The social life of connectivity in Africa

This book marks the end of a collaborative research programme of the African Studies Centre Leiden on changing forms of connections in postglobal African society. Arguing that the nature of connections is often overlooked in social theory, the studies in the volume explore how connectedness continues to change life and society across the African continent. Contributions: Introduction: connectivity and the postglobal moment: (dis)connections and social change in Africa (Mirjam de Bruijn and Rijk van Dijk); Flows and forces: once contained, now detained? On connections past and present in Rwanda (Danielle de Lame); Research practice in connections: travels and methods (Mirjam de Bruijn and Inge Brinkman); Patriarchy turned upside down: the flight of the royal women of Kom, Cameroon from 1920 to the 1960s (Walter Gam Nkwi); Beyond the last frontier: Major Trollope and the Eastern Caprivi Zipfel (Jan-Bart Gewald); The 'Victorian internet' reaches halfway to Cairo: Cape Tanganyika Telegraphs, 1875-1926 (Neil Parsons); Marriages and mobility in Akan societies: disconnections and connections over time and space (Astrid Bochow); A ritual connection: urban youth marrying in the village in Botswana (Rijk van Dijk); Connecting communities and business: public-private partnerships as the panacea for land reform in Limpopo Province, South Africa (Marja Spierenburg et al.); Connectivities compared: transnational Islamic NGOs in Chad and Senegal (Mayke Kaag); Love therapy: a Brazilian Pentecostal (dis)connection in Maputo (Linda van de Kamp); Ajala Travel: mobility and connections as forms of social capital in Nigerian society (Oka Obono and Koblowe Obono); Connecting 'ourselves': a Dogon ethnic association and the impact of connectivity (Walter E.A. van Beek); Intimate strangers: connecting fiction and ethnography (Francis B. Nyamnjoh). [ASC Leiden abstract]