Centrality measurements are a well-known method to assess the importance of actors in networks. They are easy to obtain and provide a versatile interpretability adaptable to the meaning of nodes and edges. The current centrality measurements use structural information alone. In real-world situations, however, actors and the connections between them are subject to contextual settings and can be significantly influenced by these settings. In fact, such real-world observations are often modeled using attributed networks in which contextual information can be associated as attributes to nodes and edges. However, this information is disregarded when evaluating the importance of actors in terms of network centrality measurements. Hence, this paper proposes a method for obtaining shortest path-based centrality measurements for attributed networks that exploit attribute information on nodes for shortest path calculations. We add abstracts of scientific publications to a co-publishing network and use topic models to create node-individual context constraints for shortest path calculations. This creates additional analytic opportunities and can aid in gaining a detailed understanding of complex social networks.

Although the Covid-19 disaster predicted for Africa in March 2020 did not occur and, on the contrary, sub-Saharan Africa has remained until today less affected than the rest of the world (if statistics are anything to go by), countries such as Côte d’Ivoire and Cameroon have nevertheless been affected by Covid-19 to varying degrees. From the beginning, their governments took drastic measures to curb the spread of the pandemic. These included the state of health emergency, confinement, curfews, school closures, compulsory mask-wearing, and others. Although these measures were not always adjusted to local realities, the infection rate in both countries remains relatively low. Moreover, the small number of cases on the one hand, and the contradictory positions taken by supposedly knowledgeable personalities as well as the controversies over possible treatments on the other hand, have ended up creating confusion, doubt, and distrust within the populations who find their reflections in the discourse on Covid-19.

In light of global dynamics threatening the social ties that hold societies together, recent research has turned to exploring 'conceptions of social cohesion' in Africa. Focusing on Rwanda, this paper argues that while post-genocide government documents (1999-2012) align with globalized definitions of cohesion—emphasizing inclusive identity, trust, and cooperation—Rwanda's approach to rebuilding national unity is deeply rooted in localized notions. Rwandan notions of social cohesion revolve around 'culture' and 'kinship,' which throughout history have played a crucial role in (re)framing social orders in response to inter-group conflict and shifting conceptions of the nation. This case study suggests that beyond trust in institutions and fellow citizens, understanding the normative narratives and cultural frameworks that define social order, as well as the population's familiarity with these, is crucial to assessing cohesion—especially in contexts of nation-building where social trust has been eroded by violent conflict.

Afro-Latin American lifeworlds are shaped by persistent processes of de- and reterritorialization. Theorizing on these dynamics sheds light on underlying forces of exclusion and discrimination that need to be understood in order to overcome them. This paper presents the results of a grounded theory building process carried out in Salvador da Bahia (Brazil) and Cartagena de Indias (Colombia) throughout six years. Comparing these former ports of the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans, I propose a socio-moral cartography that illustrates the tacit dimension of Afrodiasporic (re-)existence. Extensive ethnographic fieldwork, qualitative interviews and participatory action research with artistic groups from Afrodescendant communities allowed scrutinizing the traumatic structures that lie behind both cityscapes. As a result, I present a theory of social delta formation that draws on the conceptual analogy of a river mouth extending into the sea, grounded on the fact that the communities involved in the co-creation of knowledges historically built their neighborhoods by territorializing parts of the Atlantic shore with debris. This socio-moral cartography depicts opportunities for social transformation as well as restrictions due to racist exclusion, disclosing ethics and aesthetics that permeate daily life in (post)colonial and (post)enslavement cityscapes. The theory of social delta formation is applicable both in academic and community settings, as it highlights the broader social, moral and territorial impact of the coloniality of power. It can be extrapolated to many contexts where Afrodescendant people are structurally marginalized and displaced, reinventing their existence every day.

Le but de la présente contribution est de situer la thématique des spatialités et innovations en Afrique de l'Ouest francophone dans le domaine des recherches en sciences du langage. Elle propose une réflexion théorique sur l'espace comme moteur de la variation linguistique en insistant sur l'impact du contact linguistique. Transplanté sur le continent africain vers la fin du 19ème siècle par la voie de la colonisation, le français n'a cessé d'y évoluer. Aujourd'hui, on constate une appropriation de la langue du colonisateur par ses locuteurs africains pour qui le français n'est généralement pas la première langue apprise. Grâce à des processus d'autonomisation, toujours en cours, émerge un français régional marqué par le contact avec les langues coprésentes dans son milieu et caractérisé par de nombreuses innovations à tous les niveaux de la description linguistique. La discussion se concentre sur certaines innovations pragmatico-discursives qui ont leur origine dans le transfert de techniques d'expression, de patrons communicatifs ou de modes d'énonciation et d'organisation du discours des langues premières vers le français. Enfin, la diversité des langues de contact soulève la question de savoir si, à travers l'Afrique de l'Ouest, ces innovations langagières se ressemblent et ceci malgré les écologies différentes qu'y connait le français.

This special anniversary volume of Symbolism explores the nexus between symbolic signification and the future from an interdisciplinary perspective. How, contributors ask, has the future been variously rendered in symbolic terms? How do symbols and symbolic reference shape our ideas of the future? To what extent are symbols constitutive of futures, and to what extent do they restrain communication about what is possible and the imagination of fundamental change? Moreover, how have symbolic practices shaped not only artistic representations of the future, but also scientific attempts at forecasting and modelling it? What, then, is the relevance of symbolism for negotiations of the future in cultural and academic production? In essays ranging from literary and film studies to the philosophy of art and ecological modelling, the volume seeks to lay groundwork in theorizing and historicising ‘symbols of the future’ as much as ‘the future of symbolism’.

Stacheldraht ist in der bildlichen Repräsentation von Grenzen bis heute nicht wegzudenken. Er macht Grenzziehungen sichtbar, normalisiert oder skandalisiert sie. Anhand von Kontroversen um die Nutzung von Stacheldraht im kolonialen Kontext und in der jüngeren Migrationsabwehr argumentiere ich in diesem Beitrag, dass die emotionale Wirkmacht von Stacheldraht von der engen Verbindung des Objekts mit Gefahr einhergeht. Die Gefährlichkeit des Stacheldrahts kann entweder Angst vor den Anderen oder Mitgefühl mit ihnen auslösen – je nachdem, wie Einzelne im Verhältnis dazu positioniert sind. Die affektive Reaktion verweist damit auf gesellschaftliche Grenzziehungen zwischen sozialen Gruppen. Stacheldrahtbewährte Zäune um Lager oder an Grenzen konstruieren die Menschen auf der anderen Seite als potenziell gefährliche Andere und wirken damit auch in Gesellschaften hinein. Doch gerade die körperlich nachfühlbare rohe Gewalt durch die metallenen Stacheln kann auch zu Gefühlen menschlicher Verbundenheit über den Zaun hinweg führen. Anhand historischer Kontroversen um die emotionale Bewertung dieser wandelbaren Technik der Kontrolle von Körpern im Raum wird dabei ihrer Bedeutung in der Internalisierung von Grenzziehungen nachgespürt.

Brasilien hat sich im Lauf des vergangenen Jahrhunderts zu einem Laboratorium für die Aushandlung von Kategorisierungen wie Afrikaner*in in der Diaspora, afrodeszendente Bevölkerung oder Afro-Brasilianer*in entwickelt. Der Begriff Afro wird zunehmend von brasilianischen und ausländischen Forscher*innen untersucht, deren Arbeiten im deutschen Sprachraum kaum diskutiert werden. Unser Aufsatz bietet eine kritische Reflexion über das Feld der Afrika- und Diasporastudien in Brasilien sowie deren historische, geopolitische, intellektuelle und sozialräumliche Einbettung. Dabei erörtern wir verschiedene Herausforderungen: zum einen, sich in einem Land mit unzähligen Hautfarbenbeschreibungen als afrodeszendent zu denken; zum anderen, dynamische Identitäten in einer Gesellschaft zu erschaffen, in der starre Rassismen und soziale Ungleichheiten grassieren; und schließlich, kontroverse Debatten zwischen der Universität, der Zivilgesellschaft, politischen Akteuren und antirassistischen Bewegungen in dem Land zu führen, in dem die größte Anzahl an Schwarzen Menschen außerhalb Afrikas lebt. Anhand von Erfahrungen aus dem Zentrum für Afro-Orientalische Studien (CEAO) der staatlichen Universität von Bahia (UFBA) und dem Postgraduiertenprogramm POSAFRO diskutieren wir, wie transdisziplinäres Wissen an der brasilianischen Küste des Schwarzen Atlantiks produziert und ausgehandelt wird. Dies erfordert neben der Betrachtung von Affirmative Actions und Süd-Süd-Kooperationen ein kritisches Nachdenken über die Rolle der Wissenschaft bei der Förderung von dekolonialen und antirassistischen Transformationsprozessen. Insgesamt zielt der Beitrag darauf ab, die Reflexivität im Feld der Afrikastudien zu vertiefen, um Licht auf (geo)politische Strömungen und Kontexte zu werfen, welche die wissenschaftliche Arbeit unweigerlich beeinflussen, aber oft im Hintergrund verborgen bleiben.

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is seen as a region of mass migration and population displacement caused by poverty, violent conflict, and environmental stress. However, empirical evidence is inconclusive regarding how SSA’s international migration progressed and reacted during its march to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This article attempts to study the patterns and determinants of SSA’s international migration and the cause and effects on sustainable development by developing a Sustainability Index and regression models. We find that international migration was primarily intra-SSA to low-income but high-population-density countries. Along with increased sustainability scores, international migration declined, but emigration rose. Climate extremes tend to affect migration and emigration but not universally. Dry extremes propelled migration, whereas wet extremes had an adverse effect. Hot extremes had an increasing effect but were insignificant. SSA’s international migration was driven by food insecurity, low life expectancy, political instability and violence, high economic growth, unemployment, and urbanisation rates. The probability of emigration was mainly driven by high fertility. SSA’s international migration promoted asylum seeking to Europe with the diversification of origin countries and a motive for economic wellbeing. 1% more migration flow or 1% higher probability of emigration led to a 0.2% increase in asylum seekers from SSA to Europe. Large-scale international migration and recurrent emigration constrained SSA’s sustainable development in political stability, food security, and health, requiring adequate governance and institutions for better migration management and planning towards the SDGs.

Recommender systems are commonly designed and evaluated with high precision and accuracy in mind. Optimising systems for these metrics alone can, however, lead to a decrease in overall collection coverage of recommended items, and carries potential to over-emphasize popular content. Notions such as serendipitous discovery and, closely related, novelty and diversity propose that rather than replicating a user's taste or that of a cluster of others they happen to be similar to, recommendation systems should present useful suggestions to users, including novel and diverse items and thus supporting serendipitous discovery. We implement a recommender system based on a knowledge graph of musical items with serendipity, novelty and diversity in mind. Using acoustic features as contextual information for vertices in the graph, we explicitly select content dissimilar from the user's previous experience. We compare our results to a set of baseline algorithms and find that we are able to recommend diverse and novel items.

This article explores the implications of the East African Community’s rapid enlargement from three to eight members – including conflict-affected countries. By assessing institutional and political consequences of the EAC’s widening, considering experiences from the European Union and ASEAN, the study argues that enlargement does not inherently impede deepening but requires strategic institutional adaptations. The EAC stands at the crossroads between its federalist ambitions and an even more intergovernmentalist model. The outcome will hinge on the management of security issues and the political willingness to pool sovereignty. Indecision risks leading the community into a widening gap between treaty ambitions and political reality.

Countries in the global South are engaging and building strong relationships with powerful global organisations and big tech corporations, based on a profitable digital cooperation. This article explains this emerging trend using the concept of biometric coloniality of power, to show how techno-capitalist biometric identification interventions in the new biometric states in the global South replicate colonial relations of dominance. It draws on Nigeria’s experience to illustrate the utilisation of social hierarchies and biometric categories in the state-sponsored exclusion and disempowerment of the most vulnerable groups. The article argues that the rise of biometric states is associated with the political instrumentalisation of personal data, resulting in social conflict. Digital subjects confront and negotiate a deeply imbricated biometric power structure through which biometric policing, fraud, exclusion, surveillance, the breach of personal data privacy and other concrete materialisations of biometric authoritarianism are institutionalised. The article concludes that biometric states are complicit in multinational corporations’ monopolistic siege of Africa’s digital market, which allows for the unrestricted capture of digital data through ongoing digital commodification and dispossession.

Many coastal waters include large areas of Optically Shallow Waters (OSWs) ‎where the sea-bottom affects above-water observations of remote sensing ‎reflectance (Rrs [sr−1]). If not treated, the effect of bottom reflectance will ‎interfere with the correct retrieval of Water Constituent Concentrations ‎‎(WCCs) from hyperspectral and multispectral remote sensing observations. ‎To study this phenomenon in more detail, the existing semi-infinite ‎‎2SeaColour Radiative Transfer (RT) model was modified into a finite water ‎layer model, bounded by a diffusely reflecting surface at the sea-bottom. ‎From simulations with the new model, called Water - Sea Bottom (WSB) ‎model, it was observed that a ratio of spectral bands in the Near-Infrared, ‎bands 750 nm and 900 nm, is nearly insensitive to the WCCs and increases ‎with the shallowness of the water, and therefore can be used as a robust index ‎to detect OSWs. The newly established Near-Infrared Bottom Effect Index ‎‎(NIBEI) was applied to a series of satellite observations over the Wadden Sea ‎during high and low tidal phases. Images from the MEdium Resolution ‎Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) and the Ocean and Land Colour Instrument ‎‎(OLCI) were processed to retrieve WCCs of the study area. The results indicate ‎that the sea-bottom effect in OSWs affects the accuracy of atmospheric ‎correction and retrievals. On the other hand, applying the NIBEI to flag OSWs ‎improves the reliability and consistency of WCCs maps. The application of ‎proposed NIBEI on satellite images requires only Top Of Atmosphere (TOA) ‎radiances at 750 nm and 900 nm and does not depend on atmospheric ‎correction and ancillary local input data (e.g., bathymetry map, bottom type, ‎empirical coefficients, in-situ measurements). As a result, the proposed NIBEI ‎can readily be applied to detect OSWs on various ocean colour remote sensors ‎in various shallow coastal regions.‎‎

In this commentary, I offer a sympathetic critique of the special issue, ‘Under Construction: Towards Critical Perspectives on Infrastructuring and Infrastructured Labour in Africa’. I highlight the importance of systems of provisioning, deeper theorising of the accumulation dynamics surrounding large-scale infrastructure projects, clearer distinctions between work and labour, and excavating the links between visible and hidden labour in various economic sectors, as key areas for future research that I hope will be inspired by this special issue.

Effective science communication is crucial in informing citizens in times of crisis. The ICT-driven metamorphosis of the media industry (media-morphosis) has facilitated the shift from a rather one-directional information deficit model in science communication to a more bidirectional communication corresponding to a dialogue model. Little is known about the preferences for social media communication from the supply side of institutional and scholarly communication. Analyzing survey data from nearly 8,700 scientists, we compared their preferences for press media and social media, proxies of traditional centralized communication channels and modern decentralized channels, respectively. Our empirical results show that trust in governments and prioritizing access to all perspectives on the crisis are important factors that influence scientists’ preferences regarding forms of communication. Trust favors centralized systems, while social media serves as an alternative in contexts lacking trust in politics. Prioritizing the diffusion of different perspectives drives a shift to stated preferences for decentralized communication systems. We also show that scientists’ stated preferences for communication systems depend on the socio-political context.

The volume observes some of the principles that drove Prof. Jan-Georg Deutsch's research: highlighting present-day politics for the way they shape historical remembrance, learning from people on the ground through fieldwork and oral history, and bringing various parts of the African continent into discussion with one another. From Cape Town to Charlottesville, many societies are grappling with historical consciousness and the production of public memory. In particular, how and why societies remember and forget, what should serve as symbols of collective memory, and whether there exists space for multiple memory cultures are questions being vigorously debated once again. These discussions present particular challenges not only to official memory bound to ideological constructions of nationhood but also to the teaching of history and its links to social justice movements. The volume re-centres Africa and African history in memory studies, with each chapter drawing parallels to comparable cases in Africa and the world. An underlying assumption is that what can be learned from the politics of historical memory in Africa will have relevance for contemporary politics globally and for understanding how memories can be mobilised for political ends.

The literary tradition of South America has generally been imagined and legitimized in terms of the continent’s Hispano-American cultural heritage, epistemologies, and genealogies. Amid this hegemonic tradition, Black and Indigenous cultural presences and creative imaginaries have been relegated in favor of Hispano-American worldviews. Artistic creations by these “other” subjects have long been considered secondary to the Creole/mestizo canons, and have thus not benefited from the same degree of critical attention and circulation in mainstream literary circles. However, the trend is gradually changing, at least with regard to Afro-Colombian literature, as new generations of creative voices have gradually gained space and interrogated the generally accepted paradigms of Colombian identity. In the same vein, works long shunned by critics and the reading public have been reevaluated and granted increased editorial attention, critical scrutiny, and legitimizing awards. Jorge Artel’s poetry reinscribes Black bodies, cultural symbols, epistemologies, and legacies of the transatlantic slave trade into Colombian national history. His poetry, which is inscribed within the negrista tradition, reexamines the Colombian Atlantic space, especially his home city of Cartagena de Indias, questioning entrenched cultures of marginalization. His collection, Tambores en la Noche (Drums in the Night), first published in 1940, can be considered a reimagination of that city’s memorial cartography in order to underline the vestiges of enslaved Africans and their continuous configuration of Colombian national identity

The paper examines the relevance of social media use by older people in their emotional care relationships with their kin living apart from them. Older people’s use of social media is still less visible in Rwanda and overlooked by researchers. The folk narrative in Rwanda considers social media usage a youth phenomenon. This paper goes beyond this consideration and shows how social media plays a significant role in care provision during crises like the COVID-19 pandemic. The research uses in-depth interviews of older people and their children to highlight social media’s usefulness in facilitating daily interactions. Since children could not travel to the village to visit their parents, social media allowed them to exchange with their older parents frequently calls and chats, which contained comforting words necessary for reducing the emotional stress created by the COVID-19 pandemic. Even if older people face the challenge of access to smartphones and digital literacy, using social media in enacting emotional care for older people proves to be indispensable in creating solid bonds, belongingness, and attachment to them.

Introduction: This special issue is a first stepping stone towards the recuperation and reappraisal of the long-lost television film Taiwo Shango oder: Der zweite Tag nach dem Tod [Taiwo Shango or: The Second Day after the Death] (1965, dir. Klaus Stephan), a co-production by the Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR, Bavarian Broadcasting) and Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln (WDR, West German Broadcasting Cologne) in conjunction with the Nigerian Television Service (NTS). It also draws attention to the extensive photographic legacy of Nina Fischer-Stephan (1922–2018), who documented life in Nigeria from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s, and whose work cannot be separated from the production of Taiwo Shango. Contributions emerged out of a joint Nigerian–German research collaboration between the universities of Lagos and Bayreuth (UniLag and UBT, July 2021–December 2022), which initially focused on close readings of the film in relation to contemporaneous and contemporary cultural production and cultural industries in Nigeria and Germany. Also included are the voices of scholars who usually do not study media and performance but share illuminating insights into the contexts of the film; and initial responses to the first outdoor installation of Fischer-Stephan’s pictures in Lagos in 2022. The Stephan and Fischer-Stephan estate is held at Iwalewahaus,University of Bayreuth, Germany, whose first director was Ulli Beier.

This special issue is a first stepping stone towards the recuperation and reappraisal of the long-lost television film Taiwo Shango oder: Der zweite Tag nach dem Tod [Taiwo Shango or: The Second Day after the Death] (1965, dir. Klaus Stephan), a co-production by the Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR, Bavarian Broadcasting) and Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln (WDR, West German Broadcasting Cologne) in conjunction with the Nigerian Television Service (NTS). It also draws attention to the extensive photographic legacy of Nina Fischer-Stephan (1922–2018), who documented life in Nigeria from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s, and whose work cannot be separated from the production of Taiwo Shango. Contributions emerged out of a joint Nigerian–German research collaboration between the universities of Lagos and Bayreuth (UniLag and UBT, July 2021–December 2022), which initially focused on close readings of the film in relation to contemporaneous and contemporary cultural production and cultural industries in Nigeria and Germany. Also included are the voices of scholars who usually do not study media and performance but share illuminating insights into the contexts of the film; and initial responses to the first outdoor installation of Fischer-Stephan’s pictures in Lagos in 2022. The Stephan and Fischer-Stephan estate is held at Iwalewahaus,University of Bayreuth, Germany, whose first director was Ulli Beier.