Tag: African

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Twagira’s Newest Finalist for African Studies Association 2022 Best Book Prize

Associate Professor of Record Laura Ann Twagira’s the latest reserve commences with a song – women from Mali are singing and bragging about the excellent of their cooking. From this domestic second, Twagira found the keys to a technological revolution.

“Women are bragging and praising just one a different. They are producing foods that everyone’s likely to enjoy and that will enliven existence. In buy to do that, they have to have a vital established of technological abilities,” she mentioned.

Twagira’s e-book Embodied Engineering: Gendered Labor, Food Protection and Style in Twentieth-Century Mali was named a finalist for the 2022 Most effective E book prize from the African Scientific tests Association (ASA). The winner of the award will be introduced in November.

The ASA offers the prize yearly, recognizing the most significant scholarly operate in African scientific studies posted in English and dispersed in the United States throughout the preceding year. The textbooks represented appear from many disciplines, like sociology, literature, political science, and history.

“Her exploration demonstrates the huge agency and significance of Malian women of all ages in their capability to cultivate embodied relationships with the natural entire world as a result of the cultivation, selection, and cooking of foodstuff,” wrote Inigo Acosta in his assessment for H-Sci-Med-Tech / H-Web Assessments.

Employing a blend of folktales, archival exploration, and oral interviews, Twagira explores how women in rural Mali have utilised engineering to be certain meals stability by way of the colonial interval, several environmental crises, and postcolonial rule. In carrying out this exploration she also noticed Malian women cooking for their communities and learned by their side, a not so quick task.

“The book is about gals as technological brokers. In substantially progress literature, African girls are represented as remaining in need to have of technological guidance. Effectively, (in Mali) women were by now savvy technological agents in advance of any colonial or post-colonial enhancement initiative,” Twagira mentioned.

She concentrated her analysis on the Office du Niger, an irrigated agricultural challenge crafted by the French in the 1930s. The undertaking radically changed the landscape around the Niger River, such as the bulldozering of trees required for the women’s foods creation. In several approaches, the plan transformed how ladies approached their do the job. “For case in point, in adopting metallic cooking pots, they found a technological resolution to what was seriously a deforestation crisis for the reason that the new pots did not require as much wood to gasoline the hearth,” Twagira stated.

In 1968 — not prolonged right after independence from the French — Mali’s armed forces took about the country and another ecological and food crisis emerged. To aid regular men and women have plenty of to eat, ladies smuggled foodstuff from the fields in headscarves or tied it all over their stomachs to make them search expecting. “This exercise is a really very good instance of embodied engineering. It is not just about labor, it’s about ladies transforming their bodies to guarantee the foodstuff stability and survival of people in the area,” she said.

Uncomplicated but impactful technological improvements – cooking pots, the mortar and pestle, and a lot more – turned enshrined in Malian folklore. For illustration, even though doing exploration at the Schomburg Centre for Study in Black Society, she observed a group of folktales penned in the Bambara language describing gals who cooked speedily as possessing magical or superhero like attributes. “It drop light-weight for me on the way women’s benefit in generating food was this kind of that it could typically feel fantastical to folks who lived by intervals of drought and food items lack,” she mentioned.

Twagira’s initially introduction to West Africa was by her Francophone Literature Scientific tests at Wellesley Faculty, and she was psyched to draw on regional folklore for the guide. Soon after graduation she joined the Peace Corps and invested a yr performing in a modest Malian overall health heart. “It was a transformational encounter for me, mastering about a new tradition and my initially-time observing women’s collective get the job done procedures.” she claimed.

The midwife Fatoumata Djénépo with whom Twagira worked was deeply concerned with nutrition issues. “All of the solutions had been rooted in women’s awareness about food manufacturing and bettering on what they now knew,” Twagira claimed.

From there a route toward turning out to be a historian was founded, joining Wesleyan in 2013.

Doing the job with students on their theses and engaging in the wealthy mental life of the College has only served her long system of delving into Mali’s society. When a fellow with the Wesleyan Centre for Humanities, she shared parts of the reserve manuscript with students and innovated a key supply workshop with elements from her new undertaking on the technobody politics of colonial rule and demography.

 

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The Language of Beauty in African Art

14 Ubi Face Mask Press
14 Ubi Face Mask Press

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Nov 20, 2021–Feb 27. 2023

Exhibition

How has African artwork been evaluated and valued—and by whom?

That is the problem guiding this presentation of far more than 250 sculptures from dozens of distinct cultures throughout the African continent. It is an exploration that seeks to decolonize the Western aesthetic expectations extensive put on these objects and to elevate the nearby indigenous perspectives of the works’ makers and communities. 

Pair of Headdresses (Ciwara Kunw), mid-19th to early 20th century. Bamana Baninko area, Mali

The Art Institute of Chicago, Ada Turnbull Hertle Endowment

Master a lot more about this perform.

When Westerners began to accumulate and review African artwork in the early 20th century, they admired objects for a selection of perceived attributes however, they seldom if at any time took into account any form of community appreciation, price, or criticism. Western scholarship therefore designed many assumptions—some proper and some not—about how visible aspects, like measurement, exceptional products, and embellishments, translated into benefit in the supply cultures.

The Language of Magnificence—while acknowledging this narrow historical assessment of African art—focuses as an alternative on showcasing the aesthetic evaluations of the communities and makers who produced the functions. Numerous sub-Saharan cultures share related criteria for splendor: symmetry and equilibrium, moderation, clarity, and youthfulness. This sort of determinations, nevertheless, go over and above the visual and overlap with an object’s indicating and function. Beauty is often tied to goodness and ugliness to immorality. These connections are in particular clear in sculptural representations of the human kind, especially idealized images of potent men—usually equestrians or warriors—and caring women, usually shown as mom-and-little one figures.

Beautiful art often plays a role in interactions involving the substance world of humans and the immaterial environment of spirits. Persons facing disease and other adversity, for case in point, may endeavor to honor or entice the spirits with sculpted human figures showcasing elaborate hairstyles or overall body modifications that are the final result of human intervention.

Conversely, some art and objects demand deliberate ugliness in buy to mediate in between physical and religious worlds. Komo masks of the Bamana in Mali, for instance, are covered with levels of crusty choices and usually characteristic sharp, pointed additions, all meant to specific an intense and horrifying character. And nonetheless other functions, like the ability figures of the Kongo and Songye in southern Democratic Republic of the Congo, merge splendor and ugliness in a way that renders them at after irresistibly attractive and profoundly repelling.

Facial area Mask, 20th century. In all probability Ubi Côte d’Ivoire

Non-public assortment, Belgium. Photo by Hughes Dubois

No matter if gorgeous, unappealing, or something that defies these classes, The Language of Splendor in African Artwork celebrates these objects and the philosophical, social, political, and spiritual implications for the communities that integrated, or still include, them into ceremonial and ritual procedures and day to day life. In sharing these unfamiliar views, the exhibition also invites viewers to analyze their individual strategies about splendor and dilemma the influences that influence how we assess and take pleasure in will work of art.

Sponsors

Big funding for The Language of Elegance in African Artwork is presented by Lilly Endowment Inc., Myrna Kaplan, Gary Metzner and Scott Johnson, Javier Peres and Benoît Wolfrom, and an anonymous donor.

This project is supported in portion by the Nationwide Endowment for the Arts.

Customers of the Luminary Have faith in give once-a-year management help for the museum’s operations, such as exhibition improvement, conservation and collection care, and academic programming. The Luminary Have faith in involves an nameless donor, Neil Bluhm and the Bluhm Family Charitable Foundation, Karen Grey-Krehbiel and John Krehbiel, Jr., Kenneth C. Griffin, the Harris Spouse and children Basis in memory of Bette and Neison Harris, Josef and Margot Lakonishok, Robert M. and Diane v.S. Levy, Ann and Samuel M. Mencoff, Sylvia Neil and Dan Fischel, Anne and Chris Reyes, Cari and Michael J. Sacks, and the Earl and Brenda Shapiro Basis.

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These African heritage sites are under threat from rising seas, but there’s still time to save them

(CNN) — On the shores of North Africa, ancient cities have stood for millennia. The columns of Carthage, in modern-day Tunisia, are a reminder of the once bustling Phoenician and Roman port, and along the coast in what’s now Libya, lie the majestic ruins of Sabratha’s Roman amphitheater close — perhaps too close — to the sea.

Africa’s iconic natural sites date back even further, such as the ancient coral reef of the Seychelles’ Aldabra Atoll in the Indian Ocean, thought to be around 125,000 years old.
But extreme weather events and rising sea levels mean that all three — and around 190 other spectacular heritage sites that line Africa’s coasts — will be at risk of severe flooding and erosion in the next 30 years, according to a recent study published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Sea levels have been rising at a faster rate over the past three decades compared to the 20th century, the research says, and climate change hazards such as floods, heatwaves and wildfires are becoming more common.

The ancient Roman theater of Sabratha, in modern-day Libya, is one of the sites expected to be in danger by 2050.

The ancient Roman theater of Sabratha, in modern-day Libya, is one of the sites expected to be in danger by 2050.

PATRICK BAZ/AFP/Getty Images

It found that 56 sites are currently in danger if a “once in a century” flood struck, and that by 2050 — if greenhouse gas emissions continue on their current trajectory — this number could more than triple to 198 sites.

“There is a local value, an international value, an economic value … and an intrinsic value (to these heritage sites),” Nicholas Simpson, an author of the study and postdoctoral research fellow at the African Climate and Development Initiative at the University of Cape Town, tells CNN. “There are some monuments and sites and spaces that we don’t want lost for the next generation.”

Simpson believes the findings serve as an important wake-up call to increase climate adaptation measures and funding across the continent. “There’s an important message of loss and damage from climate change to heritage, which we hope will mobilize greater intent (and) action,” he says.

A first for Africa

This is particularly pertinent in Africa, where the links between climate risk and heritage have been mostly ignored, says Simpson. Past scientific research has identified cultural sites endangered by climate change in the Mediterranean, Europe and North America, but this is the first continent-wide assessment of Africa.
“(The link between) climate change and heritage in Africa is gravely under-researched, and compared to other continents, we know very little,” he says, adding that a 2021 study found that between 1990 and 2019, research on Africa received just 3.8{6d6906d986cb38e604952ede6d65f3d49470e23f1a526661621333fa74363c48} of climate-related global research funding.

In this latest study, Simpson and his colleagues mapped out a total of 284 heritage sites that are recognized or under consideration by the UNESCO World Heritage Centre and the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, in the 39 countries that comprise the African coast.

They overlaid this geographic data with a highly intricate model projecting sea level rise and global warming levels under both a moderate and high emission scenario. The moderate scenario assumes global greenhouse gas emissions will stabilize before the end of the century, while in the high emission scenario — sometimes referred to as “business as usual” — they continue to rise, consistent with the current global pace, until 2100.

From there, the researchers calculated the likely percentage area of the site exposed to a “once-in-a-century” extreme coastal flooding event.

Simpson explains that such an event is an important indicator in understanding future climate risk, because it is these extreme events that are likely to cause severe damage, and climate change is increasing their likelihood and frequency.

“In the 1970s, what used to be a once-in-a-100-year event happened once in 100 years,” he says, “but what we are seeing when climate hazards are amplified … is that a one-in-a-100-year event might be happening once in 10 years going forward.”

According to the research, North Africa has the largest number of threatened sites — from the ancient ruins of North Sinai that stretch between the Suez canal and Gaza and were once well-traveled by Egyptian pharaohs on their way to Canaan, to Tipasa, an ancient Phoenician trading post in present-day Algeria that was conquered by Rome and turned into a strategic base by Emperor Claudius during the conquest of Mauritania.
Many of North Africa's ancient cities lie dangerously close to the sea, such as Tipasa in modern-day Algeria.

Many of North Africa’s ancient cities lie dangerously close to the sea, such as Tipasa in modern-day Algeria.

HOCINE ZAOURAR/AFP via Getty Images

Simpson caveats this, noting that while North Africa has a high number of globally recognized world heritage sites, other parts of Africa may have key sites that are not listed by UNESCO or the Ramsar convention. But he hopes that identifying these world-famous sites might “raise alarm bells for climate risk for heritage in Africa.”

Protecting cultural heritage

The study notes that its findings will help to prioritize at-risk sites and highlight the need for immediate protective action. This could include engineering solutions, such as sea walls and breakwaters, but Simpson warns that flood mitigation measures like these are “incredibly expensive” and there’s no guarantee they can withstand future sea levels.

A much better solution, he says, is to restore, plant and manage ecological infrastructure, such as salt marshes, seagrass meadows and mangroves, which provide natural protection and act as carbon sinks, sucking up carbon dioxide from the air.

He adds that in Africa especially, it is crucial to improve local and indigenous governance around the sites and to recognize that the lives of indigenous peoples “are part of the landscape and intimately intertwined with the seasons.”

“Raising awareness about climate risk to heritage speaks to the broader need for greater urgency about [tackling] climate risk to societies,” says Simpson.