African Agency and European Colonialism: Latitudes of Negotiations and Containment [Paperback]

Femi J. Kolapo (Editor), Kwabena O. Akurang-Parry (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0761838465 | ISBN-13: 978-0761838463 | Publication Date: August 15, 2007

This work provides insights into important moments in the European colonization project in Africa, and into structural intersections between the active agents of colonialism and the different layers of Africa's socio-political structures. It reveals the indispensability of the African peoples, their pre-colonial establishments, and knowledge of the colonial encounter. The book also clarifies the significant impact that African people's choices, chances, mistakes, and internal politics had in structuring their colonial experience and European dominance. Colonized Africans and colonizing Europeans had to negotiate the nature of their relationship: the grid, nexus, and hierarchy of colonial power and authority were constantly under construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction. African Agency and European Colonialism expounds upon these beclouded features of Africa's engagement of colonialism. It is appropriate for students, scholars, political analysts, sociologists, and other professionals interested in the social and political history of Africa.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Paul Lovejoy presents a brief but intriguing study of northern Nigeria at the end of the nineteenth century and Alhaji Ahmad el-Fellati's role in increasing the influence of the Tijaniyya, which then became the dominant Islamic brotherhood during the colonial period. Staying in Nigeria, Chima J. Korieh presents an illuminating essay on women's protests against taxation that forced administrators to concede so as to be able to maintain order in the eastern part of the colony. Uyilawa Usunlele and Victor Osaro Edo unveil the tactic of flight that some Beninese used to escape into Nigeria and avoid European rule well into the 1930s, while Pule Phoofolo's piece on Basotho relations with the British show just how beholden the latter were to African leaders in the 1890s. These chapters demonstrate that colonial encounters were often shaped by multiple forces rather than dichotomously, and remind us not to be deceived by simplistic portrayals of African history, such as the many maps depict tidy borders crisscrossing the continent during the colonial period. (H-Net Reviews )

About the Author

Femi J. Kolapo is with the History Department at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, where he teaches courses in African history and in the history of slavery and the slave trades. He has previously taught at the Ahmadu Bello University in Zaira, Nigeria. His research interests include Africa's engagement with post-abolition and post-emancipation social and economic reality, and pre-colonial Africa-Christian Missions encounter.
Kwabena O. Akurang-Parry, a Ghanaian poet and historian, is Associate Professor of African History and World History at Shippensburg University, Pennsylvania. He received his Ph.D. in African history from York University, Toronto, Canada, in 1999. He has published over forty-five peer-reviewed articles. His research focuses on comparative slavery and abolition, as well as colonial rule and African responses.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: University Press Of America (August 15, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0761838465
• ISBN-13: 978-0761838463
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,407,755 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)