New publications

In this ASC Infosheet, Anika Altaf and Ton Dietz write that if NGOs want to include the ultra-poor in economic programmes, they need to emphasize social protection and human rights approaches that go beyond those programmes. The Dutch faith-based NGO Woord&Daad asked PhD candidate Anika Altaf to carry out research in places where Woord&Daad thought that their partner organisations were making genuine efforts to reach the ultra-poor. This led to four case studies in three countries: one in Bangladesh, one in Benin and two in Ethiopia.

Private wildlife conservation is booming business in South Africa. Nick Steele stood at the cradle of this development in the politically turbulent 1970s and 1980s, by stimulating farmers in Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal) to pool resources in order to restore wilderness landscapes, but at the same time improve their security situation in cooperative conservancy structures. His involvement in Operation Rhino in the 1960s and subsequent networks to save the rhino from extinction, brought him into controversial military (oriented) networks around the Western world. Harry Wels' unique access to Steele's private diaries paints a personal picture of this controversial conservationist.

The African Studies Centre's Annual Report for 2014 is out now! In addition to an excellent list of publications by our researchers, you will find other highlights such as the Africa Works! conference in October and the ASC's Annual Event by Phillippa Yaa de Villiers in December. You can read the Annual Report online or order a copy.

As a Zimbabwean playwright who lives in South Africa, Pedzisai Maedza, winner of the Africa Thesis Award 2014, in this web article reflects on the recent 'xenophobic' attacks against African immigrants in South Africa. Earlier, Maedza produced a play about the attacks on immigrants in South Africa in 2008. In 2014, he graduated with distinction at the University of Cape Town on a thesis that studies the use of testimonial performances around the concept of asylum.

Angela Kronenburg García's PhD dissertation has been published in the African Studies Collection. Contesting Control is about the Loita Maasai in Kenya who, faced with increasing outside interventions and pressure from neighbouring communities, the state and other agencies, have been struggling to maintain access and control over the land they inhabit and the forest they use. Angela Kronenburg García defended her dissertation at Wageningen University on 13 April.

Harrie Leyten's PhD thesis has been published in the African Studies Collection. In the book, Leyten describes how missionaries, anthropologists and curators of ethnographic museums have tried to come to grips with objects with power over the years. The research is based on available literature and makes use of the author’s own experiences as a missionary, anthropologist, Africa curator, and lecturer in museology.