Africa as Method - A Handbook of Sources and Epistemologies

This methods handbook investigates the multiple sources and interdisciplinary methodologies employed by scholars working on Africa. It illuminates how scholars of Africa locate, select, interpret, and combine sources to reconstruct Africa's past. Each contributor presents a specific typology of source or body of sources. Focusing on specific case studies, the chapters offer a broad overview of the methods and sources employed by historians, anthropologists, linguists, and related disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, working on Africa. The topics covered are diverse and include the significance of oral sources and how they relate to written sources; the perspectives provided by female writings on and from Africa; the relevance of Islamic court records for the study of Africa; the use of songs and poetry for the understanding of contemporary political protests; the employment of photographs and other visual sources for the study of the African past; how new sources or new interpretations of existing ones can provide different historical periodization; and finally, how biographies and autobiographies, including personal experiences with fieldwork in Africa, can contribute to shed light on Africa's past. The book is a valuable resource for graduate students and academics interested in doing research on Africa. It provides a sweeping but rich understanding of the methodologies in the field of African studies, and for historians in general. Ultimately, this book contends that the specific methodologies developed for the study of Africa are relevant not only for the understanding of the continent itself, but can also contribute significantly to the historical method more widely.

Inhaltsverzeichnis:

Introduction.- The Field as an Archive.- Recherche des Sources en Afrique Equatoriale.- Moments of Sharing: Fieldwork in Ethiopia (1988-2008).- Rethinking Periodisations.- Which Middle Ages for Ethiopia?.- Ousanas, A Ruler at the Crossroad of Aksum's History / (RIÉ 186 = DAE 8).- The First Muslims in Africa? Sources and Methods Regarding the Hijra to Abyssinia.- Questioning the Archive.- Islamic Legal Documents and Social Histories of Muslims in Eritrea and Ethiopia- Missionary Sources and African History: the Case of two Swedish Lutheran Missions.- Military Campaigning Abroad and Women's Writing in Colonial Eritrea (1912-1918).- The Private and the Public in the Colonial Archive.- Colonial Encounters and Land Tenure in Early Italian Rule in Africa. A Critical Enquiry into Recently Rediscovered Personal Papers of Leopoldo Franchetti.- The "Reaction from Below": Colonial Archives, Communist Propaganda and Messianic Movements in French Equatorial Africa.- Biographies and Autobio graphies as Epistemological Challenges.- Songs, Poems and Left-Wing "Heroes": The Soft Power of the Sudanese Left.- Somali Biography and Autobiography in the 20th Century.- Biography, Ethnography and Education in Colonial Libya. Panetta's Papers at Florence State Archives.- Visualizing Africa's Past.- Imaginaries and Self-representations: Coins as a Source for African History.- Photography of Colonial Libya in the former Fototeca del Museo Africano: a Provisional Appraisal.- Historical Sources and Political Trajectories.- Building the State in Eritrea: Notes on Epistemologies and Sources.- Imagining the Trajectories of the 2018 Peace Agreement Between Eritrea and Ethiopia.- Sources and Research on Liberation and Revolutionary Movements in the Horn of Africa.