Association of Concerned Africa Scholars Review (previously: Bulletin)

For three decades, the Association Concerned African Scholars Bulletin (from 2015, Review) has been a centerpiece of ACAS’s work. It continues to provide timely, relevant and incisive analysis of developments in Africa while promoting alternative views and policies.

N°89: Tribute to Terence O. Ranger (29 November 1929 – 3 January 2015)

This special ACAS Review pays tribute to Terence O. Ranger. We focus here on his role as an activist scholar.

https://concernedafricascholars.org/bulletin/issue89/

N°88: Reclaiming Food Sovereignty in Africa
Food sovereignty—the right of peoples to choose their own food production systems—is an important assertion of rights for farmers and local communities around the world. This issue of the ACAS Bulletin explores efforts to reassert food sovereignty in Africa.

https://concernedafricascholars.org/bulletin/issue88/

N°87: Africa’s Capital Losses: What Can Be Done?
Africa’s capital losses from illicit financial flows far outweigh inflows from aid or direct foreign investment. But what can be done? It is essential to understand that this depends on the same global system that handles “offshore investments” by Mitt Romney and others in the global 1%.

https://concernedafricascholars.org/bulletin/issue87/

N°86 - The Sudans: Which Way?

South Sudan gained its independence on July 9, 2011. The new situation in the South and in the North requires close examination and rethinking of old categories. Six different perspectives on possible paths for the peoples of the Sudan are outlined, and placed in the context of complex, burning issues of citizenship, race, democracy, gender, international relations, and peace.

https://concernedafricascholars.org/bulletin/issue86/

N°85: Security and the Sahara-Sahel

Since 2002, the US government has been pursuing a series of counter-terrorism initiatives in the Sahara-Sahel region. Despite this security commitment from Washington to Northwest Africa, there is no consensus among policy makers, observers, regional governments and locals on-the-ground as to the ultimate warrant for these measures.

https://concernedafricascholars.org/bulletin/issue85/

N°84: Jacob Zuma

Jacob Zuma, the President of Africa’s most powerful democracy since April 2009, and the recently chosen ‘African President of the Year’, arouses strong passions from his supporters and detractors. A longtime ANC official from a humble peasant background in what is now Kwazulu-Natal province, Zuma was picked by the ANC to be the country’s deputy president under Thabo Mbeki in 1999. The men, close colleagues during exile (and during the early years of negotiating with the Apartheid government), appeared to only enjoy a friendly rivalry at that point. So when it came to predicting who would lead South Africa when Mbeki departed the national stage, most observers did not think of Zuma as a serious contender.

https://concernedafricascholars.org/bulletin/issue84/

N°83: Gender & Violence

This Bulletin began in response to news reports of “corrective” and “curative” gang rapes of lesbians in South Africa. These were then followed by news reports of a study in South Africa that found that one in four men in South Africa had committed rape, many of them more than once. We wanted to bring together concerned Africa scholars and committed African activists and practitioners, to help contextualize these reports. We wanted to address the ongoing situation of sexual and gender based violence on the continent, the media coverage of sexual and gender based violence in Africa, and possibilities for responses, however partial, that might offer alternatives to the discourse of the repeated profession of shock or the endless, and endlessly reiterated, cycle of lamentation.

https://concernedafricascholars.org/bulletin/issue83/

N°82: Mamdani & Zimbabwe

Mahmood Mamdani, a university professor of anthropology at Columbia University in New York City remains one of the pre-eminent scholars of African Studies in the West. He also remains prolific, often taking the lead in unpacking controversial debates. For example, this month he has a new book out on the Darfur crisis, Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror (Knopf, 2009). And few can disagree about the impact of his previous two books. Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror (Pantheon, 2004) certainly contributed—especially in popular media—to our understanding of the historical roots of the “War on Terror”: to the United States’ engagement in proxy wars in Southern Africa, Latin America and Afghanistan and the antecedents of “collateral damage.” A decade earlier, his Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism (Princeton, 1996) became a must-read in universities. So when, in early December 2008, the London Review of Books (hereafter LRB) published a long essay by Mamdani on the ongoing political and economic crises (at least for a decade now) in Zimbabwe, it was inevitable that it would provoke debate. As one critic of Mamdani’s concedes in this issue, “…whatever Mamdani writes he is always brilliant and provocative.”

https://concernedafricascholars.org/bulletin/issue82/

Online archive of the ACAS Bulletin (Under construction)

Bulletin 85 (Spring 2010):US militarization of the Sahara-Sahel: Security, Space & Imperialism | Read the complete PDF (12MB)

Bulletin 84 (Winter 2010): The Politics of Jacob Zuma | Read the complete PDF (2MB)

Bulletin 83 (Fall 2009): Sexual and gender based violence in Africa | Read the complete PDF (3.4MB)

Bulletin 82 (Summer 2009 ): Reflections on Mahmood Mamdani’s ‘Lessons of Zimbabwe’ | Read the complete PDF (2.1MB)

Bulletin 81 (Spring 2009): ACAS Thirty Years On | Read the complete PDF (6.1MB)

Bulletin 80 (Winter 2008): Special Issue on the Zimbabwe Crisis - Two | Read the complete PDF

Bulletin 79 (Spring 2008): Special Issue on 2008 Zimbabwe Elections | Read the complete PDF

Bulletin 78 (Winter 2007): The Politics of Africom | Read the complete PDF

Bulletin 77 (Summer 2007): North Africa and the Horn in the Vortext of the “War on Terror” | Read the complete PDF

Bulletin 75/76 (Winter 2006/Spring 2007): Africa’s Resources in the Global Economy