Veröffentlicht von De Gruyter Oldenbourg

Connectivity and Society in Africa

Herausgegeben von: Mirjam de Bruijn und Jonna Both

ISSN: 2628-6564

e-ISSN 2628-6572

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This series is aimed at understanding the dynamics in the relationship between enduring conflict, hardship, governance regimes, connectivity in Africa. The first books of the series concentrate on Middle and West Africa, in particular in Cameroon, Chad, CAR, Nigeria, Congo-Brazzaville, DRC, Uganda and Mali; a region with a shared history of connectivity, of oppression and conflict (duress). Within the region the variation in these two variables and its comparisons highlight processes and dynamics of socio-political change, and of agency (the ways of people to act, react, experience). The series uses an interdisciplinary methodology, combining anthropology, history, communication studies, conflict studies, and social geography. Publications are comparative and complementary, among diverse mobile populations in urban centers, refugee camps, and remote rural areas and of different types of relations between duress and changing communication technologies. The main concepts Duress and Connectivity need explanation. Duress is the internalization of conflict/oppression, and combines the long history of such circumstances, their recurrence, with a perspective on (constrained) agency, emotions, and socio-political change. Connectivity encompasses all forms of connectivity, from geographical mobility to communication, in which the role of technologies of communication (from roads to mobile phones) are present. In this series we focus on the interplay between the changes and continuities in connectivity and the way it (re/trans)forms duress.

More specifically, the publications in this series concentrate on (a) how, through new communication and information flows people’s experience of duress changes; (b) how new opportunities to be informed, to communicate, and connect, influence individual decision making and the (re)forming of communities; and (c) how these changes influence power relations and existing hierarchies. An important goal is to contextualize these seemingly ‘revolutionary’ and ‘new’ changes related to the introduction of new technologies in a historical longue durée_perspective, relating developments in connectivity to older connectivity processes in the history of African regions.

The series will be in conversation with various fields in the social sciences and humanities: Studies of migration, displacement, refugees; Studies of the history of conflict; Conflict studies; Ethnography of mobility, Mobility turn in Geography (Urry et al.), and in the methodological field with Digital Ethnography and Digital Humanities.

Advisory Board:

Dr. Henrietta Nyamnjoh, Independent Researcher

Prof. Bruce Mutsvairo

Dr. Katrien Pype, University of Leuven

Prof. Andrea Behrends, University of Bayreuth

Prof. Abdou Salam Fall, IFAN, University Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar

Prof. Rijk van Dijk, University of Leiden,

Dr. Shamil Jeppie, University of Cape Town

Prof. Han van Dijk, Wageningen University

Prof. Thomas Moloniy, Director African Studies Centre Edinburgh

Prof. Ayo Ojebode, University of Ibadan

Dr. Joris Schapendonk, Nijmegen University

Fachgebiete

Buch 2023

Nomadic Connectivity

An Ethnography of Walad Djifir Navigating Insecurities in Central Africa

Inge Butter

Band 3 in dieser Reihe

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A focus on the everyday has produced this ethnography, which hopes to give a nuanced voice to an extended family of semi-sedentary nomads, living at the centre of a country and region known for its political turmoil, ecological insecurities, and socio-economic hardship. The everyday of the Chadian Walad Djifir is one in which sedentarity and mobility are approached as two entwined parts of a whole, and where economic and geographical boundaries do not necessarily form constrictions. The ferīkh (nomadic camp) is where all of the Walad Djifir’s networks meet, and often also begin— a physical place embodying various networks and connections, which span time and geographical space. This analytical and methodological approach gives insight in how regional trends can be understood in light of the Walad Djifir’s daily lives. Over time, the Walad Djifir have developed ways of coping and dealing with insecurities, interacting with infrastructural, technological, and socio-political developments in specific ways. In exploring how such insecurities and crises become anchored into the everyday, the ferīkh provides answers. It is precisely the mundane elements of daily life which anchor disruption.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110714685
ISBN:: 9783110714685
ISBN:: 9783110714807
ISBN:: 9783110714609
Fachgebiet:: Geschichte
Fachgebiet:: Regionale und nationale Geschichte
Fachgebiet:: Afrika
Fachgebiet:: Themen der Geschichte
Fachgebiet:: Wirtschaftsgeschichte
Fachgebiet:: Sozialgeschichte
Fachgebiet:: Sozialwissenschaften
Fachgebiet:: Anthropologie
Fachgebiet:: Sozialanthropologie
Verlag:: De Gruyter Oldenbourg

Buch 2022

Shaping Claims to Urban Land

An Ethnographic Guide to Governmentality in Bukavu's Hybrid Spaces

Fons van Overbeek

Band 2 in dieser Reihe

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The concept of 'hybridity' is often still poorly theorized and problematically applied by peace and development scholars and researchers of resource governance. This book turns to a particular ethnographic reading of Michel Foucault's Governmentality and investigates its usefulness to study precisely those mechanisms, processes and practices that hybridity once promised to clarify.

Claim-making to land and authority in a post-conflict environment is the empirical grist supporting this exploration of governmentality. Specifically in the periphery of Bukavu. This focus is relevant as urban land is increasingly becoming scarce in rapidly expanding cities of eastern Congo, primarily due to internal rural-to-urban migration as a result of regional insecurity. The governance of urban land is also important analytically as land governance and state authority in Africa are believed to be closely linked and co-evolve.

An ethnographic reading of governmentality enables researchers to study hybridization without biasing analysis towards hierarchical dualities. Additionally, a better understanding of hybridization in the claim-making practices may contribute to improved government intervention and development assistance in Bukavu and elsewhere.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110734539
ISBN:: 9783110734539
ISBN:: 9783110734591
ISBN:: 9783110738803
Fachgebiet:: Geschichte
Fachgebiet:: Regionale und nationale Geschichte
Fachgebiet:: Afrika
Fachgebiet:: Themen der Geschichte
Fachgebiet:: Colonial und Postcolonial History
Fachgebiet:: Theorien, Methoden, Historische Hilfswissenschaften
Fachgebiet:: Geschichtstheorien
Fachgebiet:: Sozialwissenschaften
Fachgebiet:: Anthropologie
Fachgebiet:: Sozialanthropologie
Verlag:: De Gruyter Oldenbourg

Buch Open Access 2022

Political Silence of Youth in Togo

Mobile Phones, Information and Civic (dis)Engagement

Roos Keja

Band 1 in dieser Reihe

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This book paints an image of sociality in duress, describing how new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) bring possible changes in political engagement and civic-ness. The political branch of the field of ICT-for-Development (ICT4D) is firmly convinced that this translates in civic engagement and democratisation. This book questions this conception, by showing that mistrust greatly increases through new ICT in a society where mistrust has been internalised. These processes are examined in the society encountered in Sokodé, the capital of the Central Region of Togo, in the period between 2015 and 2020, when the mobile phone became widespread among young people.

This ethnographic research provides a snapshot of the changes brought about by new ICT in the social fabrics and the lives of these young people. The place and period are highly relevant for getting a better understanding of the forms that civic engagement can take, and the roles that new ICT can play in settings of political repression. Togo has been ruled by the same family for over half a century, and Sokodé is one of the rare places of fierce political opposition. However, young people do not persevere in massive street protests like in other countries, even though they appear to have every reason to do so. How can the circumstances and social processes be understood that are leading to this ‘political silence’, and how do frustration and anger find their way?

The link between new ICT and civic engagement has more often been made, but mostly quantitative and volatile, lacking empirical grounding. This book demonstrates that there is indeed a connection between new ICT and social change. Through their phones, young people inform themselves in different ways, and they react differently to social and political changes. Their reflection on politics has also altered, minimal as it may seem. By closely regarding the context and mechanisms by which the trustworthiness of information is valued, this book contributes to the nascent research field of communication and political anthropology.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110675306
ISBN:: 9783110675306
ISBN:: 9783111353319
ISBN:: 9783110675337
ISBN:: 9783110675269
Fachgebiet:: Geschichte
Fachgebiet:: Regionale und nationale Geschichte
Fachgebiet:: Afrika
Fachgebiet:: Sozialwissenschaften
Fachgebiet:: Anthropologie
Fachgebiet:: Sozialanthropologie
Verlag:: De Gruyter Oldenbourg