African research & documentation最新文献

{"title":"Photography and Exploration","authors":"J. Mackenzie","doi":"10.5860/choice.51-3061","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.51-3061","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":89063,"journal":{"name":"African research & documentation","volume":"1 1","pages":"78"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71144407","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"World War I in Africa: the forgotten conflict among the European powers, by Anne Samson. London: I.B. Tauris, 2013. x + 306pp. ISBN 9781780761190. £59.50.","authors":"J. Pinfold","doi":"10.1017/s0305862x00021579","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305862x00021579","url":null,"abstract":"World War I in Africa: the forgotten conflict among the European powers, by Anne Samson. London: I.B. Tauris, 2013. x + 306pp. ISBN 9781780761190. £59.50.For many years the various First World War campaigns which took place in East, West and South-West Africa were indeed largely forgotten, but over the last decade or so there have been quite a number of scholarly books which have sought to shed new light on the subject. Of these, the most notable perhaps have been Ross Anderson's The Forgotten Front (Stroud: 2004), Hew Strachan's The First World War in Africa (Oxford: 2007) and Edward Paice's Tip and Run (London: 2007), and now Anne Samson, who herself has also previously written on the East African campaign, has added this well- researched and readable account to the list. What does it add to these earlier books? In very broad terms, it seems to me that there are two aspects of the war to which she gives new emphasis.The first of these is the campaign in German South-West Africa, which has traditionally received far less scholarly attention than the East African campaign, perhaps because it lasted a far shorter length of time, but also perhaps there are fewer available sources or eye-witness accounts to draw on. Here Samson has broken new ground by being the first, to my knowledge, to make use of the papers of mine-owner Sir George Farrar, who not only participated (and indeed lost his life) in the military campaign, but whose papers also provide considerable insight into the South African politics that lay behind it.This leads neatly on to the second point, which is that throughout the book, Samson seeks to understand the relationships between the politicians and the generals and to show how decisions of high policy, taken in London, or Brussels, Berlin or Lisbon (or indeed Pretoria) impacted on the ground. If you want to understand the strategic thinking of the great powers towards Africa and how their aims and objectives changed and developed as the war progressed, the chapters headed 'Behind the Scenes' and 'The War in London' are a good place to start; she also gives due weight to the 'imperial' ambitions of South African politicians, which had a notable impact on the course of the war, and mentions in passing that that even the Government of India had designs on German East. In fact the level of horse-trading that went on between the governments of the Allied powers was even greater than is commonly realised: how many people today realise that at one point Lloyd George favoured giving East Africa to the United States, or that when that idea failed to find favour the Belgian Congo (the colony of an allied country!) was proposed in its place?Of all the politicians and generals who appear in this book, it is clearly Smuts who fascinates Samson the most, and it is he, together with German commander Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, who takes centre stage throughout much of the book. Early on (p.4) she claims that the two men \"became friends\", but just ","PeriodicalId":89063,"journal":{"name":"African research & documentation","volume":"1 1","pages":"43"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"56843429","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Digitisation at the Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies: A consideration of processes and outcomes","authors":"Michelle Guittar, David L. Easterbrook","doi":"10.1017/s0305862x00021518","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305862x00021518","url":null,"abstract":"From its inception, the goal of the Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies at Northwestern University has been to collect as comprehensively as possible materials from and related to Africa, regardless of subject. Due to this comprehensive collection policy, the library contains many materials that are not readily available at other institutions in the United States, Europe or Africa, as was made evident by last year's SCOLMA presentation on materials on sport at the Herskovits Library.2Starting in the mid-1990s, the Herskovits Library began to consider digitising portions of its unique resources, not only to better serve its local community of researchers on the Northwestern University campus but remote users as well, regardless of location. Along with increased availability, such digitisation would support broader access to primary resources in African studies, leading to expanded research as well as enhanced teaching and curriculum enrichment, especially for undergraduate students. By 2012, the Herskovits Library had completed several digital initiatives, with others in process or in the queue, for formats including books, audio-tapes, maps, photographs, and posters. Supported by Northwestern University funds, external granting agencies, and consortial arrangements, the projects to date have provided opportunities to develop methodologies for completion of digital projects, strategies for priority setting, models for rights negotiations, and experimentation with inter-institutional cooperation. At the same time, the organisational structure within the University Library has evolved to sustain the institution's digital work to date and support its expansion across subject areas and disciplines.This presentation will review the processes that have made digital content of Herskovits Library collections accessible and the development of an institutional framework for sustained digitisation, providing specific examples drawn from several digitisation projects leading up to the development of Northwestern's institutional repository. The presentation will also comment on examples of digital projects in which the digital format of Herskovits Library holdings are made accessible from a source other than Northwestern University - for example, through ALUKA or the Center for Research Libraries. The presentation will offer examples of the impact of Herskovits Library digital projects through both use statistics and anecdotal evidence on research, teaching, and publishing output, and summarise projects in progress and plans for future digitisation.Formally established as a separate library in 1954, the Herskovits Library traces its origins to the arrival of Melville J. Herskovits at Northwestern University, the first anthropologist appointed to the faculty in 1927. Herskovits established the Program of African Studies at Northwestern in 1948 with a grant from the Carnegie Corporation, and convinced the Northwestern University administration to c","PeriodicalId":89063,"journal":{"name":"African research & documentation","volume":"1 1","pages":"3-15"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"56843274","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Comparative Study of Availability and Access to Alternative Format by Visually Impaired Adults and Students in Nigeria","authors":"N. Adetoro","doi":"10.1017/s0305862x00020446","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305862x00020446","url":null,"abstract":"IntroductionAlternative formats present the visually impaired with the opportunity to read and communicate like sighted persons. These materials are usually not available in quantities desirable to persons with visual impairment. Sighted persons can naturally read and communicate using the types of information materials available such as books, reference sources, serials, internet etc. But for persons with visual impairment, reading and communication comes in alternative formats such as Braille, talking books and large prints. Without alternative formats, persons with visual impairment cannot read and function well as members of the society. This is why it is crucial for every country to have a well organised arrangement for the production and utilisation of information materials by its visually impaired citizens. (Atinmo, 2000). Availability of alternative formats for the visually impaired in several countries is based on the need for equality in terms of accessibility to materials; even though what is attainable globally is a far cry from the desired. Brazier (2003) revealed that there are about two million persons with visual impairment who are served by a combination of public libraries and charities in the United Kingdom. She adds that only 31% used the library in a period of six months because materials availability, accessibility and services are perceived to be inappropriate.In many primary and secondary schools, the pupils themselves make private and individual arrangements for study materials. There is an acute shortage of information materials and other information resources in alternative format at the primary and secondary school levels (Atinmo, 2002). At the tertiary level, information materials in alternative format for adult students are limited in supply. Few institutions provide alternative formats for use, but this is limited to the students in-house. Libraries for the visually impaired in Nigeria are believed to have inadequate alternative format in Braille, talking book and large prints as well as insufficient and obsolete facilities for the transcription and consequent provision of information materials. These inadequacies make it difficult for these libraries to meet the high demand for information materials by persons with visual impairment.Studies suggest that inadequacies in the availability and access to alternative formats are global phenomena. According to the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions IFLA (2002), the situation is most critical in developing countries where 95% of blind people never attend school or are not literate. A few non-governmental organisations (NGOs), educational institutions and libraries scattered all over the country are the ones servicing persons with visual impairment. The materials made available by these institutions are patronised by those in school, and adults who became blind later in life through disease or accident. Adult persons with visual impairement in","PeriodicalId":89063,"journal":{"name":"African research & documentation","volume":"1 1","pages":"15-25"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"56842649","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Log Analysis and Text Mining on Internet Access to Dissertations of the INSEPS (Institut National Superieur de l'Education Populaire et du Sport) Dakar, Senegal","authors":"Pierpaolo Rossi, Anastasie Thiaw","doi":"10.1017/s0305862x00020586","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305862x00020586","url":null,"abstract":"IntroductionThe dissertation collection of INSEPS (Higher National Institute of Popular Education and Sport, Dakar, Senegal) consists of 152 documents (PDF format) related to academic work submitted between 2005 and 2008 (2005: 21, 2006: 29, 2007: 45 and 2008: 57) as well as all references to available dissertations of INSEPS' library (imported from a CDS/ISIS3 database).These have, since January 2011, been hosted on the BEEP (Electronic libraries in partnership) website4 which uses the Greenstone software5 (Rossi, 2011). Pdf files of the collection were created either by scanning paper or by converting electronic versions (Word files). The collection of electronic documents was achieved as part of the SIST6 (System for Scientific and Technical Information) project funded by the MAEE7 (French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs).Through this study, an attempt is made to better define the audience of documents of the collection, following their setting on the web. An attempt is also made to measure the volume and change of this audience over time. The variety of users is examined (geographical origin, concentration or dispersion vis-a-vis the entire funds). Finally, the users' various concerns are studied. The investigation is based on analysis of modes and frequencies of internet consultations of documents in PDF format. This approach is based on the use of log files of the BEEP Apache8 server.MethodologyThe access log of an Apache server is used to record all the transactions to access files hosted by the server and consulted by users9. The format of the BEEP access log is a \"combined log format\". It helps to know, in addition to the \"standard log format\" information, the header \"Referer\"10 and the \"User- Agent\" of the request.To analyse INSEPS' dissertation consultations (pdf files of each dissertation), a file of \"effective access\" was created through several filtering steps on the lines of the Apache log file:(1) selection of lines relating to pdf files of INSEPS' collection,(2) selection of access lines with a status of \"200\"11,(3) exclusion of spiders access lines,(4) exclusion of \"HEAD\" method access lines12,(5) exclusion of spam access lines13.The IP address of each line of the \"effective consultation\" file is then identified by country. Ip address resolution is done using a specific php script that includes the \"MaxMind GeoIP Country Database\"14.Results(1) The audience volume: Evolution along time.Analysis of \"effective consultations\" of the documents of the INSEPS collection shows the distribution of the consultations per month (Table 1) and the average smoothed consultations per quarter (Table 2).After the first two months, the number of consultations quickly rose to a \"cruising level\", peaking at 2,515 consultations per month in May 2011 (a monthly average of 16.5 consultations per document). March 2012 recorded the highest number of consultations (2701, with a monthly average of 17.7 per document). Compared to March 2011 the inc","PeriodicalId":89063,"journal":{"name":"African research & documentation","volume":"1 1","pages":"79-90"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"56842874","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Value of Managing Library Information Resources in Digital Form in Uganda","authors":"G. Mukasa, Nicholas Kamusiime","doi":"10.1017/s0305862x00020574","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305862x00020574","url":null,"abstract":"IntroductionThe explosion of information in libraries has led to several means and measures of managing this information. New technologies are driving new developments in electronic publishing and learning and people have become increasingly dependent on digital information and the internet as a medium for gaining and exchanging information. There is growing evidence in Uganda of successful digitisation projects to develop digital resources. Libraries and Archives have embarked on digitising their information resources to provide access to and to preserve their unique materials in their collections.The records at UCU have been digitised and made available in both digital and microfilm format. The digitised Archives of the Church of Uganda Office of the Archbishop are divided into series and these are: Administrative Records, General File, Dioceses, Programs/Activities/Institutions, and Related Organisations.Access and preservation of materials are the major reasons for libraries and archives to undertake digitisation projects. Through digitisation, the library is able to provide access to text, photographs, manuscripts, audio and moving image materials. Digitisation also allows for the preservation of rare, fragile, and unique materials. Collections can be made accessible, via digital surrogates in an enhanced format that allows searching and browsing, to both traditional and new audiences via the internet (Hughes, 2004, p. 6). Another benefit of digitisation is that it raises the profile of the institution as users worldwide utilise its collection remotely.In Uganda, some institutions, organisations and families have digitised their collections for easy access and preservation of information resource; these include, but are not limited, to the National Library of Uganda, Uganda Christian University Archives, Hamu Mukasa Home Library, Parliament Library, Makerere University Library, Bank of Uganda Archives, and Uganda Law Society. The records at UCU have been digitised and made available in both digital and microfilm format.Requirements for Digitisation projectsAccording to Alemna & Cobblah (2005), there are several requirements for an effective digitisation to take place:* Availability of appropriate Information and Communication Technology; which will include hardware, software and adequate network connectivity.* Human Resources with appropriate skills which depend on the nature and sophistication of the project being implemented; these could be hardware specialists, database administrators, programmers among others.* Financial resources to support and sustain the development of digitisation project; it is important to understand that hardware, software and human resources cost money as does the maintenance of the technological infrastructure.* Availability of standards for the management of digital information resources; for the good quality of information resources, databases and effectiveness of information searching and retrieval, electroni","PeriodicalId":89063,"journal":{"name":"African research & documentation","volume":"1 1","pages":"69-78"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"56842867","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Writing revolt: an engagement with African nationalism, 1957-67, by Terence Ranger. Woodbridge: James Currey, 2013. xii, 206 pp. ISBN 9781847010711. £19.99.","authors":"J. Pinfold","doi":"10.1017/s0305862x00021580","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305862x00021580","url":null,"abstract":"Writing revolt: an engagement with African nationalism, 1957-67, by Terence Ranger. Woodbridge: James Currey, 2013. xii, 206 pp. ISBN 9781847010711. £19.99.Shortly after I arrived at Rhodes House as Librarian in 1993 I was taken down into the basement stacks and shown a large number of boxes which contained the unsorted papers of a minor academic historian, whose name meant nothing to me then and little more to me now. It was pointed out that these were taking up a great deal of space and were unlikely ever to receive much interest from researchers. The message was clear - the Library should be focussing its efforts on collecting the papers of those who had played their part in African history, not those who had merely studied it. I tended then (and still tend) to agree with this view, yet when, some four years later, Terry Ranger, then soon to retire as Rhodes Professor of Race Relations at Oxford, approached the Library about taking his own even more voluminous collection, I had no hesitation in accepting. This book, which draws to a very large extent on the Ranger papers now at Rhodes House, shows why, for it is much more than the memoir of a pioneer in the history of African nationalism and resistance to colonial rule, it is also that of someone who witnessed and indeed participated in a key phase of that struggle. As Ranger's great friend Stanlake Samkange wrote in 1963 in a letter quoted in this book (p.153):If anybody deserves being a professor of history it is you - who have not only tried to unearth a good deal of it but have also lived it and contributed to it.Ranger himself emphasises this duality when he writes in the preface (p. xi) that this book is intended as both history and historiography. The constant interplay between these two strands runs through the entire book, and shows how his experiences in mid-twentieth century Southern Rhodesia (as it then was) helped create the scholar that he has become.At its heart, this book is the story of how a liberal humanist confronted the Southern Rhodesia of white minority rule and segregation and found the moral courage to oppose it and embrace the cause of African nationalism, a course which led eventually, as is well-known, to his expulsion from the country in 1963. In this, of course, he was not unique, but his academic training as an historian, allied to the fact that he was, in his own words, a \"natural dissident\" who opposed repression wherever it came from, including the \"coerced unity\" which became a feature of so many African nationalist movements (pp.181-2), means that he was always able to maintain a sense of independence as well as engagement. He quotes approvingly (p.148) from a letter of James Robert Chikerema: \"If you want to have him [Ranger] as a member then you have to accept that he will speak his mind\".As with all insiders' memoirs, the author does indeed \"speak his mind\" in this book, but he is also too good a historian to ignore the views of others (in a revealing phr","PeriodicalId":89063,"journal":{"name":"African research & documentation","volume":"1 1","pages":"45"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"56843440","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Accessing Material from the Genocide Archive of Rwanda","authors":"C. Williamson","doi":"10.1017/s0305862x0002152x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305862x0002152x","url":null,"abstract":"In 1994 around 800,000 Rwandan people were killed in a hundred days of genocide. The Aegis Trust, a genocide education charity, began collecting testimonies from survivors in 2004 and, in partnership with Kigali City Council, established a national memorial site and archive, known as the Genocide Archive of Rwanda. In addition to the testimonies, this Archive now houses a wide range of materials such as footage of Gacaca court proceedings and annual remembrance ceremonies, maps, historical photographs, colonial documents, propaganda literature, identification cards and other official documents. To increase the accessibility of these archival materials, on 10 December 2010, the Genocide Archive of Rwanda launched its own website (www.genocidearchiverwanda.org.rw), providing members of the international community with an opportunity to explore the digital database. As yet, the digital archive contains only a small number of the testimonies that have been recorded. This means that, although the process of digitisation, transcription and translation into English and/or French is on-going, the vast majority of testimonies can be accessed only by visiting the physical archive in Kigali.This article is based on my experience of working at the Genocide Archive of Rwanda as part of a collaborative research project between the University of Nottingham and the Aegis Trust. My research uses evidence from the testimonies of female survivors to analyse the impact of the genocide on identity. Despite working directly with the testimonies at the Archive for an entire year, I encountered a number of challenges with respect to accessing the materials. This article will discuss these challenges and how they were overcome. The main issues fell into three broad areas including: (1) gaining the trust and cooperation of Archive staff, (2) learning how to handle political sensitivities, and (3) struggling with language barriers and issues relating to translation.Relationships with Archive staffThe vast majority of staff members at the Archive are survivors of the genocide. Many have family members buried in the grounds of the memorial or photographs of their families in the exhibition. Some have even given their testimonies to the Archive. This gives the staff a strong sense of ownership over the material. Moreover, the permanent members of staff at the Archive have been involved in every stage of its formation. They travel around the country to record testimonies, they organise and store the tapes, and they digitise and transcribe them. In order to access information regarding the contents of the Archive, it is essential to gain these people's trust and cooperation; however, a lingering mistrust of outsiders makes forging relationships with the Rwandan Archive team less than straightforward.Inside Rwanda, outside forces are justifiably considered to have been influential in causing the genocide. For example, Rwandans blame the legacy of Belgian colonisation for plantin","PeriodicalId":89063,"journal":{"name":"African research & documentation","volume":"1 1","pages":"17-24"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"56843281","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Light on Darkness?: Missionary Photography of Africa in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, by T. Jack Thompson. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012. xviii + 286pp. ISBN 978-0-8028-6524-3. $45.00.","authors":"J. Mackenzie","doi":"10.1017/s0305862x0002046x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305862x0002046x","url":null,"abstract":"Light on Darkness?: Missionary Photography of Africa in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, by T. Jack Thompson. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012. xviii + 286pp. ISBN 978-0-8028-6524-3. $45.00.Many people's impressions of missionary activity in Africa must have been based on photographs, postcards, and (in the twentieth century) documentary film. For those who have never visited mission stations on that continent, such images provided (and continue to provide) some notion of what they and their inhabitants (both missionaries and African adherents) must have been like. Such photographic 'windows' conveyed an apparent sense of the physical reality of such places, to some extent their surrounding exotic environments, as well as their energising ideology, as represented in the activities portrayed within. As Jack Thompson points out, the heyday of missionary activity in Africa coincided with the emergence and development of photography, in its various branches, as a medium. After a hesitant start, the two became inseparably intertwined, particularly after the technology of printing photographs was developed so that the phase of being converted into engravings and lithographs could be abandoned in favour of the more immediate dot matrix and other forms of reproduction. From that time onwards missionary magazines, books, postcards, as well as newspapers, could provide an extraordinary sense of immediacy by publishing images that appeared to represent the dramatic immediacy of 'reality'.Since missions and photography were so closely associated, it is perhaps surprising that this is the first full-length book on the subject, although there have been a number of articles in journals and chapters in other books, not to mention studies of the relationship between photography and imperialism, as for example in the work of James Ryan. But the scope for further study is almost limitless. As Thompson suggests, there must be hundreds of thousands of photographs in missionary and other archives, many of them still to be studied. As is perhaps inevitable, Thompson concentrated on a relatively narrow front in order to make some sense of the field. Moreover, this is not just a highly specialised study. It is instead a strongly contextualised one in which each group of photographs and related images is set into its historical relationships with people, events, and the development of modes of news gathering and dissemination as well as of propaganda and campaigns by pressure groups. Moreover, the author acknowledges throughout just how problematic photographs are, how distant they can be from some alleged 'reality', and how amenable they are to a whole range of analyses in the light of modern schools of thought. In particular he notes the extent to which missionary photographs were intended to convey a progressive, transformatory 'before and after' ideology.Thompson opens with a chapter on the origins of photography, a starting point particularly valuable for the ","PeriodicalId":89063,"journal":{"name":"African research & documentation","volume":"1 1","pages":"29"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"56842705","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Spiritual in the Secular: Missionaries and Knowledge about Africa; edited by Patrick Harries and David Maxwell. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012. xvi + 341pp. ISBN 978-0-8028-6634-9. $45.00.","authors":"J. Mackenzie","doi":"10.1017/s0305862x00020458","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305862x00020458","url":null,"abstract":"The Spiritual in the Secular: Missionaries and Knowledge about Africa; edited by Patrick Harries and David Maxwell. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012. xvi + 341pp. ISBN 978-0-8028-6634-9. $45.00.The series 'Studies in the History of Christian Missions', edited by R.E. Frykenberg and Brian Stanley, is developing into a major collection of scholarly books. All historians of missions in colonial (and other) settings throughout the world owe a considerable debt to its growing list of remarkable works. This one is a notable addition, offering eleven papers which analyse the manner in which missionaries in Africa in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries became, almost by the very nature of their calling, field workers compiling information of all sorts which contributed to the development of scientific studies in various emergent disciplines. These include botany, entomology, meteorology, tropical medicine, linguistics, and ethnography. The principal concentration, understandably, is on ethnology, perhaps the major contribution of missionaries to the study of Africa.But the use of the words ethnology or ethnography is significant. While anthropologists drew on much missionary work in the twentieth century, they themselves soon became field workers developing theoretical positions with which most missionaries failed to keep pace. Missionary ethnography came to be seen as old-fashioned, amateur, failing to take full account of the work of the 'academy'. This theme runs through several of the essays, but generally the thrust here is to rescue missionary ethnographers from neglect. Their empirical work was local and extensive. Many of their publications have now become very useful sources for historians, offering a route into primary work that often drew on indigenous informants and oral information no longer available.And therein lies another important theme, indigenous knowledge and practices. Missionaries were pragmatic people whose first concern in their pursuit of conversions was to understand the contexts in which they worked. The first and highly necessary local skill they had to acquire was that of language, not only for the purposes of communication, but also to promote the translation of the Bible and other Christian texts. It was thus inevitable that they became linguists and some of them carried this forward into the academic study of languages and significant publications in the field. But language itself became a route into much else, into customs, indigenous religions and world views, combined with explanatory visions of the natural world, sexual and marriage practices, as well as medical therapies. …","PeriodicalId":89063,"journal":{"name":"African research & documentation","volume":"1 1","pages":"27"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"56842658","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}