Publications
Our acclaimed core and affiliated faculty produce a wide range of works centered on both the growing concerns and historical cornerstones facing the continent of Africa.
Newest Releases
Lagos city planning has a history of excluding residents: it’s happening again, by Halimat Somotan
Lagos’ urban development has been marred by struggles between residents of low-income areas and government planners, a history that has become prominent with the recent evictions in Makoko and the creation of Eko Atlantic. In this essay for The Conversation, Dr. Somotan shares how urban communities resisted housing demolitions in the 1950s, and continue to do so today. Read here.
The Overlooked Nigerian Activist Whose Story Offers a Lesson for Today’s Labor Movement, by Halimat Somotan
Given the recent worker mobilizations in Nigeria and around the world, Dr. Somotan asks us to consider the relationship between labor movements and democracy. She does so by highlighting the story of Olaniwun Adunni Oluwole, an important Nigerian activist who influenced the first nation-wide worker’s strike in 1945, and who distinguished herself from other women in her time through her radical class politics. In Dr. Somotan’s words, “Remembering her activism is important not only for rethinking Nigeria’s political future but also for illustrating how solidarity—forged across class and gender lines—can spur change in many contexts”. Read more here.
How the US can engage with Africa’s semi-authoritarian states, by Mike Brodo
In his op-ed for the African Report, African Studies alum Mike Brodo analyzes the Biden’s administration new approach towards semi-autocratic states, as it warms relations with both Mozambique and Angola. He argues that it is in the United State’s best interest to continue this policy, foregoing Cold War geopolitical concerns in lieu of a more pragmatic approach, which will allow the US a better position to both support the rise of democracies in these hybrid regimes and compete with China. Read more here.
Attacks in Western Sahara Complicates US Regional Strategyby Michael Walsh
As the Polisario Front resumes its armed struggle for independence from Morocco, counting with important state supporters, such as South Africa and Algeria, the United States has to reimagine its position in the region. Michael Walsh analyses the factors weighing in the US’s decision to support either Moroccan or Sahrawi sovereignty, and claims the Biden administration will keep focusing on a United Nations settlement negotiation before making any riskier choices. Read more here.
Washington, Credible risk: private credit bureaus and the work of loan officers in West Africa, by Vanessa Watters Opalo
In 2015, the Central Bank of West African States selected a private credit bureau to build a digital platform to collect and analyse financial data across the eight-country West African Economic and Monetary Union, including the activities of credit cooperatives and microfinance agencies that serve many West African borrowers. The credit-reporting platform promises to produce new and valuable knowledge about borrowers’ creditworthiness and risk. But valuable in what ways and for whom? Based on ethnographic fieldwork with loan officers at a small-scale credit cooperative in Lomé, Togo, this article examines how the impending arrival of a private credit bureau and new credit-reporting technologies highlights the distinction between the ways in which credit bureaus and loan officers understand the nature of financial risk, as well as the centrality of loan officers and their management of borrower debt in sustaining the field of small-scale lending in Togo. Find the article here.
What African Growth and Opportunity Act: Early Extension or substantive improvements, by Michael Walsh
As the Biden administration seeks to rethink AGOA’s place in US foreign policy, African countries are calling for improvements on how the US examines countries’ eligibility for AGOA. Michael Walsh analyzes the pros and cons of both reforms, and what they could mean for the future of the African Growth and Opportunity Act.
Securitization of AGOA carries significant risks for US-Africa relations, by Michael Walsh
The Biden administration recently announced the list of countries that will be considered eligible for AGOA in 2024, and many of the changes on eligibility have raised concerns, both within the US and amongst African countries. Georgetown researcher Michael Walsh argues that the current politicization of AGOA might bring significant blowback from African states, and cause severe damage to US-Africa relations. Read his article here.
Structural Integrity: Liminality, Hegemony and Stateness In-Between, by Matthew Failor
In his thesis for the African Studies Certificate, Matthew Failors uses the understanding of liminal processes as a theoretical tool to understand insecurity holistically. He analyses motivation, complication, and reiteration while simultaneously indicating the state for its glaring failures that foreshadow the instability wrought by groups like Boko Haram and the GIA. He also seeks to complicate conceptions of the liminal that do not integrate Africa and Islam into their conception. Find the full thesis here.
Feeding the Generation of War, by Henri Minion
During the Mozambican Civil War, the country faced a significant humanitarian crisis, which shaped by deep famine around its territory. Despite this, media attention and aid were much less prevalent in Mozambique than in other countries in the continent. In his African Studies certificate thesis, Henri Minion analyses how Cold War politics affected the availability of aid in Mozambique, and the reasons that made the aid provided so ineffective. Read the full thesis here.
A Return of Elephants Fighting in the Grass? American Policy Paradigms and Implications in Africa from the Cold War to Today, by Mike Brodo
In his thesis for the African Studies Certificate, Mike Brodo finds four eras of US foreign policy paradigms in post-independent Africa, which he uses to investigate the ways in which the policies of each paradigm affected African citizens and the position of the United States. He presents his analysis with an institutional lens, arguing that the presence of capable and accountable domestic political institution in African countries have meant a positive relationship between the interest of African citizens and of the US. Find the full thesis here.
Transnational Kenyan Community: The Development Potential of the Brain Grain Perspective, by Kennji Kizuba
For Kenya, the excitement and apparent opportunity that accompanied the election of opposition presidential candidate Mwai Kibaki, in 2002, sparked renewed interest in a concerted effort to involve overseas Kenyans in national development. Through his analysis, African Studies certificate student Kennji Kizuka found that the three primary proposals of the literature on brain gain — remittance, temporary/periodic return migration and virtual networks of intellectuals and professionals — will not lead to sustained broad-based development, arguing that there is cause for caution. Read the full thesis here.
What Went Right in Tanzania: How Nation Building and Political Culture Have Produced Forty-Four Years of Peace, by Ilana R. Kessler
Despite exhibiting many factors that scholars understand as indicators of instability and conflict, Tanzania has remained remarkably stable and peaceful since its independence. In her African Studies Certificate thesis, Ilana Kessler attributes this to the nation building efforts of the socialist government after independence, which created a strong political culture of peace in the country. However, she warns to a weakening of that culture, calling for the Tanzanian government to redefine and reinvigorate the national political culture. Find the full thesis here.
Washington, Pretoria ‘Reaffirm and Recommit’ After Public Spat Over Russia, by Anita Powell
Voice of America journalist Anita Powell reports on the reestablishment of the relationship between the South African and American government after they had a diplomatic spat over Pretoria’s position on government. Calling upon the expertise of Georgetown researcher Michael Walsh, she evaluates the position of both countries after this dispute. Find the full article here.
Upcoming National Elections Complicate Efforts to Reset US-South Africa Relations, by Michael Walsh
The African National Congress (ANC) has been losing its dominance over the South African political sphere, while the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) have gained momentum before the national elections. Michael Walsh considers what this means for US national interests and argues for the Biden administration to increase its engagement with domestic political actors in South Africa. Find the full article here.
Democracy at Stake in South Africa, co-authored by Michael Walsh and Phiwokuhle Mnyandu.
Since the end of Apartheid, the South African government has functioned as a one-party dominant democracy. The African National Congress (ANC) has provided political stability for an emergent nation that some feared would be torn apart by racial, ethnic, and tribal divisions. At the same time, it has given rise to structures that have enabled political elites to accrue tremendous power, wealth, and influence through corruption, patronage, and clientelism. As a consequence, South Africans are living in an increasingly flawed democracy plagued by state capture that has resulted in one of the most inequitable countries in the world.
Find the full Article online here.
Democratic Values are Key to Competing with China in Africa, by Mike Brodo
In a recent National Review article warning about growing Chinese influence in Africa, Mike Coté argues that countering such influence requires the United States to “reprioritize national interests over progressive values.” Though Coté’s piece raises some important points, his assertion that values such as the “respect for human rights” and “our belief in democracy” ought to play a “supporting role in an age of great-power conflict” is misguided. Indeed, to advance core interests like countering China, the U.S. should put the promotion of its democratic values and institutions at the forefront of its Africa policies.
Find the full Article online here.
It’s time to rethink emergency medical aid in armed conflict, by Michael Walsh
Michael Walsh argues that only ecosystem disruptors can realise the full potential of emergency medical teams. A radical reimagining of current structures could save lives and alleviate suffering in armed conflicts and other insecure environments. Find the full Article here.
African Studies Keywords: Queer by Kwame E. Otu and Adriaan van Klinken
“Queer” is a relatively recent and somewhat controversial term in African studies. Yet it is proving to be productive, not only for understanding African subjectivities of sexuality and gender, but also for situating Africa’s position in the larger economy of knowledge. Otu and van Klinken explore the productive tensions between “queer” and “Africa,” and aim to read Africa as queer and to read queer from Africa. Thus, rather than imagining Africa and queer as polar opposites, the authors seek to harness the critical, productive, and creative affinities between these two terms that are vital for the project of decolonizing and queering queer Africa. Find the full Article PDF here.
Amid Record Drought and Food Insecurity, East Africa’s Protracted Humanitarian Crisis Worsens by Kyilah Terry and Aishwarya Rai
Catastrophic drought in East Africa is the region’s worst disaster of its kind in four decades and is primed to bring an unprecedented sixth consecutive failed rainy season in 2023. Record-low agricultural yields coupled with months of obstructed grain imports created by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have exacerbated food insecurity across the region, raising fears that East African countries are facing a repeat of the 2010-12 famine in Somalia, during which 260,000 people died, half of them children. More than 37 million people around the region faced acute food insecurity as of August 2022, and analysts predict that a famine will be declared in Somalia this year. Find the full article here, at the Migration Policy Institute.
Is it time to rethink how we study politics? by Ankushi Mitra and Lahra Smith
How do race and racism underpin contemporary politics? How do racist understandings of the world affect the topics political scientists examine and the ways they study those topics? Political science has a long history of excluding people of color and not taking seriously different ways that knowledge is produced and understood in different parts of the world. Find the full article on the Washington Post.
Building one’s own house: power and escape for Ethiopian women through international migration* by Lauren Carruth and Lahra Smith
This study uses ethnography along Ethiopian women’s irregular migration routes through Djibouti to analyse the complex reasons women leave home to seek labour opportunities in the Gulf States. Theories and policies that either narrowly depict women’s motivations as economic in nature or focus only on women’s needs for security and protection, fail to account both for the politics of seeking employment abroad, and the ways migration provides women a potential refuge from various forms of violence at home. Using a feminist analysis, we argue that women do not migrate only for financial opportunities, but also to escape combinations of domestic, political and structural violence. As such, irregular migration both evinces a failure of asylum systems and humanitarian organizations to protect Ethiopians, and a failure of the state to provide Ethiopian women meaningful citizenship. Lacking both protection and meaningful citizenship, international migration represents women’s journeys for opportunity and emancipation. Click here to read the full article published by Cambridge University Press.
How Should Clinicians Express Solidarity With Asylum Seekers at the US-Mexico Border? by Carlos Martinez, MPH, Lauren Carruth, PhD, Hannah Janeway, MD, Lahra Smith , PhD, Katharine M. Donato, PhD, Carlos Piñones-Rivera, PhD, James Quesada, PhD, and Seth M. Holmes, MD, PhD
Migrants along the US-Mexico border have been subjected to transnational violence created by international policy, militaristic intervention, and multinational organizational administration of border operations. The COVID-19 pandemic compounded migrants’ vulnerabilities and provoked several logistical and ethical problems for US-based clinicians and organizations. This commentary examines how the concept of transnational solidarity facilitates analysis of clinicians’ and migrants’ shared historical and structural vulnerabilities. This commentary also suggests how actions implemented by one organization in Tijuana, Mexico, could be scaled more broadly for care of migrants and asylum seekers in other transnational health care settings. To read the full article published by AMA Journal of Ethics click here.
Earliest African DNA Paints Vivid Picture of Ancient Human Lives by Kathryn de Luna
An analysis of the oldest DNA ever uncovered in Africa provides new insight into how early humans lived, traded and mingled with one another 50,000 years ago.
The findings, published in Nature, represent the combined work of more than 40 researchers from around the world, whose collaboration brought together geneticists, archaeologists, historians and anthropologists to plumb the depths of human history.
Kathryn de Luna, one of the paper’s authors who teaches courses in the Department of History, is excited by the ways this genetic analysis offers unprecedented insight into early human development.
A mixed-methods, population-based study of a syndemic in Soweto, South Africa by Mendenhall E, Kim AW, Panasci A, Cele L, Mpondo F, Bosire EN, Norris SA, Tsai AC.
A syndemic has been theorized as a cluster of epidemics driven by harmful social and structural conditions wherein the interactions between the constitutive epidemics drive excess morbidity and mortality. We conducted a mixed-methods study to investigate a syndemic in Soweto, South Africa, consisting of a population-based quantitative survey (N = 783) and in-depth, qualitative interviews (N = 88). We used ethnographic methods to design a locally relevant measure of stress. Here we show that multimorbidity and stress interacted with each other to reduce quality of life. The paired qualitative analysis further explored how the quality-of-life impacts of multimorbidity were conditioned by study participants’ illness experiences. Together, these findings underscore the importance of recognizing the social and structural drivers of stress and how they affect the experience of chronic illness and well-being.Read more here.
Unmasked: COVID, Community, and the Case of Okoboji by Emily Mendenhall
Unmasked is the story of what happened in Okoboji, a small Iowan tourist town, when a collective turn from the coronavirus to the economy occurred in the COVID summer of 2020. State political failures, local negotiations among political and public health leaders, and community (dis)belief about the virus resulted in Okoboji being declared a hotspot just before the Independence Day weekend, when an influx of half a million people visit the town. The story is both personal and political. Author Emily Mendenhall, an anthropologist at Georgetown University, grew up in Okoboji, and her family still lives there. As the events unfolded, Mendenhall was in Okoboji, where she spoke formally with over 100 people and observed a community that rejected public health guidance, revealing deep-seated mistrust in outsiders and strong commitments to local thinking. Unmasked is a fascinating and heartbreaking account of where people put their trust, and how isolationist popular beliefs can be in America’s small communities.
Unmasked: COVID, Community, and the Case of Okoboji is available at Vanderbilt University Press.
Social risks, economic dynamics and the local politics of COVID-19 prevention in Eldoret town, Kenya by Bosire EN, Kamau LW, Bosire VK, Mendenhall E.
A steady and consistent national and local government leadership is crucial in times of crisis. The trust in government – which can be so fragile – was strong in Eldoret town, a large municipal in western Kenya widely known for ethnic conflicts. In our interviews with 20 business people and 30 community members from Eldoret town, we found that the trust built early in the pandemic was broken due to individual leaders who eventually dismissed public health promotion and engaged in politics and corruption of funds for COVID-19 relief. When leadership was strong, locals in Eldoret town (and especially business owners) engaged in public health prevention measures for the greater good. But when leadership slipped, people complained and eventually ignored public health prevention measures at home, on the bus, and in businesses around town, causing the intensification of outbreaks. This was most common among those engaged in the formal economy as those in the informal economy were more likely to mistrust the government altogether. We show who falls through the cracks when government policy targets viral threats and suggest how local government and public health agencies might work to control COVID-19 infections while ensuring that all Eldoret residents are cared for. Read more here.
Reconsidering Reparations by Olufemi O. Taiwo
Reparations for slavery have become a reinvigorated topic for public debate over the last decade. Most theorizing about reparations treats it as a social justice project – either rooted in reconciliatory justice focused on making amends in the present; or, they focus on the past, emphasizing restitution for historical wrongs. Olúfemi O. Táíwò argues that neither approach is optimal, and advances a different case for reparations – one rooted in a hopeful future that tackles the issue of climate change head on, with distributive justice at its core. This view, which he calls the “constructive” view of reparations, argues that reparations should be seen as a future-oriented project engaged in building a better social order; and that the costs of building a more equitable world should be distributed more to those who have inherited the moral liabilities of past injustices.
This approach to reparations, as Táíwò shows, has deep and surprising roots in the thought of Black political thinkers such as James Baldwin, Martin Luther King Jr, and Nkechi Taifa, as well as mainstream political philosophers like John Rawls, Charles Mills, and Elizabeth Anderson. Táíwò’s project has wide implications for our views of justice, racism, the legacy of colonialism, and climate change policy. Reconsidering Reparations is available at Oxford University Press
In a fiscal ditch? African countries should try public participation in the budget process by Ken Opalo
Democratizing public finance management can help boost both tax collection and prudent public spending in African states. Click here to read the full article.
African Art Reframed: Reflections and Dialogues on Museum Culture by Bennetta Jules-Rosette and J.R. Osborn
African Art Reframed analyzes the global circulation of African art, drawing upon extensive curator interviews, ethnographic site visits, the visual and digital analysis of artworks (“digital unmixing”), and studies of audience response. African Art Reframed: Reflections and Dialogues on Museum Culture is available at University of Illinois Press
All Publications
Legislative Development in Africa by Ken Opalo
Legislative Development in Africa, answers two simple questions: (i) what explains variation in legislative strength under autocracy? and (ii) under what conditions does the transition to democracy result in the strengthening of legislatures? The book speaks to the wider comparative political economy literature on autocratic institutions and the origins of limited democratic government. The main goal of the book is to trace, through quantitative and qualitative means, the autocratic origins of democratic institutions. In addition to a survey of legislative development in Africa from their founding under colonialism to the present, the book also provides detailed case studies of the Kenyan and Zambian legislatures.
Africa 2050 by Callisto Madavo
Africa is at a critical inflection point. After decades of disappointing performance a combination of sound macro policies and a commodity price bonanza has led to a dramatic and long overdue surge in African growth rates and concomitant improvement in social indicators. This impressive performance has now created its own challenge for African leadership-the heightened aspirations of their own people and the expectation of the world at large. And responding to this challenge will definitely require more than staying the course-more of the same will not work. It will require bold and tenacious pursuit of multifaceted policies and initiatives that will call for intellectual integrity and single?minded determination combined with political courage at home and statesmanship abroad. It is in this context that the experience of the other emerging markets economies may provide pointers as African leaders grapple with the complex multidimensional issues of not just maintaining but accelerating economic growth, prosperity and wellbeing of their populace. To set the stage for defining the opportunities and the promise that can lie ahead, this report sets out alternative scenarios of what the outcomes could be but not predictions of what they will be. This study also outlines a framework and action agenda that can deliver Africa’s promise. Africa 2050 is available from Oxford University Press.
To Dwell Secure: Generation, Christianity and Colonialism in Ovamboland by Meredith McKittrick
The Ovambo communities of the Cuvelai floodplain in northern Namibia have embraced Christianity with enthusiasm. Christianity meant many different things to floodplain communities and struggles to incorporate Christianity paralleled and intersected with other ongoing struggles. This work shows how a local micro-history can illuminate the understanding of historical process throughout Africa. To Dwell Secure is available on Amazon.
African Feminism by Gwen Mikell
African feminism, this landmark volume demonstrates, differs radically from the Western forms of feminism with which we have become familiar since the 1960s. African feminists are not, by and large, concerned with issues such as female control over reproduction or variation and choice within human sexuality, nor with debates about essentialism, the female body, or the discourse of patriarchy. The feminism that is slowly emerging in Africa is distinctly heterosexual, pro-natal, and concerned with “bread, butter, and power” issues. Contributors present case studies of ten African states, demonstrating that–as they fight for access to land, for the right to own property, for control of food distribution, for living wages and safe working conditions, for health care, and for election reform–African women are creating a powerful and specifically African feminism. African Feminism is available on Amazon.
Cocoa and Chaos in Ghana by Gwen Mikell
Cocoa and Chaos in Ghana is the story of the Ghanaian odyssey and, through it, the odyssey of all of Black Africa. Using historic and socioeconomic data plus readable analysis, Gwendolyn Mikell traces the past and present political and social systems in Ghana, focusing especially on the relationships over the years between rural producers in Ghana and the state. Mikell traces the causes of rural exploitation and political collapse in Ghana as well as the new and more destructive rural/national relations created by the dependence on cocoa. Also discussed is the fragmentation of social structures, lineage, and community relations. Cocoa and Chaos in Ghana is available on Amazon.
Making Citizens in Africa: Ethnicity, Gender, and National Identity in Ethiopia by Lahra Smith
Making Citizens in Africa argues that citizenship creation and expansion is a pivotal part of political contestation in Africa today. Citizenship is a powerful analytical tool with which to approach political life in contemporary Africa because the institutional and structural reforms of the past two decades have been inextricably linked with the battle over the “right to have rights.” Professor Lahra Smith’s work advances the notion of meaningful citizenship, which refers to the way in which rights are exercised, or the effective practice of citizenship. Using data from Ethiopia and developing a historically informed and empirically nuanced study of language policy and ethnicity and gender identities, this book analyzes the contestation over citizenship that engages the state, social movements, and individuals in substantive ways. By combining original data on language policy in contemporary Ethiopia with detailed historical study and an analytical focus on ethnicity, citizenship, and gender, this work not only brings a fresh approach to Ethiopian political development but also to contemporary citizenship concerns relevant to other parts of Africa. Making Citizens in Africa is available on Amazon.
Business and the State in Southern Africa by Scott Taylor
Why are productive, development-supporting relations between business and government still so rare in Africa? Scott Taylor addresses this question, examining state-business coalitions as they emerge, and endure or collapse, in three representative countries: Zambia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. Taylor illuminates three possible trajectories: an abortive state-business coalition, as in Zambia; the emergence of a short-lived coalition, as in Zimbabwe; and a relatively successful and thus far durable coalition, as in South Africa. Though rooted in the southern African experience, his cases reflect much of the variance in outcomes throughout sub-Saharan Africa and shed light on the prospects for economic reform and development on the continent. It explores why state-business coalitions emerge (or do not) in Africa, and why they endure or collapse, drawing on three representative case studies. Business and the State in Southern Africa is available on Amazon.
Culture and Customs of Zambia by Scott Taylor
Zambia stands out in Africa as one of the continent’s most peaceful countries. In its early years as an independent state, Zambia became a regional bulwark against imperialism and colonial domination and South African apartheid. Today, it stands out as an important example of Africa’s recent democratization, experiencing both incredible success as well as some notable setbacks. The country is also one of the most urbanized in Sub-Saharan Africa. As a result of this urban influx, Zambia’s diverse ethno-linguistic groups interact regularly. Moreover, many contemporary Zambian households, especially those in cities, are also exposed to the media, technology, and influences of western urbanized cultures, from Internet cafes to hip hop music. The interesting ways that “tradition” and “modernity” conflict and combine in contemporary Zambia are prime considerations in this book. This book explores Zambia’s culture, with an eye toward its historical experiences and its particular endowments. It focuses on how “traditional” and “modern” interact, and sometimes collide, in the country through topics such as religion, gender roles and family, cuisine, the arts, literature, and more. The major groups are examined to give the reader an idea about how many Zambians live. Culture and Customs of Zambia is available on Amazon.
Politics In Southern Africa: State And Society In Transition by Scott Taylor and Gretchen Bauer
The authors first introduce the themes and concepts that guide their analysis. Then, in each of eight country studies, they trace the country’s political history (beginning with the colonial period) and discuss state structures, political and social actors, fundamentals of the political economy, and the major challenges faced by both state and society. The final section of the book investigates issues that transcend borders: gender and politics, the HIV/AIDS crisis, and southern Africa’s role in Africa and the world. Politics In Southern Africa is available on Amazon.