Plants and soils have been moved around the world for centuries, but invasive mushrooms receive scant attention. The Amanita muscaria species complex was introduced to South Africa in the context of forestry, but its origins, ecology and recent evolution are unstudied. We sequenced the genomes of 24 Northern and Southern Hemisphere A. muscaria, built phylogenies and reconstructed its South African history. We identified the biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) encoding specialized metabolites (SMs). We subsequently extracted mushrooms' metabolites and used mass spectrometry data to group SMs into unique molecular families (MFs). We tested metabolites for bioactivity against diverse microbes and animals. We identify Europe as the origin of South African A. muscaria. A highly conserved group of BGCs is found in nearly all European and African genomes, and only 13 of 273 MFs are unique to South Africa. Metabolites extracted from all mushrooms kill nematodes, while microbes and flies appear unaffected. The nearly global distribution of the fly agaric results from multiple introductions of a single European clade to the Southern Hemisphere. Despite its long history in South Africa, the fungus has not lost any of its BGCs, suggesting a conservation of function(s) across multiple continents.

ABSTRACT This article is essentially a bio-bibliographic reflection on the interactions I have had jointly with the Association of Borderlands Studies(ABS) and its Journal of Borderlands Studies(JBS) over the past four decades of sustained publication of the journal. It is submitted in response to the call for papers by the co-editors for a special forty-year anniversary issue of the journal. The highpoint is not just on the significant impact of the ABS and the JBS on my widely acclaimed academic career as pioneer in Comparative African History and Borderlands Studies. Of similar import has been the uniquely important feedback of the career history itself on the phenomenal institutional growth and development of the JBS and parent ABS, each and both,from modest beginnings as local initiatives of the US-Mexico borderlands research community: the ABS in 1976 and the JBS ten years later, in 1986.

From the beginning of time women have had very specific roles in the society. The African society is one that is patriarchal and requires women to be subordinated and emancipated and is dominated by patriarchal ideologies. This paper investigates the omission/undervaluation of women's political agency in precolonial historiography. Princess Mkabayi took the throne to become a regent when her brother Senzangakhona ka Jama the rightful heir was still young, this was a first ever in the Zulu Kingdom for a woman to become a regent. This paper argues that Princess Mkabayi's regency and political strategies constitute a form of indigenous proto feminism that actively contested patriarchal structures. The article utilises textual and historical analysis to interpret Princess Mkabayi’s political authority through a feminist lens. It argues that her leadership challenges the dominant patriarchal assumptions about women in precolonial Africa. The paper contributes to African feminist historiography by putting Princess Mkabayi as the central decision maker of the 19th century Zulu monarchy. The article aims to examine how Princess Mkabayi succeeded (Methods and Techniques applied) with strong ambitions into bringing stability into the Royal house and ensuring the continuation of the Zulu line and monarchy and at the same time empowering women.

ABSTRACT Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse's memoir of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Le Convoi [The Convoy], echoes Auschwitz survivor Charlotte Delbo's Convoy to Auschwitz. Umubyeyi Mairesse came to France on a Swiss humanitarian children's evacuation convoy on 18 June 1994. Through her search for a photograph that would bear witness to her survival, she sets out to reverse the neocolonialist narrative of African history in which victims are turned into props of their own history. Engaging with Georges Didi-Huberman and Rithy Panh, the Holocaust is eventually substituted for the missing image, serving as a necessary mediation without which the author's testimony proves impossible.

This article analyzes some of the historical causes for contemporary disputes in Germany over the commensurability of colonial violence and the Holocaust, which have once again intensified after Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. It argues that opposition to the use of colonial analogies by former German colonies such as Namibia to describe the situation in Israel-Palestine as well as resistance to the inclusion of German colonialism into official public memory reflect a long-standing, comfortable provincialism among politicians, historians, and the wider public in understanding Germany’s colonial past. Similar to their approach to the murder of European Jews during the Cold War, Germans have tended to filter the history of colonialism through narrow concerns with shifts in German sovereignty since the First World War. The resulting myopia has prevented acknowledgment of the country’s history of colonial violence on its own terms without tethering it to debates about either the Shoah or Germany’s relationship with Israel. To overcome this provincialism, the article advocates including the history of colonialism in the country’s public memory and drawing on insights from African history to shift how we speak about and research the colonial past.

This article asks how and when the history of South African sport has been written, by whom, and how the scholarship was shaped by its political, social and intellectual contexts. A striking and rapid expansion of academic work on the history of South African sport is a relatively recent phenomenon as scholarly engagement occurred much later than might have been expected in a society where sport has been such a significant social and cultural pursuit. Three chronological phases in the historiography are identified. Firstly, from the early 1960s to the early 1990s, when almost all historical work on South African sport was by scholars from outside the country. Reasons for the limited engagement by South African historians with a rapidly emerging sub-discipline are considered. Secondly, there was roughly a decade, from the early 1990s to the early 2000s, when the political context of a negotiated settlement and the advent of democracy directly and indirectly influenced a significant spurt in the production of sport history and the entry of a new cohort of scholars. An explicit and far-reaching recourse by sport historians to social history also emerged. Thirdly, from about 2004 to the present, there was a ‘coming of age’ of the genre in South Africa, the impetus and volume of work winning academic respectability and a confidence in the collective project. At the heart of that project has been the reclamation and reconstruction of the history of black sport, redressing decades of neglect and marginalisation. In each phase, as the historiography has been mapped, a distinctive feature is how inextricably the contours and terrain of sport have been interwoven with politics. And in turn, the politicised nature of South African sport shaped themes and directions of the historiography.

This paper presents a literary analysis of how African literature reflects the continent’s socio-cultural and historical legacies through the interwoven themes of youth, memory, and resilience. By examining D.T. Niane’s Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali and Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Weep Not, Child, the study compares the coming-of-age journeys of Sundiata and Njoroge, two protagonists shaped by distinct socio-political contexts, to reveal how Africa’s historical legacy continues to shape its literary expression. Grounded in reader-response, postcolonial, and narratology theories, the study adopts a literary analysis as a scientific method rooted in observation, hypothesis, and synthesis. The discussion explores how Sundiata’s destiny is guided by oral tradition and prophecy, while Njoroge’s fate is marked by the trauma of colonialism. Through comparative analysis, the study reveals that both characters embody resilience as they confront inherited cultural memory and undergo personal transformation in the face of adversity. Ultimately, by placing these protagonists side by side, the study underscores the enduring power of literature to illuminate the struggles of African youth while demonstrating how African narrative forms reflect both identity and empowerment through the protagonists’ pursuit of self-realization within the broader tapestry of African history. Based on these findings, future studies should broaden their scope to include female voices, diverse perspectives, and interdisciplinary frameworks, thereby enriching understanding of the evolving nature of African youth literature and transnational connections.

Abstract In this article I discuss the issue of place in the creation of decolonised historiography and argue that the location from where a historian produces historiography matters in terms of both conceptual and ideological influences as well as in regards to material circumstances. Making use of a case-study on the UNESCO General History of Africa Project (1964-1998), I bring postcolonial critique on the conceptual nature of academic history writing into conversation with a study of the scholarly practice of the UNESCO project to show that conceptual critique has its limits if it does not take material circumstances into consideration. Political decolonisation in Africa was connected to history writing, thereby blending conceptual and material considerations. Secondly, I look at some of the discussions that were ongoing within the UNESCO project to show that the historians working on it discussed these issues amongst themselves and were aware of critique levelled against them. In doing so I argue that decolonisation of knowledge production as a result of becoming politically independent is a multivarious and ongoing process which has to take into account all these different elements.

Childhood and Youth in African History by Sarah E. Duff (review)

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), operational since January 2021, represents the most ambitious trade integration initiative in African history, uniting 54 countries into a single continental market for goods and services. For Least Developed Countries (LDCs) such as Zambia, manufacturing development is central to achieving structural transformation, sustainable employment creation, and export diversification beyond primary commodities. This paper presents a systematic review of contemporary literature published since 2021 to critically assess how AfCFTA is expected to influence four key dimensions of manufacturing development: output growth, competitiveness enhancement, firm-level performance, and institutional capacity for implementation. Employing a structured literature review methodology with explicit inclusion criteria and a conceptual framework linking trade integration mechanisms to manufacturing outcomes, the review synthesises evidence from computable general equilibrium models, structural gravity analyses, policy diagnostics, and early trade data assessments. Findings indicate that while AfCFTA presents substantial opportunities for industrial expansion through market access and regional value chain integration, realising these benefits is highly conditional upon domestic productive capacity, effective trade cost reduction, and robust policy implementation. The literature reveals significant heterogeneity in projected outcomes, with manufacturing gains disproportionately favouring countries that already possess diversified industrial bases. Critically, existing studies rely heavily on simulation models and regional diagnostics, with limited country-specific empirical evidence for Zambia. By systematically synthesising recent scholarship, this paper identifies four critical knowledge gaps and establishes a robust conceptual foundation for future empirical research investigating AfCFTA's manufacturing effects within the Zambian context, proposing specific methodological approaches and data sources for such investigation.

ABSTRACT This study examines Aroko, Yoruba non-verbal communication utilising symbolic items, as a dynamic type of archival memory and cultural transmission. Aroko uses cowries, kolanuts, charcoal, and feathers to send diplomatic, ceremonial, economic, and emotional messages. This study repositions Aroko as a genuine, object-based archive in Yoruba culture using oral testimonies, ethnographic narratives, and memory studies frameworks including Jan Assmann’s cultural memory and Pierre Nora’s lieux de mémoire. Aroko let people communicate across distance and social barriers and preserved collective memory, social duties, and historical awareness outside of written record. Inter-polity diplomacy, family disagreements, and ceremonial performances show how generations have remembered, reenacted, and reinterpreted Aroko teachings. The research also emphasises the gendered aspects of Aroko literacy, emphasising women’s crucial responsibilities in symbolic knowledge interpretation and preservation. The study emphasises the need for community-led documentation, cultural education, and museum integration to revitalise Aroko in light of modernisation, literacy, and digital communication. It suggests comparing African symbolic systems like Nsibidi and Adinkra to non-literate, performative, and material archives in African history. The research concludes that Aroko is a living, resilient archive relevant to current issues on memory, legacy, and knowledge decolonisation. Methodologically, the study adopts a qualitative ethnographic approach involving oral interviews with Yoruba elders and chiefs, supported by participant observation and semiotic analysis of Aroko artefacts.

Africa’s inglorious past has often been misinterpreted as evidence of an inevitable underdeveloped present and future. Slavery and colonialism imposed devastating socio-political and economic burdens on the continent. Speculations about pre-colonial Africa as mired in Hobbesian-like conditions were a pretext used to rationalize colonialism. Agitations for independence popularized democracy. Democracy’s true essence lies in recognizing the people as both the sacrosanct means and ultimate end of governance. Of deep concern are the misrepresentations of democracy in many nations of the West, Central, East, North, and South Africa. Fanaticism about ethnicity, religion, and self remains an underlying factor. This paper reveals that the challenge is not one of theory but practice. Contrary to condescending outlooks from non-Africans and Africans, it argues that Africa is neither fated to be underdeveloped nor are African countries destined to be the least among equals. It encompasses a cross-regional analysis of democratic attitudes and practices in order to achieve a more holistic perspective. This analytical and evaluative approach has been crucial. This research finds that Africa possesses intellectual, socio-political, and economic capacity for transformation. Visionary and proactive leadership are reliable midwives for a shift away from inordinate dependence on developed nations toward intentional partnerships that serve each African nation’s interests most effectively. Hence, the study posits that Africa can and should move from surviving to thriving.

This literature review study seeks research on black women in Brazilian literature and its possibilities for antiracist educational practices. To this end, several points guide our investigation: recognizing that both the early national literary authors and the most renowned authors of the 20th century depict black women as inferior in their writings, treating their bodies as objects, and how these years of and subordination have left marks that have served as reasons for the struggle of a people seeking their rights and echoing their voices in history, Literature, and Education; how Literature can be a tool for reflection and social transformation, especially in a context marked by deep-rooted racial and gender inequalities. Thus, the Education Guidelines and Framework Law (LDB) approved in 2003 Law 10639/03, making it mandatory to include the teaching of Afro-Brazilian and African History and Culture in the curriculum. In the context of existing literary studies in Brazil, we notice the scarcity of black female authors in the teaching-learning process. This study aims to conduct a State of the Question on the relationship between black literature, which has played an important role in shaping a critical reader on racial issues, and antiracist education, as a possible contribution to pedagogical practices and a more equitable society. As a methodology, we rely on a qualitative bibliographic investigation with an exploratory-descriptive approach for the literature review and the development of the State of the Question. Evaristo, through her writing style, portrays the struggle for gender equality for black women. Regarding the final considerations, the studies found highlight the main contributions, methods, and impacts of this inclusion, as well as identifying gaps and suggesting paths for future research. Keywords: Black woman. Literature. Conceição Evaristo. Antiracist education.

African diaspora still serves as a key factor in socio-economic and cultural growth of the African homeland societies. In the past, the slave trade across the Atlantic Ocean resulted in great socio-cultural displacement of Africans both in their homelands and foreign countries, yet the voluntary migration of 20th and 21st centuries brought relevant connections back. This paper considers cultural festivals as ones form of attaining recognition by the Africans in the diaspora towards home community development and under particular attention, the Ekimogun Cultural Festival in Ondo Kingdom in South-West Nigeria. Using historical, sociological, and cultural discussions based on a variety of open access in diversified sources, the paper places the African diaspora in the context of African history with the focus on its possible role as a catalytic agent of development. The paper concludes that policymakers, local authorities, and diasporas should use cultural festivals as a developmental tool and acknowledges the dimension of heritage promotion and a catalyst of real changes with immediate effect to homeland societies. These festivals serve as a good example of how cultural identity and community development are supportive of each other as they offer both symbolic and material gains.

This article aims to show why African histories and African philosophies matter, both in our personal lives and in therapeutic practice, through the telling of my own experience. In this article I recount my ongoing personal journey to reclaim and reconnect with my African heritage, by revisiting my father’s African history through the lens of the African philosophies of Ubuntu and Sankofa. Prompted by discovering my father’s writings from the 1960s, when he was a university student, I learn more about his story and the African philosophies of Ubuntu and Sankofa. The Southern African philosophy of Ubuntu centres our interrelatedness and common humanity: a person is a person through other persons. The West African philosophy of Sankofa tells us not to be afraid to go back and retrieve that of value which has been lost or forgotten, and to bring it with us on the future journey. On my own Sankofa journey I go back to revisit my writing from the 1980s, when I was a university student, discovering the connections with my father’s writing from the 1960s. I reassess my earlier understandings through the lens of Ubuntu and come to recognise how the spirit of Ubuntu permeates my father’s writing and was absent from my own. I reflect on how my personal Sankofa journey has enriched my life. I consider how African philosophies can be integrated into therapeutic practice and invite the therapy profession to embrace African histories and philosophies. I consider the need for more African histories and invite Africans to write authentic histories, to honour the past and guide the future.

This study critically examines the structure, mechanisms, and enduring relevance of character education embedded in the indigenous knowledge systems of the Greater Horn of Africa. Pre-colonial African societies upheld sophisticated educational frameworks that emphasized holistic moral formation and communal character development, values that continue to influence rural communities today. Drawing on an integrative literature review, the paper identifies preparationism, functionalism, and communalism as core philosophical foundations shaping these systems. Moral and civic values were cultivated through informal, lifelong learning, guided by the collaborative roles of the home and community in fostering respect, responsibility, and social cohesion. Central pedagogical instruments included initiation rites, which provided structured moral instruction, and oral literature, which transmitted ethical reasoning and cultural wisdom. The findings underscore the continued relevance of indigenous character education in addressing contemporary societal challenges and advocate for Decolonizing the Mind as a pathway to revitalizing these traditions. The study concludes that reformed rites of passage, when purged of harmful elements, preserve cultural identity and strengthen communal ethics, offering a sustainable model for moral and civic education in modern Horn of African contexts.

Abstract This study examines the organic practice of Africanfuturism and Africanjujuism in Nnedi Okorafor’s Zahrah the Windseeker and The Shadow Speaker , demonstrating how these texts reflect the five principles of Africanfuturism: a direct connection to the African context, the creation of empowering images of the African future based on technology, the repurposing of the geographical and temporal settings of science fiction, pan-Africanism, and the incorporation of mysticism and magic. Africanfuturism, as theorised by Okorafor, diverges from Afrofuturism by grounding itself in African histories, mythology, geographies, and spirituality. The paper situates Okorafor’s work within broader scholarly debates on Afrofuturism’s applicability to African speculative fiction, particularly critiquing its Western-centric origins and the need for an alternative nomenclature. It also demonstrates that the organic principle defines the five principles of Africanfuturism specified by Okorafor, whose plots, settings, characterisation, conflicts, motifs, symbolism, and themes are largely sourced from real African experiences, cultures and history. It argues that Africanfuturist practice precedes its theorisation, because the selected texts were written before the conceptualisation of Africanfuturism. If Africanfuturism and Afrofuturism are two extremes of a spectrum, then Okorafor’s works lean closer to Africanfuturism than to Afrofuturism. In light of the evidence in this study, Africanjujuism is typically incorporated into Africanfuturist writings. Furthermore, Africanfuturism (and Africanjujuism) agree with the organic principle which involves “growing fantasy out of the real.” This indicates that the impetus behind Africanfuturism and AfricanJujuism is the organic principle.

Why is South Africa seemingly still mired in the income and spatial segregation patterns of the apartheid era? Standard explanations focus on the ANC, either as too neoliberal or too statist. Kevin Cox looks instead at the making of classes—and expropriation of African farmers—in conditions of globalization’s labour shock.

Introduction: Much of pre-colonial Africa's history is unknown due to a lack of writing systems south of the Sahara. Surviving oral accounts are incomplete. Researchers rely on Arabic chronicles, European travelers' records, and present-day African traditions to reconstruct the past. Charles Gabriel Seligman defined a "divine king" as a ruler who: 1) has power over nature; 2) serves as the universe's dynamic center, with strictly regulated actions influencing all beings; and 3) must be killed if his power wanes, to protect the world. This description also applies to the rulers of ancient Egypt. Aim: This study is dedicated to the topic of divine kings and the similarities and differences between the concept of divine kingship on the African continent. Materials and Methods: The paper uses reports published by anthropologists. The reports recorded certain African customs. These customs are then compared with sources from ancient Egypt. The analytical method was used. Results: The results of the analysis demonstrate that ancient Egyptian traditions are not entirely disconnected from their African background, and this relationship should not be overlooked in interpreting ancient Egyptian customs. Conclusions: The Egyptian pharaoh embodied the African “divine king” tradition, with the Sed festival replacing ritual regicide, as seen in other African cultures. Although revered, pharaohs were still considered mortal, as evidenced by historical assassination attempts. This dual view echoes the “Mandate of Heaven” idea: if chaos prevails, the ruler is not truly divine. Customs like sibling marriage set divine kings apart, reinforcing their unique status. Overall, Egyptian kingship shares strong ties with broader African traditions.

The conception of digital sovereignty has been associated, especially in the early stages of the diffusion of the Internet, with efforts to keep specific data and information outside of a state’s jurisdiction. AI sovereignty responds to an almost opposite logic, indicating the ability of a state to access and make use of data that are produced within its jurisdiction. These two strategies –which I refer to as lock-out and lock-in sovereignty –share some common roots (e.g. the attempt to protect and enhance specific cultural attributes recognised as important by a national community), but they also point to different technical, economic, and political characteristics needed to enforce one or the other type of sovereignty. The article examines key elements that set these concepts, and their implementation, apart and how they intersect with both existing and potential articulations of national sovereignty in Africa. In particular it opposes a negative –and still pervasive –definition of sovereigntyapplied to African states, based on the Westphalian ideal and “measuring the gap between what Africa is and what we are told it ought to be” (Mbembe 2019, p.26); and the possibilities disclosed by re-appropriating practices of “networked sovereignty” (Mbembe, 2016). The definition of sovereignty that has prevailed after independence has followed what Achille Mbembe provocatively referred to as the “fetishization” of the concept of nation-state. African governments “borrowed concepts from the Western lexicon such as “national interest”, “risks”, “threats” or “national security” [which] refer to a philosophy of movement and a philosophy of space entirely predicated on the existence of an enemy in a world of hostility” disregarding Africa’s “long held traditions of flexible, networked sovereignty” (Mbembe, 2017). But, following Mbembe, it is by reconnecting with the epistemic traditions that characterized pre-colonial Africa (Mbembe, 2020) that it becomes possible to experiment with new forms of resistance and value making that seem more attuned to some of the realities brought by digital technologies, and Artificial Intelligence more specifically. As he explained, “precolonial Africa might not have been a borderless world. But where they existed borders were always porous and permeable. [...] Networks, flows and crossroads were more important than borders. What mattered the most was the extent to which flows intersected with other flows” (Mbembe, 2017).