Le Journal of West African History (JWAH) [Revue d’histoire ouest-africaine] est une revue de recherche interdisciplinaire à comité de lecture qui publie des articles de très haute qualité sur l’histoire de l’Afrique de l’Ouest. À la pointe de l’historiographie sur les sociétés, cultures, économies et politiques de l’Afrique de l’Ouest, JWAH comble un vide scientifique en offrant un forum pour des débats approfondis sur les femmes et le genre, la sexualité, l’esclavage, l’histoire orale, les cultures populaire et publique ainsi que sur la religion. Le comité de rédaction (Nwando Achebe, Saheed Aderinto, Trevor Getz, Vincent Hiribarren, Harry Odamtten, Mark Deets et Ndubueze Mbah) encourage les auteurs à explorer un large éventail de perspectives d’actualité, théoriques, méthodologiques et empiriques de manière nouvelle et passionnante. De portée internationale, la revue est engagée dans une réflexion et une analyse rigoureuse et propose une intervention critique sur la production du savoir. Des recensions de livres récemment publiés apparaissent dans chaque numéro. La revue publie en anglais et en français et fournit un résumé dans les deux langues. Tous les numéros de JWAH se trouvent sur JSTOR et Project MUSE.

En plus des articles académiques, JWAH dédie de manière régulière des parties de la revue à des discussions et debats sur des questions intellectuelles importantes. Dans un forum intitulé « Rétrospectives », les chercheurs les plus établis dans le domaine contribuent à des essais historiographiques et des éléments de réflexion pour rapprocher la réflexion actuelle avec de nouvelles orientations sur la recherche sur l’histoire de l’Afrique de l’Ouest. « Penser numériquement » fait appel aux nouveaux médias et technologies numériques en tant qu’outils de recherche historique et de documentation des réalités ouest-africaines, explorant en particulier comment la pratique, la présentation et l’analyse historique peuvent être traduites en termes numériques. Dans la section « Conversations », des universitaires de premier plan engagent un débat ou plus simplement une conversation entre le passé et le présent de l’histoire de l’Afrique de l’Ouest sur des sujets aussi importants et variés que les droits et la discrimination des LGBTI, la santé (guérison et maladie) et les questions de richesse et de sécurité pour n’en nommer que quelques-uns. Enfin, « Enseigner et chercher » propose des articles qui mettent la pédagogie en conversation avec le travail universitaire.

Founding Editor-in-Chief / Fondatrice et rédactrice en chef
Nwando Achebe, Michigan State University

Editors / Éditeurs
Saheed Aderinto, Western Carolina University
Trevor Getz, San Francisco State University
Vincent Hiribarren, Kings College, London (Francophone editor)
Harry Odamtten, Santa Clara University

Book Review Editors / Éditeurs des recensions
Mark W. Deets, The American University in Cairo
Ndubueze Mbah, SUNY Buffalo

Editorial Assistants and Office Managers / Assistants de rédaction
Ryan Carty, Michigan State University
Caitlin Barker, Michigan State University

Executive Editorial Board / Comité de rédaction exécutif
Andrew Apter
Robert Baum
Toby Green
Walter Hawthorne
Dennis Lauman
Moses Ochonu
Jonathan Reynolds
Lorelle Semley
Shobana Shankar

Advisory Board / Comité consultatif
Ralph Austen
Michael Gomez
Obaro Ikime
Joseph Inikori
Takyiwaa Manuh
Olatunji Ojo
David Robinson
Elizabeth Schmidt
David Skinner

The editorial board invites scholars to submit original article-length manuscripts (not exceeding 10,000 words including endnotes, 35 pages in length) accompanied by an abstract that summarizes the argument and significance of the work (not exceeding 150 words).

Review essays (not exceeding 1,000 words) should engage the interpretation, meaning, or importance of an author’s argument for a wider scholarly audience. See what we have available for review on our Book Reviews page.

Le comité de rédaction invite les chercheurs à soumettre des manuscrits originaux de la longueur d’un article (ne dépassant pas 60 000 caractères, y compris les notes de fin) accompagnés d’un résumé (ne dépassant pas 1000 caractères) qui résume l’argument et la signification votre article.

Les essais critiques (ne dépassant pas 6 000 caractères) doivent discuter de l’interprétation, le sens ou encore de l’importance de l’argumentation d’un auteur pour un public universitaire plus large. Voyez ce que nous avons à votre disposition sur notre page recensions de livres.

SUBMIT ONLINE HERE.

VISIT LINK ABOVE FOR COMPLETE SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS.

Submissions are accepted only in MS-Word format. Please submit your article and 150 word abstract in one file. Please be certain that no identifying information [i.e. the name(s), affiliation(s) of the author(s)] is submitted with the article. Tables, figures, and images should be uploaded as supplementary files at time of submission. A confirmation note will be sent to each scholar immediately after the submission is received. Once you have received this confirmation, please do not ask for further confirmation.

We recognize that access to the internet is not universal; therefore we will accommodate those who are unable to submit their manuscripts electronically. Please contact the editorial staff at: JWAH, 141B & 141C Old Horticulture, 506 E. Circle Drive, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI  48824; Phone: (517) 884-4593, Fax: (517) 884-4594, or jwah@msu.edu for further instructions. The editor-in-chief can be reached directly at najwah@msu.edu.

BOOK REVIEWS: Review essays (not exceeding 1,000 words) should engage the interpretation, meaning, or importance of an author’s argument for a wider scholarly audience. Justification for shorter or longer reviews should be discussed with the Book Review Editor prior to submission. Include your name and affiliation at the end of the review. Double space your document, with an extra space between paragraphs (rather than indenting each one). See style sheet below for book review formatting guidelines.

Click here for a list of books available for review: https://jwah.msu.edu/book-reviews/.

EDITORIAL POLICY

All articles submitted to JWAH must be original work that has not been published previously and is not currently under consideration by any other publication. All submissions to JWAH go through a double blind peer-review process. Response time is typically 3–4 months from submission. The article is first read in-house by an editor. If the submission meets the style, content, and quality requirement of JWAH, the editor-in-chief sends it out to two referees who are experts in the relevant field of research. If there is a consensus in the assessment of the article by the referees and the editor, their expressed decision is final. The editor-in-chief will only consult a third reviewer if there is a difference of opinion. The fact that JWAH requires a consensus view between the referees and an editor ensures that the process is as fair as possible. To ensure publication, authors must be available to respond to reviewers’ comments, make revisions, and review page proofs. A tentative schedule will be provided at time of submission acceptance.

MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION

JWAH follows the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th ed., and uses endnote-style citations. Refer to the JWAH style sheet to prepare your manuscript for submission.

JWAH STYLE SHEET

IMAGES AND DERIVATIVE MATERIALS

• It is the author’s obligation and responsibility to determine and satisfy copyright and/or other use restrictions prior to submitting materials to MSU Press for publication.
• Images must be submitted as supplementary, clearly-labeled files at time of submission.
• All images must be minimum 300 dpi at planned publication size.
• Citations, permissions, and captions are required upon submission for all images.
• We cannot publish such materials without an accompanying signed permissions letter.
  • JWAH Permission Request Letter

PUBLISHING AGREEMENTS

Authors accepted for publication must agree to the terms of the Author Publishing Agreement before the piece can be published.

SOUMETTRE VOTRE ARTICLE ICI

Les soumissions sont acceptées uniquement au format MS-Word. Veuillez soumettre votre article et un résumé de 1000 caractères (espaces compris) dans un seul fichier. Veuillez-vous assurer qu’aucune forme d’identification [c.-à-d. le (s) nom (s), affiliation (s) des auteur.e.s] ne soit soumise avec l’article. Les tableaux, les figures et les images doivent être téléchargés en tant que fichiers supplémentaires au moment de la soumission. Une note de confirmation sera envoyée à chaque auteur.e immédiatement après réception. Une fois cette confirmation reçue, veuillez ne plus demander de confirmation.

Nous avons conscience que l’accès à Internet n’est pas universel. Par conséquent, nous accueillerons ceux qui ne sont pas en mesure de soumettre leurs manuscrits par voie électronique. Veuillez contacter les éditeurs de JWAH, 141B & 141C Old Horticulture, 506 E. Circle Drive, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824.Téléphone : 1-517-884-4593, fax : 1-517-884-4594 ou jwah@msu.edu pour plus d’instructions. Le rédacteur en chef peut être contacté directement à najwah@msu.edu.

Recensions de livres : les recensions (ne dépassant pas 6 000 caractères) devraient engager l’interprétation, le sens ou l’importance de l’argument d’un auteur pour un public universitaire au sens large. La justification des révisions plus ou moins longues doit être discutée avec l’éditeur en charge des recensions avant la soumission. Indiquez votre nom et votre affiliation à la fin de votre article. Ecrivez votre document en interligne double en sautant une ligne pour les nouveaux paragraphes (à la place de mettre des alinéas). Voir la feuille de style ci-dessous pour les consignes de formatage de la recension.

Politique éditoriale

Tous les articles soumis à JWAH doivent être des travaux originaux qui n’ont pas été publiés auparavant et qui ne sont actuellement soumis à aucune autre publication. Toutes les soumissions à JWAH passent par un processus d’examen par des pairs en double aveugle. Le délai de réponse est généralement de 3 à 4 mois à compter de la soumission. L’article est d’abord lu en interne par un éditeur. Si la soumission répond au style, au contenu et aux exigences de qualité de JWAH, le rédacteur en chef l’envoie à deux référés qui sont des experts dans le domaine de recherche concerné. S’il y a un consensus dans l’évaluation de l’article par les référés et le rédacteur, leur décision exprimée est finale. Le rédacteur en chef ne consultera un troisième examinateur qu’en cas de divergence d’opinion. Le fait que JWAH nécessite un consensus entre les référés et un éditeur garantit que le processus soit aussi équitable que possible. Pour garantir la publication, les auteurs doivent être disponibles pour répondre aux commentaires des évaluateurs, apporter des modifications et travailler sur les épreuves de l’article. Un calendrier provisoire sera fourni au moment de l’acceptation de l’article.

Préparation du tapuscrit

JWAH suit le Chicago Manual of Style, 16e éd., et utilise des notes de fin de document. Reportez-vous à la feuille de style JWAH ci-dessous pour préparer votre tapuscrit.

Feuille de style JWAH

Images et matériaux dérivés

• Il est de la responsabilité seule de l’auteur.e de déterminer et de respecter les restrictions de copyright et / ou d’autres restrictions d’utilisation avant de soumettre des documents à MSU Press pour publication.
• Les images doivent être soumises sous forme de fichiers supplémentaires clairement nommés au moment de la soumission
• Toutes les images doivent être d’au moins 300 dpi.
• Les citations, autorisations et légendes sont requises lors de la soumission pour toutes les images
• Nous ne pouvons pas publier ces documents sans une lettre d’autorisation signée.
• Lettre d’autorisation

Accords de publication

Les pièces acceptées pour publication doivent être accompagnées d’un accord de publication signé avant de pouvoir être imprimées. Vous pouvez trouver des liens pour les accords ci-dessous:

Accord de publication (les articles)

Accord de publication (les recensions)

Journal of West African History Tenth Anniversary: “Ten for Ten”

To mark this special milestone, the JWAH team has selected an article from each issue of JWAH’s ten volumes to be freely available for the next ten months. The following articles will be free to read on Project MUSE and the Scholarly Publishing Collective until the end of July 2025. We hope you enjoy this collection of ten years of JWAH scholarship!

Volume 1

Issue 1: Nwando Achebe, “The Birth of a New Journal”

That I would become the founding editor-in-chief of a journal of West African history almost forty years later is something that I could not have contemplated at the time. That young child would fırst grow up to become a West Africanist gender and oral historian. She would publish scholarly work that documented the lived experience of a people she knew intimately: a reality that she lived. Her expressed aim was to see herself in that history. Then in 2012, James Pritchett, at the time director of African Studies at Michigan State University, and present president of the African Studies Association, and Gabe Dotto, director of Michigan State University Press, floated the idea of my founding and editing a journal dedicated to any aspect of African history I deemed important. I jumped at the opportunity. It was an exciting prospect because I already knew that in the vast sea of scholarly journals dedicated to African studies, there was a lacuna—no single journal dedicated to the study of West African history. My intellectual journey had therefore come full circle; I had found new purpose.

Read on Project MUSE | Read on Scholarly Publishing Collective

Issue 1: Trevor R. Getz and Lindsay Ehrisman, “The Marriages of Abina Mansah: Escaping the Boundaries of ‘Slavery’ as a Category in Historical Analysis”

This article (re)examines the testimony of Abina Mansah, a young Akan-speaking woman who brought charges and testified against her former master, Quamina Eddoo, for her illegal enslavement in 1876. Both inside the judicial Assessor’s Court in Cape Coast Castle and within subsequent scholarly interpretations of her testimony, the label “slave” functioned as the primary marker of Abina’s identity and the analytic lens through which we understand her experiences and motivations. In this rereading of her testimony, however, we explore the centrality of her status as a married woman to her identity, and argue that her decision to take Quamina Eddoo to court was actually a strategy that she pursued to ensure her spiritual and physical health and to safeguard her.

Read on Project MUSE | Read on Scholarly Publishing Collective

Issue 2: Simon Ottenberg, “Conflicting Interpretations in the Biography of a Modern Artist of African Descent”

The author explores the uncertain history of the modern artist Suzanna Ogunjami Wilson, whose birth and death details are uncertain. She acquired a bachelor’s and a master’s in art education in 1928 and 1929, respectively, from Teacher’s College, Columbia University, and from 1928 to 1934 she exhibited in the eastern United States, often with African Americans. If born in Nigeria of Igbo parentage, as all published accounts to the present attest, she would be the first African to exhibit modern art in the United States. If born in Jamaica, as U.S. Census records suggest, she would be the first Jamaican to do so. No actual birth records are available from either country. The author follows her marriage to a Sierra Leone Krio in New York City and their movement to that country, where she was the first person of African descent to exhibit modern art, and where she founded two children’s art schools. Regardless of her birthplace, her remarkable record is important to African and African-American art historians and other scholars.

Read on Project MUSE | Read on Scholarly Publishing Collective

Volume 2

Issue 1: Cheikh Anta Babou, “Negotiating the Boundaries of Power: Abdoulaye Wade, the Muridiyya, and State Politics in Senegal, 2000–2012”

Research on the state and governance in Senegal emphasizes the political role of Muslim orders (brotherhoods). These orders, and especially the Muridiyya, are at the center of the so-called “Senegalese social contract,” which, according to many observers, is the reason for the remarkable political stability of the postcolonial state. This contract, which has been thoroughly discussed by scholars, functions as a system for the exchange of services in which the state and the Sufi orders, even though apparently situated in different sociopolitical spaces, collaborate in preserving peace and stability. Along with other scholars, I have criticized the notion of “social contract,” especially the underlying assumption that shaykhs have total control over disciples, who are prepared to follow the path laid out by their spiritual guides without concern for their own interests. In this article, I explore the impact that the momentous political change in the year 2000 had on the relations between temporal and spiritual power in Senegal. I suggest that President Wade’s attempt to turn the Muridiyya into a political base is best understood as an experiment in caesaropapism and his failure portends a return to the apparent political neutrality and behind-the-scenes political transactions that have marked the history of the relations between the state and Sufi orders.

Read on Project MUSE | Read on Scholarly Publishing Collective

Issue 2: Harmony O’Rourke and Mohammed Bashir Salau, “The Life and Experiences of Sa`id Ibn Hayatu, a Mahdist Leader: New Findings from the Buea Archive”

This article examines records from the Buea National Archives in Cameroon to illuminate our understanding of Shaykh Sa`id ibn Hayatu’s experience in exile after he was arrested for allegedly planning to overthrow the colonial regime in Northern Nigeria in 1923. Although previous studies have analyzed Sa`id’s activities and biography, this article is the first publication to present information from Buea, the site of his exile from 1924 to 1945. These documents provide details on Sa`id’s household in Buea, the family’s financial situation, Sa`id’s primary complaints while in exile, letters from Sa`id to the colonial administration and contacts in Northern Nigeria, as well as correspondence among colonial officials about Sa`id and Mahdism. Evidence from this new archival source helps to answer two questions that have puzzled historians of West Africa for several decades, namely why Sa`id’s detainment lasted so long and what conditions finally ended his and his dependents’ isolation. This article argues that British perceptions of Mahdist danger facing Northern Nigeria after 1924 significantly influenced the contours of Sa`id’s exile, as did their perceptions of him as a symbol of the potent history and legacy of Mahdism in the region. The article also suggests that tensions between, on the one hand, Northern Nigerian officials facing real and imagined Mahdist threats and, on the other hand, administrators in Buea who personally encountered Sa`id on a regular basis, framed colonial state policies regarding the length and termination of Sa`id’s exile.

Read on Project MUSE | Read on Scholarly Publishing Collective

Volume 3

Issue 1: Ndubueze L. Mbah, “Performing Ogaranya: Kalu Ezelu Uwaoma, Male Slavery, and Freedom Politics in Southeastern Nigeria, c. 1860–1940”

Kalu Uwaoma’s social mobility from slave to slaver, warrant chief, Presbyterian elder, and British knight between 1865 and 1940 provides a subaltern view of enslavement and the attainment of freedom in the Bight of Biafra. In securing freedom without legal manumission, Kalu harnessed the muscles of emerging colonialism, Western education, and Christian modernity as well as local configurations of power and masculinity. This study restores Kalu to historical memory by drawing attention to his autobiography, one of two known personal narratives of pre-twentieth-century Igbo-Africans. Kalu’s biography was an argument against re-enslavement, a social projection of his freedom, and a rebellious manipulation of a new form of masculinity known as ogaranya (wealth-power), which signaled the masculinization of wealth and the emergence of men as arbiters of more powerful political institutions.

Read on Project MUSE | Read on Scholarly Publishing Collective

Issue 2: Lisa A. Lindsay, “Male Daughters, Female Husbands at Thirty”

Rereading Ifi Amadiume’s brilliant Male Daughters, Female Husbands: Gender and Sex in an African Society is a bit like looking at a thirty-year-old photo. So much is recognizable and appealing, but it’s obvious that things were different then. I first encountered the book as a graduate student within a few years of its 1987 publication, and as I began teaching African history sometime later it made regular appearances on my syllabi. Fresh and bold, Male Daughters, Female Husbands offered revelations about gender and African women’s history to both Africanist scholars and Western feminists. These days, as some of those insights have become almost commonplace, it is worth celebrating their emergence and noting their lasting influence. At the same time, it’s also hard not to see Male Daughters, Female Husbands as a product of its era, a time when feminist gender analysis burst forth with all its promise and, from today’s vantage point, limitations.

Read on Project MUSE | Read on Scholarly Publishing Collective

Volume 4

Issue 1: Tamba E. M’Bayo, “Ebola, Poverty, Economic Inequity and Social Injustice in Sierra Leone”

The recent Ebola virus disease (EVD) epidemic in the West African countries of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone claimed the lives of slightly over eleven thousand victims by June 2015. Focusing on Sierra Leone, this article argues that the Ebola outbreak cannot be divorced from larger and chronic issues of poverty, economic inequality, and social injustice that have been the bane of the country’s stunted development in its postcolonial existence since 1961. Drawing on current historical literature on epidemiology in Africa, media reports, documents from the World Health Organization (WHO) and other international agencies such as Médicins Sans Frontières (MSF), and testimonies from Sierra Leoneans, the article aims to historicize and situate the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone within a wider context of poverty and related issues of economic inequity and social inequality.

Read on Project MUSE | Read on Scholarly Publishing Collective

Issue 2: Kalala Ngalamulume, “The ‘Devès Affair’ in Saint-Louis-du-Senegal: A Critical Assessment of the Sources, 1902–1911”

This article examines the validity and reliability of the testimonies and sworn depositions that the Peuvergne administration produced in July 1910 as evidence justifying Justin Devès’s suspension and removal from office as mayor of Saint-Louis, capital of French Senegal. The main argument here is that the “Devès Affair” was based on spurious charges. The article places the conflict in the broader context of the political and economic competition between the French colonial administration and the Bordeaux firms, on the one hand, and the Devès network, on the other.

Read on Project MUSE | Read on Scholarly Publishing Collective

Volume 5

Issue 1: Emmanuel Ababio Ofosu-Mensah, “The Politics of Property Rights: The Case of Akyem Abuakwa, Ghana (1912–1943)”

Some political historians, such as Rathbone and Firmin-Sellers, have argued that some traditional rulers under colonial rule introduced new property rights by reinventing tradition and enforcing them within their traditional states to satisfy their own parochial interest. This article employs archival, secondary, and oral sources to critically clarify the exceptional case of Nana Ofori Atta I’s to put forward a contrary view. It argues that Nana Ofori Atta I, with great political will where his predecessors failed, came up with some pragmatic, practical, and problem-solving measures in order to make the indigenous concept of land ownership beneficial for the larger community.

Read on Project MUSE | Read on Scholarly Publishing Collective

Issue 2: Carina Ray, “Interracial Intimacies and the Gendered Optics of African Nationalism in the Colonial Metropole”

Far from being a salacious footnote in the history of anticolonial nationalist struggles, the roles that white women played in the push towards African independence—as political comrades, friends, and sometimes as lovers or wives to many of the black men who had come to the imperial center to agitate and prepare for independence—were often sustained and meaningful. This article revisits this history—as told in the pages of my book, Crossing the Color Line: Race, Sex, and the Contested Politics of Colonialism in Ghana—in order to offer a critique of the skewed gendered optics of African nationalism produced by the book’s focus on interracial relationships. Although novel in its analysis of the affective interracial bonds that helped nourish the work of African nationalism in the colonial metropole, the lens of interracial intimacy deployed in Crossing the Color Line keeps African women at the margins of the nationalist narrative, where they have long been relegated despite decades of stellar research on their key roles in mass nationalist movements. In seeking a way out of this conundrum, this article concludes with a call for an affective history of African nationalism that centers intimacies and other forms of solidarity between African men and women as a means of advancing an integrative approach to nationalism that explores it as a shared project between African men and women rather than a history to which African women must be restored. In so doing this article offers a new model of the review essay for the Journal of West African History, one that invites authors to engage in critical reappraisals of their own published work. What do we learn after the fact of publication about both the contributions and consequences of our research? How can we engage those issues in ways that move beyond purely backwards looking reflection to hale new research agendas?

Read on Project MUSE | Read on Scholarly Publishing Collective

Volume 6

Issue 1: Timothy D. L. Nevin, “Liberia’s Belle Yella Prison Camp (1910–1990): Repression, Stigma, and Forced Labor in the Heart of the Rainforest”

This article represents research over a five-year period into the history of Belle Yella prison, an infamous prison associated with the incarceration of political prisoners and hardened criminals located deep in the rainforest of what is now Gbarpolu County, central Liberia. The article uses both extensive oral histories and archival documents to shed light on the eighty-year-long history of the site. The author argues that Belle Yella prison was utilized by past Liberian presidents as a place of banishment for political prisoners that were viewed as a threat to their regimes, especially during periods of political turmoil. These prisoners were forced to labor on private farms and survive under inhumane conditions that both violated their civil liberties and their human rights. In the conclusion, the author urges that the site of the prison be turned into a memorial so that visitors can pay homage to those who died there and learn lessons from the past.

Read on Project MUSE | Read on Scholarly Publishing Collective

Issue 2: Alhaji U. N’jai, “COVID-19 Pandemic at the Intersection of Ebola, Global Leadership, and the Opportunity to Decolonize the Political Economy of Sierra Leone”

The COVID-19 global pandemic has so far not resulted in apocalyptic deaths in Sierra Leone or other countries in the subregion, despite an exponential rise in positive cases. Western views of massive COVID-19–related deaths in Africa have largely come from colonialism and the long-held Western narratives of Africa as the continent of poverty, disease, backwardness, weak health-care infrastructure, and dependent bodies in need of foreign aid and “white” saviors. Sierra Leone was among the last of the African countries to record the COVID-19 disease, and along with Liberia and Guinea, have a powerful Ebola experience that few countries in the world enjoyed. Yet, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed serious weaknesses in its epidemic preparedness, health-care infrastructure, public health system, and the overall political economy. Why then have Sierra Leone and the Mano River Union (MRU) countries with Ebola experience not displayed global leadership in the face of the global pandemic? This article argues that the ineffective response to the COVID-19 epidemic in Sierra Leone, despite the country’s huge Ebola experience, may be linked to an entanglement among social, economic, and political factors within the political economy and deep, dense structural distal factors of slavery, colonialism, neocolonialism, and economic and cultural dependencies. These distal factors have largely dictated the approach and modelling of COVID-19 in Sierra Leone and other MRU countries.

Read on Project MUSE | Read on Scholarly Publishing Collective

Volume 7

Issue 1: Robin P. Chapdelaine, “‘He remains a second person no matter the age’: Historical and Contemporary Perceptions of Childlessness and Adoption in Nigeria”

As a consequence of infertility, some Southeastern Nigerians adopt children as a way to fulfill social and emotional voids. Through the use of secondary sources, colonial documents, legal analyses, clinician reports, and nearly two dozen interviews with residents of Aba, Calabar, Enugu, and Owerri, this article examines Nigerian perceptions of the incorporation of nonbiological children into their households. This study reflects upon the relationship between slavery, pawnship, fosterage, the incorporation of “house” children, and adoption in a historical context and illustrates that former social stigmas attached to subordinate statuses influence the choices infertile couples make. I argue that the taboo associated with adoption is steeped in the legacy of slavery and other forms of child trafficking, and such sentiments will prevail as long as shadow markets wherein children are bought and sold continue to exist.

Read on Project MUSE | Read on Scholarly Publishing Collective

Issue 2: Oluwatoyin Oduntan, “The Roots of ‘Apes Obey!’: Labor and Innovation in Nigerian Railway History”

In general, many accounts of labor Other African workers against industrialization, scientific discoveries, and technology reduce them to immutable categories of farmers, laborers, proletariat, craftsmen, diggers, etc. The history of railway construction in Nigeria has been typically rendered without due recognition for the roles of native workers except as laborers—as tools of colonial infrastructure and as resistors of it. The lopsidedness of the archives and historical methodology silence the adaptations, innovations, and professionalism of indigenous workers. This article revisits conventional accounts of the construction of the Lagos railways and the Niger Bridge (1907–16) by pointing attention to indigenous workers who, despite their contributions and the reliance of the railways on them, were never designated as professional by the colonial public service, and whose records may not be found in the colonial archive. By demonstrating the incompleteness of contemporary engineering and the shared adaptions of innovation, it recovers a more complete scope of the history of labor in railway construction.

Read on Project MUSE | Read on Scholarly Publishing Collective

Volume 8

Issue 1: Joseph Udimal Kachim, “‘The River Is Not to Be Crossed’: Anglo-French Boundary and Konkomba Cross-Border Mobility on the Ghana-Togo Border, 1918–30s”

This article examines the northern section of the Anglo-French border between what is now the republics of Ghana and Togo, focusing on how the Konkomba continued to cross the border to engage in their socioeconomic activities even in the face of colonial border controls. Although the border was intended to curtail movement across the frontier, I argue that rather than a barrier, the Anglo-French border became an incentive for mobility once the Konkomba discovered that the border was capable of shielding them from colonial justice, taxation, forced labor, and social obligations. By moving back and forth, the Konkomba not only shaped and defined the colonial border but also forced the colonial authorities to shift their policies in response to Konkomba subversion of the border. In general, the article contributes to the literature on borderlands and how Africans contested, appropriated, and exploited colonial boundaries for their own benefits.

Read on Project MUSE | Read on Scholarly Publishing Collective

Issue 2: George M. Bob-Milliar and Ali Yakubu Nyaaba, “Modernizing Royals and Capitalists of Kumase: The Ashanti Turf Club, 1950–1980s”

British imperialism bequeathed sports to former colonies. In the immediate postwar period, colonial bureaucrats intensified the modernization agenda in many of their colonial territories. The institution of horse racing was associated with the upper echelons of society in many colonies. In colonial Asante, the royals and capitalists of Kumase established the Ashanti Turf Club as the first public limited liability company in the history of horse racing in Ghana. Horse racing in Kumase started with the active encouragement and patronage of the king of Asante (Asantehene). The Kumase royals and capitalists embraced the middle-class culture and bought shares in the Turf Club. The practice of betting linked the working-class to racing. Horse racing played a significant social role in Asante society by keeping residents entertained at the weekends. This article examines the Ashanti Turf Club Limited within the context of the modernization of postwar Asante. It shows how the history of horse racing in Kumase provides a lens to understand how Africans embraced middle-class culture and colonial modernity.

Read on Project MUSE | Read on Scholarly Publishing Collective

Volume 9

Issue 1: Caitlin Barker, Ryan Carty, Ajamu Amiri Dillahunt-Holloway, Mircea Lazar, and Nomzamo Portia Ntombela, “Before the Anti-Homosexuality Bill: The Historical Contours of LGBT Organizing in Nigeria”

Existing scholarship on the causes of homophobia in contemporary Nigeria and on the relationship between religion and homophobia in Africa tend to dismiss LGBT activism in Nigeria as a movement so small as to be almost nonexistent. We argue, however, that LGBT activism in Nigeria does exist, and that it has a history. And although religion has often been harnessed to serve homophobic policies, LGBT activists have also worked together with religious organizations to offer support to LGBT communities. Drawing on sources from Nigeria and the United States, this article traces the rough outlines of LGBT activism in Nigeria from the 1970s to the present. We explore Nigerian LGBT activists’ experiences over five decades in order to elucidate LGBT organizing in a West African context, paying special attention to the themes of invisibility and visibility, transnational organizing, and religion. The picture that emerges is one of interwoven activist networks that connect Nigerian activists not only to the West but also to activists in other African countries, including Ghana and South Africa. We see this article as a small contribution to the much larger project of writing the history of LGBT activism in Nigeria, a project that can and should be led by those better positioned to access and analyze the documents and memories necessary for this task.

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Issue 2: Nadir A. Nasidi, “Some Biographical Notes on Artists of Sacred Sufi Painting in Kano, Nigeria”

The Sufi Islamic leader, Sheikh Ibrahim Niass first came to Kano in 1937. His repeated visits paved the way for the development of Sufi artists in Kano. Through their representational art, they celebrate the various Sufi saints, particularly those of the Qādiriyyah and Tijjāniyyah Sufi orders. This article puts the growth of Sufi representational art in the context of the history of Tijjāniyyah Islam in Kano by examining the biographies and works of six Kano artists and their sacred Sufi painting, from the 1980s to the present day. This article concludes that paintings of Sufi saints by these artists, which countered alternative aniconic views associated with some branches of Islam, contributed not only to the development of representational paintings in Kano, but also to the acceptance of Western media, styles, and techniques in their visual representations of such paintings.

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Volume 10

Issue 1: Cassandra Mark-Thiesen, “Black American Agricultural Experts and the Vernacularization of American Science in Liberia Prior to Decolonization in Africa”

Studies continue to assume an unbridgeable gap between scientific representations and ontological realities in Africa. Histories of foreign scientific interventions on the continent have often emphasized the role of scientists as agents of empire. However, there is a growing body of historiography that explores how adaptation and translation took place against the backdrop of the massive power imbalances that characterized such knowledge transfers, including in relation to the complex and shifting positions of the scientists themselves. This article focuses on black American agricultural scientists who advised the Liberian government on how to grow surplus crops nationally. It examines their practice of linking science to local knowledge. It also explores their personal negotiations with American empire as they infused their work with black internationalist theories of liberation and racial uplift. By looking at scientists on the ground or in the field, we can learn more about embedded processes of epistemic and political negotiation and critique.

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Issue 1: Nwando Achebe, “Amaechina—May Our Path Never Close”

Over the ten years that JWAH has been in print, the journal has served as a beacon of scholarly excellence, providing space for rigorous inquiry, challenge, and understanding of our diverse West African pasts. From anti-witchcraft move­ments to the practice of power in the Western Sudan; from LGBT organizing in Nigeria to marriage, divorce, and adultery disputes in Abeokuta; and from the “therapeutic itinerary” of indigenous medicine in Senegal to the modernizing of royals in Kumase, JWAH has been at the fore of creating, documenting, and ana­lyzing the multifaceted worlds of West Africa and its peoples.

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