Symbolic Reparation,Heritage and Political Transition in South Africa’s Eastern Cape

This article first examines the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s recommendation of symbolic reparation for apartheid, and its effect on South African heritage. Second, it considers the relationship between public history and civic nation building in South Africa, as well as problems in trying to develop an inclusive public history through museums. Case studies drawn from Grahamstown and Mthatha in the Eastern Cape are explored as examples of the redevelopment of the old and establishment of the new public history as part of the negotiated transition.     

Resistance and Negotiation: “Herbivorous Men” and Murakami Haruki’s Gender and Political Ambiguity

In recent years, both Japanese and Western media have devoted a great deal of attention to a new type of Japanese man, so-called sōshoku-kei danshi (“herbivorous men”), as an example of a new, “softened” masculinity. In this paper, I draw a parallel between the growing number of “herbivores” and the increasing popularity of Japanese contemporary author Murakami Haruki, and in particular of the young male protagonists of his novels. Apart from the apparent similarities in the personalities of Murakami’s characters and the herbivores, a significant commonality can be found in their way of relating to their representation, especially their rebellious image constructed by society. Through an analysis of the formation of such an image, we will find that their popularity is closely associated with the history of Japanese masculinity, and more importantly with their astute distancing from society and their complicity with the capitalist system. In this article I examine Murakami’s and the herbivores’ ways of positioning themselves in Japanese society in order to provide a more nuanced understanding of both types of men.     

From Old Practices to New Governance Models: Contractual Schemes in Africa’s Political Development

Drawing on various historical documents, the article uses process tracing methods and analytic narratives to establish a relationship between historical contractual practices and state formation in nineteenth-century East Africa. I trace the process through which local political leaders historically sought to secure monopolistic deals over trade with foreign entrepreneurs through incomplete contracts for tangible economic goods (arms and slave trades, manufactured goods) and intangible political goods or services (security, knowledge, independence). By showcasing agents’ bargaining strategies in contractual agreements, the article sheds light on notions of sovereignty and independence articulated through public contracting in Africa’s political development. Historical understandings of notions of independence and sovereignty by procurement practitioners in East Africa provide seeds for thought in controversial debates about government outsourcing today. Is outsourced sovereignty always threatening? Can we outsource sovereignty and remain independent? These are perhaps the most important conceptual queries that make East Africa’s historical contractual experience pertinent today as new public-private partnerships for development, including government outsourcing, increasingly call for the use of private means to solve public problems in the developing countries.     

The Scots in South Africa: Ethnicity,Identity, Gender and Race, 1772–1914

In a Crystal Land: Canadian Explorers in Antarctica by Dean Beeby. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994. Pp. xii + 262, illus., maps. £19.00 (hardback). ISBN 0–8020–0362–1.

Habitants and Merchants in Seventeenth‐Century Montreal by Louise Dechêne, translated by Liana Vardi. Montreal and Kingston: McGill‐Queen's University Press, 1993. Pp. xxi + 428, map, tables. £52.25 (hardback); £21.00 (paperback). ISBN 0–7735–0658–6; 0–7735–0951–8.

While the Women Only Wept: Loyalist Refugee Women by Janice Potter‐MacKinnon. Montreal and Kingston: McGill‐Queen's University Press, 1993. Pp. xvi + 200. £29.70 (hardback). ISBN 0–7735–0962–3.

The Caribbean in the Wider World, 1492–1992: A Regional Geography by Bonham C. Richardson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Pp. vi + 235, maps, tables. £30.00 (hardback); £11.95 (paperback). ISBN 0–521–35186–3; 0–521–35977–5.

Black Poor and White Philanthropists: London's Blacks and the Foundation of the Sierra Leone Settlement 1786–1791 by Stephen J. Braidwood. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1994. Pp. x + 324, maps. £16.50 (paperback). ISBN 0–85323–377–2.

The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia. Volume I: From Early Times to c.1800 edited by Nicholas Tarling. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pp. xv + 655, maps, illus. £55.00 (hardback). ISBN 0–521–35505–2.

India's Colonial Encounter: Essays in Memory of Eric Stokes edited by Mushirul Hasan and Narayani Gupta. New Delhi: Manohar, 1993. Pp. vi + 412. Rs.400. ISBN 81–7304–007–9.

Welteroberung und Christentum: Ein Handbuch zur Geschichte der Neuzeit by Horst Gründer. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1994. Pp. 751, maps and illustrations. DM 128. ISBN 3–579–00136–1.

Subverting Scotland's Past: Scottish Whig Historians and the Creation of an Anglo‐British Identity, 1689‐c.1830 by Colin Kidd. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pp. xiii + 322. £35.00 (hardback). ISBN 0–521–43484‐X.

Academe and Empire: Some Oversees Connections of Aberdeen University 1860–1970 by John D. Hargreaves. Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1994. Pp. x + 142. £8.95. ISBN 1–85752–220–6.

Rebel and Saint: Muslim Notables, Populist Protest, Colonial Encounters (Algeria and Tunisia, 1800–1904) by Julia A. Clancy‐Smith. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1994. Pp. xxiii + 370. $45.00. ISBN 0–520–08242–7.

Servants and Gentlewomen to the Golden Land: The Emigration of Single Women from Britain to Southern Africa, 1820–1939 by Cecillie Swaisland. Oxford: Berg Publishers/University of Natal Press, 1993. Pp. xii + 186, illustrations. £25.00 (hardback); £10.95 (paperback). ISBN 0–85496–745–1; 0–85496–870–9.

God's Peoples: Covenant and Land in South Africa, Israel, and Ulster by Donald Harman Akenson. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992. Pp. xiv + 404, maps. $32.00 (hardback). ISBN 0–8014–2755‐X.

Regiments: Regiments and Corps of the British Empire and Commonwealth 1758–1993. A Critical Bibliography of their Published Histories. Compiled and published by Roger Perkins, Newton Abbot, 1994. Pp. 806. £92.50 (hardback). ISBN 0–9506429–3–2. Available from Roger Perkins, PO Box 29, Newton Abbot, Devon TQ12 1XU.

The Sepoy and the Raj: The Indian Army, 1860–1940 by David Omissi. London: Macmillan, 1994. Pp. xx + 313. £45.00. ISBN 0–333–55049–8.

Public Health in British India: Anglo‐Indian Preventive Medicine 1859–1914 by Mark Harrison. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Pp. xviii + 324. £19.95 (paperback). ISBN 0–521–46688–1.

Hong Kong in Chinese History: Community and Social Unrest in the British Colony, 1842–1913 by Jung‐Fang Tsai. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993. Pp. xvix + 375, maps. $52.00. ISBN 0–231–07932‐X.

European Imperialism, 1860–1914 by Andrew Porter. Basingstoke, London: Macmillan, 1994. Pp. xiii + 119, maps. £5.99 (paperback). ISBN 0–333–48104–6.

Sons of the Empire: The Frontier and the Boy Scout Movement, 1890–1918 by Robert H. MacDonald. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993. Pp. viii + 259. £22.75. ISBN 0–8020–2843–8.

The Dust Rose Like Smoke: The Subjugation of the Zulu and the Sioux by James O. Gump. Lincoln, Nebraska and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1994. Pp. xii + 178, maps. £23.95 (hardback). ISBN 0–8032–2152–5.

A History of Ethiopia by Harold G. Marcus. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of Calfornia Press, 1994. Pp. xv + 261, maps. $35.00 (hardback). ISBN 0–520–08121–8.

Slow Death for Slavery: The Course of Abolition in Northern Nigeria, 1897–1936, by Paul E. Lovejoy and Jan S. Hogendorn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pp. xvii + 391. £45.00 (hardback); £16.95 (paperback). ISBN 0–521–37469–3; 0–521–44702‐X.

The Atlantic Provinces in Confederation edited by E. R. Forbes and D. A. Muise. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993. Pp. xii + 628. $60.00 (hardback); $29.95 (paperback). ISBN 0–8020–5886–8; 0–8020–6817–0.

Australian History in New South Wales 1888 to 1938 by Brian H. Fletcher. Sydney: New South Wales University Press, 1993. Pp. vii + 228. $24.95 (paperback). ISBN 0–86840–269–9.

Anzac Memories: Living with the Legend by Alistair Thomson. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1994. Pp. vi + 282; photographs. £18.95 (hardback). ISBN 0–19553491–3.

Broken Promises: Popular Protest, Indian Nationalism and the Congress Party in Bihar, 1935–1946 by Vinita Damodaran. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992. Pp. xiv + 398, 5 maps, 3 figures, 18 tables, 3 appendices. £18.95. ISBN 0–19–562979–5.

Rajani Palme Dutt: A Study in British Stalinism by John Callaghan. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1993. Pp. xi + 213. £19.99. ISBN 0–85315–7790.

Immigration, Ethnicity and Racism in Britain, 1815–1945 by Panikos Panayi. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994. Pp. vi + 170. £29.99 (hardback); £7.99 (paperback). ISBN 0–7190–3697–6; 0–7190–3698–4.

Macmillan by John Turner. London: Longman, 1994. Pp. vii + 302. £24.99 (hardback); £10.99 (paperback). ISBN 0–582–21880–2; 0–582–55386–5.

The Cold War on the Periphery: The United States, India, and Pakistan by Robert J. McMahon. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. Pp. xii + 431, maps. £25.00. ISBN 0–231–08226–6.

The Twilight of British Ascendancy in the Middle East: A Case Study of Iraq, 1941–1950 by Daniel Silverfarb. London: Macmillan, 1994. Pp. xii + 306, 2 maps. £34.00 (hardback). ISBN 0–333–62525–0.

The Wars of French Decolonization by Anthony Clayton. London: Longman, 1994. Pp. x + 234, maps. £32.00 (hardback); £11.99 (paperback) ISBN 0–582–09802–5; 0–582–09801–7.

Colonialism's Culture: Anthropology, Travel and Government by Nicholas Thomas. Oxford: Polity Press, 1994. Pp. viii + 238. £45.00 (hardback); £12.95 (paperback). ISBN 0–7456–0871‐X; 0–7456–1215–6.     

‘Caught’ between foreign cultural and development policies: perspectives of German Studies and German as a foreign language in Africa

The promotion of the German language abroad and of German Studies plays a central role in German Foreign Cultural Policy. With regard to Sub-Saharan Africa, otherwise a peripheral region for foreign policy, German as foreign language is firmly established as second language after English. Learners especially in Francophone West and Central Africa have increased over the past decade. Numerous funding programmes and actions are supported by German nongovernmental organizations at college/university levels. But bilateral cooperation between German and African academic institutions are challenged both by negative perceptions of the ‘Global South’ among Western colleagues and by an infrastructure adverse to research and to career development in most African countries. Additionally, North/South relations are traditionally seen in terms of (under-)development by German institutions, effecting cooperation. The paper develops a differentiated picture of African Studies in Africa, and outlines benefits that can be attained through collaboration ‘at eye-level’.     

Leopards and Invisible Calculators: Violent Incorporation,Political Theology,and Kafka’s “Leopards in the Temple”

ABSTRACT

This essay reads Kafka’s aphorism “The Leopards in the Temple” together with some of the concerns of political theology to think about visibility and agency, the sacred and the profane, the violence of incorporation, and the field of political theology itself. Methodologically, it brings literary studies and political theology into richer engagement without consuming one into the other, either as mere illustration or as gloss. The condensed power of Kafka’s aphorism draws us right into the midst of questions about the dangers of consumption and incorporation, as well as the possibilities for meaningful interaction between these fields of study.     

Feeding and Healing Bodies and Souls: German Women in Nursing, 1830s–1850s

Nursing care of the 1830s−40s required significant financial stewardship, material resources, spiritual fortitude and political support alongside the everyday routines of cleaning, cooking and home visiting. The minutiae of Catholic, Protestant and other Prussian institutional donations, budgets and schedules, government records and occasionally women's own writings reveal how German nursing was not a singular and timeless profession. Rather, the feminisation of nursing emerged out of a myriad of gendered ways elite, bourgeois, religious and working women collectively cared for the poor and the sick even before bacteriology and maternalist women's movements transformed nursing in the late nineteenth century.     

Gendered mobilities and immobilities: Women’s and men’s capacities for agricultural innovation in Kenya and Nigeria

Abstract

Social norms surrounding women’s and men’s mobility in public spaces often differ. Here we discuss how gendered mobilities and immobilities influence women’s and men’s capacities to innovate in agriculture. We analyze four case studies from Western Kenya and Southwestern Nigeria that draw on 28 focus group discussions and 32 individual interviews with a total of 225 rural and peri-urban women, men and youth. Findings show that women in both sites are less mobile than men due to norms that delimit the spaces where they can go, the purpose, length of time and time of day of their travels. Overall, Kenyan women and Nigerian men have better access to agricultural services and farmer groups than their gendered counterparts. In Southwestern Nigeria this is linked to masculine roles of heading and providing for the household and in Western Kenya to the construction of women as the ‘developers’ of their households. Access and group participation may reflect norms and expectations to fulfill gender roles rather than an individual’s agency. This may (re)produce mobility pressures on time constrained gendered subjects. Frameworks to analyze factors that support women’s and men’s agency should be used to understand how gendered mobilities and immobilities are embedded in community contexts and affect engagement in agricultural innovation. This can inform the design of interventions to consider the ways in which norms and agency intersect and influence women’s and men’s mobilities, hence capacity to innovate in agriculture, thus supporting more gender transformative approaches.     

‘Confusion,Heaven and Honour’: Being Chinese in South Africa

Abstract

This review article investigates the state and development of overseas Chinese studies, in both its global and South African context. It points to the common difficulties related to research in this field and indicates how these have been addressed. It argues that only since the latter half of the twentieth century, both the reading population and publishers in South Africa, have become more receptive to the voice of the ‘other’. While comparatively little work has been published on the Chinese in South Africa, the three major works that have appeared reflect on a little known but integral part of our multicultural society. A brief outline of the range of work done on this topic provides the context for a closer assessment of the most recently published sociological study.     

Othering Pastoralists,State Violence,and the Remaking of Boundaries in Tanzania’s Militarised Wildlife Conservation Sector

This paper examines the ways in which Tanzanian conservation authorities utilise biodiversity “extinction narratives” in order to legitimise the use of violence in redrawing protected areas’ boundaries. Militarisation and violence in conservation have often been associated with the “war on poaching”. Drawing on the history of conservation and violence in Tanzania, and using an empirical case from Loliondo, the paper suggests that violence in conservation may be legitimised when based on extinction narratives and a claim that more exclusive spaces are urgently needed to protect biodiversity. It argues that the emerging militarisation and use of violence in Tanzania can be associated with both global biodiversity extinction and local neo-Malthusian narratives, which recently have regained predominance. When combined with “othering” of groups of pastoralists by portraying them as foreign “invaders”, such associations legitimise extensions of state control over contested land by any means available, including violence.