Pensée 2: The “African” in Africana/Black/African and African American Studies

2009 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn Somerville
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
The Political ◽  
African Continent ◽  
Black African ◽  
Academic Fields ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Middle East Studies ◽  
Research And Policy

In Pensée 1, “Africa on My Mind,” Mervat Hatem questions the perceived wisdom of creating the African Studies Association (focused on sub-Saharan Africa) and the Middle East Studies Association a decade later, which “institutionalized the political bifurcation of the African continent into two academic fields.” The cleaving of Africa into separate and distinct parts—a North Africa/Middle East and a sub-Saharan Africa—rendered a great disservice to all Africans: it has fractured dialogue, research, and policy while preventing students and scholars of Africa from articulating a coherent understanding of the continent.

The Slave Trade: The Formal Demography of a Global System

1990 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Manning
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Atlantic Coast ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
African Continent ◽  
Middle Passage ◽  
Global System ◽  
Plantation Life ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Additional Losses

If the best-known aspects of African slavery remain the horrors of the middle passage and the travail of plantation life in the Americas, recent work has nonetheless provided some important reminders of the Old World ramifications of slavery (Miller 1988; Meillassoux 1986; Miers and Roberts 1988; Manning in press-a). Millions of slaves were sent from sub-Saharan Africa to serve in households and plantations in North Africa and the Middle East and suffered heavy casualties on their difficult journey. Millions more, captured in the same net as those sent abroad, were condemned to slavery on the African continent. The mortality of captives in Africa, therefore, included not only losses among those headed for export at the Atlantic coast but the additional losses among those destined for export to the Orient and among those captured and transported to serve African masters.

Why and How Should Middle East and African Studies Be Connected? (posed by Mervat Hatem)

2009 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mervat Hatem
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Historically Black ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Black College ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
African Studies ◽  
Historically Black College ◽  
Howard University ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Middle East Studies

For years, I struggled with the presentation of the category of “Middle East” to my students at Howard University, a historically black college. Like many of their professors, my students did not consider North Africa to be part of Africa. The reason was simple: the study of the continent was bifurcated between two fields, African and Middle East studies. African studies focused on sub-Saharan Africa; North Africa was the purview of Middle East studies.

HIV/AIDS in the Middle East and North Africa: A Brief Review of Prevention, Research, and Resources

2006 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Kaplan
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
People Living With Hiv ◽  
Main Mode ◽  
Prevention Services ◽  
Aids Epidemic ◽  
The World ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Living With Hiv

The 2005 UNAIDS/WHO Epidemic Update reports that the number of people living with HIV last year worldwide was 40.3 million (1). In 2005, approximately 3.2 million people became newly infected by HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa, the region of the world that is considered the epicenter of the AIDS epidemic (2).Although the rates of HIV are much less in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) than in Sub-Saharan Africa, some experts believe that without appropriate implementation of surveillance and prevention services, the epidemic will spread to the general population (3). Reportedly, 67,000 people in MENA became infected with HIV in 2005; there are approximately 510,000 people living with HIV in the region (2). Because of cultural and social taboos surrounding the discussion of the acquisition of HIV around the world in general, and in MENA in particular, it is difficult to develop a clear representation of HIV's presence and risk in countries in the Middle East. Based on the information that is available, the main mode of transmission of HIV is sexual contact, with injecting drug use recognized as the second mode of increasing prevalence (2). Without sufficient implementation of surveillance in the region, however, estimated rates of infection may indeed be lower than the actual number of people infected with HIV (4).

Jihadism Transformed

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
South Asia ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
The Past ◽  
Local Contexts ◽  
Ultimate Failure ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
The Arab Spring

Jihadist narratives have evolved dramatically over the past five years, driven by momentous events in the Middle East and beyond; the death of bin Laden; the rise and ultimate failure of the Arab Spring; and most notably, the rise of the so-called Islamic State. For many years, Al-Qaeda pointed to an aspirational future Caliphate as their utopian end goal - one which allowed them to justify their violent excesses in the here and now. Islamic State turned that aspiration into a dystopic reality, and in the process hijacked the jihadist narrative, breathing new life into the global Salafi-Jihadi movement. Despite air-strikes from above, and local disillusionment from below, the new caliphate has stubbornly persisted and has been at the heart of ISIS's growing global appeal. This timely collection of essays examines how jihadist narratives have changed globally, adapting to these turbulent circumstances. Area and thematic specialists consider transitions inside the Middle East and North Africa as well as in South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Europe. As these analyses demonstrate, the success of the ISIS narrative has been as much about resonance with local contexts, as it has been about the appeal of the global idea of a tangible and realized caliphate.

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