Ato Kwamena Onoma
Biographic Data
| ID | 217898 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ato Kwamena Onoma |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ato Kwamena |
| FAMILY NAME | Onoma |
| SIGNATURE | ONOMA A K |
| AFFILIATIONS | Yale University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2033-6324 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 32 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
African Politics of Survival Extraversion and Informality in the Contemporary World
(Re) making Bodies
Security Regimens in Africa
Faith-based Segregation of Interments in Joal-Fadiouth
Codesria’s Meaning-making Research Initiative (MRI)
Godwin Murunga, Ato Kwamena Onoma & Ibrahim Oanda Ogachi
The Allure of Scapegoating Return Migrants during a Pandemic
The stigmatization of Senegalese return migrants as COVID-19 vectors by fellow Senegalese during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic troubles the self/other distinction that underpins the scholarly focus on epidemics and xeno phobia and encourages the broader task of exploring epidemics and phobia. The casting of return migrants as COVID-19 vectors was influenced by longstanding ambivalence toward these migrants that had encouraged some Seneg…
Epidemics, Xenophobia and Narratives of Propitiousness
The heightening of exclusionary practices targeting migrants during epidemics often creates dilemmas for perpetrators whose resolution undermines the foundational structures of xenophobic narratives. For many perpetrators of xenophobic acts, epidemics amplify dilemmas rooted in the chasm between neat dichotomizing exclusionary tropes and messy social realities. Escape efforts involving fabricating categories of special migrants that can be spared…
Xenophobia's Contours During an Ebola Epidemic
This article examines the effect of geographical proximity on targeting patterns during Ebola-era xenophobic outbursts by Senegalese against a migrant Peul population of Guinean origins. It highlights the limited extent to which epidemics shape the micro-dynamics of outbreaks of xenophobia during public health crises, demonstrating that epidemics are not defining events that inflect inter-group relations. They mostly reinforce long-persisting pat…
Should Christians and Muslims Cohabit after Death? Diverging Views in a Senegalese Commune
The faith-based segregation of interments
In Senegal’s Thies Region, Joal has separate cemeteries for Muslims and Christians, while the neighbouring community of Fadiouth has one cemetery for the dead of all faiths. This paper uses these cases to shed light on why some communities have separate cemeteries for people of different faiths while others bury people of all faiths in the same cemetery. I argue that the manner in which Christianity and Islam spread in the two communities explain…
Epidemics and intra-communal contestations
As the Ebola epidemic ravaged the Mano River Basin in 2014, there was concern in Senegal that the resident Peul community of Guinean origins will cause the spread of the disease to Senegal. These fears went unrealized as the Peul migrants embraced many of the epidemic control and prevention measures, which often distanced them from primordial publics in Guinea. While partly motivated by concern over the dangers of Ebola, Peul migrants embraced th…
The Grave Preferences of Mourides in Senegal
Burial in cemeteries created by and on the orders of Cheikh Amadou Bamba, the founder of the Mouride Sufi order in Senegal, is said to guarantee passage to paradise. While many Mourides, understandably, prefer to have their corpses transported for burial in these cemeteries, others opt to be interred elsewhere. Focusing on the commune of Joal-Fadiouth in Senegal, I argue that the choices of Mourides concerning place of burial are influenced by hi…
The Making of Dangerous Communities
Epidemics of contagious diseases often motivate the social constitution of 'dangerous communities.' These communities are defined as having a high potential to further spread the diseases involved to a wider public. Migrant communities' links with sick people in places of origin that are badly affected by such diseases ostensibly justify the construction of these communities as epidemic dangers to their places of residence. But this depiction of …
Transition regimes and security sector reforms in Sierra Leone and Liberia
Why are some countries more successful at carrying out post-conflict reconstruction programmes than others? Why has Sierra Leone been more successful in the reform of its armed forces than Liberia has after the end of the Mano River Basin wars? This paper argues that the diverging outcomes are explained by the extent to which post-conflict regimes reflected the distribution of power on the ground in the two countries. Sierra Leone’s transition re…
Transition Regimes and Security Sector Reforms in Sierra Leone and Liberia
Why are some countries more successful at carrying out postconflict reconstruction programs than are others? Sierra Leone and Liberia have similar histories and suffered wars that were intimately linked. When the wars ended, foreign-backed efforts were undertaken to reform the security sector in each country. These reforms were more successful in Sierra Leone than in Liberia. This article argues that the diverging outcomes are explained by the ex…
Anti-Refugee Violence and African Politics
Using comparative cases from Guinea, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, this study explains why some refugee-hosting communities launch large-scale attacks on civilian refugees whereas others refrain from such attacks even when encouraged to do so by state officials. Ato Kwamena Onoma argues that such outbreaks only happen when states instigate them because of links between a few refugees and opposition groups. Locals embrace these att…
Exploring Intersections
Many African countries have undertaken transitions to democratic rule since the early 1990s. While giving many people the rare opportunity to vote in com- petitive and pluralistic elections, there have been limits to the empowering ef- fects of these transitions for many. The paper argues that the continued use of English, French and Portuguese in state and academic activities has minimised the empowering effects of these democratic transitions. …
The Use of Land to Generate Political Support
The Politics of Property Rights Institutions in Africa
Why do some political leaders create and strengthen institutions like title registries and land tribunals that secure property rights to land while others neglect these institutions or destroy those that already exist? How do these institutions evolve once they have been established? This book answers these questions through spatial and temporal comparison of national and subnational cases from Botswana, Ghana, and Kenya and, to a lesser extent, …
Explaining Institutional Change
This book contributes to emerging debates in political science and sociology on institutional change. Its introductory essay proposes a new framework for analyzing incremental change that is grounded in a power-distributional view of institutions and that emphasizes ongoing struggles within but also over prevailing institutional arrangements. Five empirical essays then bring the general theory to life by evaluating its causal propositions in the …
Mutual Gains from Hostile Confrontations
This article argues that hostile confrontations between state and societal actors pursuing divergent goals can sometimes end up empowering both. In Botswana, successful efforts by less powerful clients to reclaim the power to allocate land from land boards through various stratagems ended up also strengthening the land boards and also the state. By tricking land boards into legitimizing plots on which they had squatted, clients brought their land…
The politics of property rights institutions in Africa
Why do some political leaders create and strengthen institutions like title registries and land tribunals that secure property rights to land while others neglect these institutions or destroy those that already exist? How do these institutions evolve once they have been established? This book answers these questions through spatial and temporal comparison of national and subnational cases from Botswana, Ghana, and Kenya and, to a lesser extent, …
The Making of Dangerous Communities
Epidemics of contagious diseases often motivate the social constitution of 'dangerous communities.' These communities are defined as having a high potential to further spread the diseases involved to a wider public. Migrant communities' links with sick people in places of origin that are badly affected by such diseases ostensibly justify the construction of these communities as epidemic dangers to their places of residence. But this depiction of …
The Allure of Scapegoating Return Migrants during a Pandemic
The stigmatization of Senegalese return migrants as COVID-19 vectors by fellow Senegalese during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic troubles the self/other distinction that underpins the scholarly focus on epidemics and xeno phobia and encourages the broader task of exploring epidemics and phobia. The casting of return migrants as COVID-19 vectors was influenced by longstanding ambivalence toward these migrants that had encouraged some Seneg…
Xenophobia's Contours During an Ebola Epidemic
This article examines the effect of geographical proximity on targeting patterns during Ebola-era xenophobic outbursts by Senegalese against a migrant Peul population of Guinean origins. It highlights the limited extent to which epidemics shape the micro-dynamics of outbreaks of xenophobia during public health crises, demonstrating that epidemics are not defining events that inflect inter-group relations. They mostly reinforce long-persisting pat…
Epidemics, Xenophobia and Narratives of Propitiousness
The heightening of exclusionary practices targeting migrants during epidemics often creates dilemmas for perpetrators whose resolution undermines the foundational structures of xenophobic narratives. For many perpetrators of xenophobic acts, epidemics amplify dilemmas rooted in the chasm between neat dichotomizing exclusionary tropes and messy social realities. Escape efforts involving fabricating categories of special migrants that can be spared…
Epidemics and intra-communal contestations
As the Ebola epidemic ravaged the Mano River Basin in 2014, there was concern in Senegal that the resident Peul community of Guinean origins will cause the spread of the disease to Senegal. These fears went unrealized as the Peul migrants embraced many of the epidemic control and prevention measures, which often distanced them from primordial publics in Guinea. While partly motivated by concern over the dangers of Ebola, Peul migrants embraced th…
The Grave Preferences of Mourides in Senegal
Burial in cemeteries created by and on the orders of Cheikh Amadou Bamba, the founder of the Mouride Sufi order in Senegal, is said to guarantee passage to paradise. While many Mourides, understandably, prefer to have their corpses transported for burial in these cemeteries, others opt to be interred elsewhere. Focusing on the commune of Joal-Fadiouth in Senegal, I argue that the choices of Mourides concerning place of burial are influenced by hi…
The faith-based segregation of interments
In Senegal’s Thies Region, Joal has separate cemeteries for Muslims and Christians, while the neighbouring community of Fadiouth has one cemetery for the dead of all faiths. This paper uses these cases to shed light on why some communities have separate cemeteries for people of different faiths while others bury people of all faiths in the same cemetery. I argue that the manner in which Christianity and Islam spread in the two communities explain…
Transition Regimes and Security Sector Reforms in Sierra Leone and Liberia
Why are some countries more successful at carrying out postconflict reconstruction programs than are others? Sierra Leone and Liberia have similar histories and suffered wars that were intimately linked. When the wars ended, foreign-backed efforts were undertaken to reform the security sector in each country. These reforms were more successful in Sierra Leone than in Liberia. This article argues that the diverging outcomes are explained by the ex…
The Politics of Property Rights Institutions in Africa
Why do some political leaders create and strengthen institutions like title registries and land tribunals that secure property rights to land while others neglect these institutions or destroy those that already exist? How do these institutions evolve once they have been established? This book answers these questions through spatial and temporal comparison of national and subnational cases from Botswana, Ghana, and Kenya and, to a lesser extent, …
Explaining Institutional Change
This book contributes to emerging debates in political science and sociology on institutional change. Its introductory essay proposes a new framework for analyzing incremental change that is grounded in a power-distributional view of institutions and that emphasizes ongoing struggles within but also over prevailing institutional arrangements. Five empirical essays then bring the general theory to life by evaluating its causal propositions in the …
Mutual Gains from Hostile Confrontations
This article argues that hostile confrontations between state and societal actors pursuing divergent goals can sometimes end up empowering both. In Botswana, successful efforts by less powerful clients to reclaim the power to allocate land from land boards through various stratagems ended up also strengthening the land boards and also the state. By tricking land boards into legitimizing plots on which they had squatted, clients brought their land…
The politics of property rights institutions in Africa
Why do some political leaders create and strengthen institutions like title registries and land tribunals that secure property rights to land while others neglect these institutions or destroy those that already exist? How do these institutions evolve once they have been established? This book answers these questions through spatial and temporal comparison of national and subnational cases from Botswana, Ghana, and Kenya and, to a lesser extent, …
Exploring Intersections
Many African countries have undertaken transitions to democratic rule since the early 1990s. While giving many people the rare opportunity to vote in com- petitive and pluralistic elections, there have been limits to the empowering ef- fects of these transitions for many. The paper argues that the continued use of English, French and Portuguese in state and academic activities has minimised the empowering effects of these democratic transitions. …
The Use of Land to Generate Political Support
Anti-Refugee Violence and African Politics
Using comparative cases from Guinea, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, this study explains why some refugee-hosting communities launch large-scale attacks on civilian refugees whereas others refrain from such attacks even when encouraged to do so by state officials. Ato Kwamena Onoma argues that such outbreaks only happen when states instigate them because of links between a few refugees and opposition groups. Locals embrace these att…
Transition regimes and security sector reforms in Sierra Leone and Liberia
Why are some countries more successful at carrying out post-conflict reconstruction programmes than others? Why has Sierra Leone been more successful in the reform of its armed forces than Liberia has after the end of the Mano River Basin wars? This paper argues that the diverging outcomes are explained by the extent to which post-conflict regimes reflected the distribution of power on the ground in the two countries. Sierra Leone’s transition re…
Transition Regimes and Security Sector Reforms in Sierra Leone and Liberia
Why are some countries more successful at carrying out postconflict reconstruction programs than are others? Sierra Leone and Liberia have similar histories and suffered wars that were intimately linked. When the wars ended, foreign-backed efforts were undertaken to reform the security sector in each country. These reforms were more successful in Sierra Leone than in Liberia. This article argues that the diverging outcomes are explained by the ex…
The Making of Dangerous Communities
Epidemics of contagious diseases often motivate the social constitution of 'dangerous communities.' These communities are defined as having a high potential to further spread the diseases involved to a wider public. Migrant communities' links with sick people in places of origin that are badly affected by such diseases ostensibly justify the construction of these communities as epidemic dangers to their places of residence. But this depiction of …
The faith-based segregation of interments
In Senegal’s Thies Region, Joal has separate cemeteries for Muslims and Christians, while the neighbouring community of Fadiouth has one cemetery for the dead of all faiths. This paper uses these cases to shed light on why some communities have separate cemeteries for people of different faiths while others bury people of all faiths in the same cemetery. I argue that the manner in which Christianity and Islam spread in the two communities explain…
Epidemics and intra-communal contestations
As the Ebola epidemic ravaged the Mano River Basin in 2014, there was concern in Senegal that the resident Peul community of Guinean origins will cause the spread of the disease to Senegal. These fears went unrealized as the Peul migrants embraced many of the epidemic control and prevention measures, which often distanced them from primordial publics in Guinea. While partly motivated by concern over the dangers of Ebola, Peul migrants embraced th…
The Grave Preferences of Mourides in Senegal
Burial in cemeteries created by and on the orders of Cheikh Amadou Bamba, the founder of the Mouride Sufi order in Senegal, is said to guarantee passage to paradise. While many Mourides, understandably, prefer to have their corpses transported for burial in these cemeteries, others opt to be interred elsewhere. Focusing on the commune of Joal-Fadiouth in Senegal, I argue that the choices of Mourides concerning place of burial are influenced by hi…
Should Christians and Muslims Cohabit after Death? Diverging Views in a Senegalese Commune
Epidemics, Xenophobia and Narratives of Propitiousness
The heightening of exclusionary practices targeting migrants during epidemics often creates dilemmas for perpetrators whose resolution undermines the foundational structures of xenophobic narratives. For many perpetrators of xenophobic acts, epidemics amplify dilemmas rooted in the chasm between neat dichotomizing exclusionary tropes and messy social realities. Escape efforts involving fabricating categories of special migrants that can be spared…
Xenophobia's Contours During an Ebola Epidemic
This article examines the effect of geographical proximity on targeting patterns during Ebola-era xenophobic outbursts by Senegalese against a migrant Peul population of Guinean origins. It highlights the limited extent to which epidemics shape the micro-dynamics of outbreaks of xenophobia during public health crises, demonstrating that epidemics are not defining events that inflect inter-group relations. They mostly reinforce long-persisting pat…
African Politics of Survival Extraversion and Informality in the Contemporary World
(Re) making Bodies
Security Regimens in Africa
Faith-based Segregation of Interments in Joal-Fadiouth
Codesria’s Meaning-making Research Initiative (MRI)
Godwin Murunga, Ato Kwamena Onoma & Ibrahim Oanda Ogachi
The Allure of Scapegoating Return Migrants during a Pandemic
The stigmatization of Senegalese return migrants as COVID-19 vectors by fellow Senegalese during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic troubles the self/other distinction that underpins the scholarly focus on epidemics and xeno phobia and encourages the broader task of exploring epidemics and phobia. The casting of return migrants as COVID-19 vectors was influenced by longstanding ambivalence toward these migrants that had encouraged some Seneg…
Political science (19 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Law (12 works) · Politics (10 works) · Geography (9 works) · Economics (8 works) · Development economics (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Criminology (5 works) · Political economy (5 works)