Encounters with Africa

2019 ◽  
pp. 133-166
Author(s):  
Mary Wills
Keyword(s):  
Racial Attitudes ◽  
West African ◽  
African Women ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Cultural Encounters ◽  
West Africans ◽  
Race Ethnicity ◽  
Value Sets ◽  
Naval Officers

This chapter examines cultural encounters between British naval officers and West African peoples, and the role of racial attitudes and identity therein. It looks at the persistence or mutability of value sets taken out to Africa, and the resulting dialogues on race, ethnicity, identity and benevolence within the naval community. To an extent, naval officers perceived West Africans through the lens of metropolitan attitudes and many observations subscribed to common racial prejudices; yet others were more considered, born of experience, interaction and affiliation. This chapter examines officers’ encounters with the ‘exotic’ African women they met on their travels and their engagement with African cultures. As the century progressed, increasing contact with African peoples contributed to a shift in racial attitudes, fuelled by new scientific theories and the proliferation of printed material about race.

Officers’ contributions to Britain’s anti-slavery culture

2019 ◽  
pp. 167-190
Author(s):  
Mary Wills
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
West African ◽  
Royal Navy ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Press ◽  
History Of ◽  
Naval Officers

This chapter examines officers’ contributions to the metropolitan discourses about slavery and abolition taking place in Britain in the early to mid-nineteenth century. Furthering the theme of naval officers playing an important part in the social and cultural history of the West African campaign, it uncovers connections between the Royal Navy and domestic anti-slavery networks, and the extent to which abolitionist societies and interest groups operating in Britain during the first half of the nineteenth century forged relationships with naval officers in the field. Officers contributed to this ever-evolving anti-slavery culture: through support of societies and by providing key testimonies and evidence about the unrelenting transatlantic slave trade. Their representations of the slave trade were used to champion the abolitionist cause, as well as the role of the Royal Navy, in parliament, the press and other public arenas.

African Shea Butter: A Feminized Subsidy from Nature

Africa ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 77 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marlène Elias ◽  
Judith Carney
Keyword(s):  
West African ◽  
Knowledge Systems ◽  
African Women ◽  
Shea Butter ◽  
Vitellaria Paradoxa ◽  
Shea Tree ◽  
Traditional Agroforestry ◽  
International Sales ◽  
Agroforestry Practices

AbstractThe shea tree (Vitellaria paradoxa) is indigenous to Africa's Sudano-Sahelian region and crucial to savanna ecosystems and peoples. African women have long collected, marketed and transformed shea nuts into a multipurpose butter. The growing global trade in shea butter destined for the Western food and cosmetics industries thus represents an opportunity to bolster impoverished female incomes. However, such international sales are also prompting changes in the west African shea landscape. This article examines the role of shea as a female heritage in Burkina Faso, West Africa's largest shea exporter. It focuses on the knowledge systems informing the management, conservation and processing of shea. It also considers the effects of global shea commercialization on the maintenance of traditional agroforestry practices, tenure rights, and butter-making techniques. In so doing, the article illuminates the cultural and botanical heritage of shea as well as the significance of this species in biodiversity protection, African natural heritages and female knowledge systems.

Envoys of abolition

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Wills
Keyword(s):  
Slave Trade ◽  
Personal Narratives ◽  
West African ◽  
Royal Navy ◽  
Cultural Encounters ◽  
Cultural Experiences ◽  
Slave Ships ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Naval Officers ◽  
Private Collections

After Britain’s Abolition of the Slave Trade Act of 1807, a squadron of Royal Navy vessels was sent to the West Coast of Africa tasked with suppressing the thriving transatlantic slave trade. Drawing on previously unpublished papers found in private collections and various archives in the UK and abroad, this book examines the personal and cultural experiences of the naval officers at the frontline of Britain’s anti-slavery campaign in West Africa. It explores their unique roles in this 60-year operation: at sea, boarding slave ships bound for the Americas and ‘liberating’ captive Africans; on shore, as Britain resolved to ‘improve’ West African societies; and in the metropolitan debates around slavery and abolitionism in Britain. Their personal narratives are revealing of everyday concerns of health, rewards and strategy, to more profound questions of national honour, cultural encounters, responsibility for the lives of others in the most distressing of circumstances, and the true meaning of ‘freedom’ for formerly enslaved African peoples. British anti-slavery efforts and imperial agendas were tightly bound in the nineteenth century, inseparable from ideas of national identity. This is a book about individuals tasked with extraordinary service, military men who also worked as guardians, negotiators, and envoys of abolition.

Abolition on shore

2019 ◽  
pp. 41-68
Author(s):  
Mary Wills
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
West Africa ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
West African ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Naval Officers

Naval officers played a part in a reconfiguration of relations between Britain and West Africa in the early nineteenth century, as British abolitionist ideals and policies were introduced in the colony of Sierra Leone and increasingly rolled out along the coast. This chapter details the role of naval officers in the pursuit of anti-slavery treaties with African rulers, the encouragement of ‘legitimate’ trade (as non-slave-based trade was termed) and assisting increased exploration and missionary efforts. All were tied to the desire to end the slave trade at source in West African societies via the spread of European ideas of ‘civilization’ among African peoples. Officers’ narratives are revealing of increasing British intervention in West Africa, and how economic and strategic advantages for Britain became inextricable from humanitarian incentives.

‘Verhalenvertellers’ als informanten: obstakel of een waardevolle bron?

KWALON ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Iris Poelen
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Methodological Issue ◽  
West African ◽  
African Women ◽  
Valuable Source ◽  
West Africans ◽  
Transnational Migrants ◽  
Verification Strategy

‘Storytelling’ informants: obstacle or valuable source? Iris Poelen This article discusses a methodological issue revolving around informants providing ‘twisted truths,’ and uses examples from research among West Africans in Bergamo, Italy. That research studied West African women and their experiences as migrants in Italy. It highlighted the story of one particular woman whose life history seemed to include both truths and untruths. This article uses the work of Goffman (1978) to examine the ways in which migrants tell their stories. It is important for fieldworkers to be aware of the reasons migrants could have to twist truths: the precarious situations they find themselves in and their ways to gain certain goods or status. Triangulation is often mentioned as a verification strategy, but is hard to achieve while researching transnational migrants. A critical stance towards triangulation is in order, and it could be useful for researchers to investigate the motivations and functioning of the ‘storytelling’ of migrants.

From Trinidad and Tobago to the World: Determining the role of Calypso in a new Era

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 7-11
Author(s):  
Malek Abdel-Shehid
Keyword(s):  
Trinidad And Tobago ◽  
Regional Integration ◽  
West African ◽  
Major Influence ◽  
New Era ◽  
Transatlantic Slave Trade ◽  
Cultural Sovereignty ◽  
Caribbean Culture ◽  
Musical Cultures

Calypso is a popular Caribbean musical genre that originated in the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. The genre was developed primarily by enslaved West Africans brought to the region via the transatlantic slave trade during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Although West-African Kaiso music was a major influence, the genre has also been shaped by other African genres, and by Indian, British, French, and Spanish musical cultures. Emerging in the early twentieth century, Calypso became a tool of resistance by Afro-Caribbean working-class Trinbagonians. Calypso flourished in Trinidad due to a combination of factors—namely, the migration of Afro-Caribbean people from across the region in search of upward social mobility. These people sought to expose the injustices perpetrated by a foreign European and a domestic elite against labourers in industries such as petroleum extraction. The genre is heavily anti-colonial, anti-imperial, and anti-elitist, and it advocated for regional integration. Although this did not occur immediately, Calypsonians sought to establish unity across the region regardless of race, nationality, and class through their songwriting and performing. Today, Calypso remains a unifying force and an important part of Caribbean culture. Considering Calypso's history and purpose, as well as its ever-changing creators and audiences, this essay will demonstrate that the goal of regional integration is not possible without cultural sovereignty.

Science and Dialectics in the Philosophies of Deleuze, Bachelard and DeLanda

Paragraph ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 98-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Williams
Keyword(s):  
Gilles Deleuze ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Gaston Bachelard ◽  
Contemporary Science

This article charts differences between Gilles Deleuze's and Gaston Bachelard's philosophies of science in order to reflect on different readings of the role of science in Deleuze's philosophy, in particular in relation to Manuel DeLanda's interpretation of Deleuze's work. The questions considered are: Why do Gilles Deleuze and Gaston Bachelard develop radically different philosophical dialectics in relation to science? What is the significance of this difference for current approaches to Deleuze and science, most notably as developed by Manuel DeLanda? It is argued that, despite its great explanatory power, DeLanda's association of Deleuze with a particular set of contemporary scientific theories does not allow for the ontological openness and for the metaphysical sources of Deleuze's work. The argument turns on whether terms such as ‘intensity’ can be given predominantly scientific definitions or whether metaphysical definitions are more consistent with a sceptical relation of philosophy to contemporary science.

Laws of Nature

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Law Of Nature ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Universe

The concept of a law of nature, while familiar, is deeply puzzling. Theorists such as Descartes think a divine being governs the universe according to the laws which follow from that being’s own nature. Newton detaches the concept from theology and is agnostic about the ontology underlying the laws of nature. Some later philosophers treat laws as summaries of events or tools for understanding and explanation, or identify the laws with principles and equations fundamental to scientific theories. In the first part of this volume, essays from leading historians of philosophy identify central questions: are laws independent of the things they govern, or do they emanate from the powers of bodies? Are the laws responsible for the patterns we see in nature, or should they be collapsed into those patterns? In the second part, contributors at the forefront of current debate evaluate the role of laws in contemporary Best System, perspectival, Kantian, and powers- or mechanisms-based approaches. These essays take up pressing questions about whether the laws of nature can be consistent with contingency, whether laws are based on the invariants of scientific theories, and how to deal with exceptions to laws. These twelve essays, published here for the first time, will be required reading for anyone interested in metaphysics, philosophy of science, and the histories of these disciplines.

Evoking Issues of Race and Ethnicity in Research on Physiology and Interpersonal Communication

2020 ◽  
pp. 260-287
Author(s):  
Shardé M. Davis
Keyword(s):  
Interpersonal Communication ◽  
Race And Ethnicity ◽  
Communication Research ◽  
Interpersonal Interactions ◽  
The Past ◽  
Race Ethnicity ◽  
Diverse Groups ◽  
Future Work ◽  
Area Of Study

Investigating the role of physiology in communication research is a burgeoning area of study that has gained considerable attention by relational scholars in the past decade. Unfortunately, very few published studies on this topic have evoked important questions about the role of race and ethnicity. Exploring issues of ethnicity and race provides a more holistic and inclusive view of interpersonal communication across diverse groups and communities. This chapter addresses the gap in literature by considering the ways in which race and ethnicity matter in work on physiology and interpersonal interactions. More specifically, this chapter will first discuss the conceptual underpinnings of race, ethnicity, and other relevant concepts and then review extant research within and beyond the field of communication on race, ethnicity, interpersonal interactions, and physiology. These discussions set the foundation for this chapter to propose new lines of research that pointedly connect these four concepts and advance key principles that scholars should consider in future work.

Psychological Predictors for Watching Television: The Role of Racial Representation

2021 ◽  
pp. 003329412110252
Author(s):  
Jennifer Archer ◽  
Kadie R. Rackley ◽  
Susan Broyles Sookram ◽  
Hien Nguyen ◽  
Germine H. Awad
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Social Dominance Orientation ◽  
Racial Ideology ◽  
Psychological Predictors ◽  
Ethnic Representation ◽  
Racial Representation ◽  
Television Shows ◽  
Making Choices ◽  
Race Ethnicity

This study explored psychological predictors that may impact viewers’ decision to watch television shows on the basis of perceived racial or ethnic representation. 1998 undergraduate students selected from a list of motivations for watching television that included race-specific motivations such as “a character is of my race/ethnicity.” Participants also completed attitudinal measures of colorblind racial ideology, social dominance orientation, ethnic identity, and ethnic stigma consciousness. Analysis revealed that prejudicial beliefs predicted less salience for racial representation when making choices about television watching, while deeper connection to one’s ethnic group predicted greater salience for representation when making these choices.

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