bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Quebec and Canadian Fiscal Federalism: From Tremblay to Séguin and Beyond
Authors: Ouimet Hubert Rioux 
Published: May 2014

AbstractSixty years ago, in late 1953, Quebec launched the hearings of the Royal Commission on Constitutional Problems—or Tremblay commission. Commenting the publication of its report, political scientist Alexander Brady boldly argued in this journal that Quebec had been, until the late 1950s, the “guarantor” of Canada's fiscal system's flexibility (1959: 270). Emphasizing the system's evolution since the 1950s “constitutional problems,” some specialists now contend, as the economist Robin Boadway does, that Canada became the “textbook best-practice of fiscal federalism” (2007: 99). The Tremblay commission's sixtieth anniversary and the termination, in 2014, of the current agreement on federal transfers, provide an opportunity to reassess this evolution and question the validity of this kind of statement.
Species limits in avian malaria parasites (Haemosporida): how to move forward in the molecular era
Authors: OUTLAW DIANA C. , RICKLEFS ROBERT E. 
Published: May 2014

SUMMARYDelimiting species of malaria parasites (Haemosporida) has become increasingly problematic as new lineages of parasites are identified solely by molecular information, particularly mitochondrial cytochrome b sequence data. In this review, we highlight some of the issues, both historical and contemporary, that have hindered the development of objective criteria to diagnose, delimit and define species of haemosporidians. Defining species is not the focal interest of most researchers, most of whom merely wish to determine whether lineages identified in their samples match those of other researchers, and if so, where and in which host species. Rather than revisiting all the issues with respect to delimiting and naming species, we instead focus on finding a practical near-term resolution to the ‘species problem’ that utilizes the community's largest resource: mitochondrial cytochrome b DNA sequences. We recommend a standardized procedure to ‘tag’ these sequences, based on per cent sequence similarity, that will allow researchers to directly assess the novelty, known hosts and geographic distribution of avian malaria parasite lineages.
To Wassa Fiase for Gold: Rethinking Colonial Rule, El Dorado, Antislavery, and Chieftaincy in the Gold Coast (Ghana), 1874–1895
Authors: Akurang-Parry Kwabena O. 
Published: May 2014

In a recent book, El Dorado in West Africa, Raymond E. Dumett examines the history of gold-mining in Wassa Fiase in the Western Province of the Gold Coast during the last three decades of the nineteenth century. Among other thematic preoccupations, Dumett argues that until the late 1890s the British colonial authorities did very little to encourage capitalist gold-mining in Wassa Fiase. Resurrecting the ghost of local crisis, he argues that the colonial intervention in Wassa Fiase was due to king Enimil Kwao's ineptitude, structural conflict inherent in chieftaincy, and problems of African rulers' territorial jurisdictions.Dumett also asserts that it was a forceful London-based antislavcry lobby and Governor George Strahan's tactlessness that drove the colonial state to intervene in Wassa Fiase. Although Britain was at the center stage of the unprecedented global commodification of gold in the late nineteenth century, Dumett evokes serendipity as the cause of the British colonial intervention in the gold-rich Wassa Fiase. Overall, his explication of the aims and processes of colonial rule in Wassa Fiase is couched in theses of an “unpredictable course” and “a government policy (more rather a nonpolicy) [sic] riddled with vacillation and half measures…”The first part of the present study reviews the literature, while the second section, based on new official sources and newspaper accounts, gives additional insights into Enimil Kwao's slave-dealing trial and his consequent exile to Lagos, hence reevaluates the objectives of the colonial state and the Colonial Office. The study complements the work of Francis Agbodeka and Paul Rosenblum, who have respectively argued that colonial rule in Wassa Fiase paved the way for capitalist gold-mining.
The Language of Flowers: Knowledge, Power and Ecology in Precolonial Bunyoro
Authors: Doyle Shane 
Published: May 2014

The absence of writing from indigenous sub-Saharan cultures has often been identified as one of the key elements that distinguished African societies from those of Europe and Asia. Literacy permits an extension of the range of human intercourse, increased bureaucratic and commercial complexity, and an enlargement and stabilization of political scale. Some scholars suggest that it also encourages a more abstract and detached way of thinking about present-day problems. Writing is, moreover, commonly assumed to transform people's understanding of the past. The evidence, therefore, that the kingdom of Bunyoro in western Uganda possessed an indigenous form of writing is potentially of great significance. In this paper I examine the limited evidence that such a method of communication did exist, before analyzing its function and importance. I will argue that the use of a coded language of flowers in Bunyoro requires a reassessment of how power was exercised in precolonial interlacustrine kingdoms, of the nature of environmental knowledge in hierarchical African societies, and of Bunyoro's place in the historiography of east Africa.It is especially interesting that the form of writing that developed in Bunyoro was based on a floral code, as the absence of both writing and flowers in African culture have been used by Jack Goody as evidence of African culture's separateness from that of “Eurasia.” Goody has written that African peoples generally did not make significant use of flowers in worship, gift-giving or decoration. He does “not know of any indigenous use of odours,” nor of plants playing a role in stories or myths. This is thought to be because of Africa's “simple” agriculture, “non-complex” societies and absence of a “culture of luxury.”
Unraveling Speke: The Unknown Revision of an African Exploration Classic
Authors: Finkelstein David 
Published: May 2014

In late 1990 I found myself in the Department of Manuscripts at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh working on what was supposed to be a short-term project. The aim was to create a listing of uncataloged archival material relating to the eminent Edinburgh publishers William Blackwood & Sons. Famous for publishing George Eliot, Joseph Conrad, John Buchan, and Anthony Trollope, as well as for their monthly Blackwood's Magazine, the firm was a major presence in Edinburgh from 1805 to 1980. Over the years, most of their papers have accumulated in the National Library of Scotland, making the Blackwood Papers one of the most complete archives of publishing activity to be found anywhere in Britain. I spent nine months trying to tackle this mountain of correspondence, financial records, ledgers and ephemera. Over a decade and several academic posts later, I am still in Edinburgh, and still digging through this mound of historical documentation.One of the most intriguing of untold tales, and one of extreme importance for historians of Africa, is to be found scattered throughout the correspondence files of the firm, and centers round three items innocuously labeled in the NLS catalog as “MS. 4872-4. John Hanning Speke. Manuscript and proofs of Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile.” Speke's role in African exploration is well known. His connection with Richard Burton in the attempt to find the source of the Nile in the late 1850s led to success and spectacular conflict.
Oil in Nigeria: A Bibliographical Reconnaissance
Authors: Genova Ann , Falola Toyin 
Published: May 2014

Several studies have demonstrated the impact of oil in Nigeria, with recent literature showing that modern Nigeria can hardly be understood without oil. There is now an abundance of literature to present an overview of the subject. In this first piece, the modest intention is to indicate the range of literature as well as identify the broad themes. An attempt is also made to locate the themes in their historical context in order to indicate some of the major changes in the literature. Subsequent essays will identify the paradigmatic shifts in the literature, as well as the major gaps that exist. In addition, we hope to argue in another essay that large bodies of work exist to sustain reliable comparative studies.The introduction to this essay sets out the themes to be discussed, and each receives separate attention. These themes include the impact of the oil industry on Nigeria's workers, environment, and communities within the oil rich Niger Delta. They also include the impact of oil revenue on Nigeria's foreign policy, national development, and political stability. An examination of the literature from the 1950s to the present reveals several clear patterns of change. The literature begins with an optimistic view of the oil industry, shifts toward in-depth discussions during the 1970s and 1980s on the impact of the oil shock, and currently resides on issues of environmental destruction and human rights violations incurred from the oil industry. The synthesis presented here privileges research-based essays and books.
Making Kin of Historians and Anthropologists: Fictive Kinship in Fieldwork Methodology
Authors: Kaufmann Jeffrey , Rabodoarimiadana Annie Philippe 
Published: May 2014

In a way which is in no sense adventitious,the relationship between an anthropologist and hisinformant rests on a set of partial fictions half scen-through.[I]deally, communication between a fieldworkerand the communities he worked with should continue for longtime spans, so that it is possible to return for further information.Bebe (Malagasy for grandmother) arrived home in the late afternoon, holding a rope tied around the neck of a male goat. She had come from a market ten miles down the coast, away from the market at Androka Vaovao where the ethnographer had located his ethnographic research. Buying the goat at a different market was worth the effort to Bebe. She had avoided paying the white foreigners' price: the tripling or quadrupling of the locals' price charged tovazaba(white foreigner). The ethnographer was asked not to come along, not to make pointless the buying trip. Before she had left for market, he had given her money for the estimated price of a young mature goat. People in Androka would hear, eventually, of her purchase, which was fine to her. Going to a distant market indicated to her neighbors that she was not in the mood to be extorted with higher prices every time she bought something for her foreigner dependent “offspring.” Several months earlier, she had first referred to the ethnographer as her offspring,zanako, when he had given her a lump sum, a two-month advance, for room and board.
A Historiography of German Togoland, or The Rise and Fall of a “Model Colony”
Authors: Laumann Dennis 
Published: May 2014

The literature on German Togoland, as compared with that of most of the other former European colonies on the African continent, is far from extensive. While the colony was relatively small and short-lived, the dearth of academic work is notable, since Togoland not only was prized by the Germans as their most successful colonial venture but was also viewed as a “model colony” by contemporary observers in other European imperial nations.Only a handful of books devoted exclusively to the colony have been published since the emergence of African history in the late 1950s as an academic field in the West. The authors of these books, as well as a number of articles and dissertations, thoroughly consulted the relevant archival materials housed in Europe and North America and, to a lesser extent, in West Africa, but failed to collect the oral history of the period. Thus these studies tend to be based almost solely on the observations of Europeans and focus on the activities of the German imperialists, in particular on their administrative and economic policies. A few scholars have attempted to emphasize African experiences during this historical episode, despite a reliance on those same archival materials.The Togoland colony dates to February 1884, when a group of German soldiers kidnapped chiefs in Anécho, a town located in present-day southeastern Togo, and forced them into negotiations aboard the German warship Sophie. Further west, a protectorate was proclaimed over the Lomé area in a treaty signed in July by Gustav Nachtigal, a German Imperial Commissioner, and one Plakkoo, an official of the town of Togo, after which the new colony was named by the Germans.
The Empire Strikes Back: Colonial “Discipline” and the Creation of Civil Society in Asante, 1906–1940
Authors: Olsen William C. 
Published: May 2014

During the spring of 1927 a dialog was initiated through correspondence with the District Commissioner of Asante regarding the existence of a witch-finding shrine near the town of Mampong. As in most Asante communities, the people of Mampong had become both business patrons and seekers of the medicines offered through dozens of witch-finding movements that had proliferated throughout the Gold Coast Colony since at least late in the nineteenth century. Many in the British administration, and virtually all the Christian clergy, saw the practice of witch-finding and the presence of the shrines in towns and villages where the churches retained converts as icons of unenlightened behavior and contrary to Christian morals. Since some converts were also patrons of the witch-finding priests, the shrines were also seen as threats to the stability and retention of Christian folds. Europeans brought to Africa a multitude of social practices and ideologies of the person which they tried to impose through various forms of taboo, law, health administration, technology, and education. (Beidelman 1982: Comaroff/Comaroff 1997: Conklin 1997) Yet in the Gold Coast Colony after the annexation of Asante in 1896, no feature of the European colonial presence was more contested than the legal suppression of witch-finding shrines.The opposing sides to the debate had witnessed the same events in Mampong, but regarded the disciplinary measures taken by the colonial officials from extremely contrary points of view. Acting under the direction of the District Commissioner, local British officials were on the lookout for new witch-finding shrines, identified by the British in the archival literature with the European term of “fetish.”
The Composition of the Rhodesia Native Regiment during the First World War: A Look at the Evidence
Authors: Stapleton Tim 
Published: May 2014

Several scholars of the First World War in Southern Africa have briefly looked at the composition of the Rhodesia Native Regiment (RNR), which was formed in Southern Rhodesia in 1916 and fought in the German East Africa campaign until the armistice in November 1918. According to Peter McLaughlin, who has written the most about Zimbabwe and the Great War, “[b]y 1918 seventy-five per cent of the 2360 who passed through the ranks of the regiment were ‘aliens;’ over 1000 came from Nyasaland. The Rhodesia Native Regiment had thus lost its essentially ‘Rhodesian’ character.” This would seem to suggest that because the RNR had many soldiers who originated from outside Zimbabwe, this regiment was somehow less significant to Zimbabwe's World War I history. While McLaughlin admits that “the evidence on the precise composition of the Rhodesia Native Regiment is not available”, he claims that “approximately 1800 aliens served in the unit.”In a recent book on Malawi and the First World War, Melvin Page agrees with McLaughlin's estimate that “probably more than 1000 Malawians joined the Rhodesian Native Regiment.” However, Page freely admits that the evidence on which this approximation is based is far from conclusive. By looking at the available evidence, particularly a previously unutilized regimental nominal roll in the Zimbabwe National Archives, it is possible to gain a clearer picture of the composition of the only African unit from Zimbabwe to have fought in the First World War. This analysis will not only deal with the nationality of the soldiers, which is what the two previous writers focused on, but also their ethnic/regional origin and pre-enlistment occupations.
Les sources allemandes de l'histoire du Nigeria
Authors: Temgoua Albert-Pascal 
Published: May 2014

Parler des sources allemandes de l'histoire du Nigeria peut paraître quelque peu insolite, ce pays n'ayant jamais été une colonie allemande. Mais sa diversité, sa civilisation qui compte parmi les plus brillantes de l'Afrique Noire précoloniale ainsi que les nombreuses possibilités économiques qu'elle offre lui ont attiré bien de convoitises. Outre les Britanniqucs qui en firent leur possession, des voyageurs, des hommes de science, des commerçants, des missionnaires, des militaires et des administrateurs coloniaux des autres nations européennes y ont défilé, pour divers motifs. Ces séjours, brefs mais parfois répétés pour les uns et de longue durée pour les autres, ont permis aux nations dont les ressortissants étaient nombreux et très actifs de constituer ou d'accumuler une abondante documentation dont l'intérêt réside principaletnent dans les renseignements de première main qu'elle fournit sur des thèmes majeurs de l'historiographic Nigeriane. Et pour être complète et cohérente, l'écriture de l'histoire du Nigeria devrait tenir compte de toutes ces sources disponibles.La méthode exige en effet que, pour écrire l'histoire, on ne se contente pas de quelques renseignements, des renseignements qu'on a sous la main; elle exige qu'on épuise préalablement toutes les sources accessibles sans exception. Il est done d'une importance majeure que ceux qui étudient l'histoire du Nigeria d'après les sources soient en mesure d'utiliser toutes les sources; il faut que ce devoir, qui leur est imposé par la méthode, leur soit facilité dans la pratique. Il faut qu'ils sachent où sont les documents et qu'ils puissent les consuiter aisément.
Mining a Mother Lode: Early European Travel Literature and the History of Precious Metalworking in Highland Ethiopia
Authors: Silverman Raymond , Sobania Neal 
Published: May 2014

Our primary concern in this essay is with reconstructing the history of material culture. As anyone who has ever looked into the material culture of Ethiopia quickly discovers, the travel accounts of early European visitors can be a rich and varied source for illuminating any number of such traditions, including those of metal-, leather-, basket-, and woodworking, as well as pottery, weaving, and painting. Dating from the first part of the sixteenth century, the descriptions of journeys and residences in Ethiopia became more prevalent in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when they also begin to include illustrations of more than the landscape. As sources for the reconstruction of a particular material tradition, these accounts can offer valuable insights into the nature of the objects and the people who produced and used them. Conversely, they can be frustrating to work with, since the pertinent data they contain most often come in the form of a sentence here or there. Rarely are there entire sections dedicated to descriptions of particular traditions or processes, unless one happened to be of special interest to the writer.Among those scholars who have used travel accounts to great effect is Richard Pankhurst. For many decades, as even a cursory examination of his numerous publications illustrates, he has been mining this mother lode for the scattered sentences and tantalizing suggestions they offer. His most comprehensive writing on this subject is an often-cited 1964 article, “Old Time Handicrafts of Ethiopia.” Divided into sections, each dealing with a different tradition, Pankhurst cited various descriptive accounts that mentioned specific traditions. The basic approach taken in this and other publications that have followed is one perhaps best described, in keeping with the mining metaphor, as one of “prospecting” or in some cases mining “surface deposits.”
The Many Uses of Forgeries: The Case of Douville's Voyage au Congo
Authors: Vansina Jan 
Published: May 2014

A forged travel account reminds me of a raffia palm in central Africa, because there is a use for every part of such a palm: the wine (sap), the nuts (edible), the raffia (for textiles), the other leaves (for roofcovering), the branches (for furniture), its pith (for making various articles), and lastly the grubs inside the pith (also edible). Nothing is wasted. In the same way a forged travel account can be deconstructed until all its parts down to the very last sentence or proper name can be used as evidence for one or another kind of history. The considerable interest fraudulent travel accounts can have for the historian of Africa is usually far underrated because once they are exposed as forgeries they tend to be summarily dismissed and henceforth to be avoided like the plague. At most, it is conceded that sometimes part of a forged account rests on the author's observations and experiences at the time and in the place where his (the known forgers seem to have been all male) narrative placed them and may therefore actually be genuine.The usefulness of forgeries as evidence goes well beyond this, however, and rests on two arguments. First, a narrative forgery is never totally the product of a person's imagination, if only because it strives to achieve the verisimilitude required to be passed off as genuine. A good part of any such forgery must therefore rest on valid observations made by someone, somewhere. If one can discover from where and when such elements stem, they add new evidence to the record about that where and when. Secondly, the very choice of topics and themes; raised in a forgery is historical evidence in its own right, for it tells us much about the expectations of both the social milieu in which the work was written and its intended audience at the time (not always the same social aggregates). To develop and illustrate these points, there may well be no better instance than the notorious book whose unmasking raised a great geographic furor in the earlier nineteenth century—the notorious Douville forgery.