and comforts of Nigerian soldiers during their overseas services from 1940 to 1947. Their deployments in East Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia had brought the issue of their morale maintenance, namely comforts and welfare, to the fore. Extant Nigerian studies of the Second World War have been concerned with Nigerian contributions to Allied victory in terms of diverse economic exertions and those guided by charity towards Europeans affected by the German blitzkrieg, particularly in Britain. Consequently, this paper explains the genesis, objectives, and policy directions of the Nigerian Forces Comforts Fund and its impact on Nigerian servicemen's comforts and welfare. The study posits the argument that constant disagreements and indeed struggles for supremacy between the military and the civil power adversely affected troops’ comforts and welfare. Delayed postwar repatriation of the idle and bored troops to West Africa, in breach of openly proclaimed wartime promises, bred anxiety and made them prone to mutiny. The end of demobilisation in 1947 left many disgruntled ex-servicemen applying for reenlistment.

History and Truth in Sub-Saharan African Children's and Youth Literature

African historiography seeks to rewrite the past using its own paradigms, thereby deconstructing the vision imposed by the Other. This implies a search for the truth, a notion on which there is little consensus. African youth literature is also a stakeholder in the African struggle to decolonise history. This article examines the issues involved in the representation of history and memory in that literature.

The roles of indigenous missionaries and Christians in the expansion of Christianity in Nigeria, 1860–1969

The contextual perspective that this article challenges is the neglect of significant contributions of indigenous African missionaries and Christians by some early missionary historiographers whose writings largely focused on European missionaries. This created a lacuna in the proper documentation of African missionary enterprises. The research will not only serve as a platform to discover the socio-religious importance of past African Christian heroes of Nigerian origin but also provide additional information on existing African historiography not from the perspective of Europeans but Africans, using both theological and scientific approaches with the aim of presenting more accurate records in church history. This will serve as a biography of African Christianity.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article has intra- and interdisciplinary implications for African philosophy, African traditional religion and ethics because most theories and views of Africans in these fields are yet to be largely researched to bring into the limelight their relevance to African realities.

Militarism, states and resistance in Africa: exploring colonial patterns in stabilisation missions

ABSTRACTThe article explores how stabilisation missions reproduce the patterns that constituted colonial states. Following African historiography, the article argues that stabilisation’s militarised approach to neutralising resistance, its racialisation of targets and its aim to constitute and reform state authority evoke how colonial states were forged by the inseparable relationship between authority, force, race, production and resistance. However, it will be shown that those patterns cannot be fully understood without an account of the broader structure of coloniality and imperialism. In so doing, the article aims to contribute to bring together different literatures on contemporary peace-building interventions and contemporary militarism by examining the relation between militarism, coloniality and imperialism. It focuses on the Democratic Republic of Congo to show how an intensified use of force against resistance, added to frames that see Congolese politics as deviant, has guided the goal of restoration of state authority, and with it, different economic reforms, all of which have reinforced the military and economic power of national and international elites, without reporting significant benefits to the population at large.

Journey to the Self

The aesthetics of African art led me to an understanding of African historiography and the diverse cultural wisdom traditions found in African mythology, rites and rituals .