Les Cahiers d Afrique de lEst
Journal Data
| Type | JOURNAL |
|---|---|
| Publisher | OpenEdition |
| ISSN | 2071-7245 / 2790-1076 |
| Wikidata | Q88349845 |
| OpenAlex | S4210208965 |
| MAG | 4210208965 |
| Website | https://journals.openedition.org/eastafrica |
| Total publications | 52 |
| Coverage period | 2008 - 2025 |
| Country | KE |
| Language | EN |
| Access | Open Access |
| Indexing | DOAJ indexed |
| Cited by | 14 |
| Impact factor | 0.091 |
| h-index | 3 |
This journal focuses on East African studies, which falls under area studies. Given the strong ethnographic and cultural content typical of such journals, it is a closely cognate venue that frequently publishes work relevant to social anthropologists
African history and culture analysis · African history and culture studies · African Studies and Ethnography · African Studies and Geopolitics · African studies and sociopolitical issues · Aging, Elder Care, and Social Issues · Agriculture and Rural Development Research · Caribbean and African Literature and Culture · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management
Ghosts of Bilateralism
International audience
Joseph Kiwanuka
Uganda is a prime example of the tensions that the development of “native” clergy aroused in the missionary world at the end of the colonial period. The first native bishop in sub-Saharan Africa in modern times, the White Father Joseph Kiwanuka, was appointed in 1939 to head the first African mission to be entrusted entirely to the local clergy: the apostolic vicariate of Masaka, in the Buddu region. Following the first decades of this mission, f…
Le plateau du Kinangop (Nyandarua County) dans la tourmente d’un modèle de conservation plantationnaire
Cet article vise à analyser la mise en œuvre du Lake Naivasha Basin Reforestation Project du WWF au Kenya sur le plateau du Kinangop (Nyandarua county), et plus largement dans le bassin versant du lac Naivasha. Notre analyse se concentre sur la manière dont les populations locales appréhendent les concepts de compensation carbone et de crédit carbone, et si et comment le projet de reforestation étudié participe à modifier les équilibres locaux, t…
Gendering Colonialism
This paper draws on archival evidence, supplemented with eye-witness accounts of the Bukusu colonial conquest. Employing Ashis Nandy’s schema of the psychology of colonialism and Homi Bhabha’s concept of cultural difference in an integrated theoretical approach, I demonstrate how the British incursion occasioned a clash of two ambivalent gender categories. Bukusu colonization was preceded by putative conceptions of manly character that elevated t…
The Avocado Race in East Africa
The aim of this article, on one hand, is to document the local effects of avocado expansion on rural societies in East Africa and, on the other, the promotion of this ‘pro-poor’ model by governments and investors. How is the avocado agro-export model being implemented in Kenya and Tanzania? The central hypothesis proposes that the spread of this fruit for export is manifested in the ‘avocado race’, i.e. a competitive agro-export market for avocad…
Réfugié·es en Ouganda
Depuis les années 1990, l’Ouganda s’est fait connaître sur la scène internationale pour son système d’accueil des réfugié·es, qualifié d’innovant et de progressiste. Cet article montre que derrière le succès humanitaire supposé de l’accueil des réfugié·es se cachent des enjeux politiques et géopolitiques concurrents entre le gouvernement ougandais et le Haut Commissariat des Nations unies pour les réfugiés (UNHCR). Pour le gouvernement ougandais,…
Appropriation of “Natural” Resources and Criminalisation of Peasant Communities
In Tanzania, the Rufiji floodplain is populated by people earning most of their living from agriculture and fisheries. Revenues from legal fishing hardly suffice for food security of households, and do not really allow for other investments or expenses. In order to earn enough money, for instance, to pay for secondary school fees, many villagers actually need to leave the legal fishing zones and, risking life and limb, penetrate the Selous Reserv…
Discussion Notes on ‘Digital Platforms and the Global South
Forest Carbon Offsetting in Kenya
The paper discusses the topic of forest carbon offset projects, focusing on the case of Kenya. The analysis follows 24 projects developed in the period 2010-2024, implemented in the framework of the Clean Development Mechanism or certified by three leading institutions in the voluntary carbon market (Verra, Gold Standard, Plan Vivo) and combines national-level analysis with insights into specific cases. The theoretical discussion follows four int…
Pouvoir colonial, idéologie raciale et violence structurelle en Ankole (Ouganda)
En Ankole, l’un des districts de l’Ouganda colonial, les colonisateurs britanniques conçoivent la société locale à travers une dichotomie racialisée entre deux catégories. Les Bahima sont perçus comme une race d’éleveurs « hamites », venus d’Éthiopie pour soumettre à leur domination une race d’agriculteurs « bantous », les Bairu. En 1907, l’administration coloniale produit un agreement, présenté comme une abolition du servage des Bairu. Si l’exis…
Problématique des candidatures indépendantes à travers la Constitution de juin 2018 et le Code électoral de mai 2019 au Burundi
Parmi les principaux amendements introduits dans le Code électoral de mai 2019, figure celui du statut et des conditions sous lesquels doivent se faire élire les candidats indépendants. La suppression des listes des indépendants que le législateur a qualifiées de « coalitions des indépendants » change la donne politique. Le candidat indépendant doit désormais se présenter individuellement pour affronter une liste présentée par les partis politiqu…
“Renaissance” of Akamba Benga Music in Postcolonial Kenya
This article presents a discussion on the reappropriation of benga musical style by the Akamba musicians, in the postcolonial period in Kenya. It analyses how ideas of the benga genre spread from Nyanza Province in Western Kenya thanks to its diffusion through the increased mobility of the Luo benga music pioneers, and its popularity with Nairobi audiences. This paper argues that Akamba musicians, often groomed in the village religious choirs, we…
Dynamique urbaine et développement d’îlots de chaleur urbains à Kigali, Rwanda
Kigali fait partie des villes d’Afrique de l’Est ayant connu une évolution spatiale et physique rapide à partir des années 2010. L’artificialisation des terres progresse au détriment des espaces boisés à cause de la densification du bâti et des routes bitumées ou pavées. Ces dynamiques urbaines contribuent au développement des îlots de chaleur. La littérature scientifique positionne les îlots de chaleur comme un enjeu environnemental et sociétal …
On the Tracks of Ujamaa
In 1967, Tanzania was a “poor and heterogenous country suffering from instability worsened by almost a century of colonialism, first by the Germans, and then by the British” (Martin 1988, 26). That same year, it set out on an economic and social development path that deeply transformed its historical trajectory: Ujamaa, in Kiswahili, or “African socialism” in its official English translation. The “Tanzanian experiment” of socialism (Lonsdale 1968…
The Nairobi Castaways
This article is a critique of Nairobi city’s socio-political histories as portrayed in Kenyan literary works of the 1970s, focusing on Mwangi Gicheru’s Across the Bridge (1979), Charles Mangua’s Son of Woman (1971), Meja Mwangi’s Going Down River Road (1976) and The Cockroach Dance (1979). The article conveys insights on urban castaways by reading the city as a canvas onto which novels reconfigure the nation’s histories that feature through vario…
Présences congolaises (RDC) à Nairobi
Le présent article est issu d’une enquête ethnographique exploratoire de plusieurs mois, menée auprès de membres de la diaspora congolaise (RDC) à Nairobi, Kenya. Il vise à rendre compte de la diversité des modalités d’insertion urbaine et sociale de cette diaspora en fonction de critères de génération (temporalités), genre, classe, statuts administratifs, âge etc. Ces « présences congolaises » sont plurielles et participent à la production par l…
‘Art is my weapon’
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, at Goma, the capital city of the province of North Kivu in the east of the country, a collective of slammers unleash "eruptions of words" 1 to salve the ills of the inhabitants whose lives are blighted by the state of permanent war and to make the population aware of their rights with regard to the political authorities.Their aspirations and their functioning are in phase with those of the militants of LUC…
Kenyan Scholars on Kenyan Land
Introduction Smallholder settlement schemes have played a central role in economic and political development strategies in postcolonial Kenya. The schemes are state-sponsored land allocation programs that settle farmers on state land, aiming to address issues of landlessness and poverty, and to promote rural development. They are a constant in the post-colonial history of Kenya. (Boone, Lukalo and Joireman 2022). In the transition to Kenyan indep…
How Officialising Private Land Ownership Contributed to Land-grabbing in Kenya
The vernacular meaning of land-grabbing in Kenya stresses the role played by the State in land thefts, reminding us that, historically, state power was built up through control over land. Accusations of land grabbing also convey territorial representations of ethnic and national belonging, anchoring the legitimacy of land ownership. We focus on the actors and scales involved in officialising private land ownership to highlight institutionally-roo…
Power Imbalance in Africa-China Investment and Development Deals
This paper seeks to flag the reality of the socio-economic impact of power imbalance in the negotiation and implementation of infrastructural projects constructed in Zimbabwe and funded by China Exim Bank, China’s main financial arm in Africa. Reviewing the China-Zimbabwe financial deals concluded during President Mugabe’s regime from 2000 to 2018, I use existing credible online-available data and draw on analysis conducted in the framework of a …
The Changing Balance in Households amidst the Shocks of the Covid-19 Pandemic
In Kenya, the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing government policy on the prevention of the spread of the pandemic pushed poor urban households into extreme mental, social and economic stress. This study shows the impact of pandemic containment public policies on everyday life in Kamukunji, a low-income urban settlement in the region of Eldoret. It discusses the ability of social protection measures to palliate the socioeconomic consequences of co…
‘The Disease of the Rich’
This article analyses the political construction in Kenya of the confusion between health prevention and law enforcement during the COVID-19 pandemic. Kenya’s security approach to the management of the COVID-19 situation went along with extortion mechanisms—the numerous exceptions to containment indeed made it possible to extract rent. The fear of the virus initially legitimised coercive measures which have now declined; but deviant practice link…
The Radio Polity
In the Rwenzori region of Uganda, radio drives the “bureaucratisation of the world.” By encouraging the creation of “listeners’ forums,” it produces pernickety technocrats and watchful citizens. Old patterns of leadership, based on patronage and the endorsement of a pedagogic mission to enlighten the masses, are renewed through the spirit of neoliberalism. These radio shows breathe new life into the State and bring it back in the centre of develo…
Old Scandals, New Memories
A stuffed leopard more than a century old named Mayanja was destroyed on the 16th of March 2010 during the fire that raked Kasubi (Kampala, Uganda)—the royal tombs of the Kings of Buganda—listed among Unesco World heritage sites. Mayanja was a leopard, a god, a river with execution sites running through the heart of the kingdom of Buganda, a spirit, a prince and a twin born from royal incest. In Mayanja history is layered, with successive myths o…
Le travail ouvrier au Burundi
Cet article traite du travail ouvrier et de sa contribution à la construction d’une identité socio-économique ouvrière au Burundi. Il se penche sur le cas de la Société Sucrière du Moso, la SOSUMO, l’unique entreprise de production de sucre dans tout le pays qui emploie environ 500 contractuels ainsi que des milliers de saisonniers chaque année travaillant dans les plantations et à l’usine. Sur la base d’entretiens et d’observations qui nous mett…
On the Tracks of Ujamaa
In 1967, Tanzania was a “poor and heterogenous country suffering from instability worsened by almost a century of colonialism, first by the Germans, and then by the British” (Martin 1988, 26). That same year, it set out on an economic and social development path that deeply transformed its historical trajectory: Ujamaa, in Kiswahili, or “African socialism” in its official English translation. The “Tanzanian experiment” of socialism (Lonsdale 1968…
J. K. Nyerere entre mythe et histoire
analyse de la production d'une mmoire publique officielle en Tanzanie post-socialiste Les commmorations de la disparition du pre de la nation Marie-Aude Four
Key Issues in Disentangling the Kenyan Crisis
In Kenya, as elsewhere, it is not unusual to construe in xenophobic terms the injustices that have been experienced. Grievances have been translated into a language of indigenous and territorial claims to land. Not going along with this rhetoric enables us to take the measure of existing injustices
The struggle for space
Contemporary Kenyan nation-state was born out of the imperialist project of European colonialism in Africa. While maintaining the fundamental tenets of the Western nation, especially with regard to law, economics and political organisation the nation-state in Kenya became a tool of Western control, domination and exploitation of the Kenyan people. 2 Control, domination and exploitation were, in turn, consummated by powerful Christian religious pr…
Population movement, settlement and the construction of society to the east of Lake Victoria in precolonial times
The communities’ in Nyanza and Western Kenya situated to the east of Lake Victoria have come from various directions to their present day settlements. They encompass two linguistic families the Bantu and the Nilotic. These communities came from different directions but interacted with each other and borrowed extensively from each other. The Abaluhya sub-groups which moved to western Kenya from eastern Uganda are likely to have been the earliest s…
Interpreting Medieval to Post-Medieval Seafaring in South East Tanzania Using 18th- to 20th-Century Charts and Sailing Directions
Introduction This paper examines the historic sea charts and sailing directions to interpret maritime travel and so aid archaeological survey and excavation in ports around Kilwa in South East Tanzania (Figure 1). Surviving reliable charts for this region largely post-date 1750, but the relative stability of coastal morphology, weather systems, and sailing technology prior to the age of steam in the latter part of the 19th century, ensure that th…
The Political Economy of Makerere Reforms via a Qualitative Approach
Introduction Compared with the national universities of the neighbouring countries of Tanzania and Kenya, whose recent transformations have not been studied much until now, Makerere University has generated a wide range of scientific research and consultancies in the past decade (Bisaso, 2010; Court, 1999; Kasozi, 2000 & 2009; Kiiza, 1997; Mamdani, 2007; Musisi, 2002; Sicherman, 2005). The famous and historical Ugandan institution of higher educa…
Être Chez-soi en Afrique de l’Est
Les Cahiers d'Afrique de l'Est / The East African Review tre Chez-soi en Afrique de l'Est Enjeux de territorialisation et rapport la ville (Arusha-Tanzanie)
La fabrique d’un saint en Tanzanie post-socialiste
Les Cahiers d'Afrique de l'Est / The East African Review La fabrique d'un saint en Tanzanie post-socialiste Les Cahiers d'Afrique de l'Est / The East African Review, 39 | 2008 1 1. Retour sur le processus canonique 2
The Economic Consequences of the Political Crisis
On the eve of the elections, the Kenyan economy was presented as the best performing in a region marked by armed conflicts (Ethiopia, Uganda, Somalia, Sudan or the Great Lakes region) and, thus sometimes experienced chaotic economic development. The political crisis led to the closure of factories, to the accumulation of delays in supplies, to cancellation after cancellation by tour operators in the tourism sector and even to the collapse of the …
Key Issues in Disentangling the Kenyan Crisis
In Kenya, as elsewhere, it is not unusual to construe in xenophobic terms the injustices that have been experienced. Grievances have been translated into a language of indigenous and territorial claims to land. Not going along with this rhetoric enables us to take the measure of existing injustices
Sous la menace des masheitani
Les Cahiers d'Afrique de l'Est / The East African Review Sous la menace des masheitani Des esprits et des hommes à ZanzibarMarco Motta « Il est des sentiers que nul n'a foulés, mille ressources de santé, des centaines d'îlots secrets de la vie.On n'a encore épuisé ni découvert l'homme lui-même, ni la terre de l'homme » Friedrich Nietzsche, Ainsi parlait Zarathoustra.Préambule 1 À l'origine de cette étude, se trouve un intérêt particulièrement mar…
The struggle for space
Contemporary Kenyan nation-state was born out of the imperialist project of European colonialism in Africa. While maintaining the fundamental tenets of the Western nation, especially with regard to law, economics and political organisation the nation-state in Kenya became a tool of Western control, domination and exploitation of the Kenyan people. 2 Control, domination and exploitation were, in turn, consummated by powerful Christian religious pr…
J. K. Nyerere entre mythe et histoire
analyse de la production d'une mmoire publique officielle en Tanzanie post-socialiste Les commmorations de la disparition du pre de la nation Marie-Aude Four
Tanzanie (République Unie de)
Image 1. 10 000 shillings tanzaniens (KSh) En République Unie de Tanzanie, on se souviendra incontestablement de 2008 comme l’année des grands scandales politico-financiers. Plongeant leurs racines dans la période qui a suivi l’entrée dans le capitalisme économique et financier ouvert en 1985, facilités par l’abolition des limites posées à l’enrichissement des hommes politiques (héritées de l’époque socialiste et connues sous le nom de Code des d…
The Political Economy of Makerere Reforms via a Qualitative Approach
Introduction Compared with the national universities of the neighbouring countries of Tanzania and Kenya, whose recent transformations have not been studied much until now, Makerere University has generated a wide range of scientific research and consultancies in the past decade (Bisaso, 2010; Court, 1999; Kasozi, 2000 & 2009; Kiiza, 1997; Mamdani, 2007; Musisi, 2002; Sicherman, 2005). The famous and historical Ugandan institution of higher educa…
Interpreting Medieval to Post-Medieval Seafaring in South East Tanzania Using 18th- to 20th-Century Charts and Sailing Directions
Introduction This paper examines the historic sea charts and sailing directions to interpret maritime travel and so aid archaeological survey and excavation in ports around Kilwa in South East Tanzania (Figure 1). Surviving reliable charts for this region largely post-date 1750, but the relative stability of coastal morphology, weather systems, and sailing technology prior to the age of steam in the latter part of the 19th century, ensure that th…
Population movement, settlement and the construction of society to the east of Lake Victoria in precolonial times
The communities’ in Nyanza and Western Kenya situated to the east of Lake Victoria have come from various directions to their present day settlements. They encompass two linguistic families the Bantu and the Nilotic. These communities came from different directions but interacted with each other and borrowed extensively from each other. The Abaluhya sub-groups which moved to western Kenya from eastern Uganda are likely to have been the earliest s…
The Age Factor in Linguistic Variation
This paper deals with age as a linguistic variable in the use of Kiswahili among ordinary citizens in Busia town at the Kenya-Uganda border. I chose age over other possible factors because it emerged as a salient ground for variation in the use of Kiswahili among ordinary citizens in my PhD research on language as a lived practice. Thus, the paper is intended to demonstrate how the ordinary citizens in Busia use Kiswahili across three different a…
Les étudiants guinéens face aux incertitudes de l’insertion professionnelle
Cet article étudie la « passion scolaire » des jeunes guinéens qui les pousse à mener des études supérieures et qui incite leurs parents à les soutenir. Il s’agit de s’interroger sur les facteurs de l’engagement des étudiants à poursuivre de longues études universitaires alors qu’une majorité d’entre eux seront exposés au chômage. Il importe pour cela de présenter et discuter les représentations que ces jeunes se font à la fois de l’institution u…
Enseignement supérieur dans les Afriques
Les systèmes d’enseignement supérieur dans les Afriques sont l’objet aujourd’hui de profondes mutations. Des dynamiques communes, comme la diversification et la mise en marché de l’offre de formation, la refonte des cycles universitaires ou l’accent mis sur les mécanismes d’assurance-qualité s’observent à travers l’ensemble du continent. Ces transformations s’intègrent dans le temps de la globalisation et dans l’espace de la convergence des systè…
La réforme du système « Licence Master Doctorat » de l’enseignement supérieur au Burundi
Nombre de pays africains ont aligné leurs systèmes éducatifs sur des modèles importés de l’Occident pour des raisons à la fois politiques, économiques et diplomatiques. Aussi, le système du LDM (Licence-Master-Doctorat) d’origine européenne a été adopté dans plusieurs pays d’Afrique, dont le Burundi. Cet article s’intéresse au processus de mise en place de la réforme du système LMD, financée et portée par la coopération française, les bailleurs d…
A Wasted Eden
This research paper historicizes colonial water management policies in Kitui, Kenya, under the British colonial state. British development policy weaponized water shortages in order to enforce destocking amongst Kamba populations, leading to a wide array of ecological challenges. The paper contends that the state’s use of water as a tool of population management and land improvement was based on flawed ideas of society and environment that ultima…
Pour qui l’autochtonie a-t-elle du sens
entre dveloppement international et rappropriations populaires au Burundi
Étudier l’enseignement supérieur dans les Afriques
Sur le continent, comme en Afrique du Sud depuis 2015, des étudiants se mobilisent pour protester contre la hausse des frais d’inscription à l’université, dénoncer la mise en marché de l’éducation et interroger le contenu et les finalités de l’enseignement supérieur (Botiveau 2016). Ici, dans les pays francophones, des enseignants participent à de nombreux ateliers chargés de transcrire leur maquette de formation au format LMD (Licence Master Doc…
French Research Institutes in the English-Speaking African Academic Market
This article focuses on the integration of French research institutes in Africa into the world of research in English-speaking Africa, starting by the Kenyan case. Faced with the development of a market for research guided by development donors, the institute offers a critical and independent research model but does not necessarily meet the expectations of donors or academic partners. These are indeed attracted by this lucrative market, and must …
La fabrique des politiques de l’enseignement supérieur au prisme des carrières professionnelles des experts
La littérature scientifique spécialisée sur les recompositions des systèmes universitaires africains comporte une hypothèse en filigrane, plus souvent affirmée que réellement démontrée : le contexte de régime d’aide des Etats et des gouvernements sur le continent africain engagerait une dépendance à l’expertise internationale dans la fabrique des politiques de l’enseignement supérieur. Aussi, plus un gouvernement dépendrait de l’aide internationa…
L’enseignement supérieur au regard du marché du travail au Mozambique
Cet article examine les réformes de l’enseignement supérieur au Mozambique à partir d’une approche relationnelle qui croise l’université et le marché de l’emploi. En utilisant des méthodes qualitatives, il montre que le fonctionnement des universités est fortement influencé par certaines modalités spécifiques d’accès à l’emploi. La littérature sur les réformes de l’enseignement supérieur, notamment en Afrique, se centre en grande partie sur le ma…
Studying Higher Education in Multi-Faceted Africa
Students across the continent, for example in South Africa since 2015, have mobilised to protest the increase in university tuition fees, condemn the marketisation of education, and question the content and purpose of higher education (Botiveau 2016). In the Francophone countries of Africa, academic staff have attended a great many workshops aiming to reconfigure their study programmes according to the Licence (Bachelor)-Master-Doctorate (LMD) mo…
Femrite Uganda Women Writers’ Association
Today] a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction; and that, as you will see, leaves the great problem of the true nature of woman and the true nature of fiction unsolved." Virginia Woolf (2000 (1929): 51) When you go to FEMRITE today, you have to take the busy Kira road in Kampala, Uganda's capital city, and stop in front of a big metallic green gate. On your first visit, you knock for ten minutes before someone com…
Le travail ouvrier au Burundi
Cet article traite du travail ouvrier et de sa contribution à la construction d’une identité socio-économique ouvrière au Burundi. Il se penche sur le cas de la Société Sucrière du Moso, la SOSUMO, l’unique entreprise de production de sucre dans tout le pays qui emploie environ 500 contractuels ainsi que des milliers de saisonniers chaque année travaillant dans les plantations et à l’usine. Sur la base d’entretiens et d’observations qui nous mett…
‘The Men Watching Our Borders’
Non-state armed groups have been the subject of research in Kenya for a long time. Many of them emerge in response to social, political, and economic inequalities and the dissatisfactions they engender. Kenyan society is marked by unemployment, a huge gap between the rich and the poor, and marginalization due to ethnic-based politics. As a result, almost every region in Kenya has registered at least one instance of activity by a non-state armed g…