Though often overlooked, parental navigations play an important role in the difficult pathways of rural children through changing eduscapes in northern Benin. Arguing that parents are deeply involved in their children’s trajectories towards making a living, I analyse the care and support parents see themselves as responsible for. A neoliberal and increasingly privatized schooling system creating unequal chances in combination with the demand of ‘Education for all’ responsibilizes parents for their children’s success, and a tight labour market makes it additionally difficult for youth to find positions in the urban space. In consequence, parents are more intensively investing in their children’s education and related costs than ever before, without feeling that these investments lead to what parents value as success. Due to the lack of parental experience in the neoliberal eduscapes and the lack of cultural and social capitals – parents describe it as ‘blindness’ – parental actions in the eduscapes could best be described as navigations which are entangled with those of their children. In these navigations, parents give their children what they never received from their own parents, but also expect or hope them to become what they never were. Both parents and children navigate, I argue, towards an unknown and uncertain future in ‘radical openness’.

Salvador da Bahia (Brazil) and Cartagena de Indias (Colombia) are traumatic places where Afro-diasporic communities challenge persistent colonial ideologies through manifold practices of resistance. Both cities were former ports of the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans and, nowadays, they are recognized as UNESCO World Heritage sites. This paper explores how residents of marginalized neighborhoods in both cities struggle against domination by means of cultural practices such as music, dance and poetry. Their movements, rhythms, song texts and Afro hairstyles contest racialized stigmatization and inscribe counter-narratives in spaces structured by (neo-)colonial hierarchies. They help recover from traumatic experiences, preserve silenced memories, reconstruct fragmented identities and re-signify neglected knowledges. To engage with these bodily modes of cultural resistance, which are often sidelined by Western academia, we developed an approach of participatory action research with the REPROTAI network from Salvador and the Candilé cultural group from Cartagena. Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, however, we have been realizing our activities only in the virtual sphere. Thereby, the bodily dimension of cultural resistance turned out to be even more important than previously thought. Against this backdrop, my paper explores the notion of Epistemologies of the Body, focusing on those processes of resistance that are ephemeral, tactical and corporeal. This is particularly important in places where black bodies have been systematically objectified and violated for centuries. As a whole, the project aims at calling our attention to collective practices which are often overlooked by linguistic and discursive academic approaches.

Nach einer knappen Formulierung von Minimalkriterien für die hier vorgenommene Zuordnung von Beiträgen und Forschungsprojekten zur erziehungswissenschaftlichen Netzwerkforschung wird zunächst anhand ausgewählter Beispiele der zumeist metaphorische Charakter des Begriffs des Netzwerkes in der Erziehungswissenschaft erläutert. Dabei fällt die positive Konnotation von Netzwerken und den Praktiken des Netzwerkens auf. Es folgt die Darstellung von Anwendungen der SNA in der Disziplin. Abschließend wird das Desiderat theoretischer Beiträge und Überlegungen diskutiert.

This article interrogates the European biometric ID system and securitisation measures in West African borders which have become detrimental to, first, African migrants and, second, both African and European security objectives. Using the Niger’s experience, we demonstrate how migrants’ identity problems as well as their atomisation and loosening of their social integration are directly linked to the criminalising and dehumanising border security practices they now face. This article reveals the multiple forms and effects of the unimpeded European biometric/digital control over African territorial borderlands and (im)mobilities. First is the subversion of African states’ administrative, decisional, sovereign and territorial prerogatives by way of enacting digital territorial borderscapes that enforce migrants’ identity de(re)construction. Second, the use of ‘biometric power’ to facilitate a specific modality of neoliberal biometric power relations which perpetuates global inequalities in biometric identification and (im)mobility governance. Lastly, migrants’ recourse to agentic mechanisms to contest the European biometric ID system, via discoveries and implantation of parallel border routes.

This article argues that the European biometric ID installations and securitization practices at West African borders harm African migrants and compromise the security goals of Europe and Africa. Using Niger's experience, I contend that migrants' poor adaption to the biometric border processes is closely connected to their identity conflicts, as well as their atomization and weakening of their social integration. The new border security measures are implicated in the state's criminalizing and dehumanizing practices which migrants and borderbrokers experience every day. I coin two concepts, namely, biometric reborderization and agentic deborderization, to draw close attention to ways by which the European biometric projects are significantly reconfiguring African borders. These borders now represent both a dynamic space for migration control, and contested sites of biometric circumvention and subversion by biometric noncompliant migrants who constantly negotiate alternative means for mobilities. Moral mobility agents contest/circumvent European biometric reborderization via the use of parallel border routes. Related Articles Byrne, Jennifer. 2016. “Contextual Identity among Liberian Refugees in Ghana: Identity Salience in a Protracted Refugee Situation.” Politics & Policy 44(4): 751–82. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12169. Djeufack Dongmo, Aristophane, and Désiré Avom. 2024. “Urbanization, Civil Conflict, and the Severity of Food Insecurity in Africa.” Politics & Policy 52(1): 140–68. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12572. Garrett, Terence M., and Arthur J. Sementelli. 2023. “Revisiting the Policy Implications of COVID-19, Asylum Seekers, and Migrants on the Mexico–U.S. Border: Creating (and Maintaining) States of Exception in the Trump and Biden Administrations.” Politics & Policy 51(3): 458–75. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12537.

This article discusses the European migration control system and its connection to the facilitation of migrant smuggling in West Africa. Using Nigeria’s experience, the paper explores the key developments that contributed to the expansion of the migrant smuggling business, namely, the European biometric ID systems, the digitalization of external borders, and intensive border securitization. These key measures are linked to the emergence and deepening of the operations of the new identity and document fraud cartel in Nigeria, a sub-component of the smuggling business model. I delineate a new conceptual framework, “biometric border paradox,” to depict the contradiction of the European migration control system in its external borders in Africa. The problem is linked to the new form of biometric ID and travel document fraud in corporate (government) agencies: the “corporate smugglers.” I coin two key concepts to describe this modality: “biometricycle” and “biometricyclists,” which refer to a tricycle-smuggling network that operates through the biometric ID system, involving three groups: local identity-faking entrepreneurs, IT experts, and corporate officials within the government’s biometric ID sector and immigration service. Vulnerable migrants who do not comply with the new biometric ID systems fall victim to biometric ID and travel document fraud, which exposes them to certain types of identity conflicts, state criminalization, and loss of social integration.

Africa’s linguistic diversity and cultural richness make it an ideal setting for incorporating case studies of toponyms (place names) into the university linguistics curriculum. By examining the toponyms of Kibera slum areas in Kenya and those of the people of Sabalibougou in Southern Mali, this article explores the various ways that toponyms can be used to enhance the understanding of African languages and cultures. Based on the premise that toponyms communicate knowledge about the natural world, peoples’ experiences, indigenous and local languages, and history, the two case studies of this article highlight the following factors as reasons why toponyms should be studied and incorporated into the university’s linguistics curricula: (i) They reveal the interplay between history, socio-political manifestations, and language; (ii) provide awareness of the role of geography on language, language contact, and language endangerment; (iii) facilitate the relationship between language and culture; and (iv) allow practising orthography, phonetic transcription, and morphosemantics of African languages. Hence, incorporating toponym case studies, like those provided in this study, into the linguistics curriculum can enable students to better comprehend and appreciate Africa’s linguistic diversity and cultural richness, ultimately contributing to the decolonisation of education in Africa.

This Working Paper is the revised transcript of the New Year Lecture by the dean of the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bayreuth, which won the coveted funding of the Excellence Strategy of the German Federal and State Government. The agenda of reconfiguring African Studies features not only in the lecture title, but is also prominent in the cluster's agenda. However, drafting a successful proposal is one thing; implementing the agenda is another. The paper explores the various layers, levels, and intricacies implied in the reconfiguration of African Studies, and also highlights the conceptual shift required to steer the study of Africa in new directions.

The quest for transdisciplinary research requires academics to collaborate with actors from heterogeneous fields, both inside and outside academia. In order to transcend disciplinary, social, symbolic or physical boundaries, co-producers of knowledge need to deal with multiple relations, theories and practices taken for granted in each field involved. This presentation explores how field alignments can be made between researchers, artists and activists in order to create synergies and produce knowledge collaboratively. It draws on a participatory research project developed with diverse actors from Brazil, Colombia, Mozambique, Cameroon and Germany, who share a common interest in understanding whether and how the arts can contribute to processes of transformation in communities afflicted by violence, racism and social exclusion. The reflection shows how the research field emerges as a fluid third space co-created by actors with specific knowledges and positionalities. Ultimately, this presentation raises fundamental questions on whose queries, assumptions, interests, theories and methodologies count as legitimate, giving them the power to (re)define a research field.

Este ensaio apresenta uma reflexão sobre o poder testemunhal de fotografias tiradas no campo de extermínio nazista de Auschwitz-Birkenau. Pretende-se, a partir delas, problematizar a relação entre fotografia, memória e história, na medida em que tais imagens nos podem fornecer uma possibilidade de pensarmos como um testemunho visual pode aperfeiçoar grandes narrativas históricas da representação do holocausto – desde um objeto de memória de natureza tipicamente mediada (VAN DJICK, 2007). Nesses termos, a fotografia se manifesta aqui contra as vontades de desaparecimento, ligando-se à memória coletiva e à temporalidade. Finalmente, buscar-se-á entender como o político e o poético se entrecruzam nessas imagens, pensadas por Didi-Huberman (2012) como um ato contra a própria razão da história e contra a política de desimaginação e do inimaginável, dando um novo rumo às representações públicas do holocausto, em oposição à proposta da Shoah Foundantion.

While World War II was ravaging Europe, thousands of Polish people found a safe haven in British colonial Africa. This forgotten history shows us that migration patterns are constantly changing.

Cet article explore l'intersection de la géographie des conflits et de la médiation sociale, avec un focus particulier sur les zones frontalières du nord du Bénin, à travers une approche qualitative. Il examine comment les dynamiques foncières, les identités culturelles et les tensions ethniques interagissent dans un contexte de conflits territoriaux exacerbés par l'émergence de groupes armés et d'activités terroristes. S'appuyant sur la théorie de la transformation des conflits de Lederach, J. P. (1995), l'étude utilise des méthodes qualitatives pour analyser les défis de la médiation et évaluer l'efficacité des pratiques traditionnelles face à ces complexités. L'article propose des stratégies de médiation innovantes, basées sur des analyses qualitatives approfondies des perspectives locales et des dynamiques socioculturelles, promouvant une approche de médiation flexible et inclusive. Ces stratégies recommandent l'implication d'acteurs infra-étatiques et non étatiques, soulignant la nécessité de réinventer les pratiques de médiation pour établir une paix durable. Les orientations pratiques dérivées de l'analyse qualitative offrent des perspectives précieuses pour les médiateurs et les décideurs dans des contextes de conflit intense.

In view of the developments of eSciences and accompanying infrastructures in German academia, the Cluster of Excellence Africa Multiple with its Digital Solutions portfolio has set the ambitious aim of establishing a digital research repository for its disciplinary heterogenous research projects ranging from economics to climate studies to linguistics, history and media studies, the “only” common ground being the studied area “Africa” and “African diasporas”. The four thematic sections that all touch upon eSciences, or put more generally, the digital transformation of the academic world and society from very different perspectives and disciplinary diversity. Be it knowledge management as a big data business model for academic services, digital neo-colonialism, the different legal aspects, problems of bias in semantic data processing, digitalization projects in Africa or digitization projects and collections built up in Europe.

This paper critically assesses the making of the modern timescape “the future” from an early modern historian’s and a postcolonial perspective. As a western invention, it was imposed on many societies in the historical contexts of colonialism and imperialism. “The future” is thus loaded with semantics such as ‘civilization versus primitive forms of life’, ‘progress versus backwardness’, ‘development versus regression’ and other similar dichotomies. This article looks into timescapes prevalent in the early modern period, using the latter as a background against which we can reflect on the historical making and baggage of linear timescapes such as the “past, present and future”, about the diversity, or multiplicity, of timescapes in the past and today, how this could inform our understanding of constructions of cultural difference and how much we would need a transperiodical and transregional anthropology of time.

This study revisits and explores the contributions of women religious organizations in Nigeria, namely, The Federation of Muslim Women Organizations in Nigeria, (FOMWAN) and Zumuntar-Mata (Church Women League) of Christian Churches, in comparative and proportional evaluations. The elemental findings reveal that these religious organizations under study are well structured and methodical associations with the primary aim of addressing some major challenges faced by women in Nigeria, and had taken necessary steps to ameliorate them. Initiatives such as Economic empowerment, educational, religious and political enlightenments, and provision of health services are their major contributions to women and the society at large. One interesting manifestation of toleration among the two differing religious groups was that they cooperate and, in some cases, jointly execute some essential and enablement programs to both Muslim and Christian women. Their slogans ‘the act of kindness knows no boundary’ is always at fore. In the same vein, in order to widen the horizon of their activities and responsibilities they partner favorably and mutually with development partners governmental and non-governmental within Nigeria and beyond with a bid to advance and extend their interventions to as many women as possible in the cities as well as in the rural areas. Through their various programs and initiatives for self-help, therefore, the organizations significantly contributed towards women enfranchisement and impacted in societal development positively.

The World Health Organization recommends initiating breastfeeding in the first hour of life, exclusive breastfeeding for six months, and continued breastfeeding for at least two years. Aggressive marketing of breast milk substitutes (BMS) undermines breastfeeding and is linked to adverse child and maternal health outcomes. This is particularly problematic in the Global South, where socioeconomic conditions often amplify the risks associated with BMS. The adoption of national BMS legislation in line with the 1981 International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes is therefore crucial but difficult due to strong opposition from the transnational formula milk industry. Breastfeeding advocates in Kenya were able to overcome this powerful opposition when the country adopted a strict BMS Act in 2012, which has since facilitated and protected remarkable improvements in breastfeeding rates. We conduct a qualitative case study to identify the political enablers of the successful adoption of this important law.

Recent accounts of the re-emergence of debt distress in Africa, while offering significant insights, fail to provide the historical political-economic context within which African indebtedness is set. On the surface, spending induced by the COVID-19 pandemic, economic fallout from the Russia–Ukraine war, and repeated examples of fiscal indiscipline by African governments appear to be the causes of the current wave of debt crises. Beyond these factors, however, this article argues that the present indebtedness, like previous episodes, is rooted in the economic and financial subordination of African economies. Specifically, the article places Ghana's extensive debt within the country's post-independence political-economic context, and thus traces the structural factors and external constraints that underlie its economic vulnerability and financial dependence. These include the collapse of developmentalism in the 1970s, the Structural Adjustment Programmes of the 1980s, and an exploitative transnational lending system dominated by Western commercial creditors. Internally, recent fiscal mistakes by the government, within its limited policy space, have exacerbated Ghana's indebtedness. The Ghanaian experience shows that unconditional debt cancellation, widely called for, is a necessary but insufficient measure to address the recurring cycles of indebtedness. Debt cancellation should be followed by broader economic and financial reforms, globally and domestically.