Debt, prices & public services
Who decides which spending is protected when borrowing costs and living costs rise? Follow budgets, creditor agreements and public accountability.
Our research programmeCurrent affairs.
Current affairs.
Critical understanding.
Current African affairs and global developments affecting African people: how decisions about conflict, debt, resources, citizenship, work and knowledge distribute power and shape everyday life. Historical evidence explains the institutions, continuities and turning points behind those decisions.
Reporting priorities
Decisions shaping African lives now
War, mediation & civilian authority
Whose proposals enter peace negotiations, who controls security institutions, and how do civilian rights enter the resulting arrangements?
Resources, trade & external power
What do particular contracts and policies change about revenue, land, work and decision-making in African communities?
Citizenship, migration & belonging
How do current border rules, deportation arrangements and discriminatory practices affect rights inside Africa and across its diasporas?
Knowledge, technology & cultural authority
Who controls the data, languages and cultural resources used by new technologies and public institutions, and who can challenge those decisions?
History that explains the present
Which earlier institutions and turning points help explain a documented current decision? Bring that evidence into the live question.
Critical African Studies
Three connected fields of inquiry
Histories of state & society
Political formations, global connections, colonial conquest, resistance, nationalism, development and transformations of public authority.
Explore the questionsResearching Africa
Archives, oral evidence, qualitative inquiry, visual and material sources, research ethics and the politics of knowledge.
Explore the questionsThematic African worlds
Cities, security institutions, Pan-Africanism, slavery, popular culture and literature as sites of social and political change.
Explore the questionsAfrican people and societies enter these studies as historical actors: governing, trading, creating knowledge, organising work and contesting power. Each study defines a place and period, engages relevant scholarship and develops its answer through identifiable evidence.
Historical continuities & critical junctures
Historical lenses for current questions
These periods provide context for current reporting. Each new essay begins with a documented issue in the present and uses the relevant history to explain its institutions and political stakes.
01c.1400–1800
Africa’s long global connections
How did merchants and political authorities in a defined African trading centre shape its overseas and inland exchanges?
Possible evidence: Commercial correspondence, port records, archaeology, objects and oral traditions.
02Nineteenth century
Political worlds before colonial occupation
How did rulers, councils, religious authorities and communities negotiate legitimate authority in a selected society?
Possible evidence: Local histories, oral accounts, material evidence and critically read contemporary documents.
03c.1880–1940
Conquest, resistance & the colonial state
Through which administrative changes did colonial rule alter authority, labour and accountability in a specific place?
Possible evidence: Administrative files, laws, tax and labour records, petitions and African accounts.
04Country-specific independence periods
African nationalist histories
How did workers, women, farmers and students shape a particular independence movement and its political programme?
Possible evidence: Party papers, newspapers, union records, petitions, memoirs and oral histories.
05c.1940–1973
Development, modernisation & the state
How did one development project redistribute land, work and public authority from planning to implementation?
Possible evidence: Plans, budgets, contracts, land records, parliamentary debate and community evidence.
06After independence
The postcolonial state
How did formal offices and personal networks organise access to resources in a defined institution and period?
Possible evidence: Appointment records, budgets, administrative correspondence and published qualitative research.
07Country-specific reform periods
The politics of structural adjustment
How did a documented economic reform change public provision and the relationship between workers, citizens and the state?
Possible evidence: Reform agreements, expenditure records, union archives, newspapers and household studies.
08c.1990 to the present
Democracy & political accountability
At which stages did citizens influence one contested public decision, and which institutions controlled the outcome?
Possible evidence: Electoral and council records, court decisions, submissions, civic archives and policy revisions.
Politics, society & cultural worlds
Thematic debates
The African city
Who defines formal settlement, modernity and public space, and how do residents reshape those decisions?
Security-sector politics
How do armed forces, policing, military government, insurgencies and external security partnerships distribute protection, resources, authority and accountability?
Popular culture
How do musicians, filmmakers and digital creators interpret power, identity, gender and belonging?
Pan-Africanism
How do citizens, movements, diasporas and regional institutions define sovereignty and collective political action?
Slavery & labour regimes
Through which documented relationships are work, coercion, mobility and dependency organised?
African literature
How do literary works construct memory and political imagination, and what can they establish as evidence?
Conflict, citizenship & political belonging
How do peace agreements, territorial claims, displacement, racialisation and the political mobilisation of identity reshape rights and legitimate authority?
Africa’s international relations
Through which diplomatic, financial, commercial and security arrangements do African actors negotiate with China, European governments and the EU, Russia, the United States and Gulf states?
Researching Africa
Sources, strategies & ethics
Archives & documentary evidence
Identify who created a record, for what purpose, what it leaves out and how its categories shaped administration.
Oral history & qualitative inquiry
Distinguish memory, observation and interpretation. Explain selection, translation, consent and the circumstances in which accounts were produced.
Visual & material sources
Analyse photographs, films, maps, buildings and objects through provenance, production, circulation and use. Fiction and staged images are labelled as such.
Comparison & historical change
Define a bounded comparison and explain continuity, critical junctures and mechanisms without treating Africa as one homogeneous case.
Knowledge, language & positionality
Engage African scholarship and relevant languages; explain how access, funding, translation and the researcher’s position affect interpretation.
Ethics & public responsibility
Assess consent, privacy, risk, data ownership and fair representation. Protect vulnerable participants and disclose material conflicts.
An original contribution can come from under-studied documents or a well-supported reinterpretation of existing evidence. Fieldwork is one route among several. Literature and staged images are examined as cultural sources; they are not presented as factual witnesses to events they invent.
From question to publication
What the journal selects
A manageable question
Identify the place, period, actors and process. State the puzzle that existing explanations leave unresolved.
An evidenced argument
Explain how particular records support the answer. Test relevant alternative explanations and preserve material qualifications.
A contribution
Bring underused evidence, a neglected case or a defensible new interpretation into a recognised scholarly debate.
A logical structure
Develop the argument through the introduction, debate, method, evidence, discussion and conclusion. Answer the opening question.
Responsible review
Complete source and image checks, assess ethical risks and obtain human editorial review before journal publication. Editorial review is not advertised as academic peer review.
Proposed investigations · Findings not yet established
Opening research directions
Authority in everyday administration
How did Belgian administrative reforms between 1928 and 1934 reorganise chiefly authority and accountability in Burundi?
Locate reform orders, administrative correspondence, petitions and scholarship; distinguish the formal redesign from evidence of local implementation.
Participation after the meeting
At which stages did public submissions influence one municipal decision in a selected African city?
Select a decision with accessible consultation records, minutes and revisions, then trace changes across the decision process.
Who speaks for Africa?
How do one AU policy process and relevant African civic interventions define sovereignty and political accountability?
Choose a bounded policy episode and compare dated instruments, submissions and public responses without treating one actor as the continent.
Bring a question. Build an argument.
We welcome proposals, documented contributions and recommendations.