Journal of African Studies
Online ISSN : 1884-5533
Print ISSN : 0065-4140
ISSN-L : 0065-4140
Volume 2007, Issue 71
Displaying 1-25 of 25 articles from this issue
  • What is a “dhow”?
    Ryo NAKAMURA
    2007 Volume 2007 Issue 71 Pages 1-19
    Published: December 31, 2007
    Released on J-STAGE: April 30, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Kilwa Kisiwani (island) situated on the southern Swahili coast is surrounded by two different kinds of sea: inland sea characterized by its calm and shallow nature and mangrove forests, and open sea with a fringing-reef marked by rough wave and strong wind. The boat culture of Kilwa Kisiwani has been developed in these contrastive sea environments. Two kinds of boats can be found: 1. small boats such as mtumbwi and mbare used exclusively on the inland sea, 2. big boats such as dau, mashua and boti used on the open sea. The expensive big boats are possessed by rich people but not fishermen who own instead small boats or none. And they have traditionally fished on the inland sea or along the shore. This means that the original style of big boats culture symbolized by dau with keel structure is relatively recent and may not be based on fisheries' culture. Different from the English “dhow (ocean-going ship)”, the Swahili “dau” is a small boat. However, according to the local contexts, dau is a big boat with a revolutionary keel structure that can sail out to the open sea from the inland sea.
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  • Shiho HATTORI
    2007 Volume 2007 Issue 71 Pages 21-40
    Published: December 31, 2007
    Released on J-STAGE: July 01, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    This paper examines the characteristics of “folk knowledge” and reports a specific relationship between nature and a group of human beings by focusing on individual differences with respect to plant knowledge among the Baka hunter-gatherers in Cameroonian rainforests. An analysis of individual differences in relation to plant knowledge, in terms of the vernacular names of plants and their different uses, demonstrated that Baka adults generally knew the common vernacular names of plants and shared a similar knowledge of plants used for food and in material culture. However, they had widely varying knowledge of both the quantity and quality of medicinal plants. An analysis of the acquisition of medicinal plant knowledge showed that the Baka acquired knowledge of medicinal plants from their parents and other family members when they or their children became sick. This suggested that the medicinal plant knowledge of Baka adults reflected individual and family medical histories. The high degree of agreement on vernacular plant names is due, in part, to the importance of plants in Baka life and culture as well as to the sharing of plant names through daily social communication. They share knowledge of plants used for food and in material culture because they share evaluations of the material properties of plants used for these purposes, and they have numerous opportunities to share this knowledge such as when sharing food and tools in their social life. By contrast, evaluations of effects of medicinal plants are not commonly shared and the Baka have less opportunity to share medicinal plant knowledge in their social lives because they use medicinal plants mainly within the family. This tendency might account for the wide variability in medicinal plant knowledge among the Baka.
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  • Toru SAGAWA
    2007 Volume 2007 Issue 71 Pages 41-50
    Published: December 31, 2007
    Released on J-STAGE: April 30, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Many inter-ethnic conflicts have been arising among pastoralists, who live in the border area of Ethiopia, Kenya and Sudan. Recently, external actors have seriously started to intervene in this area to mitigate such conflicts and construct peace. Therefore researchers are expected to make discreet efforts to examine outside interventions so that they could give positive influences to local communities. In this paper, I focused on two peace meetings of pastoralists that were organized by governments and local NGOs in 2006, and examined the problems and possibilities which outside intervention could have toward peace construction. As a result, three following points were drawn. First, I analyzed that intervenient arranged the meetings by appropriating the cultural elements of indigenous peace meeting style, so as to make local people easily involve in the meetings. Second, I pointed out that peace meeting had both the risk of aggravation of antagonistic relations between different ethnic groups, as well as the possibility of constructive resolutions of such problems. Third, I showed that local people used the opportunity of the meeting to make friendly relations with “enemies”, and recovered mutual visits between them.
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  • [in Japanese]
    2007 Volume 2007 Issue 71 Pages 51-61
    Published: December 31, 2007
    Released on J-STAGE: April 30, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • Atsushi HANATANI
    2007 Volume 2007 Issue 71 Pages 63-71
    Published: December 31, 2007
    Released on J-STAGE: August 13, 2012
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The paper discusses ways and means of better incorporating “human security” approach in Japanese ODA programs in the context of African developmental settings. The uniqueness of “Human Security” approach lies in its strong focus on securing welfare of human beings and especially that of those who are less secure and protected, regardless of by which state they are governed; an anti-thesis to conventional “state security” way of thinking. This approach has requested adjustment of Japanese ODA strategy in one notable way: justification of direct support to beneficiary population when and where the agent - the state - is believed to be incapable of fulfilling its duties and obligations. Long list of African “failed” states might justify this approach, but here it is important to realize that the lack of human security in Africa is a phenomenon which is deeply rooted in the nature of state and state-society relations in Africa; thus requiring more than providing direct support to those who in need and strengthening social services of the state.
    This way of diagnosing state-society relations in Africa would require deepening of understanding of human security approach in Africa. The paper admits importance of approaching vulnerable group of population when and where they are less protected, and justify direct support bypassing state structure and channels as shortterm means, but at the same time warns the risk of such approach, leading to further negligence and weakening of state in Africa, which might work detrimental to enhancement of human security in Africa in the longer term.
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  • Naomi Wakasugi
    2007 Volume 2007 Issue 71 Pages 73-84
    Published: December 31, 2007
    Released on J-STAGE: August 13, 2012
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Health of the people is both indispensable for and the means of the achievement of Human Security. Nevertheless, in the reality it is not necessarily taken seriously and tackled as a challenge of the society. AIDS in Africa for example has been marginalized for a long time as a result of a denial of its importance. AIDS control at early stage did not exist while HIV epidemic has been building in Africa during 1980s so called a lost ten years with the application of structural adjustment program after the independence.
    The reductions of the vulnerability of individual as well as society including the government are required to avoid and overcome a serious threat to public health such as AIDS. The social vulnerability in Africa to an infectious disease HIV/AIDS can be considered as a result of development itself. Expanding poverty, retreating and contracting health and education sectors, neglected gender problems and reproductive health services and so on, all of these accelerated the growth of AIDS epidemic.
    However, as the need for the combat against global infectious diseases including AIDS has been recognized as an essential part of human security around 2000, a remarkable global challenge to fight AIDS has been started and African people are rising up to engage on AIDS control in Africa. Some promising signs of success are beginning to be realized.
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  • Shuichi OYAMA
    2007 Volume 2007 Issue 71 Pages 85-99
    Published: December 31, 2007
    Released on J-STAGE: August 13, 2012
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The land degradation is causing the decline of crop and livestock production in Republic of Niger. The Human Security is threatened by food shortage and loss of subsistence resources, especially in rural areas. The objectives of this paper were to: (1) describe the ecological knowledge of Hausa cultivators to land degradation (desertification) and daily practices for soil fertility improvement and plant production recovery in the degraded fields, (2) indicate the cause of land degradation problem and (3) introduce my trials for combating the land degradation problem and contributing to the human security in southern Niger.
    Hausa cultivators intend to carry the household waste into the degraded land every day for improving the soil fertility and plant production. According to the interviews from villagers, the land degradation was recently accelerated by the decrease of household waste in the agricultural villages because they sell more agro-products including the crops, livestock, firewood and pasture to the market under the market economy. The population of urban areas is rapidly increasing and food demand becomes higher. The population of Niamey, capital of Niger increased from 70,000 in 1970 to 675,000 in 2001. The residents consume agro-products from rural areas and waste the trash for everyday life. Lack of public disposal system accelerated the insanitary conditions in Niamey. During rainy season, infectious diseases such as cholera and typhoid occur in Niamey every year. We could comprehend the unbalanced conditions between rural areas and urban areas. The organic matters in rural areas are decreasing and the residents face the poor soil nutrition problem, namely desertification problem because they sell the agro-product to the market. The urban areas accumulated the organic matters and the residents face the insanitary problem. The author established local NGO“OLDCS- shara (Combating desertification and improving the urban sanitary conditions)”in Niger. We plan to divide the organic matters from urban trash and carry them into the degraded land of rural villages under the cooperation of the Government and Niamey Metropolitan administrative agencies. We aimed to contribute human security, by combating the desertification and food shortage in the rural agricultural villages as well as improving sanitary conditions and preventing from infectious diseases in Metropolitan areas.
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  • Makoto SATO
    2007 Volume 2007 Issue 71 Pages 101-106
    Published: December 31, 2007
    Released on J-STAGE: August 13, 2012
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Previous studies on human security in Africa have raised three issues. First, the very concept of "human security" needs to be re-examined. The term "human"should not be interpreted simply as persons or individuals, but as people living within a community. Second, we must recognize the close relationship between human security and national security. The realities in Africa indicate that it is essential to reconstruct the legitimacy of states in order to help them to guarantee their people's security. The third issue concerns the relationship between "freedom from fear" and "freedom from want. " Most studies on human security in Africa devote their attention to "freedom from want, " focusing on development, rather than "freedom from fear. " Yet, African realities require us to investigate the threats caused by fear as well. The argument of "downside risk management, " which defines human security in terms of a comprehensive means of coping with downside risks by empowering vulnerable people, is a good contribution to such studies; however, it fails to adequately address means of coping with threats in a personal capacity, thus abandoning the public responsibility against threats.
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  • Mitsugi ENDO
    2007 Volume 2007 Issue 71 Pages 107-118
    Published: December 31, 2007
    Released on J-STAGE: August 13, 2012
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    What happens in and to the contemporary African state? What is the meaning of the transformation? In other words, under what condition a state is a state?By referring to the literature of international relations, I distinguish "the state" and "non-state" from "the government" and "non-government" for analytical purpose. Related to the argument of "failed" and "collapsed"states, I also focus on the difference between dimensions of "fail" in the sense of oppressing people in the territory and that of "collapse" in the sense of defunctioning of the central government. Based on this analytical set which is derived from the idea that the state should be viewed both from within and without, I analyze transformation of the African state, especially referring the case of Somalia and Somaliland as typical examples of "collapsed state" and "de facto state. " Eventually, both cases are explained both realities as well as internationally (or socially)constructed entities, and the rule which is supposed to create such entities has been also transformed, although the latter is still to be further studied.
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  • Takehiko OCHIAI
    2007 Volume 2007 Issue 71 Pages 119-127
    Published: December 31, 2007
    Released on J-STAGE: August 13, 2012
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Reestablishment of local government institutions and decentralization of government services are one of the most important political reforms in post-conflict Sierra Leone. This article examines the historical development of local government institutions in Sierra Leone under the British rule to more fully understand the ongoing process of her local government reform and decentralization. In 1896 a protectorate was proclaimed over the Sierra Leone hinterland, dividing it into more than 200chiefdoms, and the Colonial Government introduced indirect rule system in which traditional rulers like paramount chiefs played a significant political role. In 1937 the Native Administration system was introduced and Tribal Authorities were established as the first local government institutions in the Protectorate. District Councils were established as conferences of chiefs in the mid-1940s and were given welfare and development functions in the 1950s. These local government institutions in the Protectorate developed mainly within the scope of chiefs' strong influence. The colonial legacy significantly affected local governance in post-independence Sierra Leone.
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  • Hidetoshi KONDO
    2007 Volume 2007 Issue 71 Pages 129-143
    Published: December 31, 2007
    Released on J-STAGE: August 13, 2012
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The approach of human security, which has currently been arousing a great interest in development circles in Japan, appears to share the same problem with its predecessors. It lacks the consideration of a crucial factor that development projects are not merely built on the basis of discourse and planning of overseas development experts but significantly influenced by political relationships and cultural logics of local people. This inattention is attributable to the way the development discourse has been formed; international organizations and experts have turned local experiences and knowledge into universal model of and for the realities of development, and the structure of its discourse that encourages experts to systematize the objects of development in time and space, including local personnel. According to Ferguson, such discourse may depoliticize local actors and produce an effect of the centralization of power in the hands of local bureaucrats and dominant parties. His ethnographic study illuminates this point in the failure of a rural development project in Lesotho as a consequence of the experts' ignorance of political action inserted into the project.
    In this regard, political studie s of African states can contribute to development practices. Despites myriads of locally specific political situations, the studies suggest the underlying similarities of political action among African politicians and bureaucrats; they tend to act as entrepreneurs who appropriate state resources and institutions for their benefit and distribute them along the network of dyadic personal relationships. While this practice may enable political entrepreneurs to amass considerable wealth, it produces a high level of uncertainty and risk. In a constantly changing situation, political entrepreneurs typically resort to an action that has both aspects of risk taking and risk avoidance. They escape as well as gamble instantly and individually in the game of chance. Such a tactical action, what Bayart calls extraversion, differs from the strategy of human security that aims to terminate risks. Thus, it is interactions betwe en development experts and political entrepreneurs that are likely to take place in the arenas of development in Africa. This means that they influence development projects through the contradictory tendencies of action; experts systematize them for universal cause, while entrepreneurs‘situationalize’them for individual profit. So far, their negotiations seem inconclusive and may perpetuate the process of development without completion.
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  • [in Japanese]
    2007 Volume 2007 Issue 71 Pages 151-152
    Published: December 31, 2007
    Released on J-STAGE: April 30, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • [in Japanese]
    2007 Volume 2007 Issue 71 Pages 153-154
    Published: December 31, 2007
    Released on J-STAGE: April 30, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • [in Japanese]
    2007 Volume 2007 Issue 71 Pages 155-157
    Published: December 31, 2007
    Released on J-STAGE: April 30, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • [in Japanese]
    2007 Volume 2007 Issue 71 Pages 157-159
    Published: December 31, 2007
    Released on J-STAGE: April 30, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • [in Japanese]
    2007 Volume 2007 Issue 71 Pages 160-162
    Published: December 31, 2007
    Released on J-STAGE: April 30, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • [in Japanese]
    2007 Volume 2007 Issue 71 Pages 162-164
    Published: December 31, 2007
    Released on J-STAGE: April 30, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • [in Japanese]
    2007 Volume 2007 Issue 71 Pages 164-166
    Published: December 31, 2007
    Released on J-STAGE: April 30, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • [in Japanese]
    2007 Volume 2007 Issue 71 Pages 166-168
    Published: December 31, 2007
    Released on J-STAGE: April 30, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • [in Japanese]
    2007 Volume 2007 Issue 71 Pages 168-170
    Published: December 31, 2007
    Released on J-STAGE: April 30, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • [in Japanese]
    2007 Volume 2007 Issue 71 Pages 170-172
    Published: December 31, 2007
    Released on J-STAGE: April 30, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • [in Japanese]
    2007 Volume 2007 Issue 71 Pages 172-174
    Published: December 31, 2007
    Released on J-STAGE: April 30, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • [in Japanese]
    2007 Volume 2007 Issue 71 Pages 174-176
    Published: December 31, 2007
    Released on J-STAGE: April 30, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • [in Japanese]
    2007 Volume 2007 Issue 71 Pages 176-178
    Published: December 31, 2007
    Released on J-STAGE: April 30, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • 2007 Volume 2007 Issue 71 Pages 179-182
    Published: December 31, 2007
    Released on J-STAGE: April 30, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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