The tools of tailoring as technologies-in-use in twentieth century Benin, West Africa

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Ann Fretwell
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
West Africa

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.

The Racial Face

Hybrid Hate ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 133-155
Author(s):  
Tudor Parfitt
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
West Africa

Racial immutability of Jews and blacks was proved through the unchanging features of the Jewish and negro face over thousands of years. From the time of Johann Kaspar Lavater, the Swiss Protestant poet and pastor from Zurich, it became almost axiomatic that there was something unique about the Jewish and negro face and head. Some argued that there was something goat-like about the Jewish face and something ape-like about the negro face. Jewish and negro eyes were considered special. Robert Knox discussed the racial face with respect to negroes and Jews, finding commonalities. For Frederic William Farrar, too, it was the overlapping categories of blacks and Jews that provided the best proof of the immutability of racial types. The indelibility of African blackness and the indelibility of Jewishness were common themes that linked Jews and negroes from medieval times to the twentieth century. Alfred Russell Wallace made the critical linkage between Jews and blacks that had underlined much racial speculation for the previous five hundred years and that would continue long after his death, particularly with respect to their unchanging, ancient pedigree and appearance. While many scholars opined that the Egyptian monuments offered the best proofs of the immutability of the Jewish and negro face, Alfred Cort Haddon considered that the Assyrian depictions of Jews were the most reliable as far as Jewish faces were concerned. Jewish faces were even to be found in west Africa.

A Major Link between France's Berber Policy in Morocco and its "Policy of Races" in French West Africa: Commandant Paul Marty (1882-1938)

2006 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-62
Author(s):  
Pessah Shinar
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
West Africa ◽  
Arabic Language ◽  
French West Africa

AbstractVirtually from the beginning of the protectorate (1912), the French in Morocco attempted to seal off the Berber-speaking tribes from the penetration of Islam and of the Arabic language. The present paper argues that this policy (the "Berber policy") was modeled on a similar policy (the "policy of races") adopted by the French in West Africa at the beginning of the twentieth century, the main difference being that in West Africa it was the "animists" who were to be sealed off. In both cases, the French acted as they did in order to ensure the permanence of their rule. It is argued that Paul Marty, the eminent authority on Islam in West Africa, was a key figure in the implementation of these policies in both regions.

Of Man and Cattle: A Reconsideration of the Traditions of Origin of Pastoral Fulani of Nigeria

1991 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. G. Adebayo
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
West Africa ◽  
Population Growth ◽  
Dominant Factor ◽  
Northern Nigeria ◽  
Lake Chad ◽  
The People ◽  
Southern Nigeria

The fair-skinned people who inhabit the Sudan fringes of west Africa stretching from the Senegal valley to the shores of Lake Chad and who speak the language known as Fulfulde, are known by many names.1 They call themselves Fulbe (singular, Pullo). They are called Fulani by the Hausa of southern Nigeria, and this name has been used for them throughout Nigeria. The British call them Ful, Fulani, or Fula, while the French refer to them as Peul, Peulh, or Poulah. In Senegal the French also inadvertently call them Toucouleur or Tukulor. The Kanuri of northern Nigeria call them Fulata or Felata. In this paper we will adopt the Hausa (or Nigerian) name for the people—Fulani.Accurate censuses are not available on the Fulani in west Africa. A mid-twentieth century estimate puts the total number of Fulani at “over 4 million,” more than half of whom are said to inhabit Nigeria. Another estimate towards the end of 1989 puts the total number of Nigeria's Fulani (nomads only) at over ten million. If both estimates were correct, then the Fulani population in Nigeria alone must have grown 500 per cent in forty years. The dominant factor in this population growth is increased immigration of pastoralists into Nigeria in the wake of the 1968-73 Sahelian drought.

scholarly journals CONSTRUCTING AVATIME: QUESTIONS OF HISTORY AND IDENTITY IN A WEST AFRICAN POLITY,c. 1690s TO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

2008 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
LYNNE BRYDON
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
West Africa ◽  
Small Group ◽  
West African ◽  
Small Scale

ABSTRACTSmall-scale societies, like Avatime in eastern Ghana, established, maintained and developed themselves in a range of ways, in spaces between large, centralized states, in West Africa in the precolonial era. This essay demonstrates the inclusivity and initiative (in terms of both economic entrepreneurship andbricolage) of this small group before its effective destruction by Asante in about 1870, and looks at the ways in which Avatime was reconstructed in the last third of the nineteenth century. In addition, issues of ethnicity and identity are broadly addressed, comparing Avatime's inclusivity with tropes of difference discussed in recent studies of small-scale societies in this journal.

Islam and Trade in the Bilād AL-Sūdān, Tenth-Eleventh Century A.D.

1983 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 431-440 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Brett
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
West Africa ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
West African ◽  
Legal Basis ◽  
African Society ◽  
Western Sahara ◽  
Legal Opinions ◽  
The Law ◽  
Muslim Communities

Two fatwā-s or legal opinions of the jurist al-Qābisī at Qayrawān about the year A.D. 1000 show the way in which the Law of Islam was used to protect the Muslim against the hazards of trans-Saharan trade with the Bilād al-Sūdan. Trade was to be conducted as far as possible in accordance with the Law, and approval was given to the establishment of Muslim communities in the Bilād al-Sūdān under the authority of a nāzir or ‘watchman’, with the consent of the pagan king of the country. The formation of Muslim communities on this legal basis, and their incorporation into the pattern of West African society, were important for the subsequent character of Islam in West Africa. Meanwhile, among the ‘stateless’ Berber peoples of the Western Sahara, the doctrines of the Malikite school were subject to a different interpretation by Ibn Yasln, which came into open conflict with the views of al-Qābisī when the Almoravids sacked the Muslim city of Awdaghast for submitting to the pagan king of Ghana. This conflict of attitudes to paganism remained a feature of West African Islam down to the twentieth century.

Decline or Survival? Iron Production in West Africa from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Centuries

1982 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 503-513 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. M. Pole
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
West Africa ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Iron Production ◽  
Production Constraints ◽  
Iron Smelting ◽  
Local Sources ◽  
Non Local

In the sixteenth century most iron used in west Africa was produced within the region. Extra demand may have been met from the newly established European factors on the coast. By the end of the nineteenth century, in contrast, it was the residue in demand that was satisfied from local sources, the main bulk of iron being imported via the coast and transported inland. For the larger part of this 400-year period imported iron was cheaper than locally-produced iron. What was remarkable, then, was not that iron smelting eventually died out, but that it survived for so long and could be studied in detail in the second half of the twentieth century.It is argued that, although the decline can be related to production constraints, such as the availability of charcoal, influences originating from the rest of the community can be seen to have prolonged the survival of local iron. The organization of labour of both the iron-smelting and blacksmithing processes, together with the way in which iron was marketed, are central to the analysis. In addition, consumption factors are of the utmost importance. Apart from the prejudice against innovation, the fact that imported iron was plainly not as suitable as local iron for the purposes to which it was put, weakened its impact. Also the ritual attitude to local iron has to be taken into consideration. The present universality of non-local sources has resulted in a change in the regard paid to the metal, but it is argued that the position of the smith is unlikely to alter significantly, since it is more related to his crucial role as supplier of tools for other essential activities such as farming, than to the production of iron itself.

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