Pan African Studies Research Papers (original) (raw)

Works on the political and economic thoughts of Thomas Sankara have gained recent currency in the light of the resurgence of decolonization of knowledge in both the global North and South. This chapter works from the wide-ranging and pluriversal political and socioeconomic imaginaries elaborated upon by Sankara (through his speeches and actions) to tease out his particular political economy as one insistent upon building a society in which each person could work toward self-liberation and dignity. I consider some of the lessons learned from the implementation of these political philosophies during the revolution of August 1983 to October 1987. Finally, I conclude by sketching some of the ways in which contemporary pan-Africanists, decolonial thinkers, green socialists, and others have revived aspects of Sankara’s political economy of justice and “revolution [as] happiness.”

- by Amber Murrey
- •
- Political Sociology, African Studies, Political Economy, Marxism
- by shuaibu yahya
- •
- Pan African Studies

The end of the Cold War, the accelerating pace of globalization and the end of apartheid have combined to give momentum to the revival of regional and pan-African initiatives. The AU was created at the start of the new millennium, and equipped with a new Constitutive Act and institutions, giving fresh impetus to African integration and unity. this paper examines the root of the Pan-African project and the various attempts to revive the United States of Africa and push it to a practical stage. In this sense, it dives first into the origin of a continental policy of Africa integration. Then it explores the Pan-African agenda framed by the African Union since its inception. It finally assess the current level of the Pan-Africanist project in light of the ideal of African Renaissance.

- by Ray Von Robertson
- •
- Pan African Studies

The human worth of any given people is best appreciated in terms of their confidence in their history and culture as the embodiments of the life-affirming values and examples on the basis of which they can empower themselves and develop their communities. Without such confidence, it is impossible for any given people to be taken seriously by other members of the human family. This article sets out to outline the rubrics of " the Afrotriumphalist perspective " (Gwekwerere and Mheta:2012) in the study of phenomena relating to Africa, in addition to demonstrating its African cultural grounding and historical provenance against the backdrop of the need for African scholars to actively participate in the development of such Africa-centered critical perspectives as would furnish a brand of consciousness that expedites the appreciation of African people as capable of transcending their existential challenges. The emphasis on " the African cultural grounding " and " historical provenance " of the Afrotriumphalist perspective in this article is best understood in the light of the realization that African culture and history do in fact embody the life-affirming consciousness that should inform African thought and behaviour in the unfolding of the African Renaissance agenda.

This research investigates the influence of the Internet on the political participation of youth in the Ikeja Local Government Area of Lagos state, in Nigeria. The study was hinged on technological determinism; the data was gathered through survey and in-depth interview; through multistage sampling, questionnaires were administered on 600 youth in Ikeja. Findings show that using the Internet over a long period of time will result to some form of political participation. Thus, the youth who use the Internet for a long time are likely to explore other opportunities (like online political participation) offered by the Internet, therefore, the findings of this study will benefit civil liberties organizations, political parties, government agencies and political communication researchers; and suggests that government and political parties should engage the youth more intelligently on political matters through the Internet and make Internet access more affordable.

- by koblowe Obono
- •
- Political communication, Pan African Studies

Current scholarly research, both sociologically and biologically based, continues to be inundated with notions of race operating as a biological construct and as a proxy for poor health outcomes. Medical research and practice have fostered an environment where diagnostics, treatment, and the creation and dissemination of drug regimens often are influenced by a patient's skin color and ethnicity. The emergence of biological markers in social science-based surveys has fueled recent health disparities research that is shaping the meaning, interpretation, and policy of the health of people of color. Using hypertension as an example, this paper focuses on ways in which biological markers are discussed within the realm of health in the African diaspora. Additionally, the paper discusses how the quantification of disease etiology devoid of social and historical contexts can be troubling to both the social science and medical fields. Finally, the paper identifies the ways in which blac...

- by John Chenault
- •
- Sociology, Library Science, Medicine, Pan African Studies
- by Spencer Wood
- •
- Sociology, Political Sociology, Rural Sociology, Social Movements
- by Imruh Bakari
- •
- Film Studies, African Diaspora Studies, African cinema, Film Festival Studies
- by Jacob Mapara
- •
- Pan African Studies
- by Fouad Mami
- •
- African Studies, African History, African Literature, African American Literature

Compared to the few public higher education institutions in the prewar era, postwar Somalia boasts a large number of academic institutions at the tertiary level, mainly as privately owned universities. Although these community-initiated academic establishments are making tremendous contributions to the higher education sector, particularly in the absence of an effective national government, one can argue that much still remains at stake in terms of evaluation and quality assurance, key elements necessary for institutional accreditation and acceptance of credentials by other educational establishments issuing the same level of certificates. In this essay we aim to provide an overview discussion of the trends of higher education in Somalia and the way forward for newly emerged institutions, which have taken the bold initiative of changing the landscape of Somalia’s higher education.

- by James Okolie-Osemene PhD
- •
- History, Sociology, Cultural Studies, African Studies

Six years after assuming the presidency of a newly independent Senegal, Leopold Sédar Senghor, with the support of UNESCO, convened the First World Festival of Negro Arts and Culture in Dakar held from April 1-24, 1966. The Dakar Festival was Senghor’s attempt to highlight the development of his country and “his” philosophy, Négritude. Margaret Danner, a Afro-North American poet from Chicago and attendee of the Festival referred to him as “a modern African artist, as host; / a word sculpturer (sic), strong enough to amass / the vast amount of exaltation needed to tow his followers through / the Senegalese sands, toward their modern rivers and figures of gold.” For Danner and many other Black cultural workers in North America, the prospects of attending an international festival on the African continent intimated that cultural unity among Africans and Afro-descendants was rife with possibility. What is more, for a brief historical juncture, Senghor and his affiliates were able to posit Négritude as a viable philosophical model in which to realize this unity. However, upon critical reflection, a number of the Black cultural workers who initially championed the Dakar Festival came to express consternation at the behind the scenes machinations which severely weakened the “lovely dream” of “Pan-Africa.”

- by Anthony Ratcliff
- •
- Pan Africanism, Senegal, Negritude, Pan African Studies

This paper engages the idea of critical thinking from an African-centered perspective centralizing the role of African and African Diasporic culture in knowledge construction in Africana Studies. “Putting some soul into critical thinking” refers to putting African and African Diasporic culture into critical thinking. This African cultural enhancement of critical thinking skills offers an alternative to European and Euro-American approaches to critical thinking and offers an alternative approach, cast in this article as African Deep Thought. It ensures that knowledge is culturally grounded, relevant, and positively affects the African and African Diasporic existential trajectory. This is also critical in re-centering Africana scholars as the knowing subject, deriving their inspiration and clarity of vision from African culture in ways that engender intellectual and intercultural pluralism without hierarchy. To that end, this paper explores some of the distinct features of African-centered critical thinking such as good character. Good character is defined here as the qualities and attributes that are part of one’s personality and are consistent with and reaffirmed by the individual and collective soul. Another feature is the interest in improving the individual and collective human respect and dignity of African people and their descendants as well as improve their material existence and quality of life. Lastly the intellectual skills and practices that draw upon African and African Diasporic cultures and philosophies. The paper discusses culture and power, African-centeredness, African Deep Thought, and the relationship between the individual and community in route to an African centered approach to critical thinking.

- by Joy A Alemazung
- •
- Pan African Studies
- by Agostinho Pinnock
- •
- Pan African Studies
- by Jacob Mapara and +1
- •
- Pan African Studies

This chapter works from the wide-ranging and pluriversal political and socio-economic imaginaries elaborated upon by Thomas Sankara through his speeches and actions to tease out his particular political economy of justice, dignity, humanization, and emancipation. I consider some of the lessons learned from the implementation of these political philosophies during the revolution of August 1983 to October 1987. Finally, I conclude by sketching some of the ways in which contemporary Pan-Africanists, decolonial thinkers, green socialists, and others have revived aspects of Sankara’s political economy of justice and “revolution [as] happiness.”

- by Amber Murrey
- •
- Political Sociology, African Studies, Political Economy, Marxism

Somalia is generally thought of as a homogenous society, with a common Arabic ancestry, a shared culture of nomadism and one Somali mother tongue. This study challenges this myth. Using the Jareer/Bantu as a case study, the book shows how the Negroid physical features of this ethnic group has become the basis for ethnic marginalization, stigma, social exclusion and apartheid in Somalia. The book is another contribution to the recent deconstruction of the perceived Somali homogeneity and self-same assertions. It argues that the Somalis, just like most societies, employ multiple levels of social and ethnic distinctions, one of which is the Jareer versus Jileec divide. Dr. Eno successfully portrays another Somalia, in which a mythical homogeneity masks the oppression and social exclusion suffered by some ethnic groups in the country

- by Mohamed A Eno
- •
- Religion, Modern History, Ethnohistory, Sociology

African states have been seen to struggle with the implementation of democracy, both before and after they adopted multiparty electoral systems, from the 1990s onwards. Many states continued to be dominated by a single party and opposition parties have found it difficult to establish themselves as regime parties dominate the political competition. The neo-patrimonial literature, as the most widely used framework for analysing African politics, explains this in terms of a misuse of state power and corrupt electoral practises favouring the ruling parties. This thesis argues that African politics cannot be adequately understood using a neo-patrimonial framework, because this framework discounts the possibility of African political thought and the development of a political organisation in Africa as a basis for democracy and public good politics. In the case of Tanzania it is argued that the continued electoral success of CCM (Chama Cha Mapinduzi) cannot be explained either by the misuse of state power or corrupt election practices, and that the explanation lies in the capacity of CCM to use a legitimacy narrative to build a political organisation and the continued mobilisation of the party and the electorate on the basis of ‘public good politics’ founded on the ideas of the independence movement. It analyses the way in which the regime built legitimacy and popular support between 1961 and 1985 and how the regime party used this legacy of legitimacy to control the transition to a multi party system. It demonstrates that the continued high levels of electoral support for the regime party CCM rested on a successful legitimacy narrative developed during the multi-party era and linked to the ideology of the independence movement rather than the factors indicated by the Neo-patrimonial literature. Contrary to the argument of neo-patrimonial approaches, which posits a pessimistic view of the capacity of African states to evolve into democracies, this thesis argues that the case of Tanzania indicates that a form of African public good politics and the building of a political community can be a foundation for the development of democratic government.

- by David Nyaluke
- •
- Sociology, Rural Sociology, African Studies, European Studies

South Africa since 1994 is widely represented as a society which has broken both historically and politically with white supremacy. One of the central discursive pillars sustaining this representation is the appeal to the most recent South African constitution Act 108 of 1996, the founding provisions of which declare that South Africa is founded on the value of non-racialism. The central argument of this article is that an examination of the philosophical underpinnings of the non-racialism of the constitution can give us a better understanding of why and how South Africa remains a racial polity despite the coming into effect of the constitution. We will conclude the article by considering the ethical and political demands which must be met before the actuality of non-racialism may be experienced.

Texts written by some white Zimbabweans in the post-2000 dispensation are largely shaped by their authors' endeavor to contest the loss of lands they held prior to the onset of the Fast Track Land Reform Program (FTLRP). Written as memoirs, these texts are bound by the tendency to fall back on colonial settler values, Rhodesian identities, and Hegelian supremacist ideas in their narration of aspects of a conflict in which tropes such as truth, justice, patriotism, and belonging were not only evoked but also reframed. This article explores manifestations of this tendency in Eric Harrison's Jambanja (2006) and Jim Barker's Paradise Plundered: The Story of a Zimbabwean Farm (2007). The discussion unfolds against the backdrop of the realization that much of the literary-critical scholarship on land reform in post-2000 Zimbabwe focuses on texts written by black Zimbabweans and does not attend to the panoply of ways in which some white-authored texts yearn for colonial structures of

- by Tavengwa Gwekwerere and +1
- •
- Pan Africanism, Africana Studies, Pan African Studies, African and African American Studies

The Ethical Axioms on Excellent Discourse and Human Behavior of the Black Afrikan Public Administrator & Prime Minister of Kemet Ptah-Hotep!

- by Jacob Mapara and +1
- •
- Pan African Studies

This paper deals with the background, role players, sequence of events, geopolitical considerations and history of the Angolan War which took place from 1975 to 1990 between the Soviet Union and its allies & proxies on the one hand, and the Republic of South Africa and its allies on the other. It also has a section presenting a rebuttal of previously published material on this subject, and a section on disinformation techniques used in and by the Soviet Union.

- by Stuart Sterzel
- •
- History, Military History, Political Geography and Geopolitics, African Studies

Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) electoral 'victories' in post-2000 Zimbabwe are often attributed to the ruling party's reliance on violence, intimidation and other strong-arm tactics. This is only part of the story. With the advent of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in 1999, ZANU-PF emerged with a power-retention matrix in which variables such as violence, patronage, memory, cronyism, regionalism and identity are marshaled to present its destiny and that of the nation as inseparable. In the elections of July 2018, for instance, ZANU-PF's remembrances of the past intersected with its perception of itself and the MDC as mutually exclusive, giving rise to self-other discourses that saw the former sliding into historical denialism and selective amnesia. As this article demonstrates, ZANU-PF self-exculpated by emphasizing that Mnangagwa's ascendancy to power symbolized the advent of a new socioeconomic , cultural and political dispensation. In advancing this argument, ZANU-PF held Mugabe responsible for all its failures and shortcomings between 1980 and 2017 and contested the MDC's monopoly over face-of-the-change-that-will-deliver-Zimbabwe identities by discrediting the opposition party as incapable of originating sound policies and realizable promises. This article investigates the operationalization of these counter-discourses in ZANU-PF's 2018 election manifesto and the pronouncements of its senior officials at political rallies to critique power dynamics in contemporary Zimbabwe.

- by Tavengwa Gwekwerere and +1
- •
- Black Studies Or African American Studies, Africana Studies, Pan African Studies

Research into the writings of twentieth-century Pan-Africanist leader, W.E.B. Du Bois yields a new claim on his Pan-African praxis. Among other texts an interesting letter from Du Bois to the German Consulate, Moritz Schanz raises the possibility of Black leaders obtaining lands to be settled in German West Africa by a small elite group of African Americans. The article examines Du Bois’s thinking as he conceptualized a repatriation effort by applying Afrocentric location theory and historical methods. The present research extends scholarship that uses an African-centered standard to analyze and assess Du Bois’s thought and praxis. Finally, the article discusses Du Bois’s colonization request in the context of Afrocentric interpretations of Black leadership, particularly during the Nadir.

This chapter focuses on pan-Africanist discourses in contemporary Africa specifically in relation to the politics of sexual and gender diversity. It begins by examining the populist use of pan-Africanist rhetoric in narratives mobilizing against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) identities and rights. It then proceeds by discussing an emerging counter-narratives employed by LGBTI activists, communities, and allies, in which pan-Africanist thought is used to reimagine Africa from queer perspectives. Finally, it examines the strategic invocation of transatlantic black memory and black traditions of thought within these pan-Africanist queer counter-narratives and explores their political significance. Thus, this chapter foregrounds and explores how, in the words of Hakima Abbas and Amina Mama, 'Pan-Africanism as theory and praxis is in constant dialectic with other African political and intellectual thought including socialism, Black consciousness, Black nationalism, African queer thought and activism, as well as in polemic counter-position with present-day manifestations of imperialism.'

- by Adriaan van Klinken
- •
- African Studies, Queer Studies, Africana Studies, Pan-Africanism

While teaching an undergraduate course on Pan-Africanism, Hakim Adi realized that there were few if any survey texts or overviews on the subject written in the twenty-first century suitable for use by his students. His newest work, Pan-Africanism: A History, addresses this nearly twenty-year gap with an astonishingly concise and extensively researched survey. Reviewing this remarkably comprehensive effort requires overlooking many themes, questions, and issues Adi raises. In these pages readers discover over one hundred organizations and perhaps ten times as many individuals important for understanding Pan-African thought and movements from the late eighteenth century up to the first decades of the twenty-first. Pan-Africanism is much more than a suitable general survey text for teaching undergraduates. Adi clearly builds off recent historical scholarship, and his selected bibliography demonstrates extensive primary source use and archival research, including unpublished correspondence and rare Pan-African publications in several languages. An original contribution to Pan-African histo-riography and the study of Africa and the African diaspora, this book offers much for undergraduates, emerging scholars, and established specialists to discover and explore.

- by Charles Holm
- •
- Race and Racism, African Diaspora Studies, Self-Determination Theory, Colonialism

This chapter traces how Garvey's imagined "racial empire" evolved into a fusion of black nationalism and "One Love" philosophy in Rastafarian thought, as popularized by Bob Marley. Marley adapted the "emancipate yourself" line from Garvey, a patron saint of Rastafarians. The quotes are similar, yet the second emancipation advocated by Garvey, and the emancipation from mental slavery called for by Marley, are quite different. Their audiences were distinct; and the ways in which the messages of Garvey and Marley have been interpreted by their audiences vary radically. Rastas arrived at a view that racialism itself was mental slavery, I argue. From the book "Reevaluating the Pan-Africanism of W.E.B. Dubois and Marcus Garvey: Escapist Fantasy or Relevant Reality" (2006).

- by Gregory Stephens
- •
- Critical Theory, Intellectual History, Cultural History, Cultural Studies

Colonization, enslavement, and institutionalized oppression have disrupted the relationship between the educational experiences of Black students and the fate of African/Black communities. Research has shown that Africana studies has demonstrated the capacity to realign the education of Black students in higher education, leading to the advancement of communities of African descent. This analysis aims to present Africana studies catalytic consciousness theory as a framework for determining the effects of taking Africana studies classes on students who self-identify as being of African descent on college and university campuses—particularly at institutions where they are underrepresented. The main elements of the effects of Africana studies are illustrated through the lens of the Dagara cosmic wheel and its elements: fire, water, earth, mineral/stone, and nature/vegetation.

Many scholars of Pan-Africanism acknowledge W.E.B. Du Bois as one of the movement's ideological progenitors. With his intellectual and organizational endeavors, he helped establish the Pan African Congress (PAC) in the early part of the 20th Century. However, while many accounts of Du Bois focus intently on his leadership of the PAC through the late 1920s, he remained actively involved in Pan African liberation movements up until the time of his death in 1963. This article examines the evolution
of Du Boisian Pan-Africanism, focusing specifically on the role that the Fifth Pan-African Congress in 1945 and the subsequent independence of Ghana played in radicalizing his political and intellectual position on African unity. For, in addition to his commitment to exposing the racist and capitalist forces
that oppressed Black people, the issue that dominated much of Du Bois's later scholarly and activist endeavors was his unwavering commitment to revolutionary Pan-Africanism.

- by Anthony Ratcliff
- •
- Pan Africanism, African Diaspora, Hip-Hop Studies, Pan African Studies
- by soumya khaloui
- •
- Geology, History of Science, Pan African Studies

The Aswa Shear Zone (ASZ) is a major NWeSE trending structure of over 1000 km length in East Africa. In Uganda, the ASZ is a steeply NE-dipping, up to 11 km wide mylonitic shear zone that shows multiple stage brittle reactivation. On outcrop-scale, the fabric in the ASZ is characterized by a well-developed NW eSE striking and subvertical or steeply NE or SW dipping mylonitic foliation and a subhorizontal to moderately NW-or SE-plunging stretching lineation. Sinistral kinematics and fabric are very consistent along strike. The strain is heterogeneously distributed and partitioned into lens-shaped lower strain zones dominated by folding and characterized by pure shear, which are surrounded by high strain zones, some of them thick ultramylonites, with intense simple shear combined with flattening and strong transposition of pre-existing fabrics. Ductile shearing occurred during bulk EeW shortening, commenced at amphibolite facies conditions and continued with similar kinematics at greenschist and even lower grade conditions. A number of (sub-)parallel shear zones occur to the NE and SW of the main zone at a distance of up to 20e45 km. They show similar fabrics and kinematics and are thus related to activity along ASZ reflecting strain partitioning into simple shear and pure shear domains on a regional scale. Samples of mylonitic gneisses from the shear zone have been analyzed with UePb LA-MC-ICPMS and show Neoarchaean crystallisation ages between 2.66 and 2.61 Ga. Timing of ductile sinistral shearing is poorly constrained by lower intercept ages of 686 ± 62 and 640 ± 44 Ma. The fabric and structural relationship of the ca. 660 Ma Adjumani Granite exposed in the northern segment of ASZ suggest that the age of shear activity can be further limited to ca. 685 and 655 Ma. The Aswa Shear Zone is interpreted as an intra-cratonic, crustal-scale structure close to the northeastern margin of the Congo Craton, possibly inherited from previous continental extension. Early Aswa Shear Zone activation is linked to underthrusting of the Congo Craton and coeval high-grade meta-morphism and intense deformation in the orogen interior. During EeW convergence between ca. 690 and 650 Ma, the NE-dipping ASZ was activated as an oblique ramp leading to deflection of the transport direction and concentration of non-coaxial strain and sinistral shear along the shear zone system. During progressive convergence, between ca. 645 and 620 Ma, sinistral shearing along ASZ changed to ductile ebrittle deformation mechanisms, while thrusting took place in Pan-African belts in eastern and western Uganda. Late-orogenic brittle sinistral reactivation of the ASZ can be regarded as the result of continent collision and closure of the Mozambique ocean further to the east, that potentially caused lateral escape manifested in NWeSE striking sinistral shear zones in Kenya and the southern Arabina-Nubian Shield between 620 and 570 Ma.

Psychology has come a long way since its origin in Africa and Ghana in particular. In this paper, an attempt is made to explore the current state of psychological knowledge in Ghana as well as the associated problems in the application of such knowledge. It was concluded that the approach to the study and application of psychological knowledge and tests has been too Eurocentric and westernized. As a result, it limits the applicability of the approach to the African setting, and yet, Western theorists may expect African psychologists to apply the theories to Africans. On the basis of this criticism, the scope of Pan-African psychology is defined and suggestions for pursuing an Africanisation project are presented. It is expected that the strategies that this paper advocates for indigenizing psychology in Africa can equally be useful to psychologists in other developing regions of the world.

- by Seth Oppong, PhD
- •
- Psychology, Applied Psychology, Social Psychology, African Studies

The Revolution in North American Scholarship The literature of the Haitian Revolution is substantially rich. The scholarship that does exist focuses on class and race structures, resistance of the enslaved and marronage, economic and political forces, and Toussaint Louverture. (2) The subsequent paragraphs will review and assess pertinent studies directly and indirectly relating to the subject matter, in order to identify various approaches to the issue. In North American scholarship, Alfred Hunt was the first to publish a full monograph on Haiti's influence on antebellum America. In Haiti's Influence on Antebellum America: Slumbering Volcano in the Caribbean (1988), Hunt explores Haiti's influence on antebellum America with respect to the social, political, and cultural repercussions of the Haitian Revolution and the meaning of the figure Toussaint Louverture to enslaved Africans in the United States. Very recently, in Toussaint Louverture and the American Civil War: Th...

- by Celucien Joseph
- •
- Sociology, Pan African Studies
- by Sharon Gramby-Sobukwe
- •
- Religion, Sociology, Gender Studies, Sexuality

In this essay, I engage with the methodological contributions and original readings of Fanon and Rousseau contained in Jane Gordon’s Creolizing Political Theory. I then rely upon one insight in particular––Gordon’s illuminating joint reading of Rousseau’s general will and Fanon’s national consciousness––in order to reflect on Fanon’s ambivalence about Pan-Africanism. In this task, I engage with W. E. B. Du Bois’s transnational thinking in order to parse out the reciprocal relation between national consciousness and transnational or cosmopolitan engagements.

- by Inés Valdez
- •
- Political Theory, Transnationalism, Postcolonial Studies, Cosmopolitan Studies