West Central Africa Research Articles

Beyond the (Holy) Shroud: A glimpse into Afro-Catholicism during the Haitian Revolution

ABSTRACT This paper explores how Africans and Afro-Creoles used discourses shaped by Catholicism during the Haitian Revolution both to fight the prospect of re-enslavement by the French and to pursue alternative notions of freedom to those proposed by Toussaint Louverture. Specifically, it examines the appeals for Sunday rest and free days; and the use of protective amulets in pursuit of divinely-granted invulnerability in battle. Afro-Catholicism helped forge a sense of common identity during the colonial period, and enslaved people took a more active role in its dissemination than previously acknowledged. Free cultivateurs and soldiers later appropriated Catholicism as an effective language of resistance because they shared it with the French colonial authorities and the emerging Haitian élites. Arguments about Afro-Catholicism in West Central Africa and Ibero-America also apply to the French Caribbean and underscore the Atlantic entanglements in the development of Catholicism.

Participatory pathways to the Sustainable Development Goals: inviting divergent perspectives through a cross-scale systems approach

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) include social and ecological goals for humanity. Navigating towards reaching the goals requires the systematic inclusion of perspectives from a diversity of voices. Yet, the development of global sustainability pathways often lacks perspectives from the Global South. To help fill this gap, this paper introduces a participatory approach for visioning and exploring sustainable futures - the Three Horizons for the Sustainable Development Goals (3H4SDG). 3H4SDG facilitates explorations of (a) systemic pathways to reach the SDGs in an integrated way, and (b) highlights convergences and divergences between the pathways. We illustrate the application of 3H4SDG in a facilitated dialogue bringing together participants from four sub-regions of Africa: West Africa, Central Africa, East Africa, and Southern Africa. The dialogue focused on food and agricultural systems transformations. The case study results incorporate a set of convergences and divergences in relation to the future of urbanization, population growth, consumption, and the role of agriculture in the African economy. These were subsequently compared with the perspectives in global sustainability pathways, including the shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs). The study illustrates that participatory approaches that are systemic and highlight divergent perspectives represent a promising way to link local aspirations with global goals.

Low Prevalence of Plasmodium falciparum Histidine-Rich Protein 2 and 3 Gene Deletions-A Multiregional Study in Central and West Africa.

Plasmodium falciparum parasites carrying deletions of histidine-rich protein 2 and 3 genes, pfhrp2 and pfhrp3, respectively, are likely to escape detection via HRP2-based rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) and, consequently, treatment, posing a major risk to both the health of the infected individual and malaria control efforts. This study assessed the frequency of pfhrp2- and pfhrp3-deleted strains at four different study sites in Central Africa (number of samples analyzed: Gabon N = 534 and the Republic of Congo N = 917) and West Africa (number of samples analyzed: Nigeria N = 466 and Benin N = 120) using a highly sensitive multiplex qPCR. We found low prevalences for pfhrp2 (1%, 0%, 0.03% and 0) and pfhrp3 single deletions (0%, 0%, 0.03% and 0%) at all study sites (Gabon, the Republic of Congo, Nigeria and Benin, respectively). Double-deleted P. falciparum were only found in Nigeria in 1.6% of all internally controlled samples. The results of this pilot investigation do not point towards a high risk for false-negative RDT results due to pfhrp2/pfhrp3 deletions in Central and West African regions. However, as this scenario can change rapidly, continuous monitoring is essential to ensure that RDTs remain a suitable tool for the malaria diagnostic strategy.

Family and labour in an Angolan cash-crop economy, 1910

ABSTRACT This paper examines the composition of families in the parish of São José de Encoge, northern Angola, in the early colonial era, using a series of ‘family bulletins’ collected by the Portuguese colonial government in 1910. Encoge was one of the earliest centres of coffee cultivation in west-central Africa. While not all local families participated in this economy, the census sheds light on family-based cash-crop production after the abolition of slavery in Angola. The literature on post-slavery labour arrangements in Africa almost unanimously suggests that family-extension strategies predominantly aimed to integrate young women and girls into households, using pawnship and guardianship as important methods. The family bulletins from Encoge provide a means to evaluate this assumption on a quantitative basis in an Angolan context. They indicate that, besides natural reproduction and the adoption of second wives, the incorporation of wards, nephews, and nieces was the most common form of household extension, in which elders showed a remarkable preference for male dependants. The bulletins do not provide clear evidence of the presence of enslaved dependants, although some individuals listed as servants were possibly enslaved. Overall, the data suggest that, contrary to common assumptions about agricultural labour in Africa, family-based cultivation and trade of coffee did not discriminate against men or boys.

‘The Breath of Destruction’

Abstract In the years 1823, 1829–1830, and 1837, West and West Central Africa had to contend with three devastating yellow fever epidemics that affected both slave dealers who had settled along the coast and anti-slave trade officials tasked with bringing the slave trade to an end. In this paper I argue that these epidemics had a profound impact on the actions of both sets of actors, and eventually on the expansion and demise of the slave trade in the region. By focusing on the actions of a myriad of Atlantic actors, I explore the ways in which cyclical epidemics of yellow fever were dealt with, emphasizing how prophylactic measures, treatments, and more generally, medical knowledge, were challenged, affected, and changed by the arrival of each of them.

Global conservation prioritization areas in three dimensions of crocodilian diversity

Crocodilians are a taxonomic group of large predators with important ecological and evolutionary benefits for ecosystem functioning in the face of global change. Anthropogenic actions affect negatively crocodilians’ survival and more than half of the species are threatened with extinction worldwide. Here, we map and explore three dimensions of crocodilian diversity on a global scale. To highlight the ecological importance of crocodilians, we correlate the spatial distribution of species with the ecosystem services of nutrient retention in the world. We calculate the effectiveness of global protected networks in safeguarding crocodilian species and provide three prioritization models for conservation planning. Our results show the main hotspots of ecological and evolutionary values are in southern North, Central and South America, west-central Africa, northeastern India, and southeastern Asia. African species have the highest correlation to nutrient retention patterns. Twenty-five percent of the world’s crocodilian species are not significantly represented in the existing protected area networks. The most alarming cases are reported in northeastern India, eastern China, and west-central Africa, which include threatened species with low or non-significant representation in the protected area networks. Our highest conservation prioritization model targets southern North America, east-central Central America, northern South America, west-central Africa, northeastern India, eastern China, southern Laos, Cambodia, and some points in southeastern Asia. Our research provides a global prioritization scheme to protect multiple dimensions of crocodilian diversity for achieving effective conservation outcomes.

Personal adornments in West-Central Africa—the case study of a talc bead from the Kongo Kingdom (Mbanza Kongo, Angola)

A mustard-gold-colored talc bead was recovered during the 2014 excavation campaign carried out in Lumbu (Mbanza Kongo, Angola) together with the nineteenth-century glass trade beads imported from Bohemia and Venice. Results from this multi-analytical and minimally invasive study suggest that this bead may have been brought to the kingdom’s capital by means of an established intra-kingdom trade network or as an offering intended for the king or a member of the nobility. However, it was undoubtedly manufactured within the Kongo kingdom using talc sources known by the local population. As such, this talc bead constitutes the first evidence of local production of personal adornment objects in the Kongo kingdom and one of the first examples of craft specialization for personal adornment purposes in central and southern Africa since pre-historic times.

The Souls of Womenfolk: The Religious Cultures of Enslaved Women in the Lower South by Alexis Wells-Oghoghomeh

Reviewed by: The Souls of Womenfolk: The Religious Cultures of Enslaved Women in the Lower South by Alexis Wells-Oghoghomeh Rachael L. Pasierowska The Souls of Womenfolk: The Religious Cultures of Enslaved Women in the Lower South. By Alexis Wells-Oghoghomeh. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021. Pp. xii, 307. Paper, $27.95, ISBN 978-1-4696-6360-9; cloth, $95.00, ISBN 978-1-4696-6359-3.) The Souls of Womenfolk: The Religious Cultures of Enslaved Women in the Lower South by Alexis Wells-Oghoghomeh explores the spiritual lives of enslaved women in Georgia (and at times, in South Carolina) by adopting a gendered and embodied approach. Enslaved women are central actors in this study, which hinges on Wells-Oghoghomeh’s definitions of “double” and “triple consciousness” (p. 2). She argues that “most bondpeople experienced ‘double consciousness,’” which represented “the dialectic between the animate-object status,” which slaveholders assigned to an enslaved person’s identity, “and the subjectivity, or ‘inner life,’ the enslaved asserted over and against their objectification” (p. 2). What made enslaved women different is that they experienced a “triple consciousness.” In facing an “animate-object status,” enslaved women asserted not only their own personal subjectivity but also the subjectivity of their children. The Souls of Womenfolk employs a large array of sources, including Works Progress Administration interviews. Wells-Oghoghomeh outlines the primary strengths and weaknesses of this source base for readers unfamiliar with these narratives. But these sources enable her to research the role of religion among enslaved women more deeply. Wells-Oghoghomeh structures the book in six chapters that look at numerous aspects of enslaved women’s lives where religion was present and helped shape their communities’ beliefs and spiritual practices. The book opens with a very strong chapter that covers experiences of West Africans and their respective slaveries. The chapter argues that—prior to European enslavement—women had already been shaped by the sociopolitical world of West Africa. Subsequent chapters often reference enslaved women’s histories across West Africa before the Middle Passage, which helps readers unfamiliar with African studies to better contextualize enslaved persons’ experiences in Georgia. Yet the book fails to wholly recognize the large influx of enslaved persons from Central Africa and West Central Africa. Doing so would have allowed Wells-Oghoghomeh to provide a more rounded study of enslaved women’s experiences under bondage. Chapter 2 examines in greater detail the moral dimensions of women’s enslavement and focuses on topics such as birth, pregnancy, and infanticide/abortion. [End Page 143] An expanded assessment of perceptions regarding the birth of twins and how these views changed across African nations would have been appreciated here (indeed, the author could have contributed greatly to preexisting studies of this nature). The third chapter strays from the theme of spirituality to focus on “sexual ethics and social values” (p. 93). This reviewer would have been interested in even more about the role of baptism and about what women taught their children about such ethics and values. The final three chapters are strongest in presentation and structure. In these chapters, Wells-Oghoghomeh is more deeply focused on spirituality and how women broadened religious authority. The book does not fully address the great number of enslaved Africans who were Muslim. Indeed, large parts of West Africa had converted to Islam due to Arab missionaries and tradesmen traveling through the various regions. Wells-Oghoghomeh only briefly refers to enslaved Muslims—her title suggests “religious cultures” in the plural, yet in sum it focuses on Christianity. A more rounded book would have explored the lives of enslaved Muslims in detail, most notably on the Gullah/Geechee islands of Sapelo, Saint Helena, and Saint Simon’s. This inclusion would have made space for an analysis of different spiritual beliefs, for example, regarding death culture, seen in the number of burial trinkets, such as glass and broken pottery, found in graveyards there. The Souls of Womenfolk offers a deeper look at Christianity among enslaved persons in Georgia. The focus on womenfolk is the book’s greatest strength and makes it particularly appealing to gender historians of African American studies. Rachael L. Pasierowska University of Iowa Copyright © 2023 The...

Palmares e Cucaú: O aprendizado da dominação

Palmares e Cucaú: O aprendizado da dominação

Reconstructing terrestrial water storage anomalies using convolution-based support vector machine

Study regionThe Congo River basin in west-central Africa Study focusTraditional machine learning algorithms are recently being replaced by integrated learning techniques in pattern recognitions and predictions. These updated tools (or techniques), which attempt to explore higher dimensions and uncover hidden patterns in considerably non-linear datasets are the new normal in small, medium and large dataset even in higher orders. This study investigates the performance of a convolution-based support vector machine in hydrological analysis to optimize forecast of terrestrial water storage anomalies (TWSA). The linear, polynomial, and radial basis function (RBF) kernels were explored in reconstructing the three variants of TWSA obtained from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) level 3 products. Using the original input training datasets, we built and trained the convolution-neural network (CNN) which is composed of convolution and fully connected layers, and was integrated into the traditional support vector machine (SVM). The network was trained with twenty-two (22) datasets. The original predictor datasets are composed of hydrological fluxes (HF), climate indices (CI), and sea surface temperature (SST) datasets whose influence on GRACE-TWSA was analyzed in the body of our work. Our results show that the polynomial-kernel based on the convolution-based support vector machine (CSVM) outperformed the other regression models in the reconstruction of all variants of TWSA. The high accuracy achieved using the CSVM demonstrates its promising potential to fill the gaps in the missing GRACE observations through its refined reconstruction capabilities. New hydrological insight for the regionIn this study, (i) SST variants or components (e.g., those of east tropical Atlantic) were leading predictors of TWSA, (ii) increasing polynomial order does not increase accuracy in all polynomial kernel operations, especially in cases of severe non-linearity between predictors and predictands, (iii) for the RBF kernels, intermediate gamma values ranging from 0.05 to 0.5 are ideal for climatic analysis, as very small or very large gamma values will either behave like a linear model or over fit, respectively, and (iv) overall, the polynomial kernels reconstructed and predicted TWSA better than the other kernels. The other conventional machine learning procedures used to compare the fit of the CSVM show significant insight for future TWSA reconstruction processes. Their robustness can be explored by varying the independent variables fed into the machine learning framework and tuning their hyper-parameters to result in better fitting index, which promises to be much more useful than traditional learning methods.

Climate Drivers of Malaria Transmission Seasonality and Their Relative Importance in Sub-Saharan Africa.

A new database of the Entomological Inoculation Rate (EIR) was used to directly link the risk of infectious mosquito bites to climate in Sub-Saharan Africa. Applying a statistical mixed model framework to high-quality monthly EIR measurements collected from field campaigns in Sub-Saharan Africa, we analyzed the impact of rainfall and temperature seasonality on EIR seasonality and determined important climate drivers of malaria seasonality across varied climate settings in the region. We observed that seasonal malaria transmission was within a temperature window of 15°C-40°C and was sustained if average temperature was well above 15°C or below 40°C. Monthly maximum rainfall for seasonal malaria transmission did not exceed 600 in west Central Africa, and 400mm in the Sahel, Guinea Savannah, and East Africa. Based on a multi-regression model approach, rainfall and temperature seasonality were found to be significantly associated with malaria seasonality in all parts of Sub-Saharan Africa except in west Central Africa. Topography was found to have significant influence on which climate variable is an important determinant of malaria seasonality in East Africa. Seasonal malaria transmission onset lags behind rainfall only at markedly seasonal rainfall areas such as Sahel and East Africa; elsewhere, malaria transmission is year-round. High-quality EIR measurements can usefully supplement established metrics for seasonal malaria. The study's outcome is important for the improvement and validation of weather-driven dynamical mathematical malaria models that directly simulate EIR. Our results can contribute to the development of fit-for-purpose weather-driven malaria models to support health decision-making in the fight to control or eliminate malaria in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Moving Histories: Bantu Language Expansions, Eclectic Economies, and Mobilities

AbstractThis essay interprets a classification of Africa's Bantu languages which used statistical tools guided by assumptions about farming and its chronology to analyze fresh vocabulary evidence. It shows a peeling movement from Cameroon's grassfields, into southern Cameroon, then along a savanna corridor through West Central Africa's rainforests, into the Savannahs, then to Southern Africa, the Great Lakes, and Indian Ocean coast. The clear sequence of movement masks methodological and historical factors. Language death, multilingualism, and the limits of vocabulary evidence restrain the classification's authority. ‘Transformations’ from food collecting to food producing or from no metals to full engagement with metals were mutable, unfolded at different speeds, and involved interactions with firstcomers. In Central Africa, Bantu speakers were often the first farmers and metal-users in the region but elsewhere they were commonly neither. Their arrivals did not immediately displace firstcomers. Computational methods can accommodate many of these issues.

Characteristics of the Mount Cameroon seismicity for the 2005–2015 period (Cameroon, West-Central Africa)

Characteristics of the Mount Cameroon seismicity for the 2005–2015 period (Cameroon, West-Central Africa)

Bryophytes of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea (West Central Africa) VII. New records and range extensions of liverworts from Río Muni

Río Muni (Muni region) is the continental and largest part of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, extending over 26000 of its 28000 km2, placed between Cameroon and Gabon. The territory is quite homogeneous from a vegetation point of view: 99% of the area is covered by forest, around 20% of which is still primary. The lowland rainforest is most typical; only on the most mountainous areas is a less dense submontane forest developed. The current knowledge of the Río Muni bryoflora is still poor: 181 taxa (107 liverworts and 74 mosses) have been recorded so far. Data on 19 liverwort species in the families Cephaloziellaceae, Frullaniaceae, Lejeuneaceae, Lepidoziaceae, Metzgeriaceae and Porellaceae are offered. Six of them are new additions for the country of Equatorial Guinea, and seven are new for the Muni region (Río Muni). For each species, geographical distribution, altitudinal range, ecological information and accompanying bryophyte species are given.

Diseases of Africans, an African disease: transformations of quijila between Central West Africa and Minas Gerais, in Brazil, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

This article discusses the origin of quijila/kijila in Central West African culture, more particularly in the cultural universe of the Imbangala (Jaga) and the Ambundu and Kimbundu populations who lived in the Portuguese regions of Angola and the Congo in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Following this, it investigates how the concept of quijila was structured, comprehended, and transformed, both in Africa, where it was basically a food prohibition, but whose applications and meanings varied; and in Brazil, to where it was transported in the 1700s, and where it transformed into a disease which attacked blacks, especially Africans of various origins, being framed as such in the Hippocratic-Galen universe characteristic of that time.

À propos du manque excessif de la liberté économique en Afrique dans les années 2017-2023

L'Objectif : Le but de cet article est de décrire et d'évaluer l'état de la liberté économique dans les pays d'Afrique5 . La base d'inférence est fondée sur les coefficients de liberté économique publiés depuis 1995 par The Heritage Foundation à Washington et Wall Street Journal pour 184 pays à travers le monde. L'analyse comparative est effectuée dans les pays africains divisés en quatre régions geographiques : Afrique Australe, Afrique du Nord et Afrique Centrale, Afrique de l'Est et l'Afrique de l'Ouest durant les années 2017-20236 . Conception/méthodologie/approche : Dans la recherche empirique on utilise les méthodes d'analyse de corrélation, σ-convergence, σ-divergence et d'analyse comparative multivariée. Le programme R et les packages dtw et dtwclust sont également appliqués. En conséquence, une évaluation approfondie de l'évolution de la liberté économique a été réalisée dans les 49 pays évalués, séparément et dans les quatres groupes de pays analysés. Résultats : Il a été montré que dans le cas des pays africains dans les années 2017-2023, nous sommes généralement confrontés à une stagnation ou à des changements plus ou moins chaotiques dans divers aspects de la liberté économique. Il semble que tant les gouvernements des pays africains ainsi que les institutions internationales qui soutiennent le développement des pays africains devraient s'appuyer plus largement qu'auparavant sur les acquis de la pensée économique dans le domaine des choix sociaux, ainsi que sur le rôle des institutions économiques et de la liberté dans le développement économique. Originalité/valeur : L'article fournit des connaissances complètes sur la liberté économique pour la grande majorité des pays africains en termes d'indice général de liberté économique et de douze indices partiels de liberté économique.

Diversification and historical demography of Rhampholeon spectrum in West-Central Africa.

Pygmy Chameleons of the genus Rhampholeon represent a moderately diverse, geographically circumscribed radiation, with most species (18 out of 19 extant taxa) limited to East Africa. The one exception is Rhampholeon spectrum, a species restricted to West-Central African rainforests. We set out to characterize the geographic basis of genetic variation in this disjunctly distributed Rhampholeon species using a combination of multilocus Sanger data and genomic sequences to explore population structure and range-wide phylogeographic patterns. We also employed demographic analyses and niche modeling to distinguish between alternate explanations to contextualize the impact of past geological and climatic events on the present-day distribution of intraspecific genetic variation. Phylogenetic analyses suggest that R. spectrum is a complex of five geographically delimited populations grouped into two major clades (montane vs. lowland). We found pronounced population structure suggesting that divergence and, potentially, speciation began between the late Miocene and the Pleistocene. Sea level changes during the Pleistocene climatic oscillations resulted in allopatric divergence associated with dispersal over an ocean channel barrier and colonization of Bioko Island. Demographic inferences and range stability mapping each support diversification models with secondary contact due to population contraction in lowland and montane refugia during the interglacial period. Allopatric divergence, congruent with isolation caused by geologic uplift of the East African rift system, the "descent into the Icehouse," and aridification of sub-Saharan Africa during the Eocene-Oligocene are identified as the key events explaining the population divergence between R. spectrum and its closely related sister clade from the Eastern Arc Mountains. Our results unveil cryptic genetic diversity in R. spectrum, suggesting the possibility of a species complex distributed across the Lower Guinean Forest and the Island of Bioko. We highlight the major element of species diversification that modelled today's diversity and distributions in most West-Central African vertebrates.

Afro-Catholic Festivals in the Americas: Performance, Representation, and the Making of Black Atlantic Tradition

Afro-Catholic Festivals in the Americas: Performance, Representation, and the Making of Black Atlantic Tradition

Understanding spatial patterns in the drivers of greenness trends in the Sahel-Sudano-Guinean region

ABSTRACT The region-wide spatial pattern of the drivers of vegetation trends in the African Sahel-Sudano-Guinean region, one of the main drylands of the world, has not been fully investigated. Time-series satellite earth observation datasets were used to investigate spatiotemporal patterns of the vegetation greenness changes in the region and then a principal component regression method was applied to identify the region-wide spatial pattern of driving factors. Results find that vegetation greening is widespread in the region, while vegetation browning is more clustered in central West Africa. The dominant drivers of vegetation greenness have a distinct spatial pattern. Climatic factors are the primary drivers, but the impacts of precipitation decrease from north to south, while the impacts of temperature are contrariwise. Coupled with climatic drivers, land cover changes lead to greening trends in the arid zone, especially in the western Sahelian belt. However, the cluster of browning trends in central West Africa can primarily be attributed to the human-induced land cover changes, including an increasing fractional abundance of agriculture. The results highlight the spatial pattern of climatic and anthropic factors driving vegetation greenness changes, which helps natural resources sustainable use and mitigation of climate change and human activities in global dryland ecosystems.

Evaluating the accuracy of gridded water resources reanalysis and evapotranspiration products for assessing water security in poorly gauged basins

Abstract. Achieving water security in poorly gauged basins is critically hindered by a lack of in situ river discharge data to assess past, current, and future evolution of water resources. To overcome this challenge, there has been a shift toward the use of freely available satellite and reanalysis data products. However, due to inherent bias and uncertainty, these secondary sources require careful evaluation to ascertain their performance before being applied in poorly gauged basins. The objectives of this study were to evaluate river discharge and evapotranspiration estimates from eight gridded water resources reanalysis (WRR), six satellite-based evapotranspiration (ET) products, and ET estimates derived from complimentary relationship (CR–ET) across eight river basins located in Central–West Africa. Results highlight strengths and weaknesses of the different WRR in simulating discharge dynamics and ET across the basins. Likewise, satellite-based products also show some strength and weaknesses in simulating monthly ET. Our results further revealed that the performance of the different models in simulating river discharge and evapotranspiration is strongly influenced by model structure, input data, and spatial resolution. Considering all hydrological model evaluation criteria, FLDAS-Noah, Lisflood, AWRAL, and Terra were among the best performing WRR products while for ET estimates, FLDAS-Noah, Terra, GLEAM3.5a and 3.5b, and PMLV2 outperformed the rest of the products. Given the plethora of WRR and ET products available, it is imperative to evaluate their performance in representative gauged basins to identify products that can be applied in each region. However, the choice of a particular product will depend on the application and user requirements. Taking this together, results from this study suggest that gridded WRR and ET products are a useful source of data for assessing water security in poorly gauged basins.