Art et artisanat en Afrique Noire: Problèmes d'une définition différentielle

In 1977, John Lonsdale published a review of William R. Ochieng's study APre-Colonial History of the Gusii of Western Kenya in the Kenya Historical Review. Entitled “When did the Gusii (or any other group) become a ‘Tribe’?”, the ten-page article was less a book review and more a treatise on the practice of history in Africa. Taking Lonsdale's question as a point of inspiration, this article provides a critical rethinking of the theories of “tribe”, ethnicity and identity politics that continue to dominate African scholarship by examining the particular case of the Luyia in western Kenya. Through the seemingly incongruous and stubbornly diverse accounting of Luyia political community, this study suggests that histories of ethnic identity remain trapped by their own constructivist logic, elevating the “inventors” of traditional accounts at the expense of the plural and dissenting voices that characterise the multiple forms of political imagination practised across Africa that, while diverse, continue to rely on the idiom of the “tribe”.     

Le théologien et le somnambule: un épisode récent de l'histoire almoravide en Mauritanie

In 2012, images of a mystical mermaid known locally as Mami Wata circulated on the Internet and via people's mobile phones, sparking rumours that Chinese labourers had captured her as they were installing underwater fibreoptic cables. Appearing as a grotesque sea-creature with a gnarled, shrivelled body, this new image of Mami Wata challenges older, popular depictions of her as a beautiful maiden. Further, in her deformed body, Mami Wata reveals new tensions arising from promises of wealth and modernisation promoted by both Chinese and Congolese governments. Accounts of rumours/urban legends and metaphors of contagion animate larger contemporary discussions concerning development projects, “otherness” and the influence of the Internet and mobile phone technology on production of popular African culture. The female siren, Mami Wata, is a recurring motif in Kinshasa's collective urban imaginary. Historically she has been an expression of modernity and hybridity through visual representation in popular painting, sculpture and television serials. Now Mami Wata appears in the digital world. In this article, in addition to analysing the ways in which contemporary technology mediates this archetypal figure, I draw on notions of otherness, recent historical, political and economic changes in the Democratic Republic of Congo to analyse the ways they inform the particular shape and meaning that Mami Wata takes when transformed into the digital domain.     

“La bibliothèque coloniale”, la propriété intellectuelle et la romance du développement en Afrique

One asks oneself vigorously about the conditions of the construction of knowledge relative to the African continent as well as to its way of thinking. The influence of V.Y. Mudimbe in this regard is immense. The major categories of anthropology are examined, even called into question, and most notably the ethnic groups. As pertinent as they may be, these analyses return to the library and to the system of representation that the continent invents and raise it to a paradigm of difference par excellence. It is important, beyond the scholarly discourse, to take a look at the relationship of ordinary people with libraries. Broadcasters, for example, comment candidly on the work of one artist-musician or another. Appropriation implies the related right: “droit d'auteur(e)”, copyright or “Urheberrecht”. Anyone who fails to comply becomes a pirate. What, therefore, is the meaning of to modernise the author, the work, the copyright or the pirate not in language inherited from Western law but in that of the citizen or the average villager?     

L’Afrique centrale francophone entre au XXIe siècle: Citoyens et États,nations, régions face au monde

This special issue is the successor to Volume 18 Number 1 of the Canadian Journal of African Studies, published in 1984 under the title, “État indépendant du Congo, Congo belge, République démocratique du Congo, République du Zaïre?” The title of that special issue devoted to the political and social crisis in the Republic of Zaire ended with a question mark, implicitly asking: What next for Republic of Zaire? The present special issue offers a reply, one nobody expected fifteen years ago. At least symbolically, the country has recovered its identity as an independent contemporary polity, the Democratic Republic of Congo. Many authors in this issue argue that forty years of independence were mainly a time of violence, destruction, and pillaging. Ilunga Kabongo suggests that the global crises was so deep in the mid-1990s that people would vote for anyone able to restore normal life, the return of coloniser included.

Once a regional power, the Congo of today is a toy in hands of its neighbours, some of them being very small countries such as Rwanda which is deeply resented by the Congolese. The circle of violence seems to have engulfed local society, starting from the 1990 massacre of university students on the Lubumbashi campus. Even if, for the first time in a century, the war in and over the Congo is a regional African affair, it is difficult to rejoice as it is more the result the lack of interest from the world powers than the proof of Central African political independence.

The issue is organised in the manner allowing the reader to look first at the regional situation, mainly that of the French-speaking countries. Given the importance of Uganda and of Museveni, both as a political and military local power and as a model of a new leader, an analysis of his autobiography by Ron Kassimir is included. As often as it was possible, the voice of social scientists working and living in the region is heard. In little more than three years, between the time this issue was initiated in late 1996 and the time of its publication, many of them were forced into exile. It is an important characteristic of the present day situation. In addition to social science analyses, some local voices are included in order to help readers to grasp local perceptions and local efforts to understand the ongoing life, to find a way out.

As far as Congolese social scientists are concerned, we have publish articles of scholars belonging to three generations: those who were mainly educated abroad and came to national universities in the early 1970s; those who were mainly educated at local universities and who came to teaching and research in the 1980s; those who were educated in the 1990s, partially locally and partially abroad. It is important to note that many of those scholars were in the meantime forced to expatriate. The comparison of their understanding of what is going on can help us to appreciate Congolese social thought.

One central fact emerges, more from the search for peace and comments of local urban intellectuals than from scholarly essays. Today, while the borders of the Congo are disregarded by various national armies and foreign intervention forces, while local markets depend more on foreign exchange than on local currency, while the country is de facto divided into four more or less autonomous parts, ordinary people feel Congolese and refuse partition as well as secession. Should one conclude that in the deepest crises of its twentieth-century political history a nation is born, that it is born despite the demise of political institutions?     

De l'espace nomade à l'espace mobile en passant par l'espace du contrat: une expérience théorique

The paper retraces both a scientific itinerary and what might be described as a stratification and a history of the dominant social forms of structuring space: nomadism, sedentariness, mobility. It argues against a possible evolutionist interpretation of this scheme by privileging a synchronic observation of the various intersecting spatial forms in what might be called the truth of the place (which is the stage of intersection). The theoretical idea of a mobile space is thus schematized by opposing it to the paradigm of fixedness which dominates classical as well as modern spatial analysis. The rapprochement of nomadic space (being the source of reflection) and mobile space (being the result of reflection) is presented as a “methodological” space avoiding metaphorical vagueness.     

Les Ninja,les Cobra et les Zoulou crèvent l’écran à Brazzaville: le rôle les médias et la construction des identités de violence politique

In his recently published studies, the author analyzed the development and use of militia groups in the political conflicts that shook Congo-Brazzaville in the 1990s. After briefly reviewing these events, he points up the change in recruiting militiamen that occurred in the last phase of these conflicts. His text is primarily concerned with the role of Western mass culture in shaping the bodies and identities of these militiamen and the militiamen’s sense of identity. From the late 1950s (here the author draws on the research of Georges Balandier) to the late 1990s, the young men of Brazzaville were inspired in constructing a modernity of their own bodies by certain Western action films. The graphic violence in these films, perpetrated by characters whom the young men adopted as their heroes, legitimated their own use of violence.     

Un aspect de l'insertion des militaries dans le processus de développement national en Afrique: Étude de quelques contradictions

At independence, Botswana, like many other countries in Anglophone Africa, inherited a dual legal system that was undergoing a significant shift towards convergence in the areas of criminal law and procedure. In Botswana's case, convergence was driven by a desire to minimise or, more speculatively, to gradually eliminate the gap between the normative standards of common law/general and customary courts in criminal trials. The country chose to follow a route that involved the universalisation of a penal code based on English common law, and the partial standardisation of procedure rules for customary courts. The present article considers how codified law and written procedure rules have transformed the substance and classification of legal wrongs, disputes and dispute processes, as well as the context and meaning of punishment in traditional settings.     

La présence turque en Côte d’Ivoire contemporaine: entreprise transnationale au service de l’éducation,l’humanitaire et l’islam en Afrique de l’ouest

Many Tanzanians share a basic understanding of the occult as a moving force in the visible world. But at the same time, notions of the occult are characterised by indeterminacies in meaning, thereby allowing for multiple interpretations of particular events. This article explores various readings of two particular incidents that both occurred within a suburb of the city of Iringa in South-central Tanzania. First a Lutheran pastor started suffering from a paralyzed shoulder and a few weeks later an old woman was found lying naked outside of his home in the middle of the night. While both incidents were widely ascribed to witchcraft the article shows how particular interpretations were embedded in and reflective of a dense social climate, characterised by different kinds of tension, inequalities, suspicions of corruption and by religious and medical pluralism and competition. The article argues that the very opaqueness and uncertainty of witchcraft knowledge enabled a variety of actors with different stakes to make claims to truth, spiritual status and moral identity.