Geography Of Africa Research Articles

アフリカの地理学

This paper describes the academic themes, lessons and social problems geographers are addressing in modern Africa, as well as university geography education and the education levels in Sub-Sahara Africa, related to colonial policy, socio-economic stability, and population. Nature, culture, and society in Africa are both diverse and attractive to academic researchers. According to one estimate, there are more than 1,000 languages and ethnic-groups on the continent. We hope to research the uniqueness of nature, cultures, and societies of Africa. African people face social problems of poverty, economic disparity, social conflict, civil war, diseases, land degradation, etc. Japanese geographers should tackle these problems with African researchers in order to contribute to political stability, social welfare and development. South Africa is the most active country engaging in geographical research and education in Sub-Sahara Africa. According to the history of South African academe, the South African Geographical Society and the Society for Geography were integrated in 1994 to establish the Society of South African Geographers. South African geographers considered this movement to be a historical event under political changes that emerged during the new era following the policy of apartheid. Geographers are tackling social problems of Sub-Sahara Africa and social responsibility is important for academic researchers in Africa. Japanese geographers need to build stronger and wider partnerships with African geographers to achieve further social responsibility.

African Refugee Communities in Southeast Queensland: forces of concentration and dispersion

Black African refugee communities are a relatively recent addition to the Australia landscape. Between 2001 and 2007, over 5000 refugees from various African nations resettled in Queensland. There are very few data about African refugee settlement geography in Australia and no previous study delineating African refugee settlement within the State of Queensland. This research addresses the knowledge gap by examining the geographic distribution and secondary migration patterns of eight African refugee communities in Southeast Queensland. The research adopted a multi-method approach, mapping quantitative data from an existing secondary database and comparing these to qualitative primary data to determine geographical distribution. Additional qualitative data were used to establish secondary migration patterns of the case study communities. Results show noticeable discrepancies between existing secondary datasets and primary data collected from the communities. These inconsistencies are significant because settlement service providers who use the secondary data to budget, plan and deliver essential settlement services might be underestimating the size of the African communities and missing some settlement locations altogether. The results also reveal a tension between the main socio-cultural forces of concentration and housing forces of dispersion that are driving secondary migration in the communities. A policy recommendation to mitigate the potentially negative effects of residential dispersion on settlement outcomes includes the strategic location of service hubs in key suburbs, such as Moorooka, to which the communities are already drawn.

Latter-Day Livingstone Digs Along the Congo

Archaeologically, the sediment beneath the lush central African jungle is unexplored territory. At the Preserving African Cultural Heritage meeting, an archaeologist presented results from the first archaeological survey of the center of the continent.

Phylogeny and biogeography of the genus Illadopsis (Passeriformes: Timaliidae) reveal the complexity of diversification of some African taxa

African jungle babblers or illadopsises, genus Illadopsis Heine, 1859, are small shy babblers which occupy the undergrowth of African humid forest habitats. The taxonomy of Illadopsis as well as its biogeography are currently poorly known because the morphological differentiation is rather subtle and no phylogenetic analysis has been undertaken. To investigate these issues, we sequenced four loci (mitochondrial ND2 and ND3, and nuclear myoglobin intron 2 and β‐fibrinogen intron 5) for the seven species of Illadopsis. Our analyses retrieve the monophyly of Illadopsis and suggest that I. albipectus and I. cleaveri, I. puveli and I. rufescens, some individuals of I. rufipennis and I. pyrrhoptera are sister taxa respectively. I. fulvescens appears to be an isolated taxon and our data reveal several cases of “incipient speciation” among its populations. Our dating analyses, using a Bayesian relaxed‐clock method, reveal that most splits in Illadopsis occurred synchronously around the Plio‐Pleistocene transition, suggesting that some diversification events in African forest taxa took place before the onset of the large‐amplitude climatic cycles of the Pleistocene epoch. Thus, the diversification of African taxa in time and space to be more complex than the Pleistocene time frame traditionally associated with the diversification of African forest taxa. Instead we observe a process of differentiation which roughly corresponds to the broadly hypothesised lowland refugia of upper Guinea, eastern and western Guinea‐Congolia, although the time frame of this divergence well predates the Pleistocene epoch. Our results also suggest that deep genetic divergences do exist among species complexes of African birds which differ only slightly in morphological characters. As such, molecular analyses are powerful and essential tools if we are to construct the evolutionary history of such lineages in a meaningful manner.

Sink in the African jungle

Apparently pristine African tropical forests are increasing in tree biomass, making them net absorbers of carbon dioxide. Is this a sign of atmospheric change, or of recovery from past trauma?

A Linguistic Geography of Africa, edited by Bernd Heine and Derek Nurse

A Linguistic Geography of Africa, edited by Bernd Heine and Derek Nurse

‘Taken captive by the mystery of the Great River’: towards an historical geography of British geography and Atlantic slavery

By examining the case of James MacQueen (1778–1870), this paper initiates a research agenda that contributes to what David N. Livingstone has argued remains the most pressing task for historians of geography: to write ‘the historical geography of geography’. Born in Scotland in 1778, MacQueen was one of the many ‘arm-chair’ geographers whose efforts at synthesising contemporary and historical sources were a significant feature of the encounter between Europe and the rest of the world. Indeed, although he never visited Africa, his speculations about the course and termination of the River Niger turned out to be broadly correct. What makes MacQueen a particularly significant figure was the original source of his theory: enslaved Africans in a Caribbean plantation-colony. In this light, a remark that MacQueen's imagination was ‘taken captive by the mystery of the Great River’ carries a dark double-meaning, because ‘captive’ knowledge was the very source of MacQueen's interest in African geography. Beginning with MacQueen's time in Grenada, the paper explores a series of personal relations, textual traces and West African ethno-histories to reveal how his geographical knowledge and expertise were bound up with Atlantic slavery. This shows not only how the colonial economy, centred on the Caribbean, underwrote the production of geographical knowledge about Africa, but also how British geographical discourse and practice might be probed for traces of Atlantic slavery and enslaved African lives. More generally, the case of James MacQueen illuminates a broader field of relationships between Atlantic slavery, West African exploration, and the development of modern British geography in the late eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries. Examining these relationships is key to writing a ‘historical geography of British geography and Atlantic slavery’ and contributes to postcolonial histories of the discipline by revealing the tangled relationships that bound geography and slavery, knowledge and subjugation, that which ‘captivates’ and those held ‘captive’.

Ruggedness: The Blessing of Bad Geography in Africa

Abstract We show that geography, through its impact on history, can have important effects on economic development today. The analysis focuses on the historic interaction between ruggedness and Afr...

Who's Serving Whom? Partners, Process, and Products in Service-Learning Projects in South African Urban Geography

The literature on service learning in geography courses has established and substantiated the importance and usefulness of such projects for student learning. In this paper the assumption is questioned that similar sets of benefits accrue to ‘community’ participants, those involved who are located outside the university context. The research undertaken demonstrates that projects, and the research or ‘service’ that they produce, are embedded in more complicated sociopolitical terrain that reflects not only the relationship between university and community, but also the complex ways in which organizations link to ‘communities’ and residents with complex local identities and interests. Analysis of this topography demonstrates the context-specific structuring of partnerships, research processes and the consequent diverse ‘after-lives’ of any research products that are produced.

Internet-Based GIS in an Inductive Learning Environment: A Case Study of Ninth-Grade Geography Students

This article reports the results of a qualitative case study that explored the use of Internet-based geographic information systems (IGIS) with ninth-grade geography students. The students worked in teams to examine the geography of Africa using IGIS resources with the instructional goal of developing a presentation on a significant issue facing one region or country. The purpose of this study was to explore the use of IGIS as a tool for integrating geospatial technologies into ninth-grade geography curriculum and instruction within an inductive learning environment. The findings for this study indicate that IGIS can be a successful tool for geography education in an inductive learning environment. Based on qualitative data collected through classroom observations, focus group interviews with students, student work samples, and a teacher journal, two assertions are offered: students perceived expanded freedom as a positive aspect of this IGIS project and IGIS projects such as this can lead to gains in students' cultural awareness and empathy for distant others.

ON CITATIONS, RATING GAMES AND OTHER PESKY ANIMALS: WHICH ZOO FOR SOUTH AFRICAN HUMAN GEOGRAPHY?

ABSTRACT The assessment of research activity linked to the allocation of resources according to the results of those evaluations is now undertaken in a number of countries. Numerous debates in Human Geography have emerged to reflect upon how research assessment systems affect professional human geographers and whether or not anything truly positive has been achieved through these assessment systems. Within South African Human Geography similar debates have not to date been documented. Against this backdrop, the key objective of this investigation is to address the paucity of critical reflection upon South Africa's National Research Foundation's (NRF) rating system and to assess the position of human geographers in this research “surveillance system”. It is argued that the NRF rating system perpetuates the imposition of the norms of distantly located rating schemes-principally the United Kingdom's Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) -upon the South African academic imagination. In the process South African human geography is entrapped; either sewing the theoretical needs of the discipline's Anglo-American heartland, or serving local needs and becoming an irrelevance to “international” human geography. Human geographies that can “make a difference” to both audiences is, it is argued, unlikely.

THE ACADEMIC—POLICY INTERFACE IN POST-APARTHEID URBAN RESEARCH: PERSONAL REFLECTIONS

ABSTRACT Ironically, in the North where only a minority of scholars are engaged in applied or policy research, they are navel gazing about what ‘the policy turn’ implies for geography. Here in South Africa, where consulting, policy or applied research is a ubiquitous feature of geography departments, we have been tardy, or perhaps reluctant, to open the conversation about the implications of the way many of us now work. Nowhere is this more evident than in the broad arena of urban research where the restructuring of local government, massive urbanisation and the uneven growth of the economy has created an insatiable demand for applied work on cities and towns. In this paper I use three general issues raised by our Northern counterparts to open up debate among South African geographers about the drivers of knowledge and the way this might impact on our urban future. The first issue relates to the role of public intellectuals in a society in transition and includes an assessment of the formative versus the evaluative role of intellectuals, as well as discussion on the politics of positionality and who does the policy research. The second issue takes off from here and probes who defines the intellectual and policy agendas. Crucial questions about how knowledge circulates and the role of consultants are highlighted. The third area shifts the debate into the academy and asks about the relevance of geography for urban policy. Drawing from these three pointers the final two sections of the paper make a case for recasting urban geographical scholarship in South Africa to, for example, take issues of scale and the local state more seriously, to move beyond the segregationist frame of the historical geographers and to fill the empirical and conceptual gaps within which the practice of urban government and governmentality actually take place. In conclusion I suggest that to do this it is imperative that we re-bridge the academic policy divide in new and more productive ways than the current covert linkages that exist at present. This means among other things, rethinking the academic value and integrity of policy work, as well addressing the material concerns that reinforce the status quo. This means confronting the place of consultant income for academics, acknowledging that there can be no evidence based policy without government and private sector investment in urban research and overcoming the skills gap in the urban sector.

Geography Education in the Context of “Academic Disadvantage” in South Africa

Findings related to the background knowledge, writing, and reading of disadvantaged students in a South African university geography department are discussed. The notion “academic discourse community” is used as an analytical framework. Findings indicate that students and instructors alike face several extreme challenges.

Trial on personhood for chimp “Hiasl“

In 1982, the chimp "Hiasl" was abducted from the Western African jungle to be used in scientific experiments in Austria. Since his abduction was illegal, he was freed at the airport. After long legal battles with the company responsible for his abduction, he grew up in a human family and now lives at a Viennese animal shelter. In 2006, this shelter ran into financial difficulties and "Hiasl" was threatened with deportation. Therefore in 2007, his close friends started legal procedures to have him declared a person and to have a legal guardian appointed for him to represent him in court. Four renowned experts in anthropology, biology and law supported the case scientifically. According to Austrian civil law, all members of the genus "Homo" are persons. Sharing 99.4% of human genes, chimps also belong into this genus. Secondly, it is argued that in the context of civil law the definition of person biologically means possessing a "theory of mind", which chimps do. Only if "Hiasl" is accepted as a person, his interests will matter and he can be represented in a legal case against his deportation, so that justice could be done. Only as a person, he can collect money for himself. And only as a person, he could start legal procedures, claiming for damages against those responsible for his abduction, to secure his future.

Between the ‘Local’ and the ‘Global’: South African Geography after Apartheid

South Africa's higher education system has undergone significant change since the end of apartheid. A central theme in the debates on higher education transformation has been the tension between the global imperatives of development and the need for universities to respond to the legacy of apartheid. This paper explores this tension by considering recent changes in geographical teaching and research. The paper argues that many of the tensions evident in higher education between the global and the local, which are as yet unresolved, find expression within South African geographical scholarship.

Black Poachers, White Hunters: A Social History of Hunting in Colonial Kenya

The casual observer might be forgiven for assuming that just about everything of interest had been researched and written about colonial Kenya. The territory carved out of eastern Africa in the 1880s and 1890s by the Imperial British East Africa Company, through agreement with the German Government, has attracted—or so it seems—more scholarly attention than almost any other British colony in Africa. From the travails of the early settlers and the f ledgeling administration before the First World War, to the violence and shame of the Mau Mau uprising in the 1950s, historians have been drawn to this most complex, mesmerising and troubled of countries. In large part, this fascination stems from the presence of the small but powerful, and intriguingly heterogeneous, white settler community which attempted—according to popular contemporary perception, at least—to build a veritable Eden in the highlands of the southern interior of Kenya. Their story has been told through novel, film, memoir and scholarly monograph; yet Edward Steinhart, a historian of some considerable standing who has previously worked on western Uganda, has succeeded in approaching the history of colonial Kenya from a direction which brings new insights to that story. His concern is hunting; and the history of hunting, it quickly becomes clear, tells us a great deal about the environmental, social and indeed political history of Kenya. Many Europeans—as well as Americans, including such celebrities as Theodore Roosevelt and, rather later, Ernest Hemingway—came to Kenya to hunt. For many it was sport; for others it was a livelihood. But Steinhart is not simply interested in white hunters. Africans were hunters, too, until they became the all-important porters and guides for white safaris, and subsequently they became the poachers of the book's title. Indeed, Steinhart goes to great lengths to demonstrate the importance of hunting to Kenya's pastoral and agricultural communities, something which has been consistently overlooked in the extant literature. Doubtless this is to some extent rooted in the racial interpretation of hunting which accompanied the first white hunters in Kenya, who exported the norms and ethos of the aristocratic hunt to the new territory from the early 1900s onward. Through this social prism—created around notions about man's relationship to both land and game—did Africans come to be viewed as inherently inferior, subservient, and lacking the capacity to control or shape their environment. Moreover, it is Steinhart's contention that the process of marginalising and criminalising Africans in the context of hunting and the environment is completed in more recent times by the increasingly powerful conservationist community. This book will be of great interest to students of the social history of colonial Kenya, and to students of African geography and environment. In this study, Steinhart succeeds where so many fail (if they even attempt it) in combining scholarly rigour—the book is admirably well researched—with wonderful readability, and this important contribution to African colonial history is indeed an enjoyable read.

ON THE NATURE OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN GEOGRAPHICAL PUBLICATIONS, 2000 TO 2004

ABSTRACT Southern African geography is assessed with respect to publication-output type, sub-discipline placement and authorship attributes for the five year period 2000 to 2004. Human geography as a sub-discipline dominates over physical geography in the number of publications produced, with a greater emphasis on single-authorship in human geography. Journal articles comprise 72% of the total outputs with more orientation towards such publications in the physical than in the human sub-discipline. Approximately two thirds of journal articles in both sub-disciplines appear in international journals. Black authors were involved in at least 22% of the outputs of which two thirds had black geographers as first author. Output alignment at the 2004 change in State subsidy qualification criteria is also considered. The discipline is found to be well- positioned to take advantage of subsidy allocation although more attention can be given to subsidy-generating journal selection, particular by human geographers. Physical geography has a slight lead in terms of National Research Foundation scientific ratings of individuals while the geographical distribution of rated scientists and a relative scarcity of young and black rated researchers is a cause for concern. The total number of publications on record appears to be reasonably healthy towards the end of the assessment period. However, geographers are challenged to focus increasingly on journal article outputs, particularly in ISI-listed journals, in order to remain aligned with South Africa's international strength in the earth/environmental sciences and the improving international contribution from the social sciences.

Writing about modern rural Africa: An essay around a review

This essay, an earlier and shorter version of which appeared in PLEC News and Views NS 8 (2005), began as an attempt to write a simple review of a book, which I found difficult. Beyond Territory and Scarcity arose out of an international seminar held in Copenhagen in 2002, with the object of seeking to move beyond Malthusian, neo-Malthusian and Boserupian discussion of people, agriculture and the environment. All the authors are European, with a bias toward the Nordic countries. All are specialists in the anthropology or geography of Africa. All nine chapters but one, on modern change in Lesotho, draw on experience, some of it long experience, in inter-tropical Africa. The themes are discussed by the editors in their introduction; however, the contributed essays deviate from them substantially. Although the book is therefore not a closely integrated volume, it contains a wealth of information and ideas, which impinge on other modern themes in writing about African farming and pastoralism, and about the African experience of modern development generally. It is because several distinct themes are involved that I decided to review it in the context of a larger and wider literature.

POSTSCRIPT—A REGIONAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE FREE STATE

Extracted from text ... 111 POSTSCRIPT - A REGIONAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE FREE STATE GUSTAV VISSER South African Geographical Journal (2006) 88 (1) 111 - 113 The development of this volume has been an interesting and educational experience. The various voices presented in this collection demonstrate an excitement concerning the role of (mainly) geographers, their discipline, and their enthusiasm to tackle a range of issues confronting the Free State Province. Beyond the factual insights presented in the individual papers, those gained from the refereeing process provided a glimpse of sorts on South African geographers' understanding of the discipline and what they think constitutes academic ..

Taxonomy of Podoscirtinae (Orthoptera: Gryllidae). Part 4: African Podoscirtini and geography of the tribe

Eight genera belonging to a generic group with the modified male genitalia (similar to those of the Indo-Malayan genus Truljalia) are characterized. They are distributed only in Africa south of Sahara. Four new genera, 13 new species, and unknown male of one species are described; some other African genera and species are considered (i.e., type material is revised, a lectotype for Dolichogryllus camerunensis Bol. is designated, and information on the systematic position of some forms is given). The distribution of the Podoscirtini genera is considered; 7-8 regions with almost endemic generic composition are outlined. Preliminary hypotheses for the origin of the Podoscirtini faunas of these regions are proposed. New replacement names (Valiatrella, nom. n. and Stenotrella, nom. n.) are proposed for the genera Valia Gorochov, 1985 (non Alexeev, 1979) and Stenogryllodes Chopard, 1952 (non Chopard, 1936), respectively.