For almost 60 years, Journal of African Studies (JAS) has been a major medium in Japan for Africanists to publish their academic work. This study performs a series of quantitative investigations of the entire corpus of the journal's first 99 issues (1964-2021). The corpus contains the nearly 650 articles and reports that have been published in these issues. Starting from fairly simple word-level examinations such as counting relevant named entities, the analysis proceeds in an increasingly elaborate and structural direction. In particular, this study applies dynamic topic models (DTM) to the corpus to uncover latent semantic groupings (“topics”) that, in their various mixtures, are presumed to generate the text of each article appearing in JAS. The estimated topics allow largely straightforward interpretation, representing a broad array of academic subjects such as “development,” “literature,” “education,” and “tourism” that have been covered by the journal with a varying degree of intensity. The study thus reveals the whole spectrum of research interests addressed by Africanists in Japan as well as their temporal evolution over the past six decades.

This paper reviewed important and recent studies on environmental change in Africa and recent climate change, including global trends and studies conducted in Japan, and prospected future issues. It summarized the findings of studies of environmental change on long-term chronological scales, studies of vegetation dynamics using satellite data, and elucidation of human-nature interactions based on fieldwork. In addition, the current status and future projections of climate change in Africa were reviewed, and the results of research on the impact of climate change on the natural environment at the regional scale in Africa were introduced. Finally, the research topics expected in the future in this research field are summarized.

In recent years, Japanese researchers have made further progress in their studies on African wildlife, diversifying their methods and subject animal species. Here, we introduce some of the research outcomes published by young Japanese researchers. For example, some studies on primates make use of long-term data which have been accumulated by various researchers. Other studies typical of those young researchers are those that incorporate laboratory methods. In addition to such studies on habituated animals, researchers also started to study animal species that are difficult to observe directly by using fecal analysis, trap cameras, etc. We argue that, in addition to new findings supported by technological development, more collaboration between researchers studying different animal species is essential in order to understand complex interspecies relationships in Africa. While the COVID-19 pandemic has forced Japanese researchers to suspend field research in most of oversea study sites, researchers are continuing research and conservation activities in cooperation with local research assistants and counterparts. We propose to develop a system that enables continuous monitoring of animals with the aids of local assistants. Such a system would be beneficial in case that Japanese researchers cannot visit their field sites. Finally, we emphasize the necessity to disseminate academic findings widely so as to increase public awareness in the wild animals and the environment in which they live. This would be inevitable to achieve wildlife conservation.

The history of biodiversity conservation in Africa began in the late 19th century, and since then, the paradigm and methodologies have changed, reflecting the social background and international situation of each era. Modern Africa has always been confronted with the issues of biodiversity conservation; this is indispensable for analyzing the problems Africa is facing today and considering future prospects of Africa. In this paper, we summarize the historical changes in the conservation paradigm, from fortress conservation to community-based conservation, and then to neoliberal conservation. We also describe contemporary issues of human rights violations against local people under conservation activities, such as “green grabbing” and “green militarization.” It is noted that the livelihoods and cultures of the local people have not been sufficiently accounted for in conservation policies, and a top-down structure led by governments and international organizations has been maintained. To solve this problem and effect improvements in conservation activities, we propose a natural resource management system based on “participatory monitoring” and “adaptive management.” For this purpose, African studies in Japan are expected to play significant roles because the studies have cultivated a profound understanding of local communities based on fieldwork and applied this to practical issues.

Examining of effectors with mutual impacts on nature and society and seeking of sustainable future relationships address important global issues, currently with most of the world's ecosystems affected by human activities. The perspective based on dualism of nature and humanity has been transformed into a hybrid concept that attempts to balance nature and society. This study aims to review existing research into nature and society and international movements geared toward tackling future threats to socio-ecosystems in Africa and to provide the future world with the prospect of a sustainable socio-ecosystem incorporating viewpoints of science and society. From the perspective of science, the importance of empirical studies to clarify the dynamism and resilience of specific ecosystems to the effects of human activities and the value of middle-to long-term monitoring are discussed. From the perspective of society, the importance of seeking coproduction with participation of multiple stakeholders, based on conditions in which many “sustainable future” pathways exist, is pointed out.

Human agriculture is a universal subject of study across all disciplines of the natural, humanities and social sciences. Since the Renaissance, however, “agricultural science” has mainly focused on European agriculture, and it is only relatively recently that indigenous African agriculture has been fairly treated as an object of modern science. In this paper, the brief history of studies on African agriculture in Europe and Japan and outline the main issues and trends in the field in recent years.

Since the 2000s, studies on African agriculture in Japan has been vigorously pursued with a generally impartial and objective attitude in the fields of agricultural origins and history, anthropology of farming and pastoralism, crop science and breeding, soil and environment, crop protection, animal husbandry and veterinary science, agricultural economics and rural sociology. Modern agriculture faces fundamental problems how it produces more food and how it produces food sustainably while conserving biodiversity. Overcoming these conflicting problems is the ultimate challenge in African agricultural studies, and further development of research by various methods in various fields is expected.

Since the 1990s, armed conflicts in Africa have been studied by a number of national and international scholars specialising in a wide range of fields including politics and anthropology. In particular, the nature of actions by the “international community” and humanitarian assistance in response to armed conflicts in Africa have been one of the major subjects of debate. The author was in charge of research and advocacy on humanitarian issues at Oxfam, an international non-governmental organisation, between 2003 and 2015. Along with Médecins Sans Frontières, Oxfam has been a driving force in the international debate on humanitarian aid and its principles since the 1990s, and has been widely analysed and criticised in the English language literature on humanitarian aid. Drawing on the author's experience at the organisation, this paper attempts to highlight the characteristics of the research on this topic in African studies in Japan and the challenges and possibilities that lie ahead.

In recent years, there has been increasing interest in whether and how place-based industrial policies contribute to local development and engineer structural change through spillover effects. A considerable amount of empirical literature examines these questions, and for a good reason: industrial policy is perhaps the most important tool policymakers have to promote development in a specific sector within a particular location. Still, their enormous costs, as well as disagreement over their benefits, remain subject to debate. This review paper synthesizes recent empirical research on the impacts of place-based industrial policies in low- and middle-income countries. I focus on specific aspects of place-based policies such as Special Economic Zones, Enterprise Zones, and Industrial parks. I conclude by connecting this to discussions of recent research efforts addressing key policy and empirical challenges, with a particular attention to Africa.

This paper sheds light on the relationship between education and society from the perspective of sociology and critically reviews how African education studies in Japan have been conducted to date. In this paper the term ‘schooled knowledge’ is expediently used in order to refer to knowledge that is constructed in school. First, the paper explains global trends in aid in the education sector since the 1960s with the influential theories behind them. The paper then describes how the trend has influenced Japanese aid and further education studies in Africa. Next, the paper discusses theories that critically examine modern education systems and structures in relation to society at large. The paper then explains contemporary dual viewpoints of the schooled society and schooling in society. Finally, the paper critically reviews how African education studies in Japan have been conducted with little critical reflection of modern education systems in African contexts and suggests the necessity of examining them from the critical and wider viewpoints of how learning is taking place both within and outside school contexts in Africa.

This paper presents the current trends in African linguistics in Japan. Based on the traditional focus on empirical description of individual languages, African linguistic studies in Japan are now developing into a new phase aiming to expand our knowledge on linguistic diversity and universals through cross-linguistic generalizations. This paper thus provides an overview of the three research fields representing the state-of-the-art in African linguistics in Japan, namely, 1) methodological innovation in African linguistics, 2) current development of intra-genetic typology of the Bantu languages, and 3) cutting-edge trends in the study of sign languages in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The history of African literature is characterized by the accumulation of continuous discussions by African writers about their self-existence and their actions. It is no exaggeration to say that the actions and creations of African writers are, in some way, responses to the debates on the definition of African literature, the identity as Africans, and the writers' ethical responsibilities. The former part of this paper reviews the achievements made by Japanese researchers who have dealt with African writers' works produced as a result of their self-questioning. The latter part of the paper discusses the problem that the above research results are mainly concerned with works written in European languages, and points out the need to turn our attention to the expressions in African languages. One of the reasons for the delay in the study of literature in African languages is the difficulty and limitation of research on books, except for some languages. Therefore, this paper proposes two main spaces apart from the book form — digital space and oral poetry — as targets that should be paid attention to when pursuing expressions in African languages. In addition, the paper proposes the term “African Verbal Arts” that can cover not only books but also various forms of expressive activities.

African historical studies have been a minor branch of African studies in Japan up until the beginning of this century. However, things have been rapidly changing in the recent years, as the younger generations of researchers have been publishing notable works, especially in the field of global history. It has been paramount for the Japanese historians to research African history by using sources not only from Europe and the United States but also Africa. Additionally, historical sources, whether written or unwritten, have been diversified, and research projects based on new methodologies have also been applied. Presently, it is anticipated that historical studies as a transnational discipline will develop and become more thorough in accordance with the global trends in African historical studies. Under these conditions, the Japanese (or Japan-based) historians are required to make contributions to the enrichment of African historical studies in the world, not only by improving their research by using more sophisticated empirical analytical methods, but also by providing new or alternative images of African history through the Japanese, and more broadly the Asian points of view and sources.

Historically, the Sahara had connected the north and the south of Africa through the oases. However, national histories have focused on the populated area, neglecting the unique experience of the Saharans. This article aims to revisit a question about the political belonging of the Saharans, which arose during the Algerian War, with reference to the oasis town located in the north-central Sahara: Wargla.

In the 1950s, France planned to build the new polity ‘Sahara Français’ as part of its colonial reforms. This plan was accompanied by the separation of the Saharan part of the territory of French Algeria, and it offered the people of the relevant area two possibilities: Algeria or Sahara Français. Confronted with this situation, the reactions of the inhabitants of Wargla were not uniform. The author explores the causes of their different attitudes, focusing on three caïds (muslim chiefs). After evaluating the changes in social status brought by their choices, they developed their strategies, and then decided their own political belongings. Thus, the pragmatic and specific political actions of the Saharans, which were not confined to the territorial perceptions utilized as a framework by most of historians, were revealed.

This study focuses on community development in the northern rural areas of Ghana under the socialist military regime PNDC in the early 1980s. During the “revolution” led by PNDC, popular movements occurred across the country. Especially in the rural communities, people organized the meetings and established schools, clinics, and communal farmlands. This paper analyzes what this collective phenomenon meant to the people and what kind of experience it was, based on the narratives of those who led the movement. The analysis revealed that prior to the revolution, the youth associatios started to emerge in the rural communities as new social groups, influenced by the expansion of schooling. These youth were trying to use the situation to gain impetus for social change. As a result of the interaction between the social transformation within the community and the “revolution,” the vertical relationship under traditional authority was pluralized, and community building through the inclusive participation of residents spread. This study pointed out that the experience of participating in such a process of social re-creation promoted awareness of the constructive nature of the society and people's consciousness as its subjects.

The glacier of Kilimanjaro (5,895 m) is decreasing rapidly due mainly to global climate change. In addition, Kilimanjaro plays an important role as a regional water catchment, also called “Water Tower.” Hence, in this study, based on the analysis of the glacier reduction area in recent years, we aim to elucidate the possibility that melting water from the shrinking glacier contributes to the hillside river water using the satellite image analysis and isotope analysis.

The results of previous research and satellite image analysis shows that the glaciers of Kilimanjaro have been shrinking at a fast rate during the period 1912-2019. The mean annual reduction area of glaciers has been increasing at 0.066 km² (1989-2000), 0.067 km² (2000-2010), and 0.088 km² (2010-2019), and if this rate continues, it is expected that glaciers will disappear from Kilimanjaro around 2030. As a result of oxygen and hydrogen isotope ratio analysis of river water and glacier meltwater, hillside river water in the dry season (δ¹⁸O =-6.48‰ ∼ -5.87‰, δD=-42.44‰ ∼ -37.36‰, 3,939m to 4,579m) is more similar to glacier meltwater near the summit (δ¹⁸O =-6.03‰ ∼ -5.14‰, δD=-48.19‰ ∼ -39.02‰) than to precipitation in the high altitude zone (δ¹⁸O=-2.41‰, δD=-3.6‰, 4,360 m), which indicates the contribution of glacier meltwater to hillside river water.

In Kilimanjaro, most of the climbers visit in the dry season. If the glaciers will disappear in the future and fill up the river water which is essential for running camps, it is possible that the local tourism industry will be affected.