Call for Proposals: ASR seeks keyword essays for the 2026 ASA Annual Meeting, New Orleans. Engage emerging trends & topics for a broad Africanist audience through critical terms. Peer-reviewed; publication opportunity. Submit by March 13: tinyurl.com/2bmfd3a7
Chijioke Onah’s ASR article “#BringBackOurGirls,” from our vol. 67, no. 2, has been named a finalist for the ASWAD Article Prize, which honours outstanding scholarship on Africa and/or the African Diaspora. Congratulations, Chijioke! @kizichiji
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In this issue’s In Memoriam section, Aliko Songolo, Anjali Prabhu, Pierre-Philippe Fraiture, & Tsitsi Jaji each pay tribute to the late Congolese philosopher & writer V. Y. Mudimbe. Read their thoughtful contributions here: tinyurl.com/6sfz5u4u
Reviewing recent works that focus on “governance deficit in public authority” in Nigeria and Ghana, Bernard Nwosu examines the relationship of such fragility to the “current condition of the political state in Africa.” doi.org/10.1017/asr....
Jennifer Lofkrantz, Bréma Ely Dicko, and Chitra Nagarajan examine how an individual’s perceived positionality affects their response to the evocation of historical memory in the Katiba Macina and Boko Haram-related conflicts. doi.org/10.1017/asr....
Using the concept of “deep listening,” Fauziyatu Moro and Reginold A. Royston examine “podcasting, as a technology of sound…for the way its content resonates with listeners in Africa, with and beyond the physical aspects of hearing.” doi.org/10.1017/asr....
Despite similarly undelivered promises, Pritish Behuria documents how “the ‘democratic’ Mauritian and Botswana governments were more flexible in adapting their luxury tourism strategies than the ‘authoritarian’ Rwandan government. ow.ly/rZah50Y58EV
Hangala Siachiwena challenges “the narrow framing of [former Zambian president Michael] Sata as a populist” and instead, “situates his politics within broader debates on development in post-adjustment Africa.” doi.org/10.1017/asr....
Mahder Serekberhan discusses the central importance of working peoples’ nonhierarchical coordination to the success of the 2018/2019 Sudanese Uprising, an essay for which she won the 2023 ASA Graduate Student Paper Prize. https://doi.org/10.1017/asr.2025.10125
The latest ASR issue (68.4) is now out! Like ASA’s recent 68th meeting, this issue “highlights the rich panoply of research into the urgent questions and issues besetting African societies.” Read the Editors' Introduction here: doi.org/10.1017/asr.....
In their article, Albert Chibuwe and Allen Munoriyarwa analyze how Zimbabweans used WhatsApp humor during lockdown to cope with hardship, sharing jokes that “speak truth to power about the country’s political-economic and socio-cultural conditions.” doi.org/10.1017/asr....
Ampson Hagan shows how African nations struggled to access COVID-19 vaccines due to corporate control and intellectual property regulations. In this article, he employs the concept of "waithood" to critique the coloniality of global vaccine inequality. doi.org/10.1017/asr....
Jia Hui Lee, Laura A. Meek, and Jacob Katumusiime show how anti-imperialist discourses led to pan-African skepticism about COVID-19 in Tanzania and Uganda, analyzing how misinformation, fake news, and alternative remedies shaped public health responses. doi.org/10.1017/asr....
In this article, Bamba Ndiaye and Margaret Rowley show how Senegalese artists used rap, Afrobeat, mbalax, and other genres to spread COVID-literacy, debunk myths, and integrate metaphysical beliefs, playing a key role in the nation's pandemic response. doi.org/10.1017/asr....
David G. Pier and Michael Mutagubya show how Ugandan music artists contested the Museveni regime’s COVID-19 lockdown policies during a tense election. Their songs shared best health practices, generated resistance, and reimagined emergency biopolitics. doi.org/10.1017/asr....
Kristen E. McLean and Liza J. Malcolm examine Sierra Leone’s COVID-19 response, revealing how harsh containment measures led to economic and social hardship, fueling distrust in the state and leading people to describe this epidemic as worse than Ebola. doi.org/10.1017/asr....
William G. Moseley and Jane Battersby explore how African food systems showed resilience during COVID-19 due to widespread subsistence farming and epidemic experience. However, vulnerabilities related to net food imports and slow economic growth remain. doi.org/10.1017/asr....
In this article from ASR’s new virtual issue, Amy S. Patterson and Emmanuel Balogun examine African responses to the COVID-19 epidemic—from Ghana’s faith-led food distribution to Liberia’s Ebola-informed contact tracing. doi.org/10.1017/asr....
In her introduction to ASR’s virtual issue, Singing and Interpreting COVID-19 in the Keys of Information, Food Security, Waithood and Humor, Dawne Y. Curry reviews 8 articles published by ASR in the last 5 years that center African responses to the Covid epidemic:
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We are delighted to announce a virtual issue on COVID-19. It includes the articles published in ASR on the pandemic since 2020. Please see link here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
In her film review of Eat Bitter (2023), Ying Cheng highlights how directors Pascale Appora-Gnekindy & Ningyi Sun portray shared struggles across borders—capturing the emotional depth, labor, and sacrifice of two men who "eat bitter" in pursuit of hope. doi.org/10.1017/asr....
Nancy A. Andoh calls Hadiza Moussa’s “Yearning and Refusal: An Ethnography of Female Fertility Management in Niamey, Niger” a “pivotal work” on reproductive politics, women’s agency, and fertility in this compelling book review. doi.org/10.1017/asr....
Martins F. Asiegbu and J. Chidozie Chukwuokolo analyze three recent books focused on conflict and statehood in Sudan and South Sudan in this scholarly review essay. You can find the full review here: doi.org/10.1017/asr....
In this review essay, Nnanna Onuoha Arukwe takes up five recently published books that engage “land governance, extractive practices, tech infrastructures, urban waste, and the everyday state in contemporary Africa.” Read the full essay here: doi.org/10.1017/asr....
Richard Atimniraye Nyelade reflects on Chinweizu’s decolonial Pan-African vision, emphasizing Chinweizu’s critiques of Arab and Western imperialism and "culturecide” and centering his call for ‘African Power’ to secure liberation and sovereignty. doi.org/10.1017/asr....
Doyle D. Calhoun excavates Morocco’s slave past under the French Protectorate through Dada l’Yakout, a text by Nouzha Fassi Fihri that “draws on, and to an extent blurs, a distinction between oral testimony and literary fiction.” Find the article here: doi.org/10.1017/asr....
Suzanne Francis traces how colonial and postcolonial statemaking in the Central African Republic laid the foundation for violence against Muslim citizens. This violence is rooted in a history of exclusion and is amplified by Pentecostal nationalist myths. doi.org/10.1017/asr....
E. Sasu Kwame Sewordor highlights women’s gendered roles in colonial Ghana’s diamond mining industry, from discoverers to dealers. By examining archival, oral, and visual sources, Sewordor challenges the male-dominated narratives in the archives. doi.org/10.1017/asr....