Africae

Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania have minorities from the Indian sub-continent amongst their population. The East African Indians mostly reside in the main cities, particularly Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar, Mombasa, Kampala; they can also be found in smaller urban centres and in the remotest of rural townships. They play a leading social and economic role as the)' work in business, manufacturing and the service industry, and make up a large proportion of the liberal professions. They are divided into multiple socio-religious communities, but united in a mutual feeling of meta-cultural identity. This book aims at painting a broad picture of the communities of Indian origin in East Africa, striving to include changes that have occurred since the end of the 1980s. The different contributions explore questions of race and citizenship, national loyalties and cosmopolitan identities, local attachment and transnational networks. Drawing upon anthropology, history, sociology and demography, Indian Africa depicts a multifaceted population and analyses how the past and the present shape their sense of belonging, their relations with others, their professional and political engagement. This book is a must-read for contemporary researchers, students, policy practioners as well as the general reader.

This edited volume is about the rekindled investment in the figure of the first president Julius K. Nyerere in contemporary Tanzania. It explores how Nyerere is remembered by Tanzanians from different levels of society, in what ways and for what purposes. Looking into what Nyerere means and stands for today, it provides insight into the media, the political arena, poetry, the education sector, or street-corner talks. The main argument of this book is that Nyerere has become a widely shared political metaphor used to debate and contest conceptions of the Tanzanian nation and Tanzanian-ness. The state-citizens relationship, the moral standards for the exercise of power, and the contours of national sentiment are under scrutiny when the figure of Nyerere is mobilized today. The contributions gathered here come from a generation of budding or renown scholars in varied disciplines (history, anthropology, political science). Drawing upon materials collected through extensive fieldwork and archival research, they all critically engage the existing literature about Tanzania and prevailing political narratives to explore how nationhood is (re)imagined in Tanzania today through assent and contest.

During the run-up to Kenya's 2013 general elections, crucial political and civic questions were raised. Could past mistakes, especially political and ethnic-related violence, be avoided this time round? Would the spectre of the 2007 post-electoral violence positively or negatively affect debates and voting? How would politicians, electoral bodies such as the IEBC, the Kenyan civil society, and the international community weigh in on the elections? More generally, would the 2013 elections bear witness to the building up of an electoral culture in Kenya, characterized by free and fair elections, or would it show that voting is still weakened by political malpractices, partisan opinions and emotional reactions? Would Kenya's past be inescapable or would it prepare the scene for a new political order? Kenya's Past as Prologue adopts a multidisciplinary perspective - mainly built upon field-based ethnography and a selection of case studies - to answer these questions. Under the leadership of the French Institute for Research in Africa (Institut français de recherche en Afrique, IFRA), political scientists, historians and anthropologists explore various aspects of the electoral process to contribute in-depth analyses of the last elections. They highlight the structural factors underlying election and voting in Kenya including the political system, culture and political transition. They also interrogate the short-term trends and issues that influence the new political order. The book provides insight into specific case studies, situations and contexts, thus bringing nuances and diversity into focus to better assess Kenya's evolving electoral democracy.

This collection of articles cuts across the Eastern African region, with authors interrogating varying themes in different historical periods that speak not only to the practice of music and dance but also to the performances that characterize these practices. The book dedicates itself to research in music and dance, while engaging with colonial and contemporary political and historical realities within the Eastern African region. Inevitably, themes that grapple with urbanization and the emergence of urban spaces for entertainment, as well as the imagination of culture by the colonialist form a key window into the research and understanding of music and dance. The ever-present performance of ethnic identities that shape most of our socio-political contexts adds to the overall texture of this book. At the same time, the debate and question of gender in music and dance is also comprehensively covered, in an attempt to delineate gender relations in the region. Articles that employ a cross-genre approach to music and dance have enriched the wide perspective of understanding African societies and the realities that emanate from everyday lives in Eastern Africa. A useful addition to the growing literature of popular culture in Africa, this book takes a multidisciplinary angle and can easily fit within the disciplines of political science, urban studies, literature, sociology and media studies. The book contributes to the recurrent dialogue towards emphasizing the relevance of the study of songs and dances in a larger context within humanities and social sciences.

This edited volume brings to light how much the development of the mountains of East Africa relates to their surrounding fast-growing towns and cities. The contributors, most of them geographers from both East Africa and France, explore three cases: Mount Kenya (Kenya), Mount Elgon (on its Ugandan side), and the Uporoto Mountains (Tanzania). They adopt a comparative perspective with earlier research and other East African mountains, such as Mount Kilimanjaro. The 12 chapters focus on one major recent upheaval: the growing urbanization that shapes new mountain systems. This phenomenon gives rise to the following questions: What are the links between rural and urban changes in such contexts? What are their impacts on livelihoods and development? This book, covering social and environmental issues relating to rural-urban exchanges and transformations, is the first of its kind for African mountains.