Segeju and Daisũ: A Case Study of Evidence from Oral Tradition and Comparative Linguistics

1982 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 175-208
Author(s):  
Derek Nurse
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Comparative Linguistics ◽  
Tana River ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Northeast Africa

The history of “the” Segeju has been the subject of lengthy published debate. The discussion has been based almost entirely on interpretation of oral traditions as recounted by Segeju informants to various scholars. A newcomer with a linguistic bias is struck by certain aspects of much of this debate:a] the linguistic implausibility apparently involved. Baker, for example, recording fairly literally what he was told, started the history of “the” Segeju in the Middle East: this would presumably involve a community speaking Arabic or Persian. There follows reference to “segeju” travels and sojourns in mainland northeast Africa: linguistic affiliation unknown. This period terminates with their arrival at Shungwaya, in southern Somalia: linguistic affiliation unstated. Later “they” are found on the Upper Tana River: Kamba is mentioned. Finally “they” settle in their present location on the northern Tanzanian coast, where today the language affiliations of people referring to themselves as “Segeju” are various (see below).

Press Propaganda and Subaltern Agents of Pan-Islamic Networks in the Muslim Mediterranean World prior to World War I

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Odile Moreau
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
World War I ◽  
North Africa ◽  
World War ◽  
Subaltern Studies ◽  
Resistance Movements ◽  
The Press ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
History Of

This chapter explores movement and circulation across the Mediterranean and seeks to contribute to a history of proto-nationalism in the Maghrib and the Middle East at a particular moment prior to World War I. The discussion is particularly concerned with the interface of two Mediterranean spaces: the Middle East (Egypt, Ottoman Empire) and North Africa (Morocco), where the latter is viewed as a case study where resistance movements sought external allies as a way of compensating for their internal weakness. Applying methods developed by Subaltern Studies, and linking macro-historical approaches, namely of a translocal movement in the Muslim Mediterranean, it explores how the Egypt-based society, al-Ittihad al-Maghribi, through its agent, Aref Taher, used the press as an instrument for political propaganda, promoting its Pan-Islamic programme and its goal of uniting North Africa.

COMBINING ORAL TRADITIONS AND BAYESIAN CHRONOLOGICAL MODELING TO UNDERSTAND VILLAGE DEVELOPMENT IN THE GULF OF PAPUA (PAPUA NEW GUINEA)

Radiocarbon ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Chris Urwin ◽  
Quan Hua ◽  
Henry Arifeae
Keyword(s):  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Spatial History ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Gulf Of Papua ◽  
The Village

ABSTRACT When European colonists arrived in the late 19th century, large villages dotted the coastline of the Gulf of Papua (southern Papua New Guinea). These central places sustained long-distance exchange and decade-spanning ceremonial cycles. Besides ethnohistoric records, little is known of the villages’ antiquity, spatiality, or development. Here we combine oral traditional and 14C chronological evidence to investigate the spatial history of two ancestral village sites in Orokolo Bay: Popo and Mirimua Mapoe. A Bayesian model composed of 35 14C assays from seven excavations, alongside the oral traditional accounts, demonstrates that people lived at Popo from 765–575 cal BP until 220–40 cal BP, at which time they moved southwards to Mirimua Mapoe. The village of Popo spanned ca. 34 ha and was composed of various estates, each occupied by a different tribe. Through time, the inhabitants of Popo transformed (e.g., expanded, contracted, and shifted) the village to manage social and ceremonial priorities, long-distance exchange opportunities and changing marine environments. Ours is a crucial case study of how oral traditional ways of understanding the past interrelate with the information generated by Bayesian 14C analyses. We conclude by reflecting on the limitations, strengths, and uncertainties inherent to these forms of chronological knowledge.

The Conquest That Never Was: Ghana and the Almoravids, 1076. II. The Local Oral Sources

1983 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 53-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
David C. Conrad ◽  
Humphrey J. Fisher
Keyword(s):  
Time Scale ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Positive Identification ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Oral Evidence ◽  
Remote Past ◽  
Written Sources

“The land took the name of the wells, the wells that had no bottom.”In Part I of this paper we examined the external written sources and found no unambiguous evidence that an Almoravid conquest of ancient Ghana ever occurred. The local oral evidence reviewed in this part of our study supports our earlier hypothesis, in that we find nothing in the traditions to indicate any conquest of the eleventh-century sahelian state known to Arab geographers as “Ghana.” Instead, the oral traditions emphasize drought as having had much to do with the eventual disintegration of the Soninke state known locally as “Wagadu.”An immediate problem involved in sifting the oral sources for evidence of an Almoravid conquest is that a positive identification between the Wagadu of oral tradition and the Ghana of written sources has never been established. Early observers like Tautain (1887) entertained no doubts in this regard, and recently Meillassoux seems to have accepted a connection, if not an identification, between Ghana and Wagadu when he notes that “les Wago, dont le nom a donné Wagadu, sont les plus clairement associés à l'histoire du Ghana.” However, much continues to be written on the subject, and the question remains a thorny one. On the lips of griots (traditional bards) and other local informants, Wagadu is a timeless concept, so a reliable temporal connection between people and events in the oral sources on one hand and Ghana at the time of the Almoravids on the other, is particularly elusive. Indeed, any link between the traditions discussed here and a specific date like 1076 must be regarded as very tenuous, as must any association of legendary events with Islamic dates. In western Sudanic tradition influenced by Islam, the hijra (A.D. 622) is both prestigious and convenient, a date with which virtually any event in the remote past can be associated, though such a claim may have nothing to do with any useful time scale.

“To Help a Million Sick, You Must Kill a Few Nurses”: Nurses’ Occupational Health, 1890–1914

2012 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Occupational Health ◽  
Health Risk ◽  
Local History ◽  
National Context ◽  
Health Issues ◽  
Cultural Issues ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Experience Of Illness

Although nursing is recognized today as a serious occupational health risk, nursing historians have neglected the theme of occupational health and individual nurses’ experience of illness. This article uses the local history of three case study institutions to set nurses’ health in a national context of political, social, and cultural issues, and suggests a relationship between nurses’ health and the professionalization of nursing. The institutions approached the problem differently for good reasons, but the failure to adopt a coherent and consistent policy worked to the detriment of nurses’ health. However, the conclusion that occupational health was somehow neglected by contemporary actors was, nevertheless, erroneous and facilitated omission of the subject from historical studies concentrating on professional projects and the wider politics of nursing. This article shows that occupational health issues were inexorably connected to these nursing debates and cannot be understood without reference to professional projects.

The Amazons of Dahomey

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agbenyega Adedze
Keyword(s):  
Oral Tradition ◽  
West African ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
The West ◽  
West African Coast ◽  
African Coast ◽  
History Of ◽  
French Colonial ◽  
Female Fighters

The Amazons in general come from Greek legend and myth without any palpable historical evidence. However, there is no doubt about the historical female fighters of the erstwhile Kingdom of Dahomey (Danhome or Danxome) in West Africa, which survived until their defeat by the French colonial forces in 1893. The history of the historical Amazons of the Kingdom of Dahomey stems from vast amounts of oral tradition collected and analyzed over the years, as well as written accounts by Europeans who happened to have visited the kingdom or lived on the West African coast since Dahomey’s foundation in the 17th century to its demise in the late 19th century. These sources have been reviewed and debated by several scholars (including Amélie Degbelo, Stanley B. Alpern, Melville J. Herskovits, Hélène d’Almeida-Topor, Boniface Obichere, Edna G. Bay, Robin Law, Susan Preston Blier, Auguste Le Herisse, etc.), who may or may not agree on the narrative of the founding of the kingdom or the genesis of female fighters in the Dahomean army. Nonetheless, all scholars agree that the female forces traditionally called Ahosi/Mino did exist and fought valiantly in many of Dahomey’s battles against their neighbors (Oyo, Ouemenou, Ouidah, etc.) and France. The history of the Ahosi/Mino is intricately linked to the origins and political and social development of the Kingdom of Dahomey. Ahosi/Mino are still celebrated in the oral traditions of the Fon.

scholarly journals Sexualization of Female Perpetration in Fictional Holocaust Films: A Case Study of The Reader (2008)

Genealogy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 52
Author(s):  
Sabine Elisabeth Aretz
Keyword(s):  
Female Victims ◽  
Female Perpetration ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Female Perpetrators ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Holocaust Film ◽  
Holocaust Films ◽  
The One

The publication of Bernhard Schlink’s novel The Reader (1995) sparked conversation and controversy about sexuality, female perpetrators and the complexity of guilt regarding the Holocaust. The screen adaptation of the book (Daldry 2008) amplified these discussions on an international scale. Fictional Holocaust films have a history of being met with skepticism or even reject on the one hand and great acclaim on the other hand. As this paper will outline, the focus has often been on male perpetrators and female victims. The portrayal of female perpetration reveals dichotomous stereotypes, often neglecting the complexity of the subject matter. This paper focuses on the ways in which sexualization is used specifically to portray female perpetrators in The Reader, as a fictional Holocaust film. An assessment of Hanna’s relationship to Michael and her autonomous sexuality and her later inferior, victimized portrayal as an ambiguous perpetrator is the focus of my paper. Hanna’s sexuality is structurally separated from her role as a perpetrator. Hanna’s perpetration is, through the dichotomous motif of sexuality throughout the film, characterized by a feminization. However, this feminization entails a relativization of Hanna’s culpability, revealing a pejorative of her depiction as a perpetrator. Consequently, I argue that Hanna’s sexualized female body is constructed as a central part of the revelation of her perpetration.

scholarly journals The Representation of Status in Mande: Did the Mali Empire Still Exist in the Nineteenth Century?

1996 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 87-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Jansen
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Organizational Structure ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Methodological Errors ◽  
Widespread Acceptance ◽  
History Of ◽  
Source Of Information

For the reconstruction of the history of the aftermath of the Mali empire, that is, the period 1500-1800, oral traditions are the only source of information. The history of this period has been reconstructed by Person and Niane. Their work has gained widespread acceptance. In this paper I will argue that these scholars made significant methodological errors—in particular, in interpreting chronology in genealogies, and their reading of stories about invasions and the seizure of power by younger brothers.My reading of the oral tradition raises questions about the nature of both sixteenth- and nineteenth-century Mande (that is the triangle Bamako-Kita-Kankan (see map), the region where the ‘Malinke’ live), and the medieval Mali empire, because I think that Mande royal genealogies have wrongly been considered to represent claims to the imperial throne of the Mali empire. In contrast, my reading of oral tradition suggests in retrospect that the organizational structure of the Mali empire may have been segmentary, and not centralized, ranking between segments under discussion, each group thereby creating a hierarchical image.The conventional wisdom seems to be that the Mali empire collapsed/disintegrated in the period from 1500 and 1800. As Person put it:Dans le triangle malinké, on ne trouvera plus au XIX siècle que des kafu, ces petites unités étatiques qui forment les cellules politiques fondamentales du monde mandingue. Certains d'entre eux savaient faire reconnaître leur hégémonie à leurs voisins, mais aucune structure politique permante n'existait à un niveau supérieur. Beaucoup d'entre eux, dont les plus puissants et les plus peuplés, seront alors commandées par des lignées Kééta qui se réclament avec quelque vraisemblance des empereurs du Mali médiéval.

scholarly journals LA DISCIPLINA HISTORIA DE LAS MATEMÁTICAS EN LA UNIVERSIDAD FEDERAL DEL TRIÁNGULO MINERO: UN BREVE INFORME

PARADIGMA ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 317-332
Author(s):  
Mônica De Cássia Siqueira Martines
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
History Of Mathematics ◽  
Specific Situation ◽  
Initial Training ◽  
Teaching And Research ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Estudio De Caso

Este artículo describe los resultados de un experimento que involucró la enseñanza y la investigación en la disciplina de Historia de las Matemáticas, impartido por el autor en la Universidad Federal de Triângulo Mineiro (UFTM) desde el comienzo de la oferta del Grado en Matemáticas en esa institución de educación superior. En este sentido, presentamos el formato de las clases y evaluaciones que se realizan para el tema del estudio que originó este artículo. La investigación desarrollada fue del tipo cualitativo, en particular un estudio de caso, ya que la experiencia descrita y explicada se centra en la preocupación por los aspectos de la realidad del aula de una sola situación específica. Los resultados muestran la necesidad de reflexión constante, diálogo y posibles cambios en la didáctica en el aula, ya que los estudiantes, cada día, son diferentes en un mundo globalizado e informatizado. También revelan la necesidad de invitar a los estudiantes a asumir el papel de protagonistas, de modo que las formas de evaluación para cada clase puedan modificarse.Palabras clave: Historia de las matemáticas; Evaluación; Formación inicial de profesores de matemáticas. THE DISCIPLINE HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS AT THE FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OF THE MINING TRIANGLE: A BRIEF REPORT AbstractThis article describes the results of an experiment that involved teaching and research in the History of Mathematics discipline, taught by the author at the Federal University of Triângulo Mineiro (UFTM) since the beginning of the offer of the Degree in Mathematics at that institution of higher education. In this sense, we present the format of the classes and assessments that are carried out for the subject of the study that originated this article. The research developed was of the qualitative type, particularly a case study, since the experience described and explained is centered on the concern with aspects of the classroom reality of a single specific situation. The results show the need for constant reflection, dialogue and possible change in the didactics in the classroom, since the students, each day, are different in a globalized and computerized world. They also reveal the need to invite students to assume the role of protagonists, so that the forms of assessment for each class can be modified.Keywords: History of Mathematics; Evaluation; Initial training of mathematics teachers.A DISCIPLINA HISTÓRIA DA MATEMÁTICA NA UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO TRIÂNGULO MINEIRO:UM BREVE RELATO ResumoEste artigo descreve os resultados de uma experiência que envolveu ensino e pesquisa na disciplina História da Matemática, ministrada pela autora na Universidade Federal do Triângulo Mineiro (UFTM) desde o início da oferta do curso de Licenciatura em Matemática na referida instituição de ensino superior. Neste sentido apresentamos o formato das aulas e avaliações que são realizadas para a disciplina foco do estudo que originou este artigo. A pesquisa desenvolvida foi do tipo qualitativa, particularmente um estudo de caso, uma vez que a experiência descrita e explicada está centrada na preocupação com os aspectos da realidade da sala de aula de uma única situação especifica. Os resultados mostram a necessidade de constante reflexão, diálogo e possível alteração na didática em sala de aula, visto que os(as) alunos(as), a cada dia, se mostram diferentes perante um mundo globalizado e informatizado. Revelam, também, a necessidade de convidar os(as) alunos(as) a assumirem o papel de protagonistas, fazendo com que as formas de avaliação de cada turma possam ser modificadas.Palavras-chave: História da Matemática; Avaliação; Formação inicial de professores de matemática.

scholarly journals Town, village and bush: war and cultural landscapes in south-eastern Angola (1966-2002)

Afrika Focus ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Inge Brinkman
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
Cultural Landscapes ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
South Eastern ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Urban And Rural Areas

In most of the literature on the subject, urban and rural areas are presented as real physical entities that are geographically determined. Obviously such an approach is important and necessary, but in this contribution I want to draw attention to ‘the urban’ and ‘the rural’ as ideas, as items of cultural landscape rather than as physical facts. This will result both in a history of ideas and a social history of the war in Angola as experienced by civilians from the south-eastern part of the country. The article is based on a case-study that deals with the history of south-east Angola, an area that was in a state of war from 1966 to 2002. In the course of the 1990s I spoke with immigrants from this region who were resident in Rundu, Northern Namibia, mostly as illegal refugees. In our conversations the immigrants explained how the categories ‘town’ and ‘country’ came into being during colonialism and what changes occurred after the war started. They argued that during the war agriculture in the countryside became well-nigh impossible and an opposition between ‘town’ and ‘bush’ came into being that could have lethal consequences for the civilian population living in the region. This case-study on south-east Angola shows the importance of a historical approach to categories such as ‘urbanity’ and ‘rurality’ as such categories may undergo relatively rapid change – in both discourse and practice. Key words: landscape (town, country and bush), war, south-east Angola 

Autonomy, Integrity, and Values in Public Administration: A Dilemma and a Case

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-166
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Seibel
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Public Values ◽  
Bureaucratic Autonomy ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Institutional Integrity ◽  
Classic Problem ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject

Abstract This article addresses a classic problem of public administration, which is the quest for institutional integrity in the presence of bureaucratic autonomy. It does so in combination with a history of ideas account of the subject with a case study of derailed autonomy at the expense of institutional integrity It does so in combination with a history of ideas account of the subject with a case study of derailed autonomy at the expense of institutional integrity with particularly serious consequences in the form of human casualties. Referring to literature on public values and moral hazard under the condition of bureaucratic discretion, the article argues that harmonizing bureaucratic autonomy and institutional integrity requires commitment to public values that prioritize the protection of basic individual rights over temptations of pragmatic decision making. It is, therefore, a plea for linking traditional lines of thoughts on public administration with a more fine-grained assessment of the ambivalence of governmental agencies as both guardians of, and a menace to, rule-of-law-based protection of civic values.

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