Celebrating 30 Years of the Nordic Journal of African Studies

With its first issue appearing in the spring of 1992, the Nordic Journal of African Studies recently reached its 30-year publication milestone. In celebration of the journal's history, and looking forward to its future, we offer this brief collection of memories about the journal's history, written by the journal's founders and several of its editors-in-chief.Non peer reviewe

Desiring Bollywood: Re-staging racism, exploring difference

In this article I engage with the insights that emerged through the making of Desiring Bollywood, a collaborative ethno-fiction project I produced in 2018. The project recruited academics, amateur actors, novice filmmakers, and enthusiastic university students to narrate the story of Jason, an aspiring actor and filmmaker from Nigeria who I first met in 2013 soon after his release from Tihar Prison in Delhi, India. My goals are two-fold: first, to share a few scenes from the film – embedded in this article as video clips – to broadly theorize the affordances and limits of what I call re-staging, the collaborative, performance-based multimodal method we devised and deployed to produce Desiring Bollywood. Second, and more central to the article, I aim to analyze these very same scenes to show how re-staging, as it offered participants involved in the project the opportunity to reflexively explore how Jason’s experiences of discrimination in Delhi and the aspirations and desires that led him there in the first place, create a rich site of analysis to engage with the nuances of anti-Black racism in India in a moment where ‘India-Africa’ economic relationships are on the rise. RESUMEN En este artículo examino el entendimiento que surgió a través de la producción de Desiring Bollywood, un proyecto colaborativo de etno-ficción que realicé en 2018. El proyecto reclutó académicos, actores amateurs, productores cinematográficos novicios y entusiastas estudiantes universitarios para narrar la historia de Jason, un aspirante a actor y productor cinematográfico, de Nigeria a quien conocí en 2013, poco después de su puesta en libertad de la Prisión Tihar en Delhi, India. Mi propósito es doble: primero, compartir algunas escenas del filme – embebidas en este artículo como video clips– para teorizar ampliamente las affordances y límites de lo que llamo remontaje, el colaborativo método multimodal basado en performance, que nosotros ideamos y utilizamos para producir Desiring Bollywood. Segundo, y más central al artículo, tengo como objetivo analizar estas mismas escenas para mostrar cómo el remontaje, en la medida que ofreció a los participantes involucrados en el proyecto la oportunidad de explorar reflexivamente cómo las experiencias de Jason de discriminación en Delhi y las aspiraciones y deseos que lo llevaron allí en primer lugar, crea un sitio profundo de análisis para abordar los matices del racismo anti-negro en India en un momento donde las relaciones económicas “India-África” están en aumento

More Swahili proverbs from East Africa : Methali zaidi za kiswahili toka Afrika Mashariki

This second collection of proverbs from East Africa by Pastor Leonidas Kalugila consists of both original Swahili proverbs and renditions to Swahili of proverbs from diverse East African languages such as Haya, Ganda, Chagga and Gikuyu. Some are also originally Arabic or Indic rendered to Swahili and used by many Swahili-speakers.CONTENTS: Proverbs are the teaching of the bards -- Part one: Proverbs -- Part two: Riddles -- Part three: SUPPLEMENTS -- The Poetics of Swahili Proverbs -- The Swahili Language and Culture -- Mithali ni mafunzo ya malengae -- Hemu ya kwanzae: Methali -- Sehemu ya pili: Vitendawili -- Sehemu ya tatu: Nyongeza -- Utungo wa mithali za Kiswahili -- Lugha na utamaduni wa Kiswahili</p