We are pleased to introduce Volume 60, Number 3, of the African Studies Review. We begin this issue with an ASR Forum titled “Land Disputes and Displacement in Postconflict Africa,” which includes articles by Susan Reynolds Whyte and Esther Acio; Lotte Meinert, Rane Willerslev, and Sophie Hooge Seebach; Ingunn Bjørkhaug, Morten Bøås, and Tewodros Kebede; Amanda Hammar; and Sara Berry. The Forum was conceived of and organized by two guest editors, Daivi Rodima-Taylor and Lotte Meinert, to whom we extend our appreciation and gratitude. The second half of the issue presents a commentary on Ken Saro-Wiwa’s “Africa Kills Her Sun” by Angela L. Rodrigues, an analysis of views on Canadian migration among Nigerian youth by Charles Adeyanju, an article about the political authority of chiefs in Sierra Leone by Peter Albrecht, an article on oil extraction in Uganda by Andrzej Polus and Wojciech J. Tycholiz, and an analysis of monument “vandalism” in South Africa by Sabine Marschall.
The ASR Forum presents a series of articles dealing with conflicts over land and land transfers, particularly following long periods of political violence. Susan Whyte and Esther Acio’s article, “Generations and Access to Land in Postconflict Northern Uganda: “Youth Have No Voice in Land Matters” (17–36), looks at how normal land transfers from fathers to sons among Acholi people were disrupted during the violence of the 1990s and 2000s caused by both the Lord’s Resistance Army and the Ugandan government. She describes how young men and women of the “war generation,” displaced or challenged by the twenty-year conflict, must use new strategies gain access to land, including renting or buying land from relatives. Whyte describes the resistance by elders to change the rules of gerontocracy and patriliny, while young men and women have created ways to access land based on a redefinition of family relations in this postconflict society.
The article by Lotte Meinert, Rane Willerslev, and Sophie Hooge Seebach, “Cement, Graves, and Pillars in Land Disputes in Northern Uganda” (37–57), discusses the ways in which burial sites take on a new significance as markers of land ownership in postconflict areas. The Acholi people of northern Uganda are still recovering from twenty years of war and conflict with both the Lords Resistance Army and the Ugandan government under Museveni. Here, graves mark claims not only to kinship affiliation, but also to territory itself. The authors discuss the ways in which “the properties of cement both embody and symbolize processes of making something appear permanent, inflexible, and nonnegotiable” (39). In another example, the authors note that the Ugandan government had recently tried to place cement pillars as demarcation of a forest preserve, and to exclude the local population (the Ik) from entering the forest and hunting and farming as they had previously. The local population protested against this use of cement and what they saw as an aggressive act of land appropriation. The state, which has not officially resolved the dispute, ceased policing the forest and the markers became overgrown, giving the population the freedom to reclaim their use rights (as they saw them) to the forest.
In “Displacement, Belonging, and Land Rights in Grand Gedeh, Liberia: Almost at Home Abroad?” (59–79), Ingunn Bjørkhaug, Morten Bøås, and Tewodros Kebede examine what happens when refugees enter the area of another group with whom they have historically cordial ties—specifically, the situation of Gueré refugees fleeing civil war in Côte’d’Ivoire who entered Liberia in an area occupied by their “cousins” from the Krahn ethnic group. The authors argue that such affinities are situational, and that refugees are not always “almost at home abroad,” particularly if their host population perceives threats to stressed land resources and larger political alignments.
In “Urban Displacement and Resettlement in Zimbabwe: The Paradoxes of Propertied Citizenship” (81–104), Amanda Hammar describes the situation of impoverished urban squatters in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, who live illegally under constant threat of violent displacement by various local and national authorities. Examining the movement by the Bulawayo City Council to formally resettle the squatters in houses on peri-urban plots, she discovers “the paradoxes of propertied citizenship and of attaining seemingly ‘proper’ lives in conditions of sustained marginality, a result that is not entirely unexpected when impoverished squatters are resettled far outside the frame of the city and its possibilities” (81).
The final article of the Land Forum, Sara Berry’s “Struggles over Land and Authority in Africa” (105–25), compares two case studies, one on land contestations in Ghana and Côte D’Ivoire, the second on the power of traditional chiefs in Ghana and South Africa. Berry describes how neoliberal proponents argued that market reforms could not be effective unless property rights were clearly defined, but she argues that conflicts over land were “as much about who had the authority to allocate land and settle disputes as about competing forms of land use and transfer, and that efforts to impose uniform rules on societies where land was subject to multiple, overlapping claims and shifting boundaries would exacerbate rather than clarify lines of conflict” (106). To illustrate this, Berry compares relatively peaceful land transfers in Ghana to transfers in Côte d’Ivoire, where rights to land were embedded in larger political conflicts and violence in the countryside. She then compares the roles of chiefs in Ghana with those in South Africa. Ghanaian chiefs’ authority was local and consisted of their exclusive jurisdiction over “chieftaincy affairs,” mainly over succession, but chiefs could not run for political office. In contrast, South African chiefs “participate vigorously in party politics and electoral contests, brokering influence over their constituents for leverage with party leaders, and lobbying vigorously for legislation to codify and expand their authority . . .” (115). Whereas Ghanaian chiefs base their authority on the networks and ties to their local constituencies, South African chiefs seek to expand their powers by building networks both within and outside the state to ensure their claims to farm rents and business investments while simultaneously dispensing patronage.
The first article in the second half of the issue, “A Utopian Commentary on the Plight of Nigeria: Ken Saro-Wiwa’s ‘Africa Kills Her Sun’” (127–39) by Angela L. Rodrigues, is a critique of the 1989 short story by the Nigerian novelist, from the collection Adaku and Other Stories. Arguing that utopian elements “dismantle an otherwise bleak commentary on the protagonist’s reality” (127), Rodrigues analyzes the story based on notions of “pre-illumination,” “daydreaming,” and “not-yet.” She argues that the story illuminates Saro-Wiwa’s lifelong concerns with political and social activism to promote the rights of indigenous peoples, and his conviction that the African state had become a proxy for global neocolonial political and economic actors.
Charles Adeyanju’s article, “‘The West of their Imagination’: Transnational Impression Management and Canadian Migration in the Nigerian Youth Imaginary” (141–58), examines the perceptions of Canada by Nigerian youths who desire to immigrate despite documented accounts of discrimination against racial minorities in Canadian society. Nigerian immigrants, he suggests, navigate a complex universe in which they must manage and build new lives, and they must also confront and work around the multiple stereotypes that Canadians have about immigrants either from Africa generally or more specifically from Nigeria. The author concludes that Canada remains attractive to Nigerian students who see little hope for improving their prospects in their mother country.
In “The Hybrid Authority of Sierra Leone’s Chiefs” (159–80), Peter Albrecht employs the concept of hybridity to explore “the emergence of paramount and lesser chiefs in Sierra Leone, and their role as figures of authority at the local level and in national politics” (159). Reviewing literature on the hybridity model, Albrecht argues for its usefulness not only in the Sierra Leone case, but also in understanding the national role of local chiefs in other countries in sub-Saharan Africa characterized by strong societies and weak states.
Andrzej Polus and Wojciech J. Tycholiz’s article,” The Norwegian Model of Oil Extraction and Revenues Management in Uganda” (181–201), describes efforts by the Norwegian government to work with the government of Uganda in managing its growing oil sector. With the responsibility of overseeing national oil deposits of 6.5 billion barrels, the third largest in sub-Saharan Africa, Uganda’s leaders requested Norway’s assistance to ensure that Uganda would not repeat the mistakes of Nigeria in allowing corruption and inefficiencies to infiltrate the oil sector. As in Norway, the management of the sector was shared by a national oil company, a petroleum authority, and the government. The authors note that Norway needed three decades to establish its savings funds and a decade to “mature its own upstream company to a point where it would be capable of operating an oil field” (192). The authors express hope that Uganda will succeed in its oil production management, but point to many constraints along the way.
The final article in the issue is Sabine Marschall’s “Targeting Statues: Monument ‘Vandalism’ as an Expression of Sociopolitical Protest in South Africa” (203–19). Marschall describes how monuments and statues commemorating various events in apartheid and postapartheid South Africa have been targeted by both conservative white nationalists and radical black activists. Following the 2015 “Rhodes Must Fall” campaign, which involved the defacing of apartheid-era monuments and a demand for their removal, white activists vandalized antiapartheid heroic memorials. Marschall interrogates the category of “vandalism” and criminality as it relates to the defacement of political monuments, as well as calling into question an alternative discourse on the politics of defacement as a marker of political dissent. Her article offers insights into how public displays of historical memory become points of confrontation, a situation seen recently in the United States over Confederate Civil War monuments.
This issue concludes the final volume that we have edited as the ASR transitions to its new editor-in-chief, Benjamin Lawrance, selected by the African Studies Association with our wholesale endorsement. We look back with pleasure and satisfaction on our editorship over the past seven years. We are grateful to the African Studies Association, led by Suzanne Baazet, who, with the ASA Publications Committee, sought and accomplished the transition to our new publisher (since 2013), Cambridge University Press. The past several presidents of the ASA, as well as the chairs of the Publications Committee, have maintained a keen supportive interest in the journal, and have encouraged our efforts to enhance and raise its scholarly profile. The support of the ASA, combined with the move to Cambridge University Press, has greatly extended our outreach and taken advantage of new modes of communication, including online publication and “first view” access for our readers. During our tenure we have introduced several features to the journal, including Commentary articles, which are shorter pieces on topical issues ranging from the Ebola epidemic to the crisis of migration to homosexuality in Africa. We have increased the number of article submissions from the larger international community of scholars of African studies, including those based in Africa, as well as those in Europe. And we instituted, with the support of the ASA, the African Studies Review Distinguished Lecture delivered at the annual meeting and then published in a subsequent issue of the journal.
We are thankful to our associate editors, John Lemly and Richard Waller, for their wonderful work in developing the Book Review section, and to Ken Harrow and Cajetan Itheka for creating a vibrant Film Review section, which has greatly enhanced the value of our journal for our readers. We are grateful to our diverse editorial board, which has provided much needed and welcome advice throughout our tenure. Our thanks also go to the Five College African Studies Council, which hosted editorship of the journal, and to the administrations of the Five Colleges (Amherst, Hampshire, Mt. Holyoke, and Smith Colleges, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst) for their financial support. We also are indebted to Ralph Faulkingham and Miriam Goheen for their editorship from 1997 to 2010; their work on the journal set an extraordinarily high standard which we have tried to maintain and elaborate upon for the last seven years. Finally, our deepest thanks go to Ella Kusnetz, who has served as managing editor and copy editor for the past fifteen years.
