Publications

This article is a repsonse to Thandika Mkandawire's article on violence against the African peasantry in Journal of Modern African Studies, vol. 40, no. 2 (2002). In this article, Mkandawire takes exception to suggestions by the author concerning the antecedents of the...

There has been a state of near-permanent revolt in Somali society since 1991. This chapter offers a cultural analysis of patterns of political and military activity from the precolonial era through the Italian and British colonial period, and State independence (1960-1991),...

Based on the study of chiefs, elders and local leaders in southern Ethiopia, this paper analyses the idea of authority, legitimacy and governance among three small-scale societies, the Meén, the Dizi and the Suri. It shows that in southern Ethiopia efforts were made to...

The Ethiopian-Eritrean 'border war' of 1998-2000 was about much more than a stretch of relatively useless borderland, but in the subsequent negotiations this issue has come to dominate the agenda. The focus of the controversy is the village of Badme. Despite the...

Many inter-State and intra-State conflicts in Africa become more complex by being extended into 'proxy wars', i.e. secondary, often 'low intensity' armed conflicts, pursued in the context of a major power struggle, or outright wars between States carried...

Livestock herding peoples are known for their close involvement with their animals, valuing them in multiple ways. This paper addresses the issue of the nature of emotional and moral commitment to livestock animals, particularly cattle, among a group of livestock herders in...

This collective volume presenting recent environmental research on the Kenya coast contains 27 contributions differing widely in scope. Subjects range from coral reef restoration to butterfly breeding, from river sediments to Kaya forests, and from marine fisheries to...

Mobility is the most important response by the inhabitants of the Sahel to climatic adversity. This 'condition sahélienne', characterized by unstable climatic circumstances, irregular rainfall patterns and periods of drought, has an important influence on people...

African history of the Sahel and Sudan zone appears to have been marked by political instability. Resistance to Fulbe empires was more common than the main literature suggests. The Fulbe are pastoralists and the empires of nomadic pastoralists are inherently unstable. The...

De Peul en de Dogon leven, ruim voor het tijdperk van grote Peulstaten als het Macinarijk, reeds lang naast elkaar in centraal Mali. De Peul weidden er hun kudden, pleegden er overvallen en gebruikten het gebied als slavenreservoir. Ook de Dogon organiseerden van tijd tot...

One of the least-studied revolts in postcolonial Africa, the invasion of Niger in 1964 by guerrillas of the outlawed Sawaba party, was a dismal failure and culminated in a failed attempt on the life of President Diori in the spring of 1965. Personal aspirations for higher...

Between 1831 and 1872, the Dutch government recruited 3,000 Africans from the Gold Coast and Ashanti (Ghana) for service in the colonial army in the Netherlands East Indies. The majority of them were ex-slaves but were promised that their conditions of service would be the...