Publications

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...

In this article, I focus on the historiography of Islam in West Africa while also reflecting upon and assessing existing scholarship in the broader field of the study of Islam in Africa. My position as an anthropologist who conducts historical research informs my perspective...

This chapter considers the work of charities from the Gulf region in Africa. After a historical overview of Gulf charities’ presence on the continent and a discussion of the ways in which diverse African contexts impact on their work, it continues by exploring how...

This book offers a unique look behind the scenes of anthropological fieldwork amongst the Mende in Sierra Leone in the mid-1930s. The Dutch anthropologist and sociologist Sjoerd Hofstra (1898-1983), Rockefeller research fellow of the International Institute of African...

Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) such as nuts, leaves, resins, barks and honey from Cameroon have medicinal, food, energy and cultural uses. This study examines the arrangements governing eight such NTFP value chains, worth over 32 million US$ annually with around 34,000...

Het Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), een van origine Oegandees rebellenleger, kan op de nodige belangstelling rekenen, getuige de vele publicaties van academici en hulporganisaties. Een internetvideo over Joseph Kony, de leider van het LRA, genereerde in 2012 zelfs...

The last two years have seen a huge amount of academic, policy-making and media interest in the increasingly contentious issue of land grabbing - the large-scale acquisition of land in the global South. It is a phenomenon against which locals seem defenceless, and one about...

This book is the first attempt to understand Boko Haram in a comprehensive and consistent way. It examines the early history of the sect and its transformation into a radical armed group. It analyses the causes of the uprising against the Nigerian state and evaluates the...