Já se encontra disponível o nº 2 da Revista The Journal of US-Africa Studies

Para leitura integral: 

https://ojs.letras.up.pt/index.php/AfricaStudies/issue/view/854

 

Índice

  • Editorial (pág.5)
  • US-AFRICA
    • Maciel Santos - Rents in the political economy of colonial Angola – from the coffee boom to Cabinda Gulf (p.10)
    • Isabel Lourenço - US Administrations and Morocco from 1974 to 2021: The Double Standards of a Political Machine in Regard to the Western Sahara Conflict(p. 54)Soror oumeddour- U.S. Cultural Exchange Programs in Algeria: Opportunities and Challenges (p. 90)
  • AFRICAN ISSUES
    • Martin Raymond Willy MBOG IBOCK - La Transformation des Politiques Publiques de la Santé au Cameroun(p. 108)
    • Bahdon Abdillahi Mohamed - Dialogue ou Diversion des Membre de L’Elite Leader en Afrique Francophone (p. 146)

Editorial

The US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken’s statement on his country believing that it is time to “stop “treating Africa as a subject of geopolitics” and “start treating it as the major geopolitical player it has become,” shows that Africa is clearly having an increasing importance in the United States foreign policy agenda. Moving from the bottom of the priorities to being a major focus of the US government implies that the United States is engaged with Africa and playing an active role in fostering its vision in the region. In light of the Sino-Russian presence in Africa, a rising consensus among the American ruling elite shows that the US is falling behind in the continent.
Original peer reviewed articles which deal with the US-Africa social and political relations in this issue are meant to address the US policies towards the continent. They aim to advance knowledge of the different geopolitical regions along with many other US-Africa bilateral political, economic and social relations. Keeping up with the same line of themes in the previous issue, this yearly issue of 2020 contains five papers, three in the section of “US-Africa” and two in the section of “African Issues”.
Maciel Santos’ paper titled “Rents in the Political Economy of Colonial Angola – from the Coffee Boom to the Cabinda Gulf Oil Corporation” deals essentially with the complex relationship between rents and politics in Angola during the last three decades of colonial administration and extends to the US involvement through the Cabinda Gulf Oil Corporation.
Santos explains the profit cycles in Angola and focuses major points such as: the fall and rise of the Angola super-profits and the state partnership in the super-profits where he provides an understanding to different policies in support of rent incomes along with their impact on Angola politics. The challenges to Cabinda Gulf rents and what the entire region stands for are also discussed in the last part of the article. Santos concluded to the fact that from the moment when capital exports could dispose of workforces of much lower prices than in the markets from where those capitals came from, the political forces which provided access to that advantage got entitled to participate in the distribution of differential rents.
The paper titled “US Administrations and Morocco from 1974 to 2021: The Double Standards of a Political Machine in Regard to the Western Sahara Conflict” by Isabel Lourenço traces back the different US administrations’ stances towards the Western Sahara conflict. Lourenço provides an account on how the United States has been “instrumental” in the Western Sahara conflict through their continuous support to the Kingdom of Morocco and its military occupation of Saharawi territory. The author demonstrated the importance of the study through the various presidents’ “fickle” positions which were not always being in accordance with the US Senate and the personal envoys of the UN Secretary Generals.
Soror Oumeddour in turn authored a paper titled “US Cultural Exchange Programs in Algeria: Opportunities and Challenges” where she analyzed the US reliance on exchange programs to promote its own interests in the region. Ongoing programs of scholarships for students’ mobility are based on the strategies that aim at strengthening the universities’ international dimension. Oumeddour stresses the importance of the ongoing programs of scholarships for students’ mobility as a strategic soft power tool with long-term impact to Americanize the world. The paper’s case study focused on US Cultural Exchange Programs in Algeria between opportunities and challenges.
The “African Issues” section contains two papers in French with a major focus on African realities. Bahdon Abdillahi Mohamed introduced an article titled “Dialogue ou diversion des membres de l’élite leader en Afrique francophone” focusing on the end of the 1990s that was an era of constitutional and political change. According to the author, although some Africanists were quick to talk about democratic change back then, Thirty years later, apart from Benin, the Cape Verde Islands and Ghana, the results are not positive in the political sphere and in institutional functioning. Bahdon thinks that the continent is witnessing the establishment of hybrid regimes in many countries, even though they are not the continuity of former authoritarian regimes.
The second paper in the “African Issues” section is titled “Coopération de défense et de sécurité au Sahel: Enjeux et implications du partenariat stratégique entre les puissances étrangères et les Etats de la région depuis la fin de la guerre froide”. In this article, Ibock explains the issues and implications of the strategic partnership between foreign powers and states in the Sahel region since the end of the Cold War. Ibock’s approach to that, focused on the defense and security cooperation in attempt to provide an understanding to the ramifications of the foreign interventions in the region.

 
Mourad Aty*

* Center of African Studies University of Porto / CEAUP.

 

Editor
Centro de Estudos Africanos da Universidade do Porto
FLUP – Via Panorâmica s/n 4150-564 Porto
Director: Mourad Aty
Editorial Office: Carla Delgado
Graphical Review: Henriqueta Antunes
Email: Este endereço de email está protegido contra piratas. Necessita ativar o JavaScript para o visualizar.
Periodicity: yearly
ISSN: 2184-6251
ISSN Eletrónico: 2975-8513
DOI: https:doi.org/10.21747/21846251/jour2
Webpage: https://www.africanos.eu/index.php/en/editions/the-journal-of-usafrica-studies-tjusas
Layout Design: Fátima Marques
Cover Design: Mourad Aty


The Journal of US-Africa Studies is an international, academic and interdisciplinary journal published in Portugal by the Center of African Studies of the University of Porto (CEAUP). TJUSAS publishes original, peer reviewed and high quality articles which may contribute in a novel way to deal with the US-Africa social and political relations. It is meant to address the US policies towards the continent and to advance knowledge of the different geopolitical regions along with many other US-Africa bilateral political, economic, social and cultural relations. The journal is published  yearly where the editorial project focuses on three major sections in each issue: US-Africa, African Issues and Commentary.

Scientific Board
Antonino Adamo (National Research Council CNR – Italy)
Benoit Gaudin (Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines – France)
Bidisha Biswas (Western Washington University – USA)
Dmitri M. Bondarenko (Russian State University for the Humanities – Russia)
Christa Jones (Utah State University – USA)
Emmanuel Tchumtchoua (Université de Douala – Cameroon)
Francisco Topa (Universidade do Porto – Portugal)
Jacinto Rodrigues (Universidade do Porto – Portugal)
Jaime Rodrigues (Universidade Federal de São Paulo – Brasil)
Maciel Santos (CEAUP – Portugal)
Madalina Florescu (CEBRAP – Brasil)
Sergey V. Kostelyanyets (Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia – Russia)
Shay Welch (Spelman College – USA)
Tatiana Smirnova (University of Florida – USA)
T. P. Wilkinson (Universidade do Porto – Portugal)

 
Editorial Board
Abdulhafeth Khrisat (IMSIU – Saudi Arabia)
Amélia Queirós (CEAUP – Portugal)
Carla Delgado (CEAUP – Portugal)
Deepak Bhaskar (Daulat Ram College, University of Delhi – India)
Flora Oliveira (CEAUP – Portugal)
Jorge Teixeira (CEAUP – Portugal)
Sylvie Lembe (CLESID – Université Jean Moulin, Lyon – France)


Total or partial reproduction or copying of the content of this publication (in paper or electronic version) is strictly prohibited without prior written consent and authorization from CEAUP.

Já se encontra disponível o nº 3 da Revista The Journal of US-Africa Studies

Para leitura integral: https://ojs.letras.up.pt/index.php/AfricaStudies

 

Índice

  • Editorial (pág.5)
  • US-AFRICA
    • M’lili Amina - American Grand Strategy in Africa: From Hegemony to the Balance of Power? (p.12)
    • Jorge Teixeira - The United States, Iran’s Revolution, and the USSR Communist Phantom: The Linchpins that Triggered the Emergence of the Moroccan “Modern” Armed Forces from 1979 to 1982? (p.28)
    • Abdulhafeth Ali Khrisat - African-American Identity in Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987) (p. 60)
  • AFRICAN ISSUES
    • Augusto Nascimento - Eleições presidenciais de 2021 em São Tomé e Príncipe: “Povo põe, Povo tira”, “povo tira, povo põe” (p. 82)
    • Thibaut Dubarry - Pentecôtisme et sida. Illustration des relations entre religion et santé à la lumière de trois Églises dans deux townships sud-africains : entre métamorphoses et ambivalence (p. 114)

Editorial

“On balance the United States has done fewer bad things in Africa than she has done in Asia and Latin America. But she has also done fewer good things in Africa than elsewhere”.1
Coming from a 1989 textbook on African politics, this overview still stands to encompass much of the current US-Africa relationship. With the exception of what concerns two or three oil-State producers of the continent and Egypt because of its peace treaty with Israel, whatever indicator is considered (Africa’s share in the US trade, American FDI or White House policies) it shows a decreasing trend since the end of the socalled Cold War.
The decreasing trend is part of the relative fall of the continent’s weight in the world market. In fact, “Africa’s share of global trade at 3% is too little”2. Capital exports to Sub-Saharan Africa are always smaller than to anywhere else, regardless of its absolute increase. For instance, between the 1980s and the 1990s, net foreign direct investment (FDI) to the region grew by 218 p.c. but 993 p.c. in East Asia, 556 in Latin America and 755 in the “developing countries”. Africa’ share of FDI for this class of countries dropped from 19 percent in the 1970’s to 3 in the 1990s 3.
As capitalism works now with the USA absorbing much of the world capital flows, it is not surprising that her contribution to Africa’s investment is irrelevant. For an order of magnitude, suffice it to say that since the peak year of 2013 to 2022, the net accumulated US FDI for the whole Sub-Saharian region (including the oil-producing states) is 63 USD billion, the equivalent of 57 percent of the foreign net purchase of US long term securities ($110,5 bn.) during the last month of March4.
Still, this is not the whole picture. Today’s little status of Africa for US business does not mean that its non-tapped resources or its location close to Europe and the Middle East are to be Washington-neglected. African issues are once again recovering geopolitical importance. Similarly to what happened during the 1970s, i.e. the period during which African staff finally got an autonomous division within the State Department, the new overvaluation occurs because new “threats” were noticed.
To begin with, no former colonial power is now economically dominant in Africa. Former colonial powers used to act as proxies of US interests, even when frictions or diplomatic drawbacks arose from time to time (Washington meddlings in Françafrique policies, diplomatic side effects induced by the Pentagon’s support of Portuguese colonial policies, clashes over French and Italian interests in Morocco and Lybia, etc.). Today, all this is dwindling because China is Africa’s most important partner.
Between 2000 and 2010, its trade grew more than 10-fold, being around $200 bn in 2012. Besides, China is not just a trading partner: according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, for every 1 percent rise in China’s GDP, the GDP of low-income African countries such as the DRC, Guinea, and Mali rises by 0.3 percent5, which means that Chinese influence is therein to stay.
Added to this, there is the backflow to Africa from the recent imperialist wars in the Middle East (Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria) and the regime change policies (Lybia). Small and big waves of jihadist movements combined with the French/UE military failure in the Sahel countries and later in Mozambique are another headache for the State Department. If this was not enough to justify a US comeback 2022-23 saw another backflow from a distant chessboard: the Russian (Wagner Group) filling of the French-growing vacuum in Central Africa.
Within this framework, one can say that the articles published in the core section of this 3rd issue do cover the most visible side of the US role in Africa: its “boy-scout” mission.
M’lili Amina’s “American Grand Strategy in Africa: From Hegemony to the Balance of Power?” attempts to describe the US’s recent geopolitical strategy face to newcomer “dangers”.
Jorge Teixeira’s ‘The United States, Iran’s Revolution, and the USSR Communist Phantom: The Linchpins that Triggered the Emergence of the Moroccan “Modern” Armed Forces from 1979 to 1982?” focus on the comparative US policies towards Iran and Morocco and shows how both fit into a pattern.
With Abdulhafeth Ali Khrisat’s “African-American Identity in Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987)”, one finds a different angle of the US-Africa relationship: the slavery-forged bonds. Needless to stress how much did the Afro-American struggles and their quest for cultural identity impact US and African politics, from Liberia to TV series. By analysing an important example of these cultural ties, Khrisat shows the broadness of the traditional side of the US soft power in Africa.
Out of the direct US-Africa section, this journal includes two sociological studies.
Augusto Nascimento’s “Eleições presidenciais de 2021 em São Tomé e Príncipe: “Povo põe, Povo tira”, “povo tira, povo põe” focus on the Sao Tome’s electoral process, arguing that it allows for an overall understanding of the island’s political society. Thibaut Dubarry’s « Pentecôtisme et sida. Illustration des relations entre religion et santé à la lumière de trois Églises dans deux townships sudafricains: entre métamorphoses et ambivalence » also uses an apparently marginal phenomena (African Pentecostal churche’s stand towards AIDS) to highlight features of the South African society. As in previous issues of this journal, this section aims to enlarge the interdisciplinary scopus of the US-Africa Journal. To allow for a wider range of collaborations the editorial project includes since the last issue
papers written in two more African official languages (French and Portuguese).


Maciel Santos*

* Center of African Studies/ University of Porto / CEAUP

1 Mazrui and Tidy; Nationalism and New States in Africa, 1989: 363.
2 CNN, Interview with Okonjo-Iweala, Director of the WTO, 28Th November 2022 https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/02/business/wto-okonjo-iweala-africa-trade-spc-intl/index.html
3 Asiedu, Policy Reform file:///C:/Users/Utilizador/Downloads/9781589062627-ch07.pdf

4 Based on US Department of Treasure https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/capitalflows
5 Njau, Barbara (2013), China redefines its Role in Africa https://www.fdiintelligence.com/content/locations/asia-pacific/china/china-redefines-its-role-in-africa-45992

 

Editor
Centro de Estudos Africanos da Universidade do Porto
FLUP – Via Panorâmica s/n 4150-564 Porto
Director: Mourad Aty
Editorial Office: Carla Delgado
Graphical Review: Henriqueta Antunes
Email: Este endereço de email está protegido contra piratas. Necessita ativar o JavaScript para o visualizar.
Periodicity: yearly
ISSN: 2184-6251
ISSN Eletrónico: 2975-8513
DOI: https:doi.org/10.21747/21846251/jour3
Webpage: https://www.africanos.eu/index.php/en/editions/the-journal-of-usafrica-studies-tjusas
Layout Design: Fátima Marques
Cover Design: Mourad Aty


The Journal of US-Africa Studies is an international, academic and interdisciplinary journal published in Portugal by the Center of African Studies of the University of Porto (CEAUP). TJUSAS publishes original, peer reviewed and high quality articles which may contribute in a novel way to deal with the US-Africa social and political relations. It is meant to address the US policies towards the continent and to advance knowledge of the different geopolitical regions along with many other US-Africa bilateral political, economic, social and cultural relations. The journal is published  yearly where the editorial project focuses on three major sections in each issue: US-Africa, African Issues and Commentary.

Scientific Board
Antonino Adamo (National Research Council CNR – Italy)
Benoit Gaudin (Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines – France)
Bidisha Biswas (Western Washington University – USA)
Dmitri M. Bondarenko (Russian State University for the Humanities – Russia)
Christa Jones (Utah State University – USA)
Emmanuel Tchumtchoua (Université de Douala – Cameroon)
Francisco Topa (Universidade do Porto – Portugal)
Jacinto Rodrigues (Universidade do Porto – Portugal)
Jaime Rodrigues (Universidade Federal de São Paulo – Brasil)
Maciel Santos (CEAUP – Portugal)
Madalina Florescu (CEBRAP – Brasil)
Sergey V. Kostelyanyets (Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia – Russia)
Shay Welch (Spelman College – USA)
Tatiana Smirnova (University of Florida – USA)
T. P. Wilkinson (Universidade do Porto – Portugal)

 
Editorial Board
Carla Delgado (CEAUP – Portugal)
Deepak Bhaskar (Daulat Ram College, University of Delhi – India)
Flora Oliveira (CEAUP – Portugal)
Sylvie Lembe (CLESID – Université Jean Moulin, Lyon – France)


Total or partial reproduction or copying of the content of this publication (in paper or electronic version) is strictly prohibited without prior written consent and authorization from CEAUP.

No passado dia 26 de abril de 2023 decorreu na FLUP a Conferência : Comércio vs Escravatura - As condições sócio-históricas e demográficas na criação dos crioulos

Carlos Silva, CLUP | FLUP

Moderador:  Sóstenes Rego, CEAUP | FLUP


Resumo:
A compreensão dos mecanismos intervenientes na estabilidade fonológica é crucial para a determinação das origens dos crioulos e dos fenómenos de contacto do qual eles emergem. Como em outras línguas naturais, a mudança nos crioulos é condicionada não só pelo contexto fonético (Gurevich, 2004), mas também por fatores sócio-históricos (Faraclas et al., 2007)  e demográficos. Contudo, é preciso estabelecer especificamente que fatores são relevantes e peso eles têm na transferência de propriedades fonológicas da língua lexicalizadora para os crioulos. Nesta apresentação, com base em 667 palavras de 16 crioulos de base portuguesa, analisaremos a correlação entre os valores de estabilidade fonológica das mesmas e três fatores sócio históricos: (i) a duração da influência portuguesa, (ii) as condições de contacto dos portugueses com as comunidades locais e (iii) o número de comunidades linguísticas em contacto. Tanto os dados recolhidos, como os resultados gerados são um exemplo de como as humanidades digitais podem contribuir ativamente para a ciência e conservação linguística.

Organização:
CODA e CEAUP, com o apoio do ISUP, CLUP, CEGOT, CITCEM.

Esta conferência faz parte das sessões#CODA - Hacktivar as Humanidades:
A ideia de hackear, que a cultura popular associou à invasão ou destruição de sistemas, surgiu como uma forma não standard de ultrapassar obstáculos e limitações dos sistemas informáticos. Tendo como referência o seu carácter original, este conceito pode ser uma poderosa ferramenta para ativar e revitalizar as humanidades. Partindo desta premissa, o ciclo "Hacktivar as Humanidades", uma iniciativa CODA - Centre for Digital Culture and Innovation, pretende reunir investigadores nacionais e internacionais cuja investigação possa demonstrar como abordagens criativas e, por vezes, disruptivas, são usadas para transformar a forma como pensamos e interagimos com a cultura, as artes e as ciências humanas. Nesse questionamento, os participantes serão ainda desafiados a repensar as suas próprias práticas e, portanto, a buscar novas formas de (re)hacktivação dos seus próprios percursos.

  

Já se encontra disponível o nº 11 da Coleção Estudos Africanos: La Narrativa Española sobre Marruecos - DIscursos Literarios de Otredad.

La importancia de la narrativa española sobre Marruecos

El tema de la otredad no podría estar más al día, en este momento en que The Empires write Back y en que las fronteras, si por un lado se vuelven más cerradas y sólidas, por otro toman formas cada vez más líquidas y diversas, obligando a que nos enfrentemos al otro, a la otra, y nos veamos en el espejo, como individuos, pero también como naciones con un pasado. La literatura, que cruza el camino de la representación y de la ficción, de la historia y de la filosofía, es una de las formas privilegiadas de pensar sobre el tema.
Como todos sabemos, España llegó temprano a África, pero su literatura se dio cuenta tarde de esto, si bien, incluso así, podemos encontrar un amplio caudal de obras que toman África como escenario de sus tramas. Unas veces sirviendo como medio para propagar el proyecto colonial del país y, otras veces, como una forma de contestación o deconstrucción. Marruecos es uno de los espacios de esa África tan diversa que, a pesar de su proximidad geográfica, siguen siendo desconocidos para la mayoría de la población ibérica, objeto de prejuicios y de miedo. Por lo tanto, se justifica que esté en el centro de este volumen, que reúne algunos de los trabajos presentados en un congreso internacional celebrado en la Universidad de Oporto en enero de 2020.
Sus autores vienen de distintas procedencias: tres son marroquíes que trabajan en universidades locales y tres son españoles de diversos lugares (una enseña e investiga en España y dos en universidades de Estados Unidos).
También son varios los temas, como el análisis de Adolfo Campoy-Cubillo, sobre cómo una reciente serie de televisión mira los espacios marroquíes y a sus habitantes, perpetuando viejos estereotipos y cediendo a tipificadas idealizaciones orientalistas. Hay un estudio, de Mohamed Abrighach, sobre una novela centrada en Ifni y la guerra hispano-marroquí del 59, y otro más, de Rocío Velasco de Castro, sobre la vasta obra colonial de Eduardo Maldonado Vázquez. Completan el volumen otros dos textos que se centran en la otredad judía, uno de Ana Rueda, basado en las crónicas de la Guerra de África de 1859-1860; el otro de Hassan Amrani Meizi, sobre una novela de Esther Bendahan Cohen. También hay un articulo de Bousseham Elouarrad, sobre Las configuraciones metafóricas del Tánger internacional en Niebla en Tánger (2017) de Cristina López Barrio. Como seguramente comprobará el público lector, todas estas narrativas que sirven de fuentes primarias para los excelentes artículos aquí aunados, son unas fuentes muy desiguales en cuanto a tema, punto de vista o calidad, pero, también, resultan fundamentales para comprender la dinámica colonial
y la forma en que se ha construido la otredad.
Este volumen constituye el primero de una serie de estudios comparados sobre las literaturas ibéricas y las distintas regiones de África.


Yasmina Romero Morales e Francisco Topa

 No passado do dia 22 de junho decorreu na Casa Comum da Reitoria a exibição de filme realizado por Isabel Galhano em Moçambique -. 

Após a exibição  seguiu-se um debate sobre o filme que contou com a presença de Isabel Galhano (Professor na Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto, investigadora em Estudos do Gesto), José Pimentel Teixeira (Investigador independente, Antropologia Social e Cultural) e nazir Ahmed Can (Professor na Universidade Autónoma de Barcelona, investigador em Literaturas Africanas). 

Pág. 3 de 28

CEAUP

Apoio

Unidade I&D integrada no projeto com referência UIDB/00495/2020 (DOI 10.54499/UIDB/00495/2020) e UIDP/00495/2020.

 

Contactos

Centro de Estudos Africanos da Universidade do Porto
Via panorâmica, s/n
4150-564 Porto
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+351 22 607 71 41
ceaup@letras.up.pt