Geography Of Africa Research Articles

Humorous methodologies for African geographies: refusing deficit- and damage-centered research

ABSTRACT An experimental workshop brought together 20 stand-up comedians, environmental advocates, artists, researchers, and professors in Yaoundé, Cameroon on 27 and 28 March 2023. Building upon historical traditions of les griots and the popularity of contemporary comedic oration in Cameroon, our collaborative and interactive workshop centered efforts to move beyond dominant and colonial formulas to think creatively about the potentials, limitations, and logistics of humor as a methodological orientation. In this coauthored reflection, we build on the emergent insights generated during our workshop and propose future directions for social scientists and geographers keen to mobilize humor in their intellectual projects. We consider (a) the relations between humor and socio-political and socio-ecological dynamics (including in political contexts of authoritarianism); (b) the need to ground an academic methodology of humor in nuanced and place-based knowledges; and (c) the possibilities and dangers of humor in a wider intellectual praxis seeking to decenter and deprivilege power in research relations and to motivate certain forms of self-critique during research. More broadly, we argue that humor might contribute in the larger ongoing project of moving African geographical scholarship toward practices of creativity, experimentation, and joy beyond ‘damage-centered, deficit-centered, and extractive academic approaches.

(Un)rooted spaces of belonging: migrant kinship structures in Nadifa Mohamed’s Black Mamba Boy

While African intercontinental migration to Western countries continues to receive vigorous scholarly attention in African literary studies, this article draws its focus to intracontinental migration during the 1930s and 1940s in Nadifa Mohamed’s Black Mamba Boy (2010). After the protagonist Jama loses his mother, he searches for his father across East and North Africa in a quest to solidify his brittle familial bonds. As Jama constantly refashions his kinship bonds throughout his peregrinations, familial belonging lies at the thematic core of the narrative, which necessitates a more thorough discussion of family structures alongside Mohamed’s realistic portrayal of African geographies transformed by Italian and British colonization to better analyze how kinship operates as a mode of resistance against such forces. Considering Mohamed’s exploration of familial roles in different East African societies, I argue that this novel showcases how migration paradoxically destabilizes and reshapes traditional African family systems foiled by colonial violence. It does so by portraying Africans’ creative resilience in engendering new familial/communal spaces while concomitantly dislodging geographically fixed ideas of belonging. To deploy this analysis, I combine geocriticism and Black Geographies to examine how varied spaces and places shape the characters’ identities and the familial connections they construe. In making this argument, I demonstrate that families/communities mark belonging more significantly than citizenship in the context of migration and buttress space-making for East African migrants in Mohamed’s narrative.

Integrating Indigenous Knowledge in South African Geography Education Curricula for Social Justice and Decolonization

This paper analyzes the integration of indigenous knowledge into South African geography education as an intersection of social justice and decolonial imperatives. Historically, colonial education systems have marginalized indigenous epistemologies by privileging Western knowledge as universally superior. Integrating indigenous perspectives into curricula can counter this legacy by promoting cognitive justice and unsettling Eurocentric dominance. However, meaningful integration requires moving beyond superficial additions of indigenous elements within unchanged Western-centric curricula as this risks appropriating indigenous knowledge in disempowering ways. The paper argued that ethical integration necessitates recentring indigenous knowledge systems in their own right alongside Western frameworks to enact pluralistic, horizontal cognitive frameworks. A qualitative literature analysis identified key themes around recognizing indigenous epistemologies, dismantling enduring hierarchies, and developing responsible community-centred integration processes. While systemic constraints pose barriers, integrating indigenous perspectives into geography education holds the transformative potential to advance both social justice inclusion aims and decolonial decentralization agendas. This convergence provides opportunities to develop anti-oppressive curricula that empower marginalized knowledge and ontologies. However, realization requires extensive efforts to sustain reflexivity and enable indigenous self-determination over knowledge. Ultimately, the paper underscored that indigenous knowledge integration must move beyond tokenism towards fundamentally transforming education systems through ethical, empowering processes grounded in partnerships with indigenous communities. This is vital for nurturing students able to navigate the world through plural epistemologies and enacting both social justice and decolonial futures. Keywords: Indigenous Knowledge, Decoloniality, Social justice, Geography Education

The relationship between a set of selected variables characterizing FET phase South African geography teachers and their self-directed learning abilities

ABSTRACT This study investigates the relationship between a set of selected variables of geography teachers and their self-directed learning abilities. A quantitative research method based on the Self-Directed Learning Abilities Instrument (SDLi) was used. Geography teachers (n = 130) in the Further Education and Training phase in two districts in North West province completed the SDLi. Most of the teachers held the perception that they possessed the necessary SDL abilities. The results show that these teachers’ perceptions of their preparedness to teach geography to learners had a moderate but significant correlation (r = 315; p = .000) with their perceptions of their SDL abilities, while satisfaction with their profession as geography teachers had a weak but significant correlation with their SDL abilities (r = 0.276; p = .001). The results show no relationship between the teachers’ teaching experience, school quintile or teaching qualifications and their SDL abilities. Geography teachers with a postgraduate degree held more positive perceptions of their SDL abilities in comparison to teachers with an undergraduate degree or a teaching diploma. Small practically significant differences between teachers teaching in no-fee schools (Quintiles 1 to 3) and geography teachers teaching in fee-paying schools (Quintiles 4 and 5) were reported, with the teachers in no-fee schools holding slightly more positive perceptions of their SDL abilities.

The Disappearance of Leo Africanus: Rival Repertoires of Historical Scholarship in the Mid-Twentieth Century

Abstract This article is about two twentieth-century attempts to produce an edition of the famous Cosmography and Geography of Africa (1526) by Johannes Leo Africanus. One attempt was French, colonial, collaboratively authored, presentist and successful; the other was Italian, academic, single-authored, historicist and unsuccessful, in that it never appeared. Drawing primarily on unstudied archival material from several countries, I reconstruct the trajectories of each edition and its author(s), in an effort to understand more broadly the different ways in which scholarship was produced inside and outside universities in the period between the end of the First World War and the early 1960s. In other words, this is a comparative study of two ‘repertoires’, to borrow a term recently introduced by Rachel Ankeny and Sabina Leonelli: two institutional praxes embodying different understandings of the world, but also different material resources and codes of personal conduct. But this essay also attempts to say something about the Cosmography itself. One of Leo’s greatest achievements was to reach out beyond his own world to adopt the language, ideas and culture of his Italian readers; this could only be fully grasped after the rediscovery of an early manuscript in 1931, which showed that the supposedly foreign, Italian elements of the book were not added later by others. It was precisely this feature, I argue, that was better reflected by the successful French edition than by the unsuccessful Italian one.

Slow Dissent and Worldmaking beyond Imperial Relations in “Kamer-amère” (Bitter Cameroon)

Abstract Working in the subfields of postcolonial geographies of responsibility and Black and African Geographies, my analysis centers on Cameroonian political resistance and practices of worldmaking. From January 2016 to August 2023, political activists experienced a set of difficulties: A wariness and oftentimes hostility to France’s continued support for the authoritarian state, dismissals by state representatives that dissenters were “externally supported,” and misappropriations of the anti-imperial mantel by government representatives. Over the preceding several decades, the state fostered a political environment antagonistic toward Cameroonians of the diaspora, and this was instrumentalized in the widespread dismissal of activists as foreign, foreign-backed, or foreign-influenced. Activists were hesitant but sometimes strategically prepared to call upon transnational groups for attention and political action against repression and violence in Cameroon. In the context of the state’s appropriation of an anti-imperialist ideology, I argue that transnational solidarities must be attuned to and integrated with local politics in Cameroon. Making sense of popular debates regarding (anti)imperialism, (anti)intervention, and transnational solidarity in conditions of authoritarianism matters for political debates across the African continent.

A Balancing Act: South African Geography teachers’ Implementation of Teacher-Centered and Learner-Centered Instructional Strategies in Their Classrooms

Learner-centered instruction fosters 21st-century skills and must be implemented in geography classrooms. In this South African case study, most teachers predominantly implemented teacher-centered instruction. The analysis of the results established a moderate but highly significant relationship between geography teachers’ years of teaching and their implementation of teacher-centered instruction and a weak significant relation in the implementation of individual instructional strategies. Teachers with more years of teaching implemented more teacher-centered and individual learner-centered instructional strategies than early-career teachers. Teachers stated that learners and parents expected them to teach and that large classes hindered the implementation of learner-centered instruction.

PARTICIPATORY MAPPING AND DELIMITATION OF FLOOD ZONES IN DOUALA, CAMEROON

The spatialization of geographical phenomena is now based on geomatics methods and tools. This trend, which has become widespread in research circles, invites us, beyond the rendering of results, to question their relevance. Indeed, the results thus obtained are far from being realistic for reasons related to the quality of the analysis data but especially to the choice of the levels of observation. These weaknesses impose on African geographers in general and Cameroonians in particular, a paradigm shift. Instead of the work of a researcher/engineer-expert imposing a vertical vision of the territory, an approach that reverses the process could make it possible to reposition local populations in the production and spatialization of geographic information. No one better than the latter could understand and assess the constraints and vulnerabilities they face. Participatory mapping as a methodological journey integrates spoken language into a map, with the aim of giving substance to the voices of those who are poorly represented or not very visible, thereby facilitating dialogue and negotiations. Faced with what could be considered as drifts of the all-digital, is it relevant to entrust the pencil to the actors who practice the territories subjected to the phenomena subject to geographical representation? This study focuses on the development of a methodological framework for participatory mapping, based on the example of the risk of flooding in a watershed of the city of Douala. The envisaged approach is made possible thanks to semi-structured interviews based on the model of cartographic discussion groups. It emerges from this experience that the methodological approach of participatory mapping is feasible, reliable, less restrictive and moreover reproductive in several territories.

The American Southern Baptist Mission and Maps of Yorùbáland: The Evolution of a Cartographic Style

ABSTRACT The Southern Baptist cartographic style portraying Yorùbáland in the mid-nineteenth century shifted the graphic appearance of this geographical space. This paper asserts that this graphic appearance reflects the evangelical thought of spreading the gospel and marked a very significant transition in the visual portrayal of West-Central Africa. Employing an historical-stylistic analysis, this paper examines the Christian missionary contribution to the appearance of the Yorùbá landscape in nineteenth-century maps. The Southern Baptist missionary maps of the 1850s, resulting from evangelical discourses and missionary work, highlighted geographical features that gave a new landscape identity to Yorùbáland. The map design of this ethno-territorial space emphasises an evangelical concern for well-populated regions. Hence, this study highlights the role of missionary maps in the distinctive visual expression of an ethnic territory in West African geography.

Transforming Parkinson's Care in Africa (TraPCAf): protocol for a multimethodology National Institute for Health and Care Research Global Health Research Group project

BackgroundParkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder and, according to the Global Burden of Disease estimates in 2015, was the fastest growing neurological disorder globally with respect to associated prevalence, disability, and deaths. Information regarding the awareness, diagnosis, phenotypic characteristics, epidemiology, prevalence, risk factors, treatment, economic impact and lived experiences of people with PD from the African perspective is relatively sparse in contrast to the developed world, and much remains to be learned from, and about, the continent.MethodsTransforming Parkinson’s Care in Africa (TraPCAf) is a multi-faceted, mixed-methods, multi-national research grant. The study design includes multiple sub-studies, combining observational (qualitative and quantitative) approaches for the epidemiological, clinical, risk factor and lived experience components, as appropriate, and interventional methods (clinical trial component). The aim of TraPCAf is to describe and gain a better understanding of the current situation of PD in Africa. The countries included in this National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Global Health Research Group (Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Tanzania) represent diverse African geographies and genetic profiles, with differing resources, healthcare systems, health and social protection schemes, and policies. The research team is composed of experts in the field with vast experience in PD, jointly led by a UK-based and Africa-based investigator.DiscussionDespite the increasing prevalence of PD globally, robust data on the disease from Africa are lacking. Existing data point towards the poor awareness of PD and other neurological disorders on the continent and subsequent challenges with stigma, and limited access to affordable services and medication. This multi-site study will be the first of its kind in Africa. The data collected across the proposed sub-studies will provide novel and conclusive insights into the situation of PD. The selected country sites will allow for useful comparisons and make results relevant to other low- and middle-income countries. This grant is timely, as global recognition of PD and the public health challenge it poses builds. The work will contribute to broader initiatives, including the World Health Organization’s Intersectoral global action plan on epilepsy and other neurological disorders.Trial registrationhttps://doi.org/10.1186/ISRCTN77014546.

Akinlawon “Akin” Mabogunje (1931 to 2022): The father of African geography

Generation of mouse models for COVID-19 pathogenesis is of keen interest as they would allow for efficient investigation of disease mechanisms, as well as providing a vaccine and drug development platform. However, the current transgenic hACE2 ...The classical manifestation of COVID-19 is pulmonary infection. After host cell entry via human angiotensin–converting enzyme II (hACE2), the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus can infect pulmonary epithelial cells, ...

Exploring the inner workings of the Southern African Geography Teachers’ Association Google Group

We live in a socio-ecologically fragile and rapidly changing world that can be turned upside down in an instant as we witnessed with the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, more than ever before, teachers need to be life-long learners who have the necessary geography subject knowledge, pedagogical knowledge and resources for responsive teaching and learning in their classrooms. Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) play an important enabling role in this regard. This article presents the findings of the second phase of an ongoing study aimed at understanding how the South African Geography Teachers’ online Google Group, an emergent Professional Learning Community, may support and enhance geography education and teacher professional development. More specifically, it opens up and looks inside the ‘black box’ of the Google Group, the workings of which are not yet fully understood. It considers the supportive role played by the Google Group during and after the COVID-19 pandemic (that is, March 2020 to December 2021 and January to November 2022). 
 Data generated by the posts made during and after the pandemic, were analysed and categorised. Emergent patterns and trends in and between the two periods were identified and discussed. A purposive sample from each category was selected for further in-depth analysis. We draw on Shulman and Shulman’s (2004) theory of teacher knowledge as an analytical lens for interpreting the findings. The findings are discussed in relation to national imperatives (for example, teacher professional development, social justice, inequality and learner underperformance) and global education discourses for transformative education.
 Our main contention in this article is that the Google Group PLC offers support for teachers. However, there are gaps that need to be addressed if it is to play a stronger supportive and transformative role. We conclude with some suggestions on how this may be achieved in practice which may be useful to members of the geography education community particularly teachers.
 Key words: teacher knowledge, teacher professional development, professional learning community, COVID-19 pandemic

“If I use family planning, I may have trouble getting pregnant next time I want to”: A multicountry survey-based exploration of perceived contraceptive-induced fertility impairment and its relationship to contraceptive behaviors

ObjectivesWe aim to assess women’s perceptions regarding contraceptive effects on fertility across a diversity of settings in sub-Saharan Africa and how they vary by women’s characteristics. We also aim to examine how such beliefs relate to women’s contraceptive practices and intentions. Study designThis study uses cross-sectional survey data among women aged 15 to 49 in nine sub-Saharan African geographies from the Performance Monitoring for Action project. Our main measure of interest assessed women’s perceptions of contraceptive-induced fertility impairment. We examined factors related to this belief and explored the association between perceptions of contraceptive-induced fertility impairment and use of medicalized contraception (intrauterine device, implant, injectable, pills, emergency contraception) and intention to use contraception (among nonusers). ResultsBetween 20% and 40% of women across study sites agreed or strongly agreed that contraception would lead to later difficulties becoming pregnant. Women at risk of an unintended pregnancy who believed contraception could cause fertility impairment had reduced odds of using medicalized contraception in five sites; aORs ranged from 0.07 to 0.62. Likewise, contraceptive nonusers who wanted a/another child and perceived contraception could cause fertility impairment were less likely to intend to use contraception in seven sites, with aORs between 0.34 and 0.66. ConclusionsOur multicountry study findings indicate women’s perception of contraceptive-induced fertility impairment is common across diverse sub-Saharan African settings, likely acting as a deterrent to using medicalized contraceptive methods. ImplicationsFindings from this study can help improve reproductive health programs by addressing concerns about contraception to help women achieve their reproductive goals.

Afrika’daki Tarikatların Psiko-Sosyal, Kültürel, Tarihî ve İslamî Dinamikleri

In terms of Sufi studies, African geography has not been subjected to sufficient examination, both in the Islamic world and in the western world. Studies and researches are also mostly at the level of popular publications. In the works of Western researchers, the subject has not gone beyond reporting. Many western researchers approached Africa within the framework of the orientalist approach and plunged the continent into a whirlpool of marginalization. There is a need for new and appropriate academic studies in order to reveal the mystical accumulation in the continent based on both western and Islamic sources. Based on this fact, we are trying to deal with the activities of the sects that we focus on in our study, particularly in Africa. Our article will be evaluated under six sub-titles. In this context, firstly, the findings on the pioneers of the sufi orders in the field of science, morality and trade in Africa will be revealed. In the second stage, the understanding of al Tariqa al Mohammadi adopted by the sufi orders in Africa will be emphasized. As a third point, determinations will be made about the role of sufi orders in the spread of Islam in Africa. The fourth issue to be discussed will be the efforts of the sufi orders to keep the Islamic culture and civilization alive in Africa. In the fifth dimension, the struggle of the sufi orders against imperialism will be mentioned. In the final analysis, the contributions of sects to social life will be examined.

The relationship between the teaching experience of South African geography teachers and their involvement in self-directed professional development activities

This study explores the relationship between teaching experience of geography teachers and their involvement in self-directed professional development (SDPD) activities to enhance their geography knowledge, skills and attitudes, understanding and development in the geography curriculum areas, as well as teaching and learning practices. A non-experimental survey design was employed in the study. Grade 10 to 12 geography teachers (n = 130) from the Dr Kenneth Kaunda and Bojanala Platinum districts in the North West province in South Africa with different amounts of teaching experience in geography education who attended the scheduled geography meeting with their respective subject advisors, completed a questionnaire on SDPD activities in geography education, developed by the researcher. The analysis of the results did not establish any relationship between geography teachers’ teaching experience and their involvement in SDPD activities. In this study the practical significance was calculated to indicate whether the difference between the geography teachers with different teaching experiences and their involvement in SDPD activities is large enough to have an effect in practice. Medium to small practically significant differences between early-, mid- and late-career geography teachers’ involvement in reading articles and books, watching videos, consulting role-players and experimentation were reported. Interestingly, medium practically significant differences were reported between mid-career and late-career geography teachers in conducting self-directed research in geomorphology, development geography and geographical information systems.

Religious Practices and Consumption Behavior: Why and How Christian Consumer’s Needs and Expectations in the West African Context are Crucial

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether religious practices in the African context can explain previously observed consumption behavior variation in the sector of beverages. This exploratory research is focused on the post-positivist epistemological posture. It is a mixed method approach with triangulation of research tools. The results indicate that religious practices and consumption behavior are strongly and sufficiently correlated. It is also found that age has a moderating effect on the relationship between religious practices and consumption behavior. The findings imply the application of a rigorous segmentation, creativity and innovation in the beverage market in order to meet consumers ’core needs and real expectations. There should be specific marketing intra-religious hyper-segmentation considerations by taking into account consumer’s age range and consumer’s religious sensibilities towards consumption. To the best of author’s knowledge, this exploratory research shows the relationship between religious practices and consumption behavior in the West African geography with some different factors that have some effects on consumer’s choices and purchasing decisions.

Doing African political philosophy from a universalist perspective

AbstractThere has been a strong impetus to set the definitional parameters of study in African political philosophy and theory. Many scholars advance the idea of a discipline intended to provide lessons that stem from “original” African moral, ideological, and political traditions. Often, these traditions and their ideas are presented as holding categorical moral substance in so far as they are seen to be specific to a culturally essentialist understanding of “Africa.” In turn, an influential part of the literature estimates the normative value of the intellectual ideas and arguments afforded by a varied historical, socio‐cultural and economic African geography by the degree to which, in being tethered to a seemingly homogenous, “culturally African” influence, these ideas can be opposed to a “Western” equivalent. In this article, I argue that the effects on the discipline of attending to, and being defined by, this cultural essentialism are at best unclear, at worst detrimental. I aim to contribute to the side of those who advocate a universalist perspective to the study of African political philosophy and thought, and who argue for jettisoning an unhelpful dichotomy between “West” and “African,” in favour of a methodological, conceptual and historical specificity that allows the discipline to be truly useful to itself and to others.

Intellectuals at the Hill: Scattered pieces of defiant African scholarship. A commentary on Patricia Daley and Amber Murrey's ‘Defiant scholarship: Dismantling coloniality in contemporary African geographies’.

Intellectuals at the Hill: Scattered pieces of defiant African scholarship. A commentary on Patricia Daley and Amber Murrey's ‘Defiant scholarship: Dismantling coloniality in contemporary African geographies’.

Defiance through many means: The urbanities of African universities. A commentary on Patricia Daley and Amber Murrey's ‘Defiant scholarship: Dismantling coloniality in contemporary African geographies’.

Defiance through many means: The urbanities of African universities. A commentary on Patricia Daley and Amber Murrey's ‘Defiant scholarship: Dismantling coloniality in contemporary African geographies’.

Response to commentaries on Patricia Daley and Amber Murrey's ‘Defiant scholarship: Dismantling coloniality in contemporary African geographies’.

Response to commentaries on Patricia Daley and Amber Murrey's ‘Defiant scholarship: Dismantling coloniality in contemporary African geographies’.