Africa Past & Present » Podcast Feed

This centenary episode brings together selections from the first eight years of the podcast. The chosen segments broadly represent earliest and latest episodes, different African countries and regions, and notable contributions by local and international guests on a number of subjects and themes.[…]

Anthropologist Rosemarie Mwaipopo (U. of Dar es Salaam) on artisanal and small-scale mining in Tanzania. She discusses the roles of women;grassroots dimensions, including cultural and gender dynamics; and government policies. The interview concludes with a comparative look at small-scale mining in Africa.[…]

Author Ben Rawlence (Open Society Foundations Fellow) on his new book: City of Thorns: Nine Lives in the Worlds Largest Refugee Camp. He describes working in Dadaab, Kenya, and discusses Somali refugees' daily struggles, their personal lives, social relationships, trade, and Islam. The interview closes with reflections on the international dimensions of the conflict in Somalia and prospec[…]

Susanne Klausen (History, Carleton U.) on the history and politics of women's reproductive rights in South Africa. Our discussion of race, nationalism, and women's sexuality focuses on her new book, Abortion Under Apartheid, the first full-length study of the history of abortion in an African context. The interview concludes with an assessment of the present and future of abortion rights […]

Toyin Falola (History, Texas; President, African Studies Association) on Yoruba history and culture; language policy in Nigeria; creativity and decolonization; forms of community action in hyper-modern times; and the meaning of Buhari's victory in the 2015 presidential election.[…]

Ganiyu Akinloye Jimoh (Creative Arts, University of Lagos) on his work in Nigeria as a popular cartoonist, with the pen name Jimga, and as a cartoon scholar. Issues discussed include: political aspects of cartooning; visual aspects of the art; language and graphic styles; and the future of cartooning in Nigeria.[…]

Professor Renfrew Christie (University of the Western Cape) on South African advances and challenges since 1994; educational transformations at UWC; his role as an anti-apartheid student activist, exposure of South Africa's nuclear bomb and subsequent imprisonment, and nuclear issues today.[…]

Lisa Lindsay (North Carolina) on her forthcoming biography of James Churchwill Vaughan whose life provides insights into the bonds of slavery and family and the differing prospects for people of African descent in the 19th-century Atlantic world. Vaughan's odyssey took him from slavery-ridden South Carolina to Liberia and finally Nigeria, where he was involved in the Yoruba Wars, led a re[…]

Hikabwa Decius Chipande (PhD 2015 Michigan State) on the political and social history of football (soccer) in Zambia. He discusses becoming an historian; the game's relationship with British colonizers, the copper mines, and postcolonial governments; and the archival research and oral interviewing process. Chipande concludes with insights from his extensive experience with sport developme[…]

Peter Cole (Western Illinois, SWOP [Wits]) compares Durban and San Francisco, maritime union solidarities, the anti-apartheid movement, and technological change in the two ports. Cole concludes with reflections on researching and teaching comparative history.[…]

Menán Du Plessis (Stellenbosch University and U. of Kentucky) on her literary work, research on the Kora! language, and the significance of Khoesan linguistics to southern African studies. Du Plessis also considers digitization efforts and the impact of mass media and the Internet on endangered African languages.[…]

Laura Seay (Government, Colby College) on becoming a Congo scholar; the genealogy and impact of her Texas in Africa blog; using Twitter for academic purposes and public discourse; and her book project titled Substituting for the State about non-state actors and governance in eastern DR Congo. Follow Laura on Twitter: @texasinafrica[…]

Keith Breckenridge (WISER) on the current state of digital Southern African Studies; the politics, funding, and ethics of international partnerships in digital projects; and his new book Biometric State: The Global Politics of Identification and Surveillance in South Africa, 1850 to the Present. Follow Keith on Twitter: @BreckenridgeKD Part I of a series on digital African studies.[…]

Chitja Twala (History, Univ. of Free State) on the history of black politics and the African National Congress in the Free State province; oral history; cultural resistance; the field of History in South Africa; lessons of the Marikana Massacre; and transformation in South African higher education.[…]

Tebogo Motswetla, a leading African cartoonist from Botswana, on his journey of becoming a cartoonist; the 25th anniversary of his character Mabijo; applied aspects of his work; seTswana language dialogue; the creative process, censorship, and freedom of expression.[…]

Abdilatif Abdalla is the best-known Swahili poet and independent Kenya's first political prisoner. He discusses poetry as a political instrument and as an academic field; publication prospects for African poets; and how poetry enabled him to survive three years of solitary confinement, after which he spent 22 years in exile. The interview ends with Abdalla reciting his poem Siwati (I Will[…]

Pius Adesanmi (Carleton University) on African literatures, public intellectuals, Sahara Reporters blog, social media and postcolonial writing, Yoruba and Anglophone literatures, imposed transnationalismin the African literature classroom and What is Africa to me?[…]

Brett O'Bannon (Political Science, Director of Conflict Studies, De Pauw University) on the causes and consequences of civil war in Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast); the Responsibility to Protect as applied to conflict in Africa ; and monitoring herder-farmer relations in Senegal to anticipate the onset of wider-scale warfare.[…]

Denis Goldberg reflects on his activism, hardships in prison, and the highs and lows of the antiapartheid movement. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1963 in South Africa's Rivonia trial with Mandela and other leaders. He served 22 years in an apartheid prison. Goldberg's autobiography is titled The Mission: A Life for Freedom in South Africa.[…]

Dr. Chima Korieh (History, Marquette) on Nigerian experiences on the African homefront during World War II, agriculture and social change in the colonial era, the Biafran War and the politics of memory, and Igbo identity. The interview closes with a discussion of endangered archives in postcolonial Nigeria.[…]