New publications

The Centre for Frugal Innovation in Africa (CFIA), in which the ASCL participates, has started a new series of blogs that focuses on the role of frugality and frugal innovation in times of Corona in different parts of the world. The first blog is written by André Leliveld, Associate Director of CFIA and senior researcher at the ASCL. He pleads for a frugal approach to cope with the resource constrained situation in the medical world.

This volume, published by Brill in the African Dynamics series and edited by Klaas van Walraven, investigates the development of biographical study in African history and historiography. In addition to methodological insights, the book offers many case studies, e.g. of Abdullah Abdurahman (first South African politician of colour elected to public office), Cornelius Badu (born in 1847 in Elmina, Gold Coast, current Ghana), and politicians like Barthélémy Boganda (CAR) and Laurent Kabila (DRC).

This book, edited by Duncan Money and Danelle van Zyl-Hermann, showcases new research on white workers and the white poor in Southern Africa. It demonstrates that social class remained a salient element throughout the twentieth century, how Southern Africa’s white societies were often divided and riven with tension and how the resulting social, political and economic complexities animated white minority regimes in the region.

This fifth edition of Historical Dictionary of Niger, written by Rahmane Idrissa, has over 700 entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. The book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Niger. For centuries Niger remained the largely uncontrolled periphery of the large empires of the western Sudan and the market cities of the central Sudan. In these two ways, the land forged a very distinctive identity, a fluid blend of diverse communities which make up a nation of marginal cosmopolitans; a paradox illuminated in this book. 

In the 19th century Abirè Goro, singer-prophet in Central Mali, gained a huge reputation that still reverberates among the Dogon. His main legacy, a cycle of songs called the baja ni, is still sung as part of the funeral rituals, a performance during the night lasting seven hours. Wouter van Beek and colleagues have for the first time transcribed, translated and put into print these songs. The book is in French and contains a CD.