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Cairo's Tahrir Square, 2nd February, 2011
TIME: Tuesday 16-18 LOCATION: HG E 22 INSTRUCTOR OF RECORDS: MSc Christine Whyte
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FFSS 22001111
16th to 17th century brass relief depicting a Warrior Chief and Attendants, Court of Benin
This seminar series offers an introduction to some of the key themes of African colonial history from the 1890s up to the modern day. The thematic foci include, but are not lim-ited to, the construction and use of ideas about race and ethnicity, methods of colonial control and politics, the meaning and significance of forms of violence and rebellion and the reconfigurations and continuities in discourse on improving and developing Africa.
REQUIREMENTS
Attendance of the sessions (minimum 80%). Regular reading of the mandatory texts (a course reader with selected texts is
provided online) Presentation 25-mins on a selected topic, based on at least four of the
readings
OUTLINE OF THE SESSIONS
Session 1 (22.02. 2011) Introduction to the course Suggested reading Patrick Bratlinger, ‘Victorians and Africa: The Genealogy of the Myth of the Dark Conti-nent’ Critical Enquiry, Volume 12, Issue 1, 1985, pp. 166-203
Skull drawings: Indigenous races of the earth, 1857 Before Darwin had published his theory of evo-lution, Josiah Clark Nott's and George Robins Gliddon's Indigenous races of the earth (1857) used misleading imagery to suggest that "Ne-groes" had been created to rank between "Greeks" and chimpanzees.
“It was unearthly, and the men were—No, they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was the worst of it—the suspicion of their not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one. They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity—like yours—the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly. Yes, it was ugly enough; but if you were man enough you would admit to yourself that there was in you just the faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that noise, a dim suspi-cion of there being a meaning in it which you—you so remote from the night of first ages—could comprehend. And why not?”
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, 1906
Session 2 (01.03.2011) The global slave trade
Seminar questions
• In what ways did the Atlantic slave trade impact on African societies? • Can you analyse the slave trade as a ‘migration’? • What are the difficulties and debates around defining slavery itself?
Compulsory reading
• Paul E. Lovejoy, ‘The Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on Africa: A Review of the Literature’, The Journal of African History, Vol. 30, No. 3, 1989, pp. 365-394
Background reading
• J. D. Fage, ‘Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Context of West African History’ The Journal of African History, Vol. 10, No. 3, 1969, pp. 393-404
• Paul Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1983, pp. 1-8
• Patrick Manning, Slavery and African Life, Cambridge University Press, Cam-bridge, 1990, pp. 110-126
“So enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did the Trade's wickedness appear that my own mind was completely made up for Abolition”
William Wilberforce, British MP
Session 3 (08.03.2011) Systems of control: temperance, trade and religion
Seminar questions
• How far does the phrase ‘Christianity and Commerce’ go towards explaining the Scramble for Africa?
• What was the impact on African societies of the shift from the slave trade to the so-called legitimate trade?
• What can the temperance movement tell us about the conflict between the economic and the civilising mission in Africa?
Compulsory reading
• Andrew Porter, ‘'Commerce and Christianity': The Rise and Fall of a Nineteenth-Century Missionary Slogan’, The Historical Journal, Vol. 28, No. 3 (Sep., 1985), Cambridge University Press, pp. 597-621
Background reading
• Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff, ‘Christianity and Colonialism in South Africa’, American Ethnologist, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Feb., 1986), pp. 1-22
• Chima J. Korieh, ‘Alcohol and Empire: "Illicit" Gin Prohibition and Control in Colo-nial Eastern Nigeria’ African Economic History, No. 31 (2003), pp. 111-134
• Andrew Porter, ‘Cultural Imperialism and Protestant Missionary Enterprise, 1780-1914', The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Volume 25, Issue 3, 1997, pp. 367 - 391
German Missionaries in Windhuk, Southwest Af-rica (c. 1910)
“for if a man becomes a Christian he cannot continue to live in the habits of a heathen. The African who believes Jesus is preparing for him a glorious mansion in Heaven, will en-deavour to build for himself a decent house on earth; and he who anticipates being here-after attired in the pure white robe of the Redeemer’s righteousness, will now throw aside the filthy garments of the heathen.”
John Mackenzie, London Missionary Society
Session 4 (15.03.2011) Systems of control II: Violent conquest Seminar questions
• Why was the establishment of early colonial rule in the Belgian Congo so vio-
lent? • How significant is the legacy of Belgian colonialism to understand the origins
and development of the current Congo Crisis? • What was the impact of the particular forms of violence used?
Compulsory reading
• Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa, London, Pan Books, 2006, pp. 115-139 ZB Zürich HN 633
Background reading
• Thomas Pakenham, The Scramble for Africa, Abacus, London, 2006, p. 11-23 and 585-601
• Ch. Didier Gondola, The History of Congo, Connecticut, Greenwood Press, 2002, Chapters 4-6, pp. 59-114 ZB Zürich GN 50917
• Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, The Congo from Leopold to Kabila : a people’s history, London, Zed Books, 2002, Chapter One, pp. 13-60 ZB Zürich GN 50708
Film -- Schatten über dem Kongo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVbQLnFg1fI Images of amputees. These photographs were widely circulated in order to discredit Leopold’s rule in the Congo.
Session 5 (22.03.2011) Systems of control III: indirect rule and taxation
Seminar questions
• What were the aims of Britain’s civilising mission in Africa? • How and why did they depend on ‘indirect rule’? • What was the cultural meaning of taxation?
Compulsory reading
• Ronald Hyam, Britain’s Declining Empire: The Road to Decolonisation, 1918-1982, Cambridge University Press, 2006, short section on ‘indirect rule’, pp. 13-15 ZB Zürich HN 4189
• Michael Crowder, ‘Indirect Rule: French and British Style’, Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Volume 34, No. 3, 1964, pp. 197-205
Background reading
• Barbara Bush and Josephine Maltby, ‘Taxation in West Africa: transforming the colonial sub-ject into the “governable per-son”’, Critical Perspectives on Ac-counting, Volume 15, No. 1, 2004, pp. 5-34
• Patricia Hayes, ""Cocky Hahn" and the "Black Venus": The Mak-ing of a Native Commissioner in South West Africa, 1915-1946', Journal of Gender and His-tory 8, 3 (June, 1997)
• Frederick Lugard, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Af-rica pp.64-93, London, UK: Wil-liam Blackwood & Sons Ltd. 1929
‘Let it be admitted at the outset that European brains, capital, and energy have not been, and never will be, expended in developing the resources of African from motives of pure philanthropy; that Europe is in Africa for the mutual benefit of her own industrial classes, and of the native races in their progress to a higher plane; that the benefit can be made reciprocal, and that it is the aim and desire of civilised administration to fulfil this dual mandate.’
F. Lugard, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa
Session 6 (29.03.2011) Imagining ethnicity?
Seminar questions
• How did colonial rule affect African ethnic identities? • What is the distinction between race, ethnicity and tribe? • To what extent were ethnic identities or tribes ‘created’?
Compulsory reading
• Thomas Spear, ‘Neo-Traditionalism and the Limits of Invention in British Colonial Africa’, The Journal of African History, Volume 44, No. 1, 2003, pp. 3-27
Background reading
• Leroy Vail, ‘Introduction: Ethnicity in Southern African History’, in Leroy Vail (ed.), The Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1991, pp. 1-20 ZB Zürich, TC 3368: 43
• Terence Ranger, ‘The invention of tradi-tion revisited: the case of colonial Africa’ in Susanne Sech, Development: a cultural studies reader, Oxford, Blackwell, 2002 ZB Zürich, GC 22047
• Mahmood Mamdani, ‘Beyond Settler and Native as Political Identities: Overcoming the Political Legacy of Colonialism’, Comparative Studies in Society and His-tory, Vol. 43, No. 4 (Oct., 2001), Cambridge University Press, pp. 651-664
“African political leaders, experiencing it as destructive to their ideals of national unity, denounce it passionately. Commentators on the Left, recognizing it as a block to the growth of appropriate class awareness, inveigh against it as a case of ‘false consciousness’. Apologists for South African apartheid, welcoming it as an ally of continued white domi-nance, encourage it. Development theorists, perceiving it as a check to economic growth, deplore it. Journalists, judging it an adequate explanation for a myriad of otherwise puz-zling events, deploy it mercilessly. Political scientists, intrigued by its continuing power, probe at it endlessly. If one disapproves of the phenomenon, ‘it’ is ‘tribalism’, if one is less judgmental, ‘it’ is ‘ethnicity’.”
Leroy Vail, The Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa
Session 7 (05.04.2011) Slavery and colonial rule: Sudan and West Nile Seminar questions
• Why did slavery persist after the establishment of colonial rule in Sudan? • What was the function of slavery in colonial states? • How did forced labour practices become endemic?
Essential reading
• Mark Leopold, Inside West Nile: Violence, History and Representation on an African Frontier, Cumbria, Fountain, 2005, Chapter 6, ‘Imperial Encounters’, pp.108-130 ZB Zürich, GN 54483
Background reading
• R. S. O'Fahey, ‘Slavery and the Slave Trade in Darfur’, Journal of African History, Volume 14, No. 1, 1973, pp. 29-43
• Douglas Johnson, ‘The Structure of a Legacy: Military Slavery in North-East Af-rica’, Ethnohistory 36, 1 (1989)
• Martin A Klein, "The Slave Trade in the Western Sudan During the Nineteenth Century" from Savage, Elizabeth., The Human Commodity: Perspectives on the Trans-Saharan Slave Trade, London, UK: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd, 1992, pp.39-60
• Paul Lovejoy, Transformations in slavery : a history of slavery in Africa, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000, Chapter 9, ‘Slavery in the savanna during the era of the jihads’, pp. 184-219 ZB Zürich, GN 44784
Theatrical poster depicting Boilerplate with Kitchener's forces during the Sudan Campaign of 1897. Note the Sudanese colonial troops behind the Union Jack.
Session 8 (12.04.2011) National liberation I: Kenya and the Mau Mau Seminar questions
• What prompted the Declaration of Emergency in Kenya? • Was Mau Mau a national liberation movement? • Discuss modalities of the debate around the repression of Mau Mau?
Essential reading
• John Lonsdale, ‘Mau Maus of the Mind: Making Mau Mau and Remaking Kenya’, The Journal of African History, Volume 31, No. 3, 1990, pp. 393-421
Background reading
• Joanna Lewis, 'Nasty, Brutish and in shorts? British colonial rule, violence and the historians of Mau Mau', The Round Table, Volume 96, Issue 389, pp. 201-223
• David Branch, ‘The Enemy Within: Loyalists and the War against Mau Mau in Kenya’, Journal of African History, Volume 48, 2007, pp. 291-315
• Carolyn Elkins, Britain’s Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya, London, Jona-than Cape, 2005, pp. 31-61 ZB Zürich, GN 54071
Arrest of suspected Mau Mau rebels
Session 9 (19.04.2011) National liberation II: Peasant war in Zimbabwe Seminar questions
• Why do peasants support guerrilla warriors? • How significant is religious belief and spirituality in forming and nationalist
movement? • To what extent are African peasants a cohesive group?
Essential reading
• Norma Kriger, ‘The Zimbabwean War of Liberation: Struggles within the Strug-gle’, Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 14, No. 2, 1988, pp. 304-322
Background reading
• Terence Ranger, ‘Review: Zimbabwe's Guerrilla War: Peasant voices’, African Af-fairs, Volume 93, No. 370, 1994, pp. 142-144
• David Lan, Guns and Rains: Guerrillas and Spirit Mediums in Zimbabwe, London, James Currey Publishers, 1985, Part I, ‘The Operational Zone’, pp. 1-28
• David Moore, ‘Democracy, violence and identity in the Zimbabwean war of na-tional liberation’, Canadian Journal of African Studies, 29 3 (1995) 375-402
Rhodesian Army officers
Session 10 (03.05.2011) Post-independence politics: The Congo Crisis Seminar questions
• How significant is the legacy of Belgian colonialism to understand the origins and development of the Congo Crisis of the early 1960s?
• How did the Cold War affect the Congo Crisis? • How did ethnic identity affect independence politics and why?
Essential reading
• Ch. Didier Gondola, The History of Congo, Connecticut, Greenwood Press, 2002, Chapters 6-8, pp. 97-154 ZB Zürich GN 50917
Background reading
• E. Bustin, ‘Remembrance of Sins Past: Unravelling the Murder of Patrice Lu-mumba’, Review of African Political Economy, 29, 93/94 (2002)
• Mahmood Mamdani, ‘Preliminary Thoughts on the Congo Crisis’ Social Text, No. 60, Globalization? (Autumn, 1999), pp. 53-62
• Theodore Trefon, Chapter 6 ‘The Social Cost of Conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo’ in Patrick Chabal et al Is Violence in African Inevitable? Leiden, Brill, 2005, p. 127-146
Belgian King Baudouin’s sword is stolen.
Session 11 (10.05.2011) Evaluating colonial legacies: Rwanda Seminar questions
• How significant is the legacy of Belgian colonialism to understand the origins of the Rwandan Genocide?
• Was it a genocide or a civil war? • What is the wider regional context?
Essential reading
• Peter Langford, ‘The Rwandan path to genocide: the genesis of the capacity of the Rwandan post-colonial state’ Civil Wars 71 (2005)
Background reading
• Rene Lemarchand, ‘Genocide in the Great Lakes: which genocide? African Studies Review, 41, 1 (1998) 3-16
• David Newbury, ‘Understanding genocide’, African Studies Review, 41, 1 (1998) 73-97
• Jack Goody, ‘How Ethnic is Ethnic Cleansing?’ New Left Review, 7 (2000) • Michael Mann, ‘The dark side of democracy: the modern tradition of ethnic and
political cleansing’ New Left Review (1999) 235 Tutsi identity card Under Belgian rule, the class distinctions in Rwandan society were conflated with eth-nic divisions, granting the Tutsi minority privileged political, economic and social status. This ethnic status was included in an identity card system, however, the Kin-yarwanda language has no word for "ethnicity"; ubwoko, or "clan", is used instead.
Session 12 (17.05.2011) Evaluating colonial legacies II: Sierra Leone Seminar questions
• Which explanations for Sierra Leone’s violence do you find most convincing and why?
• In what ways do historians and development workers or NGOs have differing views of ‘agency’?
• How do interpretations of the Sierra Leone civil war emphasise the distinction between structure and agency?
Essential reading
• Peters, K, Richards, P., Why we fight: Voices of youth ex-combatants in Sierra Leone’, Africa 68, 2 (1998)
Background reading
• Human Rights Watch, ‘Getting away with murder, mutilation and rape’ (1999) http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3ae6a7fa0.html
• AB Zack Williams, ‘Sierra Leone: the political economy of civil war, 1991-1998’, Third world quarterly, 20 (1999)
• Hoffman, D., The civilian target in Sierra Leone and Liberia’, political power, mili-tary strategy and humanitarian intervention, African Affairs, 103, 411 (2004)
Abu, 7, buttons the collar of his father's shirt at a camp for amputees outside Free-town, Sierra Leone. Abu Bakarr Kargbo, 31, is one of the thousands of victims of forced amputa-tions performed by the Revolutionary United Front during Sierra Leone's 11-year civil war.
Session 13 (24.05.2011) Contemporary development debates; Uganda Seminar questions
• What is meant by the development industry? • What are the continuities and differences from the colonial era? • What effect does the focus on ‘livelihoods’ have in this historical context?
Essential reading
• Ben Jones, Beyond the State in Rural Uganda, International African Library for the International African Institute, Edinburgh University Press and Fountain Pub-lishers, Kampala, 2008, pp 31-63
• The Guardian Katine project website: http://www.guardian.co.uk/katine Background reading
• Parker Shipton, ‘Bitter Money: Forbidden Exchange in East Africa’, in Roy Richard Grinker and Christopher Burghard, Steiner Perspectives on Africa: a reader in cul-ture, history, and representation, Wiley-Blackwell, Cornwall, 2004, pp 163-190
• Susan Reynolds Whyte, ‘Men, Women and Misfortune in Bunyole’ Man, New Se-ries, Vol. 16, No. 3 (Sep., 1981), pp. 350-366
• Susan Reynolds Whyte and Michael A. Whyte, ‘The Values of Development: Con-ceiving Growth and Progress in Bunyole’ in Holger Bernt Hansen and Michael Twaddle, Developing Uganda, James Currey, Oxford, 1998, pp. 227-245
Emorikikinos village savings and loans group
Session 14 (31.05.2011) Technology: revolution and oppression in Tunisia and Egypt, 2011 For this session there is no recommended reading, but some browsing of Twitter feeds, online discussion forums, facebook groups and online blogs on the topic would be use-ful. Also, think about the dissemination of information within Egypt, how technology assists protestors and how the government acted to control and limit certain channels. Seminar questions
• What was the role of the internet in sparking the political actions in Tunisia and Egypt this year?
• How do mobile phone and internet technologies influence the outcome of mod-ern ‘revolutions’?
• How will these new technologies shape future histories? • What is the point of studying African history? • Suggestions and feedback on the course.
