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Research Ethics, Fieldwork, and African Studies
Christopher Day
Published online by Cambridge University Press:

16 October 2024, pp. 1-10
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In recent years, there has been a noticeable uptick in efforts to address the ethical, methodological, and security challenges of conducting field research. In fact, an entire scholarly community has emerged from different pockets of area and conflict studies to develop and share a body of literature and foster interactive forums to advance this important area of study.1 Much of this work builds on the influential accounts of individual researchers (Wood 2006), which has developed into more systematic categories for the myriad issues of fieldwork (Sriram et al. 2009), as well as frameworks to understand researcher-related, subject-related, and result-related problems (Baele et al. 2018). Some have noted that the challenges associated with ethics, security, and methods are “amplified in conflict zones” (Cramer, Hammond, and Pottier 2011). Others have observed the African context in particular may require its own approach (Thomson, Ansoms, and Murison 2013), prompting the journal African Affairs to dedicate space to a series of research notes that tackle fieldwork in particular (Cheeseman, Death, and Whitfield 2017).

A Tale of Two Divestments: South Africa, Sudan, and Howard University
Christopher Tounsel
Published online by Cambridge University Press:

14 October 2024, pp. 1-20
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The anti-apartheid movement and Save Darfur campaign were important moments of African American activism towards Africa. Howard University played a central role by divesting from both South Africa and Sudan. This article examines each divestment within Howard University’s history of engagement with Africa. While each divestment was linked by a concern to support oppressed African peoples, the roles of race and racism operated differently in each action. Such an analytic provides space to reconsider the role of US higher education in African-facing human rights activism during the age of Black Lives Matter.

The Scramble for the West? Debunking the Myths around Migration from Africa and the Global South
Linguère Mously Mbaye
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09 October 2024, pp. 1-10
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Irregular migrants’ flows have, for several years now, been making the news headlines and are at the core of political debates. In a context of polycrisis—characterized by the post COVID-19 pandemic, climate change and its devastating impacts; the disruption of labor markets caused by the fourth industrial revolution and artificial intelligence; or geopolitical tensions in different parts of the globe that threaten the livelihoods of many communities—the desire to move from the developing and emerging world to the West can increase.

Pathways to Peace
Anna Chitando, Vincent Chanzi
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03 October 2024, pp. 1-8
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This review essay explores the complex subject of peace in Africa by reviewing six volumes. While the African Union and the United Nations identify peace as providing the foundation for development, the quest for sustainable peace in regions of postcolonial Africa has remained elusive. Several works have sought to examine the contemporary pathways to peace currently being explored on the continent. The works under review must be located in this search for sustainable peace in Africa.