scholarly journals Social Currents in North Africa

Author(s):  
Osama Abi-Mershed

This introductory chapter offers a critical reassessment of the disciplinary contours have become all the more desirable in light of the momentous and unforeseen sociopolitical upheavals, known as the Arab uprisings, which started in Tunisia in December 2010. The “territory-crossing” reach and substantive implications of the uprisings have compelled North Africanists to review some of the paradigmatic and procedural assumptions in their field of studies, and to don fresh conceptual and methodological lenses when reading Arab societies more broadly. To this end, the chapter addresses the following questions: have the Arab uprisings exposed heretofore underestimated regional commonalities for historians and social scientists to explain? And can post-uprising research promote greater analytic rigor and disciplinary synergies in North African studies, to the benefit of more varied transregional and comparative perspectives on national developments?

1963 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
Manfred Halpern ◽  
Clement Moore

The sixth annual meeting of the African Studies Association was held at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco. The opening plenary session included three papers concerned with North African affairs. Benjamin Rivlin of Brooklyn College, considering “The Maghreb and Pan-Arabism,” began with a series of questions. Were the aspirations of the Maghreb states for Arab unity incompatible with their African vocation? Ought the Maghreb to be considered as a part of Africa, or was this precluded by the region's commitment to the Arab East? What was the extent of this commitment, and what identity did the Maghreb seek?


2000 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-36
Author(s):  
Miyazi Kazuo

The Purpose of this Paper is to present the history and the present status of Middle Eastern and North African Studies in Japan. As the status of the studies is closely related to the status of the relationships between Japan and the regions concerned, I will first write about the history of Japan-Middle East (including North Africa) relations and the relationship thereof to the studies.


Author(s):  
Moha Ennaji

This chapter investigates how language contact and conflict in North Africa impacts society, particularly education. It explores the intersections between cultures, languages, and education with the aim of providing a framework that would enrich the discussion of conquest and language conflict in terms of highlighting the role education and policy could play in the development and management of multilingual and multicultural societies. For the last sixty years, the linguistic situation in North Africa has witnessed many changes characterized by the significance of Arabic, which has been consolidated through the Arabization process, and by the important role of French, especially in higher education and in the private sector. While French remains widely used, Berber has finally been recognized as an official language and been introduced in elementary education in Morocco and Algeria. The shift is part of a larger movement toward pluralism and openness, especially since the Arab uprisings in 2011.


Screen Bodies ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 64-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter S. Temple

In recent years, North African queer cinema has become increasingly visible both within and beyond Arabo-Orientale spaces. A number of critical factors have contributed to a global awareness of queer identities in contemporary Maghrebi cinema, including the dissemination of films through social media outlets and during international film festivals. Such tout contemporain representations of queer sexuality characterize a robust wave of films in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, inciting a new discourse on the condition of the marginalized traveler struggling to locate new forms of self and being—both at home and abroad.


Author(s):  
Marina Sharpe

This introductory chapter begins by presenting the book’s structure in section A. Section B then delineates the book’s contours, outlining four aspects of refugee protection in Africa that are not addressed. Section C provides context, with a contemporary overview of the state of refugee protection in Africa. It also looks at the major aspects of the refugee situations in each of Africa’s principal geographic sub-regions: East Africa (including the Horn of Africa), Central Africa and the Great Lakes, West Africa, Southern Africa, and North Africa. Section D then concludes with an outline of the theoretical approach to regime relationships employed throughout the book.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 2187
Author(s):  
Caroline Cazin ◽  
Yasmine Boumerdassi ◽  
Guillaume Martinez ◽  
Selima Fourati Ben Mustapha ◽  
Marjorie Whitfield ◽  
...  

Acephalic spermatozoa syndrome (ASS) is a rare but extremely severe type of teratozoospermia, defined by the presence of a majority of headless flagella and a minority of tail-less sperm heads in the ejaculate. Like the other severe monomorphic teratozoospermias, ASS has a strong genetic basis and is most often caused by bi-allelic variants in SUN5 (Sad1 and UNC84 domain-containing 5). Using whole exome sequencing (WES), we investigated a cohort of nine infertile subjects displaying ASS. These subjects were recruited in three centers located in France and Tunisia, but all originated from North Africa. Sperm from subjects carrying candidate genetic variants were subjected to immunofluorescence analysis and transmission electron microscopy. Moreover, fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) was performed on sperm nuclei to assess their chromosomal content. Variant filtering permitted us to identify the same SUN5 homozygous frameshift variant (c.211+1_211+2dup) in 7/9 individuals (78%). SUN5 encodes a protein localized on the posterior part of the nuclear envelope that is necessary for the attachment of the tail to the sperm head. Immunofluorescence assays performed on sperm cells from three mutated subjects revealed a total absence of SUN5, thus demonstrating the deleterious impact of the identified variant on protein expression. Transmission electron microscopy showed a conserved flagellar structure and a slightly decondensed chromatin. FISH did not highlight a higher rate of chromosome aneuploidy in spermatozoa from SUN5 patients compared to controls, indicating that intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) can be proposed for patients carrying the c.211+1_211+2dup variant. These results suggest that the identified SUN5 variant is the main cause of ASS in the North African population. Consequently, a simple and inexpensive genotyping of the 211+1_211+2dup variant could be beneficial for affected men of North African origin before resorting to more exhaustive genetic analyses.


2021 ◽  
pp. 002190962098358
Author(s):  
Francesco Tamburini

North African nations, especially Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco, have been heavily affected by COVID-19 if compared to other African countries. Governments in North Africa took proactive legal measures to manage the virus threat, safeguarding population health, but also triggering repressive and invasive mechanisms that in some cases jeopardized basic freedoms and rights. This work will analyze comparatively the anti-COVID-19 legislations, pointing out how the legislative measures mirrored the level of transition of democracy, the opacity of some regimes, exploitation of the pandemic to foster repressive control, and highlighting the weakness of new democratic institutions unprepared to balance health security and democracy.


Mammalia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mourad Ahmim ◽  
Hafid Aroudj ◽  
Farouk Aroudj ◽  
Saaid Saidi ◽  
Samir Aroudj

Abstract The common genet (Genetta genetta Linnaeus, 1758) is a rare and protected mammal species in Algeria. We report the first melanistic individual of this species ever recorded in North Africa. Such animals have only been recorded in Spain and Portugal so far. It is unclear why melanistic common genets seem to be so rare in its African range. More research is needed to determine the true occurrence of melanistic individuals, and what the evolutionary history of melanism is in common genets.


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