Colonial Africa Research Articles

'Microcosm of the Pacific': Colonial encounters at the Central Medical School in Fiji.

While larger British colonies in Africa and Asia generally had their own medical services, the British took a different approach in the South Pacific by working with other colonial administrations. Together, colonial administrations of the South Pacific operated a centralised medical service based on the existing system of Native Medical Practitioners in Fiji. The cornerstone of this system was the Central Medical School, established in 1928. Various actors converged on the school despite its apparent isolation from global centres of power. It was run by the colonial government of Fiji, staffed by British-trained tutors, attended by students from twelve colonies, funded and supervised by the Rockefeller Foundation, and jointly managed by the colonial administrations of Britain, Australia, New Zealand, France and the United States. At the time of its establishment, it was seen as an experiment in international cooperation, to the point that the High Commissioner for the Western Pacific called it a 'microcosm of the Pacific'. Why did the British establish an intercolonial medical school in Oceania, so far from the imperial metropole? How did the medical curriculum at the Central Medical School standardise to meet the imperial norm? And in what ways did colonial encounters occur at the Central Medical School? This article provides answers to these questions by comparing archival documents acquired from five countries. In doing so, this article will pay special attention to the ways in which this medical training institution enabled enduring intercolonial encounters in the Pacific Islands.

Regulatory capture in the British Empire: The British South Africa Company and the redefinition of property rights in Southern Africa

We study the redefinition of property rights under colonial rule with a focus on state and business relations. We study the case of the British South Africa Company (BSAC) and how it was able to legitimise its claims to land and minerals in two non-settler colonies in Africa: Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. The study shows that the BSAC was able to wield considerable influence over these political processes. The British government thereby came to favour the interests of the BSAC over those of other actors, including settlers and African subjects in the colonies, despite having the knowledge that many of the company’s claims had no legal basis. The findings show how the dynamic relationship between state and firms can evolve into one that sees the public interests subjugated.

El Nacionalismo en la Lucha por la Independencia de las Colonias en África (Angola)

The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of Nationalism on the struggle for Independence in the colonies in Africa, with particular emphasis on the case of Angola. The objective of this work is to assess the changes that took place on the Continent from 1888 to 1910, marked by the conquest and occupation of almost the entire African Continent by Western imperialist powers; followed by the effective implementation and installation of the colonial system as an administrative system in the second half of the century. XIX, division and definition of geographic spaces. In fact, the year 1910 was essentially characterized by the consolidation and exploitation of that system, causing major distortions in the economic, social and cultural structures of the dominated territories. The appeal written at the Manchester Congress (1945) to the colonized peoples, expressly advised that all colonies should be freed from foreign imperialist control, both political and economic, and fight by all means to achieve these objectives. The use of qualitative research based on bibliography related to these themes, the inductive-deductive method allowed the (construction) of ideas of a passive Africa, embodied in the emergence of movements that aimed at the overthrow of the colonial system. In effect, with the end of World War II, the process of decolonization began, resulting in a more reinvigorated, radical and consequential African nationalism. This means a more conscious, enlightened and enlightening continental nationalism, better structured and politically framed and represented internationally and with qualitatively higher levels of political and cultural organization, with the year 1960 being marked as the year of Africa, with the outbreak of the various independence of respective African countries and consequent recovery and affirmation of socio-historical, political and cultural identity, hidden by colonization.

Labouring and Smiling: Re-Imagining Digital Colonialism in Africa, Silicon Valley Big Techs, and the Politics of Prosumer Capitalism in Nigeria

Does Africa suffer from the paucity of epistemic inquiry on digital capitalism, mostly, spearheaded by social media platforms within the confines of the global digital economy? The growing corpus of literature points to digital colonialism and prosumer capitalism as critical components in understanding the global digital economy. Yet, postcolonial Africa lags in the negotiation of power within the political economy dynamics of digital capitalism. Thus, in an age of big data, platformisation and extraction of human life, is there a reincarnation and excavation of colonialism of old in the form of digital prosumer capitalism in the continent? Using Nigeria as a geo-economic prism, the paper reimagines digital colonialism from a critical perspective. It seeks to discharge the underlying appropriation of economic power through digital colonialism; and show how prosumer capitalism grounds its practices in Nigeria, thereby, recentring the debate on digital economic inequalities given the global digital capitalism paradigm.

A Postcolonial Legal Critique of Online Expression in Africa

Abstract Far beyond the contributions of African and western thought on the right to freedom of expression, there are now normative developments under international human rights law on how states can protect online expression. However, these developments are not applied in African countries. A reason for this is the extant provisions in various laws that threaten online expression. This article applies postcolonial legal theory to understand why and how these provisions threaten online expression in African countries. It identifies relevant thoughts on the right to freedom of expression, normative developments on the right and a new form of digital colonialism in Africa. It concludes that for African states and other actors to combat this new form of digital colonialism head-on, they must carry out targeted legal reform that repeals and amends these provisions.

Rebuilding life after slavery. Manumission, emancipation, and family networks in European empires, 1750–1900

Wherever and whenever systems of slavery existed, enslaved people struggled to attain freedom. Spanning various imperial contexts from 1750 to 1920, this special issue convenes a team of scholars to investigate the aftermath of emancipation. What did freedom from slavery entail in deeply unequal colonial societies? This issue explores diverse experiences, from maroon communities in the Caribbean wilderness to the forced resettlement of freed slaves in European colonies in Africa, and the legal emancipation of slaves in segregated colonial port cities in Asia. Enslaved people encountered ‘freedom’ with its attendant threats and opportunities in myriad ways. Building on the rich historiographical tradition of slavery studies, this special issue aims to broaden the scope of historical research from the slave trade and the lives of enslaved individuals to their post-emancipation existence. However, even recent literature often treats freedom after abolition and manumission as distinct phenomena, representing different legal paths to freedom—one associated with the early modern period and the other with the nineteenth century. This special issue re-evaluates this presupposition by foregrounding the post-emancipation life events of formerly enslaved individuals. It questions whether and how these different transitions from slave status to freedom can and should be structurally compared in slavery studies. By tapping into previously unexplored sources, re-examining older datasets with fresh perspectives, and employing record linkage to uncover forgotten slave histories, the authors seek to assess the living conditions of formerly enslaved people and their direct descendants after emancipation. In doing so, we aim to explore how past experiences of enslavement influenced future life choices and opportunities, thereby questioning the so-called afterlives of slavery.

Archives, prisons and person-centred historical praxis: doing social history research on incarceration in colonial Africa

Bringing together methods and perspectives from critical archive studies, African history, social history and critical prison studies, this article considers the opportunities, challenges and ethical considerations that arise when doing social history research on colonial African prisons using official archives. We argue that while such records can provide valuable information, engagement with these documents needs to be grounded in recognition of their ‘person-ness’. This involves acknowledging the power dynamics and coercion that shaped the creation and content of official archives, prioritising the experiences of incarcerated people, and using the records in a way that recognises the limits of consent in terms of their origins and use. By turning to a person-centred historical praxis, researchers can not only play a key role in furthering our knowledge of colonial carceral systems but can also help to challenge these systems and their afterlives.

Neocolonialism and Imperial Dominance of the Post-Colonial African States

The study examines the impact of imperial dominance on the socio-economic development of the Post-colonial African States. There is a core search to the argument that globalizing the world with developing countries, has grossly embedded a horizontal gap among the nation states. The consequences of these interactions and impacts, have incredibly premised such dominant structures on the continent as they are examined to be colonial legacies. These apparently, control a state of international dependency and a culture of corruption within the new states. Imperialism and neocolonialism, created a structurally weak nations in Africa and beyond. Having incessantly exploited the indigenous populations. The political aspects of the menace, have deeply asphyxiating as these weak political structures which were created by the western imperialist nations, received political and socio-economic functions at Independence, which they are not developed enough to handle. Subsequently, after Europe was through by under-developing the continent of Africa, it simply left. No measures were taken to help Africans migrated to self-governance or to be better organized. This of course, was argued that Africa was not prepared for a modern economy that would benefit from industrialization and it consequently plunged the Post-colonial African States into a primarily subsistence farming economy. Hence, the state of economy and socio-cultural values of African States as at the time were not properly structured to govern as this resulted the continent into poverty and civil war. At the end of the Second World War, Europe’s two major and remaining colonial powers (French and British) found that they could no longer rule their African colonies as before. For reasons mostly economic but also geopolitical and nationalistic, they were not willing to give them up entirely. Thus, sought mechanisms to maintain control of Africa as the second wave of colonial rule. Therefore, came in form of ‘’neocolonialism and imperialism” as these imply the external control and dominance of economic, political, technological, educational and military strength of the continent with respect to a globalizing paradigm. Keywords: Globalization, Imperialism. Neocolonialism, Post-colonial African States, International Dependency

‘Imperial Germany's Push to the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean: A Strategic Imperative of Weltpolitik’

With the extension of the Berlin-Baghdad Railway and Germany's search first for naval coaling and later for radio station locations, the strategic usefulness of footholds in the Persian Gulf region came to the fore. Reliable communication with the African colonies and warships of the East Asian Cruiser Squadron in the expanse of the Indian Ocean was essential. With the allied Ottoman Empire regional expansion aimed to create a wedge to split the British Empire. Disruptive activities in Persia and Afghanistan aimed to pressure India and distract Britain. This places German strategy in the region in a significant world-political context leading up to the First World War.

The Politics of Health in the Lusophone Libertarian Movement: Portugal and Mozambique, 1910–1935

AbstractSignificant advances in the study of the historic labor movement have entailed new work on the intersection between political parties, trade unions and subjects such as ‘race’, colonialism, sexuality, masculinity, and the reception of scientific ideas. The intersections between the labor movement and the politics of health, however, have been neglected to date both in labor studies and in social studies of health care and provision. This article builds on my on-going research into the dynamics of the Lusophone (Portuguese-speaking) labor movement in the form of anarchism and syndicalism and explores, specifically, the reception of ideas on health and the attainment of healthy working conditions and lifestyles as a central aim of these working-class movements. This study examines, among other aspects, the reception of ideas on nutrition, medical care, the provision of hospitals, the responsibility of medical professionals, sexual health, the consumption of alcohol and the provision of quality housing for workers within a framework that critiqued capitalism and the state and the relations they fostered.A further dimension is incorporated into this study. This is the colonial dynamic at play between Portugal and its colonies, in this case Mozambique. What were the relations between the Portuguese syndicalist movement and the emerging trade union movement in Mozambique? To what degree did concerns in Portugal over issues of health find resonance in this African colony's labor movement? To what degree was the largely white labor movement in Mozambique attuned to local knowledge on health and racial issues surrounding health? What specific aspects of health and medicine were broached in the colony and how did these interact with an anticolonial critique and discourses and practices of ‘tropical medicine’?This study, through a detailed analysis of a range of libertarian periodicals in Portugal and Mozambique during the movement’s period of maximum influence provides responses to these questions and makes a contribution to transnational research on labour movements through the interconnecting linguistic and class dynamics of the Lusophone world.

Social Play In African Savannah Elephants May Inform Selection Against Aggression

Abstract In social groups, competition for individual advantage is balanced with cooperation, for the collective benefit. Selection against aggression has favoured cooperation and non-aggressive competitive strategies. Because social play is a behavioural system that fluctuates between cooperation and competition, selection against aggression might have especially influenced this behaviour. African savannah elephants (Loxodonta africana) are a low aggressive species, therefore suitable to investigate this aspect. We collected all occurrences observational audio-video data on social play, aggression/threats, and affiliation on an African elephant colony housed in a 25-ha open space at Parque de la Naturaleza de Cabarceno (Cantabria, Spain) and composed of four family groups (3 immature males, 3 immature females, and 7 adult females) and two adult males. Anticipating the influence of reduced aggression, we found that social play decreased with age, persisting in adults, and that it was highest in males. Social play was associated with affiliation (informing cooperation). Indeed, individuals that were central in the social play network were also central in the affiliation network. For immature subjects, we found a correlation between social play and affiliation sociomatrices. However, such correlation was absent in adults and social play mostly occurred between families. Despite the limitations related to dealing with a small captive group, this study largely supports the idea that the features of social play in African savannah elephants may be related to low aggression. This investigation hints toward a non purely cooperative use of play, possibly as a non-aggressive interaction that accommodates different levels of cooperation and competition.

Self-defence Against Metaphysical Witch Attacks: A Legal Conundrum in Anglophone Africa

Superstition-driven homicide is a frequent occurrence in many African societies. People charged with homicidal acts supposedly perpetrated under the influence of belief in witchcraft and juju sometimes raise the plea of self-defence or self-defence in conjunction with mistaken belief. Hence, since the latter part of British colonial rule in Africa, particularly the 1930s, the courts in Anglophone Africa have on several occasions been invited to address the question of whether killing suspected witches to repel supposed metaphysical attacks avails to accused persons the plea of self-defence or self-defence based on mistaken belief and, if so, under what conditions. Drawing on case law, statutes, and a range of pertinent academic literature, the present study explores the historical development of the self-defence based on mistaken belief plea in witchcraft-related homicide cases in English-speaking Africa. It examines the African courts’ attitude towards the self-defence against metaphysical witch attacks defence, highlighting the divergent perspectives of various national and regional courts.

Unsung Heroes of Mission Bible Translation in Colonial West Africa: Ludwig Adzaklo of the Bremen Mission in German Togoland

The Africanisation of Christianity in Africa is closely linked to the availability of the Bible in African mother tongues. However, mission-led Bible translation in Africa in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was not solely the work of European missionary linguists. Africans, such as Ludwig Adzaklo of the Bremen Mission, played essential roles in this process. Nevertheless, African translators like him were considered as mere Sprachgehilfe (language assistants) to the missionaries and not as co-translators. After a postcolonial analysis of archival data on the translation of the Old Testament into Ewe by Ludwig Adzaklo and Jakob Spieth, this study argues that Adzaklo was not just Spieth’s Sprachgehilfe but a co-translator on the project. Being referred to as Spieth’s Sprachgehilfe was a colonial-missionary label that denied Adzaklo’s agency in mission-led Bible translation in Africa. Therefore, the study suggests that Adzaklo should be viewed as an early Ewe mother-tongue Bible translator in the history of West African Christianity.

Hunting, Planting and Malaria: How Cameroonian Ecosystems Changed the Basel Missionaries’ Worldviews

How did the land change the missionary? Almost all early missionaries, sent by the Basel Mission to the African colony Kamerun of the German Empire, died of malaria ( Klimafieber). On the fourth day after arrival in 1886 the first missionary died. In any case, Cameroonian ecosystems reshaped the self-conception and worldviews of missionaries. They used hunter's language, romanticised and conquered the land and its imagined virgin forests; Basel missionaries became strangers to themselves – involved in plantation policy, violent against, but at the same time absolutely dependent on, the local population. Most anthropological or historical studies on the Basel Mission and other Protestant missions in Cameroon focus on politics, economics, education and how the missionaries did change the land. However, how African agency influenced missionaries’ perspectives and activities is rarely acknowledged or discussed, which has so far limited historiographical works to a humanocentric understanding of mission. The article explores how the worldviews of the missionaries (especially Friedrich Autenrieth, Paul Steiner and Heinrich Norden) were challenged by the natural environment. In particular, it investigates how concepts of God, mission, culture/nature and human were renegotiated and reshaped while working and travelling the land. This analysis of printed travelogues, novels and articles therefore combines the question of the missionaries’ reactions to climate, disease, fauna, flora and the montane environment with an examination of how these were presented to specific target groups. To concentrate on the agency of African ecosystems consequently decentres the historiography of Christian mission that has separated the human from the non-human agency of nature. 1

French Colonial Policies in West Africa: Power Dynamics, Cultural Impositions and Economic Legacies

The complex dynamics of French colonial policies in West Africa during European imperialism played a crucial role in streamlining administrative procedures and consolidating control over the indigenous African population. This colonial framework not only imposed a distinct sense of identity on African communities but also created deep stratification within these societies. Implementing the direct rule system, an essential aspect of French colonial administration, facilitated imposing laws and regulations that often marginalized traditional authority structures. As a result, a symbiotic relationship emerged between the African colonies and France, with the former serving as essential suppliers of resources crucial for sustaining France's growing industrial enterprises. This paper delves into the intricate nuances of the French colonial policies and their enduring impact on West Africa. By critically examining the assimilation and association policies, the study elucidates the power dynamics, cultural impositions, and economic implications that characterized the colonial experience of French colonies in West Africa. Unpacking the complexities of the colonial governance framework highlights the systemic disparities and cultural alienation perpetuated by the French colonial apparatus, underscoring the persistent socio-economic challenges and cultural subjugation that continue to shape the contemporary West African landscape. By exploring historical injustices and postcolonial complexities, the study emphasizes the urgent need for a holistic and inclusive approach to postcolonial development, advocating for preserving cultural heritage and promoting equitable socio-economic progress within the region.

The Cult of Our Lady of Fátima, Portuguese Colonialism, and Migration, c. 1930–c. 1980

Emerging in 1917 amidst the anxieties of World War I, the Cult of Our Lady of Fátima began with a vision witnessed by three shepherd children in rural Portugal. News of the apparition quickly spread, drawing hundreds, then thousands of pilgrims to the Cova da Iria. This potent symbol of faith soon transcended its origin, migrating in the form of venerated statues and dedicated shrines that sprouted across the globe. Particularly intertwined with Portuguese emigration, the cult’s reach extended to former colonies in Africa and Asia (“Ultramar”) and distant communities like Brazil. Statues of Our Lady became beacons of familiarity and solace, offering “homes away from home” for displaced populations. This essay focuses on the discourses surrounding the cult between the early 1930s and 1950s, exploring how Fátima served as a focal point for navigating the social, political, and cultural conflicts inherent in the emigration experience.

Understanding Political (In)stability in Nigeria: Colonial Force, Post-colonial Farce and Africa’s ‘Two Public’

Peter Ekeh’s ‘Two Public’ – primordial and civic – is a novel invention to understanding the socio-political and economic life of African society. The two public espouses the existence of dual moralities resulting from colonialism while highlighting the divisive role of this colonial legacy in contemporary African politics and how it continues to undermine the possibility of unified praxis in post-colonies against the hydra-head manifestations of imperialism cum neo-colonialism. This paper examines why the moralities of both publics differ? Why does the two public and its dual moralities matter in contemporary African politics? We evoke decolonial epistemic lens to explore the aetiology of (Westphalian) state and how uncritical subscription to it constricts understanding of the character and functioning of post-colonial enclaves masquerading as states. The study utilises secondary data and concludes that uncritical quest for stability in post-colonial states is tautological as the state never was.

Tuning systems and european colonialism in Africa.

Tuning systems and european colonialism in Africa.

Africa beyond Political Sovereignty

This year marks 60 years since the establishment of the first inter-state institution for Africa, the Organisation of African Unity. It was established principally to support the achievement of independence and political freedom by African colonies during a decade that is associated with the idea of winds of change. Political sovereignty through the control of the nation-state was seen as critical to the achievement of the ideals of Pan-Africanism, including African unity, African pride, cohesion, and common African prosperity.

Violence and intimacy in colonial and postcolonial Africa

Violence and intimacy in colonial and postcolonial Africa