We are pleased to introduce Volume 60, Number 1, of the African Studies Review. This issue begins with an ASR Forum on Mali, guest edited by William G. Moseley and Barbara Hoffman. Following the Mali forum, we present three independent articles: “Sexual Violence in the Eritrean National Service” by Gaim Kibreab, “Muchongoyo and Mugabeism in Zimbabwe” by Tony Perman, and “Norms, Power and the Socially Embedded Realities of Market Taxation in Northern Ghana” by Wilson Prichard and Vanessa van den Boogaard.
The Mali Forum is introduced by Moseley and Hoffman in “Hope, Despair and the Future of Mali” (5–14). They write that the crisis in Mali began in 2012 with the military coup against President Touré, followed by the Tuareg rebellion and call for secession in the north, which itself morphed into an Islamacist jihadi movement and ultimately the invasion of northern cities, including Timbuktu. The rebellion subsided only when Mali invited French troops to restore lost territory, but the events led to changes in attitude and policy on the ground that last to this day.
Five scholars of Mali present different perspectives on the events and their aftermath. Bruce Whitehouse’s “Political Participation and Mobilization after Mali’s 2012 Coup” (15–35) provides a clear summary of the events in 2012 and 2013 and argues that for the most part the “international community,” including donors, development practitioners, and scholars, “failed to grasp the fragility of the Malian state and the severity of the risks it faced” (16). William Moseley’s “The Minimalist State and Donor Landscapes: Livelihood Security in Mali during and after the 2012–2013 Coup and Rebellion” (37–51) describes the impact of the coup d’état, northern rebellion, and French military intervention on rural livelihood activities in both the north and the south of the country. He argues that the international aid donors had to adjust to the new situation of an off-limits militarized north and “wild west” south where unregulated free-market conditions led to increased cotton production and artisanal mining, both of which had detrimental environmental consequences. Kassim Kone’s article, “A Southern View on the Tuareg Rebellions in Mali” (53–75), points out that while there are large cultural and political differences between northern Tuareg people and southern Bamana, only a minority of the Tuareg were rebels, separatists, or jihadists (whose members included many non-Tuareg). Similarly, whereas northerners tended to view southerners as a monolithic entity, they are not, and the region and its history are more complex than Western news writers understand.
Susan J. Rasmussen’s article, “Global Media and Local Verbal Art Representations of Northern Malian Tuareg” (77–100), draws on her anthropological research to describe complexities of Tuareg culture and society that defy external media’s stereotypical and racialized portrayals of Tuareg as “warriors and criminals.” She points to Tuareg self-identity revolving around themes of “protected fortress and welcoming crossroads,” providing an alternative to “counter [the] naturalizing and racializing discourse” of many Western reports (96). Finally, Barbara G. Hoffman’s “The Role of the Griot in the Future of Mali: A Twenty-First-Century Institutionalization of a Thirteenth-Century Traditional Institution” (101–122) notes that the traditional roles of griots (hereditary diviner-storytellers) have not diminished, but have grown and become transformed into the twenty-first century. Although largely excluded from political life by modern governments, griots, along with other artisans, grew in influence during and after the crisis of 2012–2013 as they tried to ease tensions between ethnic groups and political forces through organized meetings, national organizations including RECOTRADE, and television appearances and performances.
Three articles follow the Mali Forum. Gaim Kibreab’s “Sexual Violence in the Eritrean National Service” (123–143) discusses the known but rarely documented cases of sexual violence against women in Eritrea’s National Service, a compulsory and much disliked government institution for all youth. The author traces the important role women played in the Eritrean independence struggle against Ethiopia (1961–1991), in which women constituted one-third of the Eritrean Liberation Army. As the independent government of Isaias Afwerki moved toward increasing autocracy, women lost protections they once had and suffered, among other things, sexual abuse in the National Service. Kibraeb surveyed 190 individuals, both male and female, and conducted twenty-five in-depth interviews of individuals who had escaped from the National Service and fled to other countries. Despite governmental claims that the National Service promotes gender equality, the voices of those who suffered under it show a different reality.
Ethnomusicologist Tony Perman’s article, “Muchongoyo and Mugabeism in Zimbabwe” (145–170), examines how the dance-drumming tradition of muchongoyo responded to both modernity and the deteriorated conditions of modern Zimbabwe under Mugabe. Tracing its roots to the Mfecane period of Zulu/Ngoni penetration in the early nineteenth century, muchongoyo has provided the Ndau people, an eastern Shona-speaking group, with a way of appropriating but also opposing external occupation through music and dance. Today muchongoyo offers an adherence to tradition and indigeneity, but also opposition to Mugabeism.
The final article is a study of tax collection in two Ghanaian communities by Wilson Prichard and Vanessa van den Boogaard titled “Norms, Power and the Socially Embedded Realities of Market Taxation in Northern Ghana” (171–194). This article seeks to show how informal institutions of the marketplace interact with formal regulatory systems, and “how formal and informal processes can work together as ‘hybrid’ institutions” (173). Looking at two localities in northern Ghana, the authors show that when the state tried to move away from a reliance on local authorities as tax collectors, the modest revenue gains came at the expense of greater antipathy to the state, which taxpayers saw as remote and unconnected to their local communities. The authors write that “taxpayers frequently express a willingness to pay more taxes in return for greater transparency and greater reciprocity from government” (188). With rich data and illustrative stories, the authors conclude with policy recommendations encouraging more flexibility and negotiations between marketers and the administration.
We conclude this issue with reviews of current books and films, sections which you, our readers, find of great value. We hope you enjoy this issue.
