Journal of Humanities

Does Africa Need Interdisciplinary Humanities? Editorial

Yamikani Ndasauka — 2024-01-25

This editorial explores the value and viability of interdisciplinary approaches within African humanities scholarship. It argues that complex contemporary issues require perspectives spanning traditional disciplines. However, African humanities faculties remain largely siloed in colonial-legacy models limiting theoretical synergy. Pursuing meaningful interdisciplinarity has the potential to dismantle ideological constraints, better comprehend multidimensional African realities, restore epistemological cohesion severed through Western knowledge fracturing, and develop contextual, analytical tools. However, the paper cautions against superficial interdisciplinarity lacking methodological rigor or merely signalling trendiness. It stresses retaining a disciplinary base while leveraging scoping reviews to chart relevance for other fields in addressing complex questions. Harnessing interdisciplinarity’s potential requires institutional structures and incentives to facilitate humanities scholars to cross boundaries without abandoning specialisation. This editorial seeks to continue the debate on pursuing deliberate, purposedriven interconnection.

Outcomes of the Contact between Luganda and English Pragmatic Markers

Sarah Nakijoba — 2024-02-06

Cross-linguistic studies on language contact have established that when pragmatic marker (PM) systems are in contact, three outcomes may occur: (i) the PM sets of the languages in contact may coexist, (ii) the PMs in contact may acquire differentiated meanings, and (iii) PMs from one language may be replaced wholly or partially by markers of another language. Using LugandaEnglish bilingual data of 190,580 words, this paper examines the contact between Luganda and English PMs to establish whether the outcomes reported in crosslinguistic studies are evident in the data at hand or not and whether there are any other observable outcomes peculiar to the Luganda-English data. The findings point to the coexistence between Luganda and English PMs and the partial replacement of some Luganda PMs by English functional equivalents. However, there was no evidence to support the outcome of the acquisition of differentiated meaning. In addition, the data points to the possibility of a new contact outcome, which we describe as calquing/loan translating. The analysis is informed by cross-linguistic findings and Blakemore’s relevancetheoretic notion of procedural encoding.

Making Nouns with Prefixes ka- and na- in Chichewa: An Alternative View

Peter Kondwani Msaka — 2024-01-25

The paper discusses the noun prefixes ka- and na-, specifically those used to derive nouns that trigger the agreement marker traditionally associated with noun class 1 in Chichewa. The motivation for conducting this study comes from the current partial understanding of these prefixes in Chichewa and many other Bantu languages. In the existing analyses, the noun prefixes ka- and na- are taken either to be marginal or ceased to be noun prefixes in the synchronic grammars of some Bantu languages. In the present paper, I show that these two prefixes are productive in the synchronic grammar of Chichewa. I provide three types of evidence to support this view, namely (i) Chichewa neologisms, (ii) Chichewa names of places and persons, and (iii) nominal lexicon evidence from the Chichewa Monolingual Dictionary. I conclude that ka- and na- are not marginal prefixes in noun class 1 but productive prefixes of present-day Chichewa grammar.

The Quest for Cultural Renaissance in Wole Soyinka’s Childe Internationale and Alápatá Àpáta

Kayode Niyi Afolayan — 2024-01-25

Critics of Wole Soyinka’s works have always identified the cultural impulses of his Yoruba origin in his dramaturgy. This engagement can be segmented into slants that seek a renaissance of his culture through his use of its tropes to intervene in the social malaises mirrored in his works and through a commitment that seeks the survival of his culture in the postcolonial milieus. This paper focuses on Soyinka’s engagement with the subject of cultural renaissance through a postcolonial reading of Childe Internationale and Alápatá Àpáta. While underscoring Soyinka’s commitment to the survival of his culture in the hybridised contexts presented in the plays, the paper points out that Soyinka’s dominant discussions on cultural renaissance have been primarily associated with his ‘Children plays’. The paper exhibits some of the critical aspects of culture that the playwright has isolated to validate his quest for a cultural renaissance. The paper’s conclusion gives accreditation to the playwright’s concerns about the dwindling fortunes of his Yoruba culture and language but doubts if there is any remedy in sight on account of some other overwhelming adverse social conditions in the plays.

Politique de l’émeute dans Le dernier de l’Empire (1981) d’Ousmane Sembène

Beaton Galafa — 2024-01-25

L’œuvre d’Ousmane Sembène est devenue un vecteur de lutte sociale dans l’Afrique postcoloniale suite à l’émergence de problèmes sociaux et politiques endémiques à la postcolonie. De ce chaos est également né Le dernier de l’Empire, un roman dans lequel Sembène explore l’utilisation de l’émeute dans les luttes de classe africaines. Cet article examine comment Sembène représente cette émeute dans le roman comme un outil efficace pour le prolétariat dans la lutte des classes au Sénégal, tout en la décrivant comme une conséquence délibérée de la répression violente orchestrée par la bourgeoisie contre la dissidence de la classe ouvrière. Sembène y parvient par le biais d’un récit fictif qui gagne notre reconnaissance en tant que préservation de la mémoire dans laquelle nous voyons le roman comme une représentation de la réalité. Nous voyons également comment le prolétariat, tout au long du roman, est opposé à la bourgeoisie, et comment l’émeute devient une solution ultime à la lutte des classes. Considérant que Le dernier de l’Empire se concentre sur la lutte des classes (après l’indépendance), l’article déploie une critique marxiste dans son analyse du roman. Ceci est pareillement conforme à notre propre compréhension de Sembène en tant qu’écrivain marxiste renommé. Cependant, l’article utilise également la désillusion postcoloniale dans son analyse puisque le roman traite des défis de l’État postcolonial africain.

Ousmane Sembène’s work became a vector for social struggle in postcolonial Africa following the emergence of social and political problems endemic to the post-colony. Out of this chaos also emerged Le dernier de l’Empire, a novel in which Sembène explores the use of riot in African class struggles. This article is an examination of how Sembène represents this riot in the novel as an effective tool for the proletariat in the class struggle in Senegal while at the same time describing it as a deliberate consequence of violent repression orchestrated by the bourgeoisie against working-class dissent. Sembène achieves this through a fictional narrative that gains our recognition as a preservation of memory in which we see the novel as a representation of reality. We also see how the proletariat throughout the novel is pitted against the bourgeoisie, and how riot becomes an ultimate solution to the class struggle. Considering that Le dernier de l’Empire focuses on class struggle (after independence), the article deploys a Marxist critique in its analysis of the novel. This also aligns with our understanding of Sembène as a renowned Marxist writer. However, the article equally uses postcolonial disillusionment in its analysis since the novel deals with the challenges of the African postcolonial state.

When the Home is not Homely: Postcolonial Realities and Emergence of Human Trafficking in Tina Okpara’s My Life Has a Price and Ifeanyi Ajaegbo’s Sarah House

Solomon Olusayo Olaniyan — 2024-01-25

Human trafficking has been investigated in different fields of scholarship, including psychology, sociology, history and economics. However, its depiction in twentyfirst-century Nigerian novels has not been given critical attention. Hence, this paper examines postcolonial indices fuelling the emergence and continuance of this challenge, as narrated in Tina Okpara’s My Life Has a Price and Ifeanyi Ajaegbo’s Sarah House, to investigate push-and-pull factors responsible for the growth of modern-day slavery. Deploying postcolonial theory, with emphasis on postcolonialist concepts like alterity, othering/ordering, unhomeliness, subalternisation and dislocation to examine power relations between human traffickers and trafficked victims in the selected narratives, it is revealed that the push-and-pull factors amplifying the proliferation of human trafficking in Okpara’s My Life has a Price and Ajaegbo’s Sarah House include poverty, connivance of security personnel with human traffickers, unemployment, family disintegration, leniency of the judiciary, death of the breadwinner, corruption and trafficked victims’ materialistic inclinations. In Sarah House and My Life Has a Price, the factors aid the dispossession, subalternisation, inbetweeness, othering/ ordering and ‘exotopy’ or ‘outsideness’ of victims. Among other narrative strategies, homodiegetic narrative focalisation and preponderant multiple settings are employed to foreground the objectivity of the narratives and the migritudinal temper and restless lifestyle of the victims.