The Journal of African History Podcast

The Journal of African History
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The Journal of African History Podcast highlights interviews with historians whose work has appeared in The Journal of African History, a leading source of peer-reviewed scholarship on Africa’s past since its creation in 1960. Hosted by journal editors and occasional guest hosts, episodes include discussions on how scholars find and interpret sources for African history, how authors’ research contributes to debates among historians, and how Africanist scholarship can add much-needed context to broader social and political debates.

  1. FEB 4

    A Year in African Historical Scholarship

    Journal of African History Podcast: Volume 66 Retrospective What does a year of cutting-edge African history scholarship reveal about where the field is heading? In this special episode marking the close of Volume 66, The Journal of African History managing editor Samuel Severson sits down with the journal’s regional editors—Abou Bamba (reviews and History Matters), Michelle Moyd (East Africa), Moses Ochonu (West and North Africa), and Thula Simpson (Southern Africa)—for a wide-ranging conversation about the state of African history research in 2025. Rather than simply rehashing articles, our editors dig into the deeper currents shaping the field: Which archives are scholars turning to? What new methodological approaches are emerging in response to Africa's rapidly changing present? How are questions of positionality, ethics, and the real risks scholars face when researching politically contentious subjects reshaping what it means to write African history today? Whether you're a contributor to JAH, a reader tracking the field’s evolution, or simply curious about the behind-the-scenes work of shaping a major academic journal, this episode offers a rare glimpse into how scholarly conversations actually happen—and where African history is headed next. Articles Referenced in this Episode: HISTORY MATTERS Colonialism, Governance, and Fisheries: Perspectives from Lake Malawi Milo Gough, University of Oxford; Bryson Nkhoma, Mzuzu University; Elias Chirwa, Mzuzu University; David Wilson, University of Strathclyde; Charles Knapp, University of Strathclyde; Tracy Morse, University of Strathclyde; Wapulumuka Mulwafu, Mzuzu University Traditional Institutions and Cultural Heritage Law: The Case of Benin Bronzes L. Amede Obiora, University of Arizona The New Instrumental Turn in Nigerian Historical Scholarship Moses Ochonu, Vanderbilt University Echoes of History: Legacies of the Benin Bronzes and Restitution within the Black Atlantic Cresa Pugh, The New School RESEARCH ARTICLES Africans Championed Free Trade: Violence, Sovereignty, and Competition in the Era of Atlantic Slave Trade Ana Lucia Araujo, Howard University Diplomacy of Intimacy: Cameroonian Women’s Anticolonial Diplomacy with China in the Era of Decolonization Caitlin Barker, Boston College Women's Livelihood and Status Struggles in Tabora after the End of Slavery, 1920s–60 Felicitas Becker, Ghent University; Salvatory Nyanto, University of Dar es Salaam Decolonizing Archival Narratives: Exploring Digital Bias in the Catalogs of Portuguese-Colonized African Territories Agata Błoch, Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History; Guillem Martos Oms, University of Barcelona and National Archives of Catalonia; Clodomir Santana, Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History Resurrecting the African Independent Pentecostal Church: Land, Education, and the Politics of Reconciliation during Kenya’s Decolonisation, 1952–69 Niels Boender, University of Edinburgh Capitalist Flows and Working-Class Conditions: Colonial Labor Management and Racial Formations in Southeastern Africa, 1851–1900 Abikal Borah, San Diego State University Manly Machines and Homely Objects: Gender, Development and Divergent Radio Technologies in Late-Colonial Ghana and Zambia Peter Brooke, University of Oxford The Voracious Frontier: Policing, War, and Mercantilism in Dutch South Africa, 1652–1830 Paul Clarke, Independent Scholar African Correspondents in the Second World War in Burma: Reporting on Soldiers’ Experiences of Conflict, June–August 1945 Oliver Coates, University of Cambridge Of “Akankyemaa” and Beyond: Gender and Mining Income Disruptions in Late Colonial Asante David Damtar, University of Oxford Neo-Colonialism, Underdevelopment, and the Making of a Radical Pan-African and Leftist Economic Institute, 1970–80 Bright Gyamfi, Rutgers University Of Cattle and Community: Women’s History-telling in Western Uganda's Nanga Performances, 1900–Present Caitlin Cooke Monroe, University of Northern Colorado Making Violators: Employers and African Workers in Colonial Dakar, 1918–43 Rachel M. Petrocelli, Santiago Canyon College The Emergence of Social and Political Complexity in West Central Africa John Thornton, Boston University Building Legacy: Sports, Kasarani Stadium, and Moi’s Transnational Populist Politics, 1978–87 Chepchirchir Tirop, Boston University “Sodabi Calamity Number One”: The Production of Palm Alcohol in Dahomey and its Repression, 1840–1975 Giovanni Tonolo, University of Florence Harambee Co-operative Savings and Credit Society: Wealth, Inequality, and Accumulation in 1970s Kenya Justin Willis, Durham University; Radha Upadhyaya, University of Nairobi; Eric Njuguna Kamau, British Institute in Eastern Africa FEATURED REVIEWS Ambiguous Echoes of the Colonial Partition: Alternative Futures from the Casamançais Past in Senegal Mark Deets, The American University in Cairo Review of Séverine Awenengo Dalberto's L'idée de la Casamance autonome: Possibles et dettes morales de la situation coloniale au Sénégal Intimate Archives and Anterooms Khwezi Mkhize, Duke University Review of Joel Cabrita's Written Out: The Silencing of Regina Gelana Twala

    59 min

  2. 11/19/2025

    Mark Deets on alternative futures of the Casamance

    In this episode Mark Deets (AUC) joins editor Abou Bamba (Gettysburg) to discuss “Ambiguous Echoes of the Colonial Partition: Alternative Futures from the Casamançais Past in Senegal.” This featured review explores Séverine Awenengo Dalberto’s L’idée de la Casamance autonome (Karthala Edition, 2024) as well as the political controversy surrounding its publication. In the podcast, Deets further discusses his own work on the Casamance—notably his book A Country of Defiance (2023, Ohio University Press)—and offers insights on Senegalese politics, historical contingency, and the importance of academic freedom and solidarity as scholars delve into important but sensitive historical questions.

    24 min

  3. 07/25/2025

    David Wilson on fisheries management in Lake Malawi

    In this episode, David Wilson (University of Strathclyde) joins guest host Ayodeji Adegbite (Brown University) to discuss the Open Access article, "Colonialism, Governance, and Fisheries: Perspectives from Lake Malawi," co-authored with Milo Gough, Bryson Nkhoma, Elias Chirwa, Charles Knapp, Tracy Morse, and Wapulumuka Mulwafu. Wilson details how this article—situated at the intersection of environmental science and historical research—sheds light on both the history and contemporary dynamics of natural resource governance in Africa and beyond. He explains the development of two parallel fisheries regimes in late colonial Malawi: a colonial system marked by exclusionary, centralized decision-making, and an indigenous regime grounded in place-based knowledge, local customs, beliefs, and practices. The latter regime, led by Senior Chief Makanjira, yielded sustainable outcomes, in contrast to the colonial regime, which failed to achieve similar results. The conversation further explores the methodological challenges faced by the authors, highlighting how knowledge hierarchies continue to shape natural resource management, and gives practical recommendations for collaborative models in natural resource governance across Africa.

    21 min

  4. 02/13/2025

    Muoki Mbunga on the moral logics of Mau Mau fighters

    Muoki Mbunga (Tufts University) joins East Africa editor Michelle Moyd to discuss his newly published open access article, “Who Deserves to Die? The Moral Logic of Mau Mau Killings in Colonial Kenya, 1952–56.” In their conversation, Mbunga details how his novel use of the captured documents of Mau Mau guerrillas enabled him to explore the ways that Kikuyu ritual and traditions were deployed and shaped by the realities of the asymmetrical conflict. By examining the perspectives of fighters themselves on why, who, and how to kill, Mbunga makes an important contribution to the rich historiography on the conflict in 1950s Kenya. The open access article is available online and in print issue 65/3 of the JAH.

    25 min

  5. 11/18/2024

    John Aerni-Flessner on border violence amd diplomacy in Southern Africa

    In this episode, John Aerni-Flessner (MSU) joins editor Moses Ochonu (Vanderbilt) to discuss the article, "Lesotho and the QwaQwa Ski Resort, 1975–82: Border Disputes and South Africa's Increasingly Deadly Responses," co-authored with Chitja Twala (Limpopo). John details how a proposed ski resort in QwaQwa served as a site for adjoining Lesotho — despite its economic dependence and comparative military weakness — to hone a foreign-policy opposed to South African apartheid. He further details how this approach engendered brazen raids from the South African military, a harbinger of the escalating violence which would wash over the border states and within homelands and townships over the 1980s. The conversation further explores the coming of age of postcolonial African diplomacy, novel strategies for securing documentary evidence in South Africa, and the value of collaborative work in historical research and writing. The Open Access article is available here.

    26 min

  6. 09/12/2024

    Peter Vale on the pre/history of DRC’s neoliberal moment

    In this episode, Peter Vale (Harvard) joins editor Marissa Moorman (Wisconsin) to discuss his research on the political economy of early postcolonial Congo. He details how the Mobutu government charted a course between policies and rhetoric extolling economic nationalism, on one hand, and moves to promote financing and investment from abroad, on the other. Vale complicates conventional narratives of the periodization and drivers of neoliberal policies in the nation: he describes how Congolese thinkers, politicians, and publics interacted with and shaped processes of economic liberalization, privatization, and decentralization in the years before ballooning state debts, exacerbated by energy crises, led to the embrace of structural adjustment policies favored by lending institutions. Vale’s open access article, entitled “Between Economic Nationalism and Liberalization: Ideas of Development and the Neoliberal Moment in Mobutu’s Congo, 1965–74,” features in issue 65/1 of the JAH.

    19 min

  7. 12/29/2023

    Sarah Van Beurden on the work of historians in public debates

    In this episode Sarah Van Beurden (OSU and SAR) joins editor Michelle Moyd (MSU) to discuss her History Matters piece, coauthored with Gillian Mathys (Ghent), unpacking the experience of working as historian experts engaged to write a report for a Belgian parliamentary commission tasked with examining the nation’s colonial past. Van Beurden details both the challenges and opportunities presented by engaging in such fraught and expressly political work. She offers insights into the ways that the report’s authors confronted problematic but widely held assumptions about the past, its meaning, and the sorts of work that historians do. And she draws lessons from this work – and the legacy of similar historical commissions in Belgium dating back to the early twentieth century – to make a powerful case for the utility of professional historians engaging in public debates. Van Beurden and Mathys’s open access article, entitled ‘History by Commission? The Belgian Colonial Past and the Limits of History in the Public Eye’, features in issue 64/3 of the JAH.

    26 min

  8. 08/21/2023

    Sean Hanretta and Ousman Kobo on William A. Brown’s legacy

    In this episode, Professors Sean Hanretta and Ousman Kobo join JAH editor Moses Ochonu to discuss the life and work of Professor William A. Brown. While he published little, Bill Brown’s landmark 1968 dissertation on the Caliphate of Hamdullahi, meticulous photographing of Arabic manuscripts in Mali, and decades of teaching and mentoring students at the University of Wisconsin Madison left a profound — if vastly under-acknowledged — impact on the ways that historians of Africa engage with sources and ideas. Brown’s commitments to emancipatory politics and epistemological rigor, moreover, offered an early and powerful critique of the Orientalist and anti-Black assumptions embedded in the production of much historical knowledge about West Africa, oral traditions, and Islamic intellectuals. Brown’s life and work is the subject of the History Matters section in Volume 64, Issue 2 of The Journal of African History. In addition to the open access introduction by Kobo and Hanretta, ‘William A. Brown and the Assessment of a Scholarly Life’, the section features six contributions: ‘The Caliphate, the Black Writer, and a World in Revolution, 1957–69’ by Madina Thiam ‘A Hidden Repository of Arabic Manuscripts from Mali: The William A. Brown Collection’ by Mauro Nobili and Said Bousbina ‘Le témoignage d’Almamy Maliki Yattara sur W. A. Brown: Dr Brown through the Testimony of Almamy Maliki Yattara’ by Bernard Salvaing ‘William Allen Brown, Jr., 1934–2007: An Appreciation’ (forthcoming) by David Henry Anthony III ‘The Impact of Informal Mentorship: A Tribute to Professor William Brown’ (forthcoming) by Ousman Kobo ‘Egypt in Africa: William A. Brown and a Liberating African History’ by Sean Hanretta

    30 min
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The Journal of African History Podcast highlights interviews with historians whose work has appeared in The Journal of African History, a leading source of peer-reviewed scholarship on Africa’s past since its creation in 1960. Hosted by journal editors and occasional guest hosts, episodes include discussions on how scholars find and interpret sources for African history, how authors’ research contributes to debates among historians, and how Africanist scholarship can add much-needed context to broader social and political debates.

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