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Pastoral and agro-pastoral areas in eastern Africa and elsewhere on the continent have long been regarded as peripheries, especially in economic terms, but also in terms of social and cultural accomplishments. Although biased perceptions of the 'unproductive' uses of...

The 2011-2014 controversies between the Ethiopian Government and Muslim communities on the role of Islam in Ethiopia have highlighted the precarious nature of religious relations in Ethiopia. Statements by public figures and religious leaders recently have drawn attention to...

Vogelbescherming Nederland (BirdLife in the Netherlands) started a new project in 2011 to protect (migratory) birds in the drylands of the Sahel by promoting sustainable land-use practices that would contribute to habitat restoration and conservation as well as better...

The documented analysis of the forest offences revealed eight forest offence types with prevalent cases being chainsaw milling, illegal logging and illegal farming. Between 2005 and 2010, the district recorded 121 offences with more offences occurring in the on-reserve areas...

Ordinary social violence, - i.e. recurrent mental or physical aggression occurring between closely related people - structures social relationships in Africa, and in the world. Studies of violence in Africa often refer to ethnic wars and explicit conflicts and do not enter...

This book critically interrogates emerging intertconnections between religion and biomedicine in Africa in the era of antiretroviral treatment for AIDS. Highlighting the complex relationships between religious ideologies, practices and organizations on the one hand, and...

In this lecture I describe and expand upon a painting by Thomas Baines that depicts Amaxhosa migrant labourers leaving the Cape Colony in 1848. It is my belief that what is depicted in this painting is representative of what happened in Southern Africa as a whole between 1650...

This article is a historical study of a 'motor road' linking the north of the Gold Coast (present day Ghana) to the South. Historians concerned with routes and trade in nineteenth century Gold Coast usually end their accounts at the onset of colonial rule. While...

Africa's population has grown extremely rapidly over the last fifty years from 289 million inhabitants in 1961 to more than 1 billion today. This is a growth rate of 350% in just half a century and the number of urban residents has increased even more quickly: from 65...

After almost fifty years of Dutch-Zambian relationships, the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Lusaka closed its doors in 2013. Earlier, the development cooperation with this African country was ended. A lively Dutch community of entrepreneurs and (former) development workers stay...