Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T00:44:40.289Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Hodgepodge Historiography: Documents, Itineraries, and the Absence of Archives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 May 2015

Luise White
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

African historians frequently argue that it is almost impossible to research postcolonial history because of the absence or haphazard nature of African archives. I argue that this is not so much an obstacle to writing the history of Africa after 1960s as it is a complement to it: incomplete and chaotic archives and documents scattered around the globe reveal some of the sloppiness of governmentality and how hit-and-miss statecraft has been in the recent past.

Résumé

Les historiens de l’Afrique évoquent souvent l’extrême difficulté à faire des recherches sur la période postcoloniale en raison de l’absence ou de l’incohérence des archives africaines. Je soutiens que cette situation n’est pas tant un obstacle qu’un complément à l’écriture de l’histoire de l’Afrique après 1960: l’incomplétude et le désordre des archives et des documents dispersés aux quatre coins du globe sont révélateurs du caractère erratique de la gouvernementalité et des trajectoires décousues de la construction de l’état dans le passé récent.

Type
Writing the History of Africa after 1960
Information
History in Africa , Volume 42 , June 2015 , pp. 309 - 318
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allman, Jean, “Phantoms of the Archive: Kwame Nkrumah, a Nazi Pilot Named Hanna, and the Contingencies of Postcolonial History-Writing,” American Historical Review 118–1 (2013), 104–129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Balaam, Andrew J., Bush War Operator: Memoirs of the Rhodesian Light Infantry, Selous Scouts and Beyond (Solihull: Helion, 2014).Google Scholar
Cooper, Frederick, “Conflict and Connection: Rethinking Colonial African History,” American Historical Review 99–5 (1994), 1516–1545.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steve, Davis, “Struggle History and Self-Help: The Parallel Lives of Nelson Mandela in Conventional and Figurative Biography,” African Studies 73–2 (2014), 169–191.Google Scholar
Ellis, Stephen, The Mask of Anarchy: The Destruction of Liberia and the Religious Dimension of an African Civil War (New York: New York University Press, 2001).Google Scholar
Freund, Bill, The Making of Contemporary Africa: The Development of African Society since 1800 (Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press, 1984).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Godwin, Peter, Mukiwa: A White Boy in Africa (London: Macmillan, 1996).Google Scholar
Hamilton, Carolyn, “Backstory, Biography, and the Life of the James Stuart Archive,” History in Africa 38 (2011), 319–341.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hofmeyr, Isabel, “‘Wailing for Purity:’ Oral Studies in Southern African Studies,” African Studies 52–4 (1995), 16–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mann, Gregory, “An Africanist’s Apostasy: On Luise White’s Speaking with Vampires,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 41–1 (2008), 117–121.Google Scholar
Mann, Gregory, “Anti-Colonialism and Social Science: Georges Balandier, Madeira Keita, and ‘the Colonial Situation’ in French Africa,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 66–1 (2013), 92–119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, Faan, James and the Duck: Tales of the Rhodesian Bush War (1964–1980): The Memoirs of a Part-Tim Trooper (Milton Keynes: Author House, 2007).Google Scholar
Parker, Jim, Assignment Selous Scouts: Inside Story of a Rhodesian Special Branch Officer (Alberton RSA: Galago, 2006).Google Scholar
Ranger, Terence, Writing Revolt: An Engagement with African Nationalism 1957–67 (Harare: Weaver Press, 2013).Google Scholar
Shepard, Todd, The Invention of Decolonization: The Algerian War and the Remaking of France (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 2006).Google Scholar
Special International Commission on the Assassination of Herbert Wiltshire Chitepo, Report (Lusaka: Government Printer, 1976).Google Scholar
Thomas, Lynn M., “The Modern Girl and Racial Respectability in 1930s South Africa,” Journal of African History 47–3 (2006), 461–490.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Time-Life Video and Television, The History of Rock ‘n’ Roll (2004).Google Scholar
Vansina, Jan, Living with Africa (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994).Google Scholar
White, Luise, The Comforts of Home: Prostitution in Colonial Nairobi (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1990).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, Luise, The Assassination of Herbert Chitepo: Texts and Politics in Zimbabwe (Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press, 2003).Google Scholar
White, Luise, Unpopular Sovereignty: Rhodesian Independence and African Decolonization (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2015).CrossRefGoogle Scholar