Territories In Africa Research Articles

Citizens, Subjects, Enemies: The First World War and Citizenship Policies in the Italian Colonies

There are few research fields in European history that have received as much scholarly attention over the last few years as citizenship and the First World War. While this is also true for the Italian case, there is still a striking absence of research on citizenship laws in the colonial territories under Italian sovereignty. The present article addresses this gap and challenges the long-established assumption – due to an all too narrow focus on the historical military framework – that the First World War did not really affect the colonies of the Kingdom of Italy. An investigation of how the legal status of the colonial population – especially in Eritrea, on the one hand, and in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, on the other – was regulated, but also contested, claimed and negotiated, both during the conflict and in its immediate aftermath, reveals that a global event like the First World War actually had a significant impact on the Italian territories in the Horn of Africa and in North Africa. To illustrate this point, the article adopts an approach based on local players in the colonies rather than on legislators or policymakers in the metropole. Contemporary sources collected from several different archives are used to retrace personal stories and administrative processes which reveal important aspects in the story not only of Italian colonialism but of the Italian state in general. Citizenship in the Italian territories in Africa, as much as in other European colonies, was marked by the prejudicial concept of the backwardness of Africans, who were thus excluded from metropolitan citizenship. Beyond that, the article highlights utilitarianism as a concept that can help us to understand how Italy dealt with the inhabitants of its colonies during the First World War.

The Musical Representation of Sri Lankan Kaffirs

This study presents a very small community within the Sinhalese context of Sri Lanka in light of academic interest: the Kaffirs. Their communal history reaches far back into colonial times, and they did not distinguish clearly from which territories in Africa these Kaffirs, an expression introduced by Portuguese rulers for slaves and servants brought to Sri Lanka from African shores, came and how they identify. Currently, Kaffirs are seen through the gaze of public writings and common biases. They are believed to have their performance styles and their strong association with the drum, dance, and vocal genres integrated into the canon of Sinhalese traditions. One specific vocal expression is the singing of manja songs, which are introduced and roughly analysed in this short paper. Manja songs are not so widely known to all people living in Sri Lanka. A specific study of these songs has not yet taken place. The main methods used are microanalysis, literature studies, and open interviews with those who are connected to Kaffirs, either as members of the group or as people related to their studies and performing arts. Beyond presenting the exciting text repertoire, it is to connect the musical skills that come with this way of singing with related arts such as dancing and drumming. The Kaffirs’ performance potentials are widely underestimated, as many Kaffirs have integrated, through marriage and social subordination, into the current society. Yet, it is important to focus on the snippets in the history of developing performance skills and their relatedness to another continent in order to help understand global issues and their future.

First report of Anopheles stephensi from southern Ethiopia

BackgroundAnopheles stephensi is an emerging exotic invasive urban malaria vector in East Africa. The World Health Organization recently announced an initiative to take concerted actions to limit this vector’s expansion by strengthening surveillance and control in invaded and potentially receptive territories in Africa. This study sought to determine the invasion of An. stephensi in southern Ethiopia.MethodsA targeted entomological survey, both larvae and adult, was conducted in Hawassa City, southern Ethiopia between November 2022 and February 2023. Anopheles larvae were reared to adults for species identification. CDC light traps and BG Pro traps were used indoors and outdoors overnight at selected houses to collect adult mosquitoes in the study area. Prokopack aspirator was employed to sample indoor resting mosquitoes in the morning. Adults of An. stephensi was identified using morphological keys and then confirmed by PCR.ResultsLarvae of An. stephensi were found in 28 (16.6%) of the 169 potential mosquito breeding sites surveyed. Out of 548 adult female Anopheles mosquitoes reared from larvae, 234 (42.7%) were identified as An. stephensi morphologically. A total of 449 female anophelines were caught, of which 53 (12.0%) were An. stephensi. Other anopheline species collected in the study area included Anopheles gambiae sensu lato (s.l.), Anopheles pharoensis, Anopheles coustani, and Anopheles demeilloni.ConclusionThis study confirmed the presence of An. stephensi in southern Ethiopia. The presence of both larval and adult stages of this mosquito attests that this species established sympatric colonization with native vector species such as An. gambiae (s.l.) in southern Ethiopia. The findings warrant further investigation on the ecology, behaviour, population genetics, and role of An. stephensi in malaria transmission in Ethiopia.

‘Eternal convivencia’: From Madrid’s Painters of Africa to the School of Tetouan

The annual Pintores de África exhibitions, organised by Franco’s colonial administration in mid-twentieth-century Madrid, offered audiences a colourful feast of artistic representations of Spain’s colonial territories in Africa, and of Spain’s architectural legacy of al-Andalus. Foregrounding the ideological issues underpinning these exhibitions, this article evaluates the selection of artworks, the programme of events, exhibition catalogues, and reviews. Many writers discussed the artworks with reference to al-Andalus, echoing colonial propaganda. After Moroccan independence (1956), the exhibitions partly lost their purpose, but the memory of al-Andalus was repurposed by Moroccan cultural brokers for the fashioning of their post-colonial artistic identity. The last part of this article reveals the relations between the Painters of Africa exhibitions and the birth of the School of Tetouan. The article not only sheds light on the art, curation, and art writing that took place in the interstices between Spain and Morocco at the end of colonialism, but also illuminates the paradoxical processes underpinning the formation of artistic identity in post-independence northern Morocco. The case study is relevant to global perspectives in History of Art and refigures understandings of East–West relations with which we have become so familiar since Said’s Orientalism of 1978.

Deviance and Empire: Major Anthony G. McCall’s Lushai Chrysalis

The British colonial empire was one of the largest and most influential empires in history. It spanned across various parts of the world, including territories in Africa, Asia, the Americas, and the Pacific. Throughout its existence, the British Empire faced numerous acts of defiance and resistance from the indigenous populations of the colonized regions. In addition, the annals of history are replete with acts of defiance that originated within the colonized territories themselves, rather than from external forces. One such act of defiance was by Major Anthony G. McCall, who was appointed as the Superintendent-in-Charge of Lushai Hills (present Mizoram) during the 1930s and 1940s. McCall broke with protocol to lambast the policies of the British administration leading to his removal in May 1943. The events of his life in Lushai Hills have been documented in the book Lushai Chrysalis or Lushai Land of Tranquility and Upheaval (1949). The book is not only an important ethnographic document in the study of Northeast Indian history but it also gives insight into the personality of McCall and other ICS officers of the British administration. This, in turn, provides better insight into the working of the British colonial structure and gives us alternative viewpoints to what is normally seen as a monolithic one.

Being World Power and Economic Utility: The Economic History of Germany’s African Colonies

As a late colonial power, Germany was seeking to conquer territories in Africa and Oceania in the last third of the 19th century. The two major purposes for founding colonies were 1) to reduce the immigration of Germans to America; and 2) to represent the young German nation state as a mature power, which can compete with the United Kingdom (called simply England in the historical sources) and with the despised Western neighbour France. The most important lobby and pressure group of German colonial aims was the German Colonial Society (Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft), a group of widely respected intellectuals, influential businessmen and politicians. After the accession on the throne of Emperor Wilhelm II, the colonial lobby became more influential, and the process of colonial expansion was accelerated. Nevertheless, there was an Achilles’ heel in this policy: gaining territories did not seem to be profitable in the short term. Thus, theorists and propagandists of colonization, such as Paul Rohrbach, published papers about possible measures that could have made the colonies financially fruitful territories. This thought remained vivid in the National Socialist era as well: Germany’s right to have colonies was explained on the base of the need for raw materials and the overpopulation of the German fatherland. This study has been written for the purpose to summarize the colonial economic policy of the German Kaiserreich and to briefly explain the economic plans of National Socialist German state regarding Germany’s former colonies in Africa.

POLITICAL SANKOFA: THE AFRO-ATLANTIC ROOTS AND ROUTES OF WALTER RODNEY\S INTELLECTUAL FORMATIONS

This essay broaches the historical concept of Political Sankofa. For West Africans, and the larger African Diaspora, the Akan concept of Sankofa engenders a look into the past to remember what has been lost. This step towards Africaness, whether physical or psychological, was strengthened by peripatetic Pan Africans, however, that era of collaboration is over, and Pan African politics has transformed. This unique collaboration reached its climax in the 1960s when most colonial territories in Africa and the Caribbean began to achieve political independence, however, independence was not enough to secure sustainable socioeconomic and spiritual progress. Political Sankofa attempts to fill that void in which positive values from an African past are used as a gauge to determine vigilance and vision. This essay attempts to offer an analysis by securing the voices of those who were directly responsible for coalescing the diaspora into a Pan African community. Also, the Walter Rodney Archives was instrumental in providing the personal desires and fears of this very Pan African, who I regard as one of the last of a dying breed. His work throughout Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States solidify one of this essays thesis that the routes are tantamount to the roots and the Homeland is not paramount to the Caribbean homeland, where many have sacrificed their lives to secure a future for their progeny. Ultimately, the quality of identity and leadership is at the crux of this essay, and the contemporary implications regard the cultural and economic sensibilities of the African Diaspora and the wider global agenda.

Un espacio protegido por del Derecho ambiental europeo en el Norte de África: las Islas Chafarinas

A TERRITORY PROTECTED BY EUROPEAN ENVIRONMENTAL LAW IN NORTH AFRICA: THE CHAFARINAS ISLANDSThe archipelago of the Chafarinas Islands is the easternmost of the Spanish territories in North Africa. It shares with the rest of the rocks and islands the fact that it is outside the framework of Spain’s decentralised territorial administration and depends directly on the central State administration. Like the rest of Spain’s territories in Africa (including Ceuta and Melilla), it has been the subject of territorial claims by Morocco since its independence. Its maritime areas, like the rest of the Spanish territories in Africa, have not been formally demarcated in the Spanish domestic legal system.In short, it is a territory with a special vulnerability that is the subject of legal disputes and recurrent political crises with Morocco. Unlike the rest of the Spanish territories in Africa, whose titles are based on derivative methods of acquiring the territory, its incorporation into the national territory was carried out by virtue of an original method, occupation.A special singularity of this small archipelago derives from the fact that the whole of it is a protected area under European environmental law. Recognition by the Commission in some ways reinforces Spain’s position. At the same time, the environmental values of the territory provide opportunities for cross-border cooperation with Morocco, with the possibility of using potential instruments for building mutual trust, which should be based on the possibility of each party being able to safeguard its initial legal positions.

“Se il partito più caritatevole non sarebbe di ‘chiudere’ l’Africa?” Stereotipi, esotismo e discorso coloniale nel resoconto africano di Emilio Cecchi

ABSTRACT The article aims to analyse Appunti per un periplo dell’Africa (1954), a travel book written by Emilio Cecchi that narrates the writer’s impressions and experiences in some Portuguese African colonies. The text is influenced by fascist propaganda, linked to imperialism, and shows the tendency to present African populations as the object of colonization. We consider the various stereotypes and images that Cecchi uses in the representation of the colonized people of the Portuguese territories in Africa, in particular in discourses focused on race, women, dance and the colonial system. It turns out that Cecchi’s work is fully inserted into the ideological context of the early twentieth century, reaffirming a colonial discourse that supports the primacy of the civilized European over the primitive African and giving into the fascination for the exotic, typical of colonial literature.

Localised labyrinthine patterns in ecosystems

Self-organisation is a ubiquitous phenomenon in ecosystems. These systems can experience transitions from a uniform cover towards the formation of vegetation patterns as a result of symmetry-breaking instability. They can be either periodic or localised in space. Localised vegetation patterns consist of more or less circular spots or patches that can be either isolated or randomly distributed in space. We report on a striking patterning phenomenon consisting of localised vegetation labyrinths. This intriguing pattern is visible in satellite photographs taken in many territories of Africa and Australia. They consist of labyrinths which is spatially irregular pattern surrounded by either a homogeneous cover or a bare soil. The phenomenon is not specific to particular plants or soils. They are observed on strictly homogenous environmental conditions on flat landscapes, but they are also visible on hills. The spatial size of localized labyrinth ranges typically from a few hundred meters to ten kilometres. A simple modelling approach based on the interplay between short-range and long-range interactions governing plant communities or on the water dynamics explains the observations reported here.

Saving collections: taxonomic revision of the herpetological collection of the Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical, Lisbon (Portugal) with a protocol to rescue abandoned collections.

The herpetological collections of the Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical, Lisbon, are amongst the most important collections from the former Portuguese territories in Africa and Asia. The collection comprises more than 5000 preserved specimens, including type specimens of nine taxa, Trachylepis adamastor, Trachypelis thomensis, Panaspis thomensis, Naja peroescobari, Dalophia angolensis, Hemidactylus nzingae, Boaedon fradei, Platysaurus maculatus maculatus, and Platysaurus maculatus lineicauda. The collection was abandoned in the early years of 2000s and was at risk of being lost. In this paper the entire collection is reviewed, a catalogue provided of the extant specimens, and a brief account of the history of herpetological research at IICT given. Details are also provided on the recovery of the collection and a protocol to rescue abandoned collections.

Strategic sourcing in Africa: the case for the labor market

PurposeThis paper aims to describe the impact of the labor market on the integration of Africa into the global supply chain (GSC).Design/methodology/approachThe analysis of trends and comparison of data for 55 nations and territories in Africa using existing data from the World Bank and International Labor Organization, and government and nongovernment reports took place using qualitative content analysis methodology.FindingsAfrica’s labor market enhances the continent’s integration into the GSC despite challenges in other areas, with three pillars identifying the labor market’s strategic sourcing decisions.Research limitations/implicationsThe analysis is limited to trends analysis, some of which may have changed during the study.Practical implicationsThe findings will enable the global business industry and governments to envision the potential and design Africa’s labor market competitiveness across the African continent. The findings also establish the necessity and opportunity for enhanced infrastructure to attract additional foreign direct.Social implicationsThe social implication of this paper is beyond the potential of Africa’s labor market. The paper illustrates how the African is setting to become the next sourcing hub for the global supply chain, allowing scholars to close any prevailing global sourcing gap in research.Originality/valueThis paper describes the potential of Africa’s supply of low-cost labor market and its integration in the GSC.

Late Portuguese colonialism, research, and propaganda in Africa: the promotion of territorial occupation and architectural infrastructure by the General Agency for Overseas

After the Second World War, the Portuguese government was pressurised by international institutions to withdraw from its colonial territories in Africa and Asia. By way of resistance, the Estado Novo government reinforced the role of the Agência Geral do Ultramar [General Agency for Overseas] as an institution of propaganda, research, and financing of colonial projects. Defending its colonial practices, Portugal became isolated in the international realm. As such, the country aimed to produce more scientific knowledge to inform its decisions on infrastructural projects in the colonial territory. This is how the practices of urbanism and architecture were also regarded as areas of action for the Agency. Trained in London and Madrid, among others, technicians, architects, and engineers were employed by the Overseas Ministry to serve at the Gabinete de Urbanização Colonial [Overseas Planning Office]. Founded in 1944, this agency sought to optimise planning decisions and architectural production in the colonial territory. At the same time, the General Agency for Overseas sponsored publications, such as the Boletim Geral das Colónias/Ultramar [General Bulletin for the Colonies/Overseas], which disseminated the knowledge and experience architects had acquired in the field. In addition, research in areas such as medicine, climate, or agricultural and mineral resources informed decisions on the settlement of Europeans in Africa, and on the territorial infrastructure required to organise transportation networks, settlements, and climatic solutions for building. This article aims to establish whether the General Agency for Overseas actually encouraged the production of more scientific knowledge through its facilities. It also aims to examine the role of the Agency as one of the main active agents, and not only as a propaganda vehicle, in the colonisers' general plans.

Estimation of Fatality Rate in Africa through the Behavior of COVID-19 in Italy Relevance to Age Profiles

The emergence and pandemic of COVID-19 has rapidly become a global concern. In Italy, on 27 March 2020, there were 8165 deaths and 80539 confirmed cases of COVID-19. Demographic situations, like age profiles is reported to be the cause of high case fatality rate (CFR) in Italy. In Africa, the COVID-19 pandemic has not yet grasped epic proportion, but the estimation of CFR is still needed. We compared the CFR observed in Italy with the age profiles in 46 Africa countries and 2 territories which are already confirmed COVID-19 case. The estimation of the CFR in Africa ranges between (1.0%-5.4%) while in Italy is 10.1%. The five highest CFR countries and territories in Africa are Reunion (5.4%), Mauritius (5.1%), Tunisia (3.9%), Seychelles (3.8%) and Morocco (3.3%). The last three countries with low CFR are Uganda (1.0%), Zambia (1.1%) and Angola (1.1%). The observed difference is related to the age profiles.

The German Mission in Africa and Poland: Women, expansion, and colonial training during the Third Reich

The German Mission in Africa and Poland:Women, expansion, and colonial training during the Third Reich Rachel O'Sullivan In 1926, the Koloniale Frauenschule (Colonial Women's School) opened in Rendsburg in northern Germany and began training women for work in overseas colonies, although Germany had not possessed colonies since the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.1 The school remained open for a further 19 years, operating during the entirety of the Third Reich (1933–45). Despite extensive promotion and planning by colonial enthusiasts and official Nazi institutions like the Kolonialpolitisches Amt der NSDAP (NSDAP Office of Colonial Policy, KPA), founded in 1934 and lead by war veteran and Reichsstatthalter (Reich Governor) of Bavaria Franz Ritter von Epp, Nazi Germany did not reclaim these overseas colonies. Instead, German expansion in Eastern Europe during the Second World War eclipsed the colonialists' efforts to promote the reacquisition of German territory in Africa. Apart from the colonial school's student cohort, German women also participated in similar types of training and tasks during the war, albeit for a geographical location within Europe. Various organisations, such as the Reichsarbeitsdienst der weiblichen Jugend (Women's Youth Labour Service, RADwJ) the NS-Frauenschaft (National Socialist Women's League), Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM, League of German Girls) and the Arbeitsgemeinschaft nationalsozialistischer Studentinnen (National Socialist Women Student Organisation) trained women in numerous domestic and agricultural tasks and assigned them work in annexed Poland. During such assignments, known as an Osteinsatz (Eastern Work Placement), German women helped with the resettlement and Germanisation of newly-arrived Volksdeutschen (ethnic Germans) throughout the war. The students' activities at the Koloniale Frauenschule and activities undertaken by German women in Poland both featured in two separate films released during the Third Reich. The documentary Die deutsche Frauenkolonialschule „Rendsburg" directed by Paul Lieberenz and released in 1937, featured the school and its students.2 Multiple locations in Germany screened the documentary, as did schools and clubhouses in Latin America and Africa.3 Mädel verlassen die Stadt (Girls Leave the City) was a Kulturfilm released in 1943 by Universum Film AG (UFA), a film production company under the control of the Propaganda Ministry.4 Although the two films are set in different locations, their release dates differ by six years and the women featured in each film were training for or working in different geographical areas, parts of the films are strikingly similar. The potential continuities or similarities between Nazi Germany's territorial ambitions in Eastern Europe and in overseas colonies in Africa have remained a subject of historical debate for more than a decade.5 Such research on the comparisons and contrasts of the Nazi regime to colonial models has thus far been largely dominated by the topic of violence and the Holocaust. Although historians have demonstrated that certain commonalities exist between the Nazi regime's methods of rule, domination, and violence, the extreme case of the attempted annihilation of the European Jews appears to break from patterns of colonial violence against Indigenous, colonised peoples.6 Mark Mazower and Shelly Baranowski have highlighted the interlinked nature of empire building and violence in regard to the similarities between Nazi Germany's expansion into Eastern Europe and European colonialism. However, traditionally colonial regimes often attempted to legitimise conquest and violence by using the notion of a developmental or "civilising" mission.7 Colonial intervention could be justified in the minds of the colonisers by the supposed benefits of colonisation for the colonised, like culture, education and healthcare. Mazower and Baranowski argue that Nazi Germany built and ran its version of empire without the pretence of any such civilizing mission.8 Robert Gerwarth and Stephan Malinowski have similarly argued that the Nazi regime did not initiate a developmental mission as evidenced by the treatment of European Jews and Poles.9 Conversely, my research has previously shown that certain facets of the Nazi regime's approach to the perception and treatment of ethnic German resettlers demonstrate Nazi Germany did perceive and promote some of its activity in Poland within a similar framework to colonial developmental missions.10 Additionally, the attempted assimilation of racially valuable Poles and Poles deemed loyal to Germany through the Deutsche Volksliste (German People's...

Borders and the Global North Atlantic

Abstract The representation of Africa and Iberia within the North Atlantic imaginary tends to highlight similar features—commodity and trade, the pilgrimage routes to Alexandria and Santiago de Compostela, crusading in Africa or Iberia, Africa and Iberia as Muslim territories, and Africa and Iberia as the borderlands of Europe. Although Chaucer’s textual corpus touches on all the above features, this essay traces the ways that Chaucer interrelates the territories of Africa and Iberia with the borders of Europe. Chaucer subscribes to the attitude that Africa, similar to the East and Al-Andalus, was meant for Christian domination and economic looting.

Globalization, trade, and material culture: Portugal’s role in the making of a multicultural Europe (1415–1806)

SUMMARY: In the Early Modern age, Portugal was among the first European countries to engage in overseas trade and colonial ventures. The influx of new people and things rapidly transformed it into a multicultural country in permanent contact with the rest of Europe and the wider world. While we possess a vast amount of knowledge describing the overseas contacts and acquisition of goods from historical documents, in recent years archaeological excavations have begun to reveal direct evidence of these interactions. This includes thousands of people and objects such as ceramics, ivory and stone artefacts produced in overseas territories in Africa, South America and Asia. They were exported in vast amounts to several European countries, and are frequently found in archaeological excavations. These commodities were in part responsible for changing European perceptions of the world, its dimensions and cultural plurality. They also rapidly left their mark on European goods production, leading to changes in aesthetics and the introduction of new forms. This paper will discuss some of these objects in terms of how they reflect an Early Modern globalized world, and their influence on European daily life.

On Colonial Responsibility: Progress in Belgium and Former Belgian Territories in Africa

On Colonial Responsibility: Progress in Belgium and Former Belgian Territories in Africa

Between Intangibility and Uti Possidetis: The Debate on Title to Territory in Africa

This article argues that even as the ICJ missed the opportunity availed in Burkina Faso v. Niger to re-examine its ruling in the Frontier Dispute that applied uti possidetis juris to the African continent, the separate opinion of Judge Yusuf puts in focus the current debate on the title to territory in Africa. The engaging issues of this vibrant debate include (i) equating uti possidetis juris with the African rule of intangibility of inherited frontiers, (ii) how the African state acquired title to territory, (iii) whether uti possidetis is indispensable as a mechanism for ascertaining boundaries, (iv) the methodology and advantage of differentiating between frontier and territory claims in Africa, (v) the relationship between title and effectivités, and (vi) the continuum juris between international law and colonial law. The article argues that while those issues are intractable under the assumption of equating uti possidetis and the African principle, they could be efficiently addressed when the rule of intangibility of inherited frontiers is applied as a distinct African customary law doctrine. In addition, the article examines Burkina Faso v. Niger as a case study for applying the rule of intangibility of inherited frontiers.

Portugal dos Pequenitos as an urban laboratory for rehearsing national identity

AbstractPortugal dos Pequenitos (literally, ‘Portugal for the Little Ones’), a theme park built in Portugal as part of the Centenarian Commemorations of the Portuguese Nation of 1940, has been considered one of the most controversial pieces of Portuguese architecture in the 20th century. Designed between 1937 and 1962 by Architect Cassiano Branco, at the initiative of Bissaya Barreto, it features reproductions of uniquely typical Portuguese architecture built to a child's scale. It includes buildings from mainland Portugal, from the Azores and Madeira islands and from the colonial territories in Africa and Asia. The main aims of this paper are twofold: firstly, to frame Cassiano Branco's architecture in its specific context, in terms of historical contingencies and architectural controversies during the Estado Novo (New State) Portuguese dictatorship (1933–1974), and secondly, to assess the importance of Portugal dos Pequenitos as a laboratory for rehearsing an idyllic urban environment, applying hypothetical principles of national identity.