African Islands

Explores the culturally complex and cosmopolitan histories of islands off the African coast

Explores the culturally complex and cosmopolitan histories of islands off the African coast

Islands and island chains like Cabo Verde, Madagascar, and Bioko are often sidelined in contemporary understandings of Africa in which mainland nation-states take center stage in the crafting of historical narratives. Yet in the modern period, these small offshore spaces have often played important if inconsistent roles in facilitating intra- and intercontinental exchanges that have had lasting effects on the cultural, economic, and political landscape ofAfrica.

InAfrican Islands: Leading Edges of Empire and Globalism, contributors argue for the importance of Africa's islands in integrating the continent into wider networks of trade and migration that links it with Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Essays consider the cosmopolitan and culturally complex identities of Africa's islands, analyzing the process and extent to which trade, slavery, and migration bonded African elements with Asian, Arabic, and European characteristics over the years. While the continental and island nations have experienced similar cycles of invasion, boom, and bust, essayists note both similarities and striking differences in how these events precipitated economic changes in the different geographic areas. This book, a much-needed broadly comparative study of the African islands, will be an important resource for students and scholars of the region and of topics such as colonialism, economic history, and cultural hybridity.
TOYIN FALOLA is Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities and Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin. R. JOSEPH PARROTT isAssistant Professor of History at Ohio State University. DANIELLE PORTER SANCHEZ is Assistant Professor of History at Muhlenberg College.

Introduction - Toyin Falola and R. Joseph Parrott and Danielle Porter Sanchez
PART 1. ATLANTIC OCEAN ISLANDS
The Canaries to Africa: The Atlantic Strategy of "To Be or Not To Be" - Germán Santana Pérez
Sugar, Cocoa, and Oil: Economic Success and Failure in São Tomé and Príncipe from the 16th to the 21st Century - Gerhard Seibert
The Bijagos of Canhabac Island (Guinea-Bissau) - Joshua Bernard Forrest
An Island in the Middle of Everywhere: Bioko under Colonial Domination - Enrique N. Okenve
Cursing in Bioko and Annobón: Repeating Islands that Don't Repeat - Michael Ugarte
African Ports and Islands during the Second World War - Ashley Jackson
"Nos lingua, nos kultura, nos identidadi": Postcolonial Language Planning and Promotion in Cabo Verde and the Cape Verdean Diaspora - Carla D. Martin
PART 2. INDIAN OCEAN ISLANDS
Africa's Indian Ocean Islands, Near and Distant - Edward A. Alpers
Monsoon Metropolis: Migration, Mobility, and Mediation in the Western Indian Ocean - William Bissell
The Mascarenes, Indian Ocean Africa, and Global Labor Migration during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries - Richard B. Allen
The Island as Nexus: Zanzibar in the Nineteenth Century - Jeremy Prestholdt
Slavery and Post-Slavery in Madagascar: An Overview - Denis Regnier and Dominique Somda
The Comoros: Strategies of Islandness in the Indian Ocean - Iain Walker
Gendered Pioneers from Mayotte: An Ethnographic Perspective on Travel and Transformation in the Western Indian Ocean - Michael Lambek
Notes on Contributors