This thesis examines the emergence and development of national consciousness and identity in the East African nation Tanzania. A work in the science of humanity, it connects traditional social sciences through the approach of mentalism. To date, research on African nationalism centers on the nation-state and national party, and on the teleological assumption that nation building implies cultural unification within the boundaries of the state's territory. National sovereignty is seen as a natural desire; nationalism in Africa is conflated with anti-colonialism and treated as the inevitable transition from the colonial to post-colonial order. Yet this approach to the study of African nationalism cannot account for many important processes, such as why many African states have failed, why corruption is rampant, and why authoritarian regimes predominate. I argue many aspects of modern African history are impossible to understand without recognizing that nationalism ushers in modernity and transforms and affects the major cultural institutions. I show how the process of national identity formation within Tanzania was the same process that occurs elsewhere. Nationalism did not exist in Tanzania among the native inhabitants prior to independence. Moreover, the creation of a shared sense of national identity began only after independence: the independent state was not a nation. In examining the national image created by several integral Tanzanian intellectuals, I reflect both on the significance they placed on their narratives and how it shaped the wider social world and the identities of those they influenced. My argument regarding Tanzania may apply to Africa more generally. The processes I described appear true of social and political developments across the continent. Many in Africa do now see themselves as equal members of sovereign societies and believe that the people are the ultimate source of political legitimacy. This work provides a methodology and argument that can be applied to address additional questions of how specifically nationalism has transformed African societies.

This is a socio-cultural ethnography in five chapters about motorcycles and lifecycles in post-civil war northern Uganda. People of the Acholi sub-region endured civil war between 1986 and 2006. Many of them anticipate another violent, politically motivated upheaval in Uganda. Drawing on 23 months of field research between 2014 and early 2017, the author focused on ethnic Acholi motorcycle-taxi drivers known as bodabodas to explore how men raised during wartime make a life as internal migrants on their own, contested territory. The bodabodas’ experience as men attempting to fulfill moral responsibilities that preceded them and will also outlast them allowed the author to interrogate movement philosophically and ethnographically and with deeply historical dimensions. Results show the bodabodas’ and their passengers’ multiple uses and ideas of movement and memory as they navigate opportunities and constraints linking rural and urban aspirations and livelihoods in this setting. Specifically, results reveal how, for both men and women, cultural understanding of and claiming a rightful place in a region recovering from war is paradoxically forged not through settlement or rootedness but through continuous transportation as provided by the motorcycle taxis. Moving around is what keeps aspirations of place and destination (literally and figuratively: a home, an education, an office job) in play as both vital and meaningful. It keeps afloat stories of both responsibility fulfillment and personal freedom. The study thus contributes to the anthropology of youth, of internal migration, and of rural and urban transformation in East-Central Africa. The author’s method involved more than 1,000 trips as a passenger. The author interviewed 126 individuals (105 males, 21 females), gathered oral life histories, conducted mapping exercises, and drew on archival materials in the Uganda National Archives and Gulu District Archives. With native speakers of the Acholi language, the author translated poems, songs, proverbs, and folktales of relevance to migration, livelihoods, and cultural understandings of “home and away” in this tumultuous region. A key source for historical change comparisons were the 1950s-era ethnographic fieldnotes of anthropologist Paula Hirsch Foster at Boston University’s African Studies Library. / 2021-02-05T00:00:00Z

The initial phases of this research were undertaken in the second half of 2011, at a pivotal moment in the campaign of language purists in Saudi Arabia. The campaign gathered momentum against the widespread use of the chat variety Arabizi in computer-mediated communication. As the research progressed towards its final stages of completion (between 2012 and 2014), the moral panic surrounding Arabizi as a threat to the Arabic language or to Suadi identity gradually diminished. This development was paralleled with a notable decrease of Arabizi. Partly enabled by the introduction of the Arabic keyboard in new media technologies, Arabizi became obsolete in Saudi socia media content. The objective of this research is to establish a counter-narrative on the hidden causes and implications of the gradual obsolescence of Arabizi, looking closely at social-media content generated by a small sample of Saudi female Twitter users. The research applies mixed-method approaches to data collection and analysis in computer- mediated discourse analysis (CMDA) and digital ethnography. The results of this study show a correlation between Arabic-only or English-only content generated by female users, off-line gender segregated spaces, and the position of language purists against all forms of linguistic miscegenation or hybrid language varieties. This research concludes that a critical reappraisal of the moral panic surrounding Arabizi and its obsolescence in user-generated content in Saudi Arabia, contrasted with its continued use in other parts of the Arab speaking world, is pivotal to understand how gender, language purism, national-Islamic identification, and misconceived notions about the neutrality of media technology work as mutually supporting structures of power and privilege.

No description available.

The sasswood ordeal of poison presents a divinatory ritual which has been used in criminal cases by the traditional African of Sierra Leone and Liberia. For at least six hundred years, the peoples of these present countries have imposed this strictest of ordeals on their moral transgressors; and the practice has survived, despite the protestations of nineteenth-century missionaries and the encroachment of the western world. The investigation of the historical evidence of the sasswood ordeal among the West Atlantic tribes of Africa has three basic purposes. First, because of the paucity of interpretive data on the sasswood ordeal, the primary purpose of the thesis has been to more clearly delineate the meaning, characteristics, and functions of this poison ordeal as well as the swearing of oaths among the peoples of Sierra Leone and Liberia by amalgamating historical and more contemporaneous evidence. To this end, the distribution of the ordeal was considered; and descriptions were made of the various characteristics of the trait--complex--the poison’s action, the ritual and ceremonial aspects, the sasswood specialist, the accusations made in connection with the ordeal as well as indigenous myths of origin of the ordeal. Intracultural correlations were then presented to demonstrate the interdigitation of the elements in a culture in relation to the ordeal. Finally, some functions, other than the obvious guilt-determining aspect, were presented to demonstrate the various ways in which it had been used historically. A second purpose of this thesis was to demonstrate the intrinsically conservative: qualities of the ordeal as an aspect of religion and law. By assessing the impact of specific historical influences in the region of the West Atlantic tribes, such as Islam, colonialism, slavery, and urbanization, it was shown that no significant change had been witnessed through the six-hundred-year period of the historical record. In concluding this aspect, it was noted that certain "weaknesses" in the historical record—such as its being "piecemeal" and recorded only infrequently--caused problems in interpreting what appeared to be an intrinsically conservative nature of the sasswood ordeal. A third purpose, related to the second, was the application and assessment of "ethnohistoriographic" techniques, that is, those specific methods of historical scholarship utilized by the ethnographer in investigating past cultures. The limits of the use of the ethnohistoriographic techniques included observational bias (which was readily accountable, dealing as it did with hyperbole), the preoccupation with "sensational" data (which provided disparities, over-emphases in the historical record), as well as political motivations such that national prejudice frequently determined the "interpretation" placed on the ordeal. In addition, it was noted that because the sasswood ordeal may be classified as "esoterica," the record for this practice was generally spotty; and this fact affected interpretations on the actual change manifested in the trait complex. The main contribution made by this study has been to afford future readers with a composite and relatively complete source of information on one specific type of poison ordeal practiced among the West Atlantic tribes of Sierra Leone and Liberia.

The dissertation, "The Stakes of Empire: Colonial Fantasies, Civilizing Agendas, and Biopolitics in the Prussian-Polish Provinces (1840--1914)," is a comparative and transnational analysis of the discourses and practices that the German empire used to map out, describe, and regulate Polish-speaking citizens in Imperial Germany. It studies the cultural and biological definitions of Polish subjects not only through the scientific works of Germans and Poles in Central Europe, but also through their experiences with colonial projects in German Africa. Inspired by the works of postcolonial and imperial studies on subjectivity, I study multiple levels of subject positioning, nested imperial and colonial relations, and constructions of national/colonial cartographies using sources that range from medical texts and state documents to travel literature. I argue that many ideological elements informing power relations and cultural practices in distant colonies also applied to the Prussian-Polish provinces, especially when considering the politics of the state regulating populations and epidemic diseases in the borderlands. Poles were often portrayed in the German empire as internal others who shared characteristics with the colonized and required similar strategies of control. / In addition to providing a historical context for the health conditions of the Prussian-Polish provinces, the dissertation analyzes the complicated process by which these territories became stigmatized as disease-stricken places. I show this transformation by studying debates about cholera and typhus epidemics in the region. The project also examines the different Polish scientific organizations that were founded not only as a "self-help" strategy used to confront diseases, but also as a method to counter the Germanizing projects and the leading medical discourses about the region. The close analysis of Polish writings from this period demonstrates that Polish-speaking citizens under the German empire were not passive receptors of state policies and discourses, but they were actively challenging these conceptions by calling into question imperial civilizing agendas and developing at the same time their own civilizing and colonial fantasies. By studying these medical and political debates, the dissertation uncovers novel ways to connect medicine, scientific expeditions, and colonial agendas.

In many African countries, including Ethiopia, decades of ruthless dictatorships and civil war, were followed by an almost universal demand for democracy combined with a seemingly willing leadership. However, two decades since this significant upsurge to adopt democratic governance, many are left wondering about the depth of commitment to this effort and the sincerity of political leaders. In fact, many dictators and autocrats have adopted the language of democracy and some of its formal elements. Academics, donor countries, and international organizations are struggling to identify an appropriate model of governance. The theory of semi-authoritarianism strives to address this issue of ambiguity by placing the responsibility for democratization, or the lack thereof, with the political leadership. The argument here is that many countries seemingly in transition are not. Rather, they are semi-authoritarian by design as the political elite has a vested interest in preventing democratic consolidation. The theory of semi-authoritarianism attempts to explain the continuation of false democracies. However, the theory is too broad and superficial, it raises just as many questions as it attempts to address. The attempt to classify and explain emerging political trends in countries such as Ethiopia without an appreciation of deeper forces beyond elite manipulation can jeopardize a realistic appraisal of the fate of democracy.

In many African countries, including Ethiopia, decades of ruthless dictatorships and civil war, were followed by an almost universal demand for democracy combined with a seemingly willing leadership. However, two decades since this significant upsurge to adopt democratic governance, many are left wondering about the depth of commitment to this effort and the sincerity of political leaders. In fact, many dictators and autocrats have adopted the language of democracy and some of its formal elements. Academics, donor countries, and international organizations are struggling to identify an appropriate model of governance. The theory of semi-authoritarianism strives to address this issue of ambiguity by placing the responsibility for democratization, or the lack thereof, with the political leadership. The argument here is that many countries seemingly in transition are not. Rather, they are semi-authoritarian by design as the political elite has a vested interest in preventing democratic consolidation. The theory of semi-authoritarianism attempts to explain the continuation of false democracies. However, the theory is too broad and superficial, it raises just as many questions as it attempts to address. The attempt to classify and explain emerging political trends in countries such as Ethiopia without an appreciation of deeper forces beyond elite manipulation can jeopardize a realistic appraisal of the fate of democracy.

<p> There has been a rash of divorce among Nigerian Igbo immigrants. This was unheard of several years ago in a community whose culture frowned upon divorce. While some have examined factors affecting divorce, this study investigates those couples who remained married in the whirlwind of the divorce around them. </p><p> This phenomenological study reports the lived experience of nine Nigerian Igbo immigrant couples who live in the Houston area metropolis and who have been married for 20 years or more. Data from two clergymen who also live in the Houston metropolitan area and who have ministerial duties for the Nigerian Igbo community were utilized. Interviews were audiotaped and transcribed. Giorgi&rsquo;s psychological phenomenological method (1985) was used to analyze data. </p><p> The analysis of the data from participating couples yielded the following 15 essential structures: successful navigation of problems related to extended family, understanding that every marriage is unique with no comparison, mutual trust and understanding, appreciation of the marriage experience, communication, living within ones means, ability to be flexible and dynamic, team work, eliminating interference from others, infidelity, involvement in spiritual and religious activities, seeing marriage as a learning process, finances, raising of children , and acculturation issues. Participating clergy identified these six structures: ability to forgive and to tolerate, preference to go to the priest or religious leader, awareness of unacceptability of divorce, effective management of issues surrounding sex, being constantly aware of the love element in marriage, and managing the over inflated image of a cozy life in the US. </p><p> This study&rsquo;s finding did not differ greatly from other studies on long-term marriages. The results support the conclusion that there may be cross cultural similarity in structural factors fostering marriage longevity. The results did, however, indicate some uniqueness germane to the acculturation of this immigrant population in the areas of extended family, upbringing of children, gender roles, and male patriarchal hegemony. This underscores the need for counselors to consider cultural context when looking at marriage longevity. The Nigerian couples in this study also acknowledged that the above listed structures may have either a positive or negative impact on marriage stability.</p>

<p> HIV has remained a public health problem in Nigeria. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to examine the effect of social support and HIV-related stigma on depression in people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) and to examine the moderating effect of sociodemographic factors, Quality of Life (QOL), and time since HIV diagnosis on this relationship. This study was based on the social cognitive theory. Data were collected from 98 PLWHA attending the antiretroviral clinic of Federal Medical Center, Umuahia, Nigeria. Regression analyses were used to examine the relationships between the variables. Some 24.5% of the study participants were depressed. Significant relationships identified included negative relationships between depression and social support, positive relationships between depression and negative self-image, and a combination of poor social support and HIV-related stigma having synergic effects in predicting depression. Sociodemographic variables, quality of life, and time since HIV diagnosis did not have a moderating effect on the relationship between social support, HIV-related stigma, and depression in PLWHA. There is a need to improve social support and reduce HIV-related stigma in PLWHA in order to improve their mental health. These findings can help in bringing about positive social change by informing the development of public health initiatives aimed at improving the mental health of PLWHA.</p>