Erick Sourna Loumtouang, a 2020 APN Individual Research Fellow, recently granted interviews to Jeune Afrique and Africa Report and published an article in Kujenga Amani, in which he drew on his APN-supported research project titled “Governing Bodies…
Latest posts - Page 17
Covid-19 in Africa
Reflections on Conducting Fieldwork during the Covid-19 Pandemic
by Tapiwa Madimu
The pandemic has necessitated the creation of new methodological tools and ethical practices, as well as the adaptation of older practices, to meet the challenges faced by researchers and the researched. Researchers have been confronted with the dilemma of either canceling field research, postponing it indefinitely, or continuing, with the attendant risks to their own health and the health of their informants.
Conflict
The Challenge of Mothering in the Context of Violent Conflict: How War Is Impacting Women in Tigray, Ethiopia
by Sela Muyoka Musundi
On June 22, 2021, the Ethiopian Air Force conducted an aerial bombardment of a busy marketplace in the village of Togoga, in Tigray, Ethiopia, causing the deaths of at least 64 people and injuring 180 others. Although Ethiopian military sources claimed that the victims were combatants, health-care workers and local residents who witnessed the incident […]
Africa
Understanding Gender Complementarity in Igbo Society: The Role of Ụmụada and Ụmụnna in Peacebuilding
Africa
An Interview with Ismail Rashid and Amy Niang
by African Peacebuilding Network
On April 2, 2021, the Social Science Research Council’s (SSRC) African Peacebuilding Network (APN) held the virtual launch of the book, Researching Peacebuilding in Africa: Reflections on Fieldwork, Theory and Context, edited by Ismail Rashid and Amy Niang. Following the successful book launch, Natalie Bernstien, APN’s program assistant, interviewed both editors, posing questions about the […]
Africa
The Cognitive Empire and Gladiatory Scholarship
by Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni
The cognitive empire is underpinned by gladiatory scholarship. The cognitive empire invades the mental universe of its targets. Ngugi wa Thiong’o in his book, Decolonizing the Mind: the Politics of Language in African Literature, depicted the cognitive empire as that “metaphysical” formation which operates through the detonation of cultural bombs at the center of a people’s universe and through the removal of hard disks of previous knowledge and memory so as to download into their minds the software of another knowledge and another memory.
Africa
Between Hopes and Nightmares: A Reflection on Armed Conflict in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo Two Years into…
Africa
Genocidal Rape? The Tigray Conflict and Women’s Bodies as a Battleground
by Sela Muyoka Musundi
In the early hours of November 4, 2020, the armed wing of the former ruling party of Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), attacked several federal military bases across Tigray including the military’s Northern Command headquarters in the capital Mekelle and killed or captured and detained soldiers and raided several armories. […]
Africa
Building Peaceful Masculinities in the Context of Covid-19: Reflections from Fieldwork among the Dagaaba of Northwestern Ghana
by Isaac Dery
This article reflects on Dagaaba men’s constructions of masculinity and the implications of such perspectives for everyday peacebuilding amid the Covid-19 pandemic in Africa. The essay is motivated by the observation that, despite the debilitating ramifications of Covid-19, the pandemic may offer men the opportunity to embrace and practice alternative notions of masculinity in their […]
