ASC Working Papers in African Studies Series
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Working Papers in African Studies represent research in progress undertaken by scholars affiliated with the African Studies Center at Boston University, or scholarly work that was presented at the Center. They are listed here in chronological order, beginning with the most recent. It is possible to search for all items by a particular author, on a particular country, or on a particular theme.
More information and older issues in this series are available on the African Studies Center website.
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Item Women and the Somali pastoral tradition : Corporate Kinship and capitalist transformation in Northern Somalia(Boston University, African Studies Center, 1991) Kapteijns, LidwienItem The lango of Uganda: Identity, origin, migration, and settlements(Boston University, African Studies Center, 2021) Owiny, Sylvia A.This paper sheds new knowledge on the identity, origin, migration, and settlements of the Lango people, highlighting their unique sociopolitical and military structures. Overlooked print and documented oral histories of the Lango people and their neighbors show that they are of diverse backgrounds and cannot trace their identity to a single grandfather or group. Through migrations, conquests, and expansion wars, Lango people developed a unique language and culture; and perfected their sociopolitical and military structures.Item LDS materials for the study of Sub-Saharan Africa at L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University(Boston University, African Studies Center, 2020) Hurlbut, D. DmitriThis brief working paper contains a list of archival materials for the study of both colonial and postcolonial Sub-Saharan Africa located at L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. It supplements previous bibliographies I have published on Latter-day Saint materials for the study of Sub-Saharan Africa in this same working paper series. The current bibliography, which I have organized alphabetically by country, includes African oral histories; the papers, diaries, and oral histories of LDS missionaries, American diplomats, and U.S. Peace Corps volunteers; and records relating to the Boy Scouts in Africa. Collections relevant to the history of multiple countries have been cross-listed for the sake of convenience.Item Materials for the study of postcolonial Africa in the LDS church history library: manuscripts(Boston University, African Studies Center, 2019) Hurlbut, D. DmitriThis bibliography contains manuscript materials relevant to the study of postcolonial Africa located in the Church History Library of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. I have organized this list alphabetically by country. Whenever manuscript collections are relevant to the history of multiple countries, I have crosslisted the collections for the sake of convenience. I have chosen to exclude closed and unprocessed collections from this bibliography, so this list will be outdated by the time it is published. Nevertheless, I hope that the compilation of this bibliography of manuscript materials in the LDS Church History Library will assist historians in writing the history of Africa after 1960.Item The political economy of rural rebellion in Ethiopia: northern resistance to imperial expansion, 1928-35(Boston University, African Studies Center, 1984) McCann, JamesItem Working class wives and collective labor action on the Northern Rhodesian Copperbelt, 1926-1964(Boston University, African Studies Center, 1985) Parpart, Jane L.Item Household economy, demography, and the "push" factor in northern Ethiopian history 1916-1935(Boston University, African Studies Center, 1984) McCann, JamesOver the course of the last century perhaps the single most significant event in· Ethiopia's history has been the extension of political and economic power of the Amhara-dominated central state over the population and economic resources of Ethiopia's southern peripheries. A key component of this process has been the movement of people out of the northern and central portions of the old "Abyssinian" empire into the south, first as soldier/settlers and then as landlords, administrators, and political entrepreneurs. This transplanted population, mostly male' and mostly young, made up the flesh and sinew of the imperial state's control over the labor, land, and surplus product of the country's rich southern provinces. Despite the importance of this population movement we have virtually no empirical studies- of the motivations behind the emigration, the economic and social conditions the emigrants left behind, and the relative effect of "push" versus "pull" factors in their decision-making process. The purpose of this paper is to document the "push" side of the migration equation by examining the political, economic, and demographic factors which convinced many young men and some young women to leave their homelands in the north and seek a new life in the new frontier of southern Ethiopia in the period 1900-35. It is the argument of this paper that the material conditions of life in rural northern Ethiopia, especially in the northeast, declined precipitously during the first third of this century, particularly in the final decade and a half of that period. The declining state of the environment, population pressure on land, and the imposition of state policies on rural institutions of production and distribution pushed many households beyond the break-even point in the household production/consumption equation. The long-standing formulae within the rural household economy which had sustained the social and economic fabric proved unable to deal adequately with the new set of demands on it. Patterns of land-holding, labor allocation, and institutions of economic distribution changed and new economic strata emerged in the society. The end result was a squeezing out of middle peasants, the growth of a new class of capital-rich administrators, the beginning of the commoditization of land and labor, and an out-flow of a huge number of peasants who sought their future elsewhere in Ethiopia's emergent political economy.Item Land and social stratification in Dar Fur, 1785-1875: the hakura system(Boston University, African Studies Center, 1984) La Rue, G. MichaelItem Plows, oxen, and household managers: a reconsideration of the land paradigm and the production equation in northeast Ethiopia(Boston University, African Studies Center, 1984) McCann, JamesItem The outlook for liberalization in Zaire: evidence from Kisangani's rice trade(Boston University, African Studies Center, 1989) Russell, DianeItem Frontier agriculture, food supply, and conjuncture: a revolution in Dura on Ethiopia's Mazega 1898-1930(Boston University, African Studies Center, 1989) McCann, James C.Item Epidemiologists, social scientists, and the structure of medical research on AIDS in Africa(Boston University, African Studies Center, 1989) Packard, Randall M.Item Women in government service in colonial Nigeria, 1862-1945(Boston University, African Studies Center, 1989) Denzer, LaRayItem Africa beyond the famine: the case for hope(Boston University, African Studies Center, 1989) Strong, Maurice F.Item Pigs: the democratic philosophers of the medieval Sudan(Boston University, African Studies Center, 1989) Spaulding, Jay; Spaulding, J.L.The pig is not a popular animal in the Sudan today, and the idea of eating one is a notion equally repugnant to most people of the north and the south. The historical record seems to indicate, however, that this has not always been the case in times past; indeed, swine are still kept by a limited number of small communities who live across a belt extending from the Nuba Mountains eastward to the Ethiopian border. The demise of a once significant domesticated animal is a theme worthy of careful historical analysis, for food - the production, distribution, storage and preparation of food - occupies a very important position in any cultural system, and a major change in the definition of what is, or is not, food, constitutes a benchmark in the periodization of social history. This study explores one such cultural watershed, in addressing the questions of when and why the mainstream of the northern Sudanese cultural community rejected the pig.Item Schooling and access to management in LDCs: the case of Kenya(Boston University, African Studies Center, 1988) Gershenberg, IrvingItem A great agrarian cycle? A history of agricultural productivity and demographic change in highland Ethiopia, 1900-1987(Boston University, African Studies Center, 1988) McCann, James C.Item Queens, prostitutes and peasants: historical perspectives on African women, 1971-1986(Boston University, African Studies Center, 1988) Hay, Margaret JeanItem Women and the state in africa: marriage law, inheritance, and resettlement(Boston University, African Studies Center, 1987) Guyer, Jane I.Item A research strategy for analyzing the colonial state in Africa(Boston University, African Studies Center, 1987) Mozaffar, ShaheenThis paper presents a research strategy which can usefully be employed to advance the systematic analysis and understanding of the colonial state in Africa. The proposed research strategy is guided by the analytical concerns of comparative social science, especially those contained in the recent scholarship on the state and its role in society. These concerns are described in the first section of the paper. The research strategy also builds upon the paradigms and approaches to the state and state-society relations contained in the extant literature. These are critically reviewed in the next section of the paper. The substantive elements of the research strategy are then elucidated in the rest of the paper.