Journal of West African History

Review of Letters, Kinship, and Social Mobility in Nigeria

Lisa Lindsay — 2024-11-13

Book review.

REVIEW: Mieux vaut tard que jamais (by Couriol)

Dr. Madia Thomson — 2024-11-13

REVIEW: Decolonizing Independence (by L. Schler)

Rouven Kunstmann — 2024-11-13

REVIEW: Transcripts of the Sacred (by Wariboko)

Tara Hollies — 2024-11-13

REVIEW: State-building and National Militaries in Postcolonial West Africa (by Turtio)

Dr. Joe Gazeley — 2024-11-13

Amaechina

Nwando Achebe — 2024-11-13

N/A

Progressive Empire?: Liberian Agriculture, Black American Farming Experts and World War II

Cassandra Thiesen-Mark — 2024-11-13

Liberia’s independent (non-colonial) status placed it on a different trajectory from its colonial neighbors during and after WWII. It became an early recipient of American aide via agriculture and public health missions, as well as multiple large-scale infrastructural development. “Rural integration” became a central objective amidst intensified nation-building during the 1940s to 1950s. Focusing particularly on state-sponsored agricultural development strategies, this article reconstructs the roles, routines and reflections of Black American technicians in Liberia as the spread “better” farming methods across the country. Their hope was to mold a “model” African nation for decolonizing African state. The “export” of the American-supervised agricultural extension program promised to bring not just economic growth, but also self-help strategies to rural communities. With this said, the article aims to demonstrate those areas where “transference” was negotiated, challenged or simply went wrong; since even low-modernist development work could not be separated from politics. The study also demonstrates that powerful groups considered these Black American experts as the predestined teachers and technicians for a post-WWII Africa, and the emerging development field in Liberia presented them with the opportunity to prove themselves. However, with an eye on racial biopolitics the article draws attention to the racial underpinnings of the agricultural extension service in America, questioning the implications of such for Liberia. Furthermore, it points to the development field in the Black-led state of Liberia as a sphere of political empowerment for Black Americans in the U.S. foreign service, especially in front of Africans and African Diasporas.

Engaging Africa and the World

Emmanuel Asiedu-Acquah — 2024-11-13

This article examines student internationalism and politics in Ghana in the 1960s and 1970s, drawing on multiple archives. Ghanaian students expressed their internationalism in that period through a drive for a continental pan-Africanist student movement, a leftward turn among influential student activists, which reinforced their internationalist outlook, and a renewal and deepening of relations with global student organizations and transnational networks. The internationalism and national politics of Ghanaian students were mutually reinforcing. This made student politics more than episodic activism. The internationalist strands which shaped student politics in late 1960s and 1970s Ghana have been little explored in the literature. This article thus contributes to scholarship which explores Ghanaian and African student internationalism, the global contexts and connections of African student political activism, and establishes the importance of student politics in the wider politics of African countries in the era of decolonization and beyond.

Artification and Decolonization at the Musée d’Art Africain de l’IFAN, Dakar

Caroline Maguire — 2024-11-13

The first major museum in Senegal, the Musée d’Art Africain de l’IFAN has its origins in the 1936 creation of the Institut Français d’Afrique Noire (IFAN), a research institute designed to coordinate scientific and ethnographic research on West Africa. The museum’s temporary expositions and the first permanent galleries opened in 1961 presented West African objects organized by ethnic groups and accompanied by photographs, illustrating African daily life to Europeans following ethnographic standards set by the Musée de l’Homme. However, in 1971, administrators redisplayed the objects as examples of aesthetic expression divorced from context. Based on archival research conducted in Dakar, this article reviews this shift, situating it in the contentious post-colonial period and the ongoing debates over European neocolonialism in Senegal. I also argue that the IFAN museum’s renovation should be viewed as an early, progressive strategy for “decolonizing the museum.”

Legacies of French Colonial Militarization and Gender-Based Violence in the Sahel

Sarah Zimmerman — 2024-11-13

This article aims to connect French military imperialism, Sahelian communities and countries, and African soldiers around instances of gender-based sexual violence during the colonial and postcolonial eras. This article opens with gendered-based sexual violence committed by Chadian soldiers serving in the G5 Sahel Force, then juxtaposes their transgressions with those of nineteenth-century West African French colonial soldiers (tirailleurs sénégalais) to make sense of this violence and locate a means to write its history. If we take the tirailleurs sénégalais’ transgressive conjugal behaviors as a point of historical departure, France’s protracted military presence in the region comes into clearer view providing a constant reference for different types and eras of foreign-funded and internationally led military interventions in the Sahel. Ultimately, I seek to understand how internationally-coordinated military operations—encompassing colonial conquest and contemporary military anti-terrorist/peacekeeping operations—mobilize African soldiers within the continent and make violence against African civilians licit and/or non-prosecutable.

Soviet Military Assistance to Mali and Guinea, 1958-1980

Riina TURTIO — 2024-11-13

What impact did the Cold War have on building the national armies in Africa? Previous research has focused on cold war conflict zones, but foreign military assistance also had a profound impact on the armies and political systems in countries that did not experience a prolonged conflict. This article focuses on the impact of Cold War competition in Guinea and Mali. The USSR was the main supplier to both countries during the Cold War, and the government voted with the Soviet Union at the UN. The article is based on archival research, memoirs and online databases, which show a similarity between the two countries in army’s pervasive role in society, arrest and executions of key soldiers and officials, a failing economy and mass migration to neighboring countries. Similar is also the silence around military history, which together with the deaths of key individuals makes research difficult. There is, however, a clear need for further study on the history of Soviet military assistance.