scholarly journals Secondary Cities in West Africa: Urbanity, Power, and Aspirations

Urban Forum ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carole Ammann ◽  
Aïdas Sanogo ◽  
Barbara Heer
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Population Size ◽  
Urban Studies ◽  
West African ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Quantitative Variable ◽  
Full Diversity ◽  
Anthropological Research ◽  
Situational Perceptions ◽  
Unique Potential

AbstractThis article claims space for secondary cities in urban studies. It criticizes that scientists tend to study urban life in metropolises and, hence, do not represent urban life in its full diversity. In reality, the majority of the worlds’ urban dwellers live in secondary cities; therefore, research on urbanity should reflect this fact. The article argues against simple approaches to secondary cities, such as defining them based on a single quantitative variable like population size. It rather proposes that anthropological research has a unique potential to reveal the urban dwellers’ relational and situational perceptions of, and perspectives towards, secondary cities. The paper puts this approach into practice by examining two West African secondary cities: Kankan in Guinea and Bouaké in Côte d’Ivoire.

The Coin of the African Realm

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Herbst
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
West Africa ◽  
West African ◽  
Regional Economies ◽  
African Countries ◽  
New Strategies

This chapter examines the politics of the currency in West Africa from the beginning of the twentieth century. A public series of debates over the nature of the currency occurred in West Africa during both the colonial and independence periods. Since 1983, West African countries have been pioneers in Africa in developing new strategies to combat overvaluation of the currency and reduce the control of government over the currency supply. The chapter charts the evolution of West African currencies as boundaries and explores their relationship to state consolidation. It shows that leaders in African capitals managed to make the units they ruled increasingly distinct from the international and regional economies, but the greater salience of the currency did not end up promoting state consolidation. Rather, winning the ability to determine the value of the currency led to a series of disastrous decisions that severely weakened the states themselves.

scholarly journals Hybrid insolation forcing of Pliocene monsoon dynamics in West Africa

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rony R. Kuechler ◽  
Lydie M. Dupont ◽  
Enno Schefuß
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Climate Changes ◽  
West African Monsoon ◽  
West African ◽  
Latitudinal Gradients ◽  
Glacial Cycle ◽  
Time Intervals ◽  
Continental Hydrology ◽  
Insolation Forcing ◽  
The Last Glacial

Abstract. The Pliocene is regarded as a potential analogue for future climate with conditions generally warmer-than-today and higher-than-preindustrial atmospheric CO2 levels. Here we present the first orbitally resolved records of continental hydrology and vegetation changes from West Africa for two Pliocene time intervals (5.0–4.6 Ma, 3.6–3.0 Ma), which we compare with records from the last glacial cycle (Kuechler et al., 2013). Our results indicate that changes in local insolation alone are insufficient to explain the full degree of hydrologic variations. Generally two modes of interacting insolation forcings are observed: during eccentricity maxima, when precession was strong, the West African monsoon was driven by summer insolation; during eccentricity minima, when precession-driven variations in local insolation were minimal, obliquity-driven changes in the summer latitudinal insolation gradient became dominant. This hybrid monsoonal forcing concept explains orbitally controlled tropical climate changes, incorporating the forcing mechanism of latitudinal gradients for the Pliocene, which probably increased in importance during subsequent Northern Hemisphere glaciations.

scholarly journals Promoting research to improve maternal, neonatal, infant and adolescent health in West Africa: the role of the West African Health Organisation

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (S1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Issiaka Sombie ◽  
Aissa Bouwayé ◽  
Yves Mongbo ◽  
Namoudou Keita ◽  
Virgil Lokossou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Adolescent Health ◽  
West African ◽  
The West ◽  
African Health

A curious case of nematode parasitism in a West African Hadada, Gevonticus hagedash

1945 ◽  
Vol 21 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 99-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phyllis A. Clapham
Keyword(s):  
Small Intestine ◽  
West Africa ◽  
West Coast ◽  
West African ◽  
The West ◽  
The Family ◽  
Nematode Parasitism

In the following article is described an interesting parasitic condition which is difficult to interpret. The small intestine of an Hadada, Geronticus hagedash, was brought back from the West Coast of Africa by Major T. A. Cockburn, M.D., R.A.M.C, who kindly passed it to me for further examination. The bird is a member of the family Plataleidae, living in wooded districts in West Africa in the neighbourhood of water and feeding on invertebrates, mainly annelids and small crustaceans which it finds at the bottom of ponds and streams in the mud.

scholarly journals On What Scale Can We Predict the Agronomic Onset of the West African Monsoon?

2016 ◽  
Vol 144 (4) ◽  
pp. 1571-1589 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rory G. J. Fitzpatrick ◽  
Caroline L. Bain ◽  
Peter Knippertz ◽  
John H. Marsham ◽  
Douglas J. Parker
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Noise Analysis ◽  
West African Monsoon ◽  
West African ◽  
New Method ◽  
The West ◽  
African Monsoon ◽  
Spatial Consistency ◽  
Local Stakeholders ◽  
Local Rainfall

Abstract Accurate prediction of the commencement of local rainfall over West Africa can provide vital information for local stakeholders and regional planners. However, in comparison with analysis of the regional onset of the West African monsoon, the spatial variability of the local monsoon onset has not been extensively explored. One of the main reasons behind the lack of local onset forecast analysis is the spatial noisiness of local rainfall. A new method that evaluates the spatial scale at which local onsets are coherent across West Africa is presented. This new method can be thought of as analogous to a regional signal against local noise analysis of onset. This method highlights regions where local onsets exhibit a quantifiable degree of spatial consistency (denoted local onset regions or LORs). It is found that local onsets exhibit a useful amount of spatial agreement, with LORs apparent across the entire studied domain; this is in contrast to previously found results. Identifying local onset regions and understanding their variability can provide important insight into the spatial limit of monsoon predictability. While local onset regions can be found over West Africa, their size is much smaller than the scale found for seasonal rainfall homogeneity. A potential use of local onset regions is presented that shows the link between the annual intertropical front progression and local agronomic onset.

The Royal African Company of England's West African Correspondence, 1681-1699

1993 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 173-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Law
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
West African ◽  
Gold Coast ◽  
Original Form ◽  
Cape Coast ◽  
General Terms ◽  
West African Coast ◽  
African Coast ◽  
History Of

This paper draws attention to an ambitious project in the publication of source material for the precolonial history of West Africa, which has recently been approved for inclusion in the Fontes Historiae Africanae series of the British Academy. In addition to self-promotion, however, I wish also to take the opportunity to air some of the problems of editorial strategy and choice which arise with regard to the editing and presentation of this material, in the hope of provoking some helpful feedback on these issues.The material to be published consists of correspondence of the Royal African Company of England relating to the West African coast in the late seventeenth century. The history of the Royal African Company (hereafter RAC) is in general terms well known, especially through the pioneering (and still not superseded) study by K.G. Davies (1957). The Company was chartered in 1672 with a legal monopoly of English trade with Africa. Its headquarters in West Africa was at Cape Coast (or, in the original form of the name, Cabo Corso) Castle on the Gold Coast, and it maintained forts or factories not only on the Gold Coast itself, but also at the Gambia, in Sierra Leone, and at Offra and Whydah on the Slave Coast. It lost its monopoly of the African trade in 1698, and thereafter went into decline, effectively ceasing to operate as a trading concern in the 1720s, although it continued to manage the English possessions on the coast of West Africa until it was replaced by a regulated company (i.e., one open to all traders), the Company of Merchants Trading to Africa, in 1750.

scholarly journals Update of distribution, habitats, population size, and threat factors for the West African crocodile in Mauritania

2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 325-330 ◽  
Author(s):  
João Carlos Campos ◽  
Fernando Martínez-Freiría ◽  
Fábio Vieira Sousa ◽  
Frederico Santarém ◽  
José Carlos Brito
Keyword(s):  
Population Size ◽  
Conservation Status ◽  
West African ◽  
Conservation Strategies ◽  
Temperature Extremes ◽  
Local Conservation ◽  
The West ◽  
Water Abstraction ◽  
New Localities ◽  
Domestic Use

The West African crocodile (Crocodylus suchus) is an emblematic species from the Sahara-Sahel with scarce knowledge on distribution and conservation status. This study updated the knowledge on distribution, occupied habitats, population size, and factors that threaten C. suchus and its habitats in Mauritania. Five field expeditions to Mauritania (2011-2016), allowed the detection of 26 new localities, increasing by 27% the current number of all known locations (adding up to ). In most localities less than five individuals were observed, and in all visiting sites the number of observed individuals ranged from one to 23. Eleven threat factors were identified, being droughts and temperature extremes (100% localities affected) and water abstraction for domestic use and nomadic grazing (94%) the most frequent. These findings suggest that crocodiles are apparently vulnerable in Mauritania and that future local conservation strategies are needed to assure the continuity of its fragile populations and preserve their habitats.

Paleomagnetism of the ~860 Ma Manso dyke swarm, West Africa: implications for the assembly of Rodinia

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Yves Jean Antonio ◽  
Lenka Baratoux ◽  
Ricardo Ivan Ferreira Trindade ◽  
Sonia Rousse ◽  
Anani Ayite ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
West African ◽  
Dyke Swarm ◽  
Jigsaw Puzzle ◽  
The West ◽  
West African Craton ◽  
Contact Test ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Paleomagnetic Pole ◽  
Coarse To Fine

<p>The West African Craton (WAC) is one of the major cratons in the Rodinia jigsaw puzzle (~1000–750 Ma). In the Rodinian models, the position of West Africa is mainly constrained by the assumption that it had been a partner of Amazonia since the Paleoproterozoic. Unfortunately, no paleomagnetic data are available for these cratons when the Rodina supercontinent is considered tectonically stable (~1000-750 Ma). Thus, every new reliable paleomagnetic pole for the West African Craton during the Neoproterozoic times is of paramount importance to constrain its position and testing the Rodinia models. In this study we present a combined paleomagnetic and geochronological investigation for the Manso dyke swarm in the Leo-Man Shield, southern West Africa (Ghana). The ~860 Ma emplacement age for the NNW-trending Manso dykes is thus well-constrained by two new U-Pb apatite ages of 857.2 ± 8.5 Ma and 855 ± 16 Ma, in agreement with baddeleyite data. Remanence of these coarse-to-fine grained dolerite dykes is carried by stable single to pseudo-single domain (SD-PSD) magnetite. A positive baked-contact test, associated to a positive reversal test (Class-C), support the primary remanence obtained for these dykes (13 sites). Moreover, our new paleomagnetic dataset satisfy all the seven R-criteria (R=7). The ~860 Ma Manso pole can thus be considered as the first key Tonian paleomagnetic pole for West Africa. We propose that the West Africa-Baltica-Amazonia-Congo-São Francisco were associated in a long-lived WABAMGO juxtaposition (~1100–800 Ma).</p><p><strong>Keywords:</strong> West Africa, Neoproterozoic, Tonian, Rodinia, paleomagnetism.</p><p> </p>

African American Journalists in World War II West Africa: The NNPA Commission Tour of 1944–1945

2021 ◽  
pp. 002190962110549
Author(s):  
Oliver Coates
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
West Africa ◽  
American West ◽  
West African ◽  
Gold Coast ◽  
Washington Dc ◽  
World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Economic

The National Negro Publishers Association (NNPA) Commission to West Africa in 1944–1945 represents a major episode in the history of World War II Africa, as well as in American–West Africa relations. Three African American reporters toured the Gold Coast, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Liberia, and the Congo between November 1944 and February 1945, before returning to Washington, DC to report to President Roosevelt. They documented their tour in the pages of the Baltimore Afro-American, the Chicago Defender, and the Norfolk Journal and Guide. Their Americans’ visit had a significant impact in wartime West Africa and was widely documented in the African press. This article examines the NNPA tour geographically, before analyzing American reporters’ interactions with West Africans, and assessing African responses to the tour. Drawing on both African American and West African newspapers, it situates the NNPA tour within the history of World War II West Africa, and in terms of African print culture. It argues that the NNPA tour became the focus of West African hopes for future political, economic, and intellectual relations with African Americans, while revealing how the NNPA reporters engaged African audiences during their tour.

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