Women who change into men: a gendered history of precarity in ‘useful’ Chad

Africa ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 89 (03) ◽  
pp. 521-540
Author(s):  
Lori Leonard
Keyword(s):  
Land Expropriation ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Economic Agents ◽  
Younger Women ◽  
Oil Companies ◽  
Historical Processes ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Two Generations ◽  
History Of ◽  
Over Time

AbstractThis article is about two generations of women in south-western Chad – the baou déné and the mosso. It addresses the puzzle of how these groups of women are present in the everyday life of the region known as ‘useful’ Chad, while women as economic agents are absent from stories about the region and about successive schemes to make it profitable. The baou déné are wealthy farmers, but the last generation of these ‘women who have a lot of things’ is disappearing. Younger women are referred to as mosso, meaning ‘to fall down’. They are more likely to make a living from small trade than from farming and their lives are defined by precarity. Drawing on a range of historical and contemporary sources, I show how the erasure of women happened in different ways over time. In the colonial era, administrators and travel writers were unable to imagine that women transformed forests into cotton fields. In this century, the idea that women farm just like men was disseminated by oil companies, facilitating land expropriation while drowning out stories of women's marginalization. The baou déné and the mosso are the products of specific historical processes and profit-making schemes, and the silences about women's places in them helped make profits, empire and ‘useful’ Chad possible.

scholarly journals BETWEEN WORLD HISTORY AND STATE FORMATION: NEW PERSPECTIVES ON AFRICA'S CITIES

2011 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
LAURENT FOURCHARD
Keyword(s):  
Urban Studies ◽  
World History ◽  
African Continent ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Urban Dynamics ◽  
Historical Processes ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
City State

ABSTRACTThe dramatic urban change taking place on the African continent has led to a renewed and controversial interest in Africa's cities within several academic and expert circles. Attempts to align a growing but fragmented body of research on Africa's urban past with more general trends in urban studies have been few but have nevertheless opened up new analytical possibilities. This article argues that to move beyond the traps of localism and unhelpful categorizations that have dominated aspects of urban history and the urban studies literature of the continent, historians should explore African urban dynamics in relation to world history and the history of the state in order to contribute to larger debates between social scientists and urban theorists. By considering how global socio-historical processes articulate with the everyday lives of urban dwellers and how city-state relationships are structured by ambivalence, this article will illustrate how historians can participate in those debates in ways that demonstrate that history matters, but not in a linear way. These illustrations will also suggest why it is necessary for historians to contest interpretations of Africa's cities that construe them as ontologically different from other cities of the world.

On the border: Chiapas, between empire and republic

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Washbrook
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
The Political ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Surplus Labour ◽  
History Of ◽  
Important Means ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The Church ◽  
Over Time

This chapter analyzes the political, economic, and social relations in Chiapas during the colonial era in order to better understand the nature and impact of the modernizing reforms enacted by liberal regimes after independence. The first section presents an overview of the conquest of the region from 1528 to around 1550. The second section examines the institutions of state rule and how they changed over time, emphasizing the break between Habsburg and Bourbon rule after 1750. The third section analyzes the history and structure of the Indian community or república de indios and underscores its important political, economic, and ideological role in colonial society. The next two sections look at controlled markets in commerce and labour (repartimientos), which constituted important means by which surplus labour and produce were extracted from the Indian population. The next section considers the history of the Church in Chiapas, which like the Spanish Crown extracted taxes, fees, and labour from the communities. The Church also structured religious celebration and public ritual in the communities around the corporate institutions of the parish and cofradía, thereby contributing to the consolidation of both colonial rule and Indian ethnic identity and solidarity. Chiapas's hacienda sector, which is examined in the final section, was also dominated by the Church, although production was limited in the province before Bourbon policies fomented the expansion of commercial agriculture in the late eighteenth century.

scholarly journals Remembering Slavery in Urban Cape Town: Emancipation or Continuity?

2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (S28) ◽  
pp. 197-223
Author(s):  
Samuel North
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Racial Segregation ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Direct Experience ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Over Time

AbstractThis article examines how slavery has been remembered in the urban space of Cape Town over time. It explores how individuals and groups have commemorated the history of slavery from the late nineteenth century onwards. It outlines how memory of slavery faded as the number of people with direct experience of enslavement decreased, with burgeoning racial segregation influencing the way that the past was viewed. It then examines how post-1994 democracy in South Africa has once again changed approaches to history. Colonial-era abuses such as slavery have not always been readily remembered in an urban space where their legacies are visible, and this article examines the interplay of politics and identity at the heart of public memorialization of these contested pasts.

'religious Insults': Christian Critiques of Islam and the Government in Colonial Northern Nigeria

2004 ◽  
Vol 34 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 62-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Barnes
Keyword(s):  
Active Participation ◽  
Northern Nigeria ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Religious Policy ◽  
The Third ◽  
Religious Controversy ◽  
Two Generations ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Government ◽  
Colonial Government

AbstractThis article discusses two Christian critiques of Islam published during the colonial era, and the response by the colonial government to each. The first goal of the article is to characterize Christian criticisms of Islam during the colonial era. The second is to demonstrate how conflict over Islam could shape relations between British administrators and Christian missionaries. The third goal is to narrate the history of a religious controversy as it developed over two generations. As will be seen, the war of words over government religious policy toward Islam could become quite vicious, even without any active participation by Muslims.

Past Intensities

2021 ◽  
Vol 65 ◽  
pp. 145-148
Author(s):  
Philipp Müller
Keyword(s):  
Historical Processes ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
History Of ◽  
German Historian

This obituary commemorates the life and work of the nationally and internationally renowned German historian Alf Lüdtke, who is best known for his concept of the everyday history and who, in the 1970s and 1980s, together with other colleagues, began to develop historically questions inspired by concepts of anthropology. With his studies he made very important contributions to the history of policing, violence, fascism in Germany and governance in general. In this context he began very early to highlight the importance of symbols and emotions and the role of ordinary women and men in historical processes and dynamics of the 19th and 20th centuries. Alf Lüdtke

scholarly journals Sejarah PLTA Lamajan Pangalengan Sebagai Situs Peninggalan Belanda di Kabupaten Bandung Tahun 1925

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-146
Author(s):  
Asri Nur Kholis Sofiah ◽  
Ajid Hakim
Keyword(s):  
Power Plant ◽  
Qualitative Method ◽  
Hydroelectric Power Plant ◽  
Hydroelectric Power ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
History Of ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Dutch Colonial

This study aims to determine how the history of the Lamajan Hydroelectric Power in 1925, both in terms of the geographical, demographic conditions of Pangalengan and also the components that still exist in Lamajan. Lamajan is a Dutch hydroelectric power plant (PLTA) which was built in 1924 in Pangalengan, Bandung and has been operating since 1925. Lamajan has three generator units, the engine used by Lamajan supplied from the Dutch factories Heemaf and Smit Slikkerveer, initiated by V.H Willem Smith & Co. and R.W.H. Hofstede Crull. The method used in this study is a qualitative method, namely by collecting data through literature and documentation. This method is carried out through four stages namely, heuristics, criticism, interpretation, and historiography. The results of this study show this hydroelectric power plant was built during the Dutch colonial era in 1920-1924 and operated in 1925. This power plant was initially built by a Dutch engineer named Willem Beyerinc K.  for the electricity needs of sugar factories but over time was used to illuminate the area of Bandung and its surroundings, this power plant utilizes the flow of water from the Cisarua and Cisangkuy rivers.

European Integration

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johann P. Arnason
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Historical Processes ◽  
History Of ◽  
External Conditions ◽  
Eastern European Countries ◽  
Totalitarian Regimes ◽  
The Eu

Different understandings of European integration, its background and present problems are represented in this book, but they share an emphasis on historical processes, geopolitical dynamics and regional diversity. The introduction surveys approaches to the question of European continuities and discontinuities, before going on to an overview of chapters. The following three contributions deal with long-term perspectives, including the question of Europe as a civilisational entity, the civilisational crisis of the twentieth century, marked by wars and totalitarian regimes, and a comparison of the European Union with the Habsburg Empire, with particular emphasis on similar crisis symptoms. The next three chapters discuss various aspects and contexts of the present crisis. Reflections on the Brexit controversy throw light on a longer history of intra-Union rivalry, enduring disputes and changing external conditions. An analysis of efforts to strengthen the EU’s legal and constitutional framework, and of resistances to them, highlights the unfinished agenda of integration. A closer look at the much-disputed Islamic presence in Europe suggests that an interdependent radicalization of Islamism and the European extreme right is a major factor in current political developments. Three concluding chapters adopt specific regional perspectives. Central and Eastern European countries, especially Poland, are following a path that leads to conflicts with dominant orientations of the EU, but this also raises questions about Europe’s future. The record of Scandinavian policies in relation to Europe exemplifies more general problems faced by peripheral regions. Finally, growing dissonances and divergences within the EU may strengthen the case for Eurasian perspectives.

The Path of Standard Albanian Language Formation

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 106-115
Author(s):  
Sindorela Doli Kryeziu
Keyword(s):  
Single Unit ◽  
Cultural Factors ◽  
Language History ◽  
Whole Process ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social And Cultural Factors ◽  
Cultural Body ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Language Literature

Abstract In our paper we will talk about the whole process of standardization of the Albanian language, where it has gone through a long historical route, for almost a century.When talking about standard Albanian language history and according to Albanian language literature, it is often thought that the Albanian language was standardized in the Albanian Language Orthography Congress, held in Tirana in 1972, or after the publication of the Orthographic Rules (which was a project at that time) of 1967 and the decisions of the Linguistic Conference, a conference of great importance that took place in Pristina, in 1968. All of these have influenced chronologically during a very difficult historical journey, until the standardization of the Albanian language.Considering a slightly wider and more complex view than what is often presented in Albanian language literature, we will try to describe the path (history) of the standard Albanian formation under the influence of many historical, political, social and cultural factors that are known in the history of the Albanian people. These factors have contributed to the formation of a common state, which would have, over time, a common standard language.It is fair to think that "all activity in the development of writing and the Albanian language, in the field of standardization and linguistic planning, should be seen as a single unit of Albanian culture, of course with frequent manifestations of specific polycentric organization, either because of divisions within the cultural body itself, or because of the external imposition"(Rexhep Ismajli," In Language and for Language ", Dukagjini, Peja, 1998, pp. 15-18.)

Physical environment and daily life in the Sanctuary of Poseidon at Kalaureia, Poros. The bioarchaeological remains

2019 ◽  
pp. 159-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arto Penttinen ◽  
Dimitra Mylona
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Physical Environment ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Soil Samples ◽  
Crucial Importance ◽  
Archaeological Excavation ◽  
Research Project ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Over Time

The section below contains reports on bioarchaeological remains recovered in the excavations in Areas D and C in the Sanctuary of Poseidon at Kalaureia, Poros, between 2003 and 2005. The excavations were directed by the late Berit Wells within a research project named Physical Environment and Daily Life in the Sanctuary of Poseidon at Kalaureia (Poros). The main objective of the project was to study what changed and what remained constant over time in the everyday life and in both the built and physical environment in an important sanctuary of the ancient Greeks. The bioarchaeological remains, of a crucial importance for this type of study, were collected both by means of traditional archaeological excavation and by processing extensively collected soil samples. This text aims to providing the theoretical and archaeological background for the analyses that follow.

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