Virtual event: Sexualities and Queer Studies in/from Africa
This seminar takes the recent publication of two edited volumes on sexuality/queer studies in Africa as a timely occasion for reflecting on this quickly growing field in relation to the longer tradition of African gender studies.

Rachel Spronk, Thomas Hendriks, S.N. Nyeck, Andrea Cornwall
Date: 1 February 2021
Time: 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Further details can be found at SOAS Centre of African Studies

Debating ideas
Debating Ideas is a new section that aims to reflect the values and editorial ethos of the African Arguments book series, publishing writing from within the African continent and beyond. It will offer debates and engagements, contexts and controversies, and reviews and responses flowing from the African Arguments books. Edited and managed by the International African Institute. Host: SOAS University of London. Sponsored by the World Peace Foundation. Go to the Debating ideas web page >>

Publishing and co-publishing books in African studies: guidelines for authors
The guidelines are pursuant to the initiative by ABC, ASAUK and ASAUS and seek to assist academic authors publishing in African studies as to their options for co-publishing in the African continent.

Local intellectuals strand - call for papers

The aim of this strand of the journal is to introduce and analyse texts – whether oral, manuscript or print – produced by authors outside the literary or academic mainstream.

Read more and view the call for papers >>

Call for papers: Africa Bibliography Introductory Essays Title
Articles of 5,000-8,000 words on topics relating to research, libraries, archives and publishing in and on Africa, and in African studies, are invited.
Find out more here or contact Managing Editor Stephanie Kitchen for further details, sk111(at)soas.ac.uk.

International African Library series - call for proposals
The Institute and series editors welcome new proposals for this series.
Please see further details on The International African Library page.

Israel in Africa: Security, Migration, Interstate Politics
Yotam Gidron

Amidst the turmoil of the Middle East, few have noticed the extent to which Israel has slowly but surely been building alliances on the African continent. Facing a growing international backlash, Israel has had to look beyond its traditional Western allies for support, and many African governments in turn have been happy to receive Israeli political support, security assistance, investments and technology. But what do these relationships mean for Africa, and for wider geopolitics? From Africa’s authoritarian development politics and the rise of Born-Again Christianity to Israel’s thriving high-tech and arms industries, from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the migration of Africans to Israel and back again, Gidron provides a comprehensive analysis of the various forces and actors shaping Israel’s controversial relationships with countries on the continent. In particular, the book demonstrates that Israel’s interest in Africa forms part of a wider diplomatic effort, aimed at blocking Palestine’s pursuit of international recognition. Though the scale of Israeli-African engagements has been little appreciated until now, the book reveals how contemporary African and Middle Eastern politics and societies interact and impact each other in profound ways. Yotam Gidron is a researcher whose writing focuses on migration, state-society relations, and popular culture in Africa and Israel/Palestine. He has worked with human rights organisations in Israel and in East Africa, and is currently pursuing a PhD in African History at Durham University.

Published for the International African Institute by Zed Books
ISBN: 9781786995025, 192 pp, April 2020

Hunting Game: Raiding Politics in the Central African Republic
Louisa Lombard

Northeastern Central African Republic - a vast space bordering Chad, Darfur, and South Sudan - is a quintessential 'stateless' space, where the government has little presence and armed actors operate freely. In this first ethnographic and historical study of Central African raiding, Louisa Lombard investigates practices of forceful acquisition, a distinctive political repertoire in which claims to social status are linked to the ability to take (from wild spaces, or from others) and are frequently overturned. People have developed raiding skills to survive and live in a stateless borderland for over 150 years. From the trans-Saharan slave trade, to colonial forced labour regimes, big game hunting and coercive conservation, to rebellion, raiding has flourished where people's status in relation to each other is unclear and where institutional guidance is absent. Hunting Game offers rich comparative insights into the vibrant, if not always salutary, role that forceful acquisition plays in the world today.

Published for the IAI by Cambridge University Press

ISBN 9781108478779, 253pp, February 2020

Ironies of Solidarity: Insurance and Financialization of Kinship in South Africa
Erik Bähre

Set in one of the world’s most unequal and violent places, this ethnographic study reveals how insurance companies discovered a vast market of predominantly poor African clients. After apartheid ended in 1994, South Africa became a ‘testing ground’ for new insurance products, new marketing techniques and pioneering administrative models with a potentially global market. Drawing on Rorty’s notion of irony for understanding how the contradictions inherent to solidarity affect inequality and conflict as well as drawing on a vast array of case studies, Ironies of Solidarity examines how both Africans enjoy the freedoms that they have gained in financial terms and how the onset of democracy effected the risks faced in everyday life. Bähre examines the ways in which policies are sold and claims are handled, offering a detailed analysis of South Africa’s insurance sector.

ISBN: 9781786998583, 264pp, January 2020, Published for the IAI by Zed Books