Identity Transformation and Politicization in Africa: Shifting Mobilization, edited by Toyin Falola and Céline A. Jacquemin, questions whether identity is providing and sustaining power for elites, or fueling oppression and conflicts, being mobilized for exclusionary movements versus inclusive societal changes, or educating in ways that foster progress and development. Do aspects of African identities and the challenges they present also hold prospects for more inclusive and peaceful democratic and representative futures? The contributors cover a wide spectrum of expertise on different African countries (Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Rwanda, Morocco, and Libya). They come from diverse disciplines (History, Political Science, Public Administration, Philosophy, Economics and Finance, Cultural Studies, Music, and International Relations), and use various methods and approaches in their research. Some contributors belong to the groups whose identity is being scrutinized and are participants in the efforts to politicize and mobilize, while others remain outside observers, who share some traits or interests with the African identities examined and provide different kinds of insights. Several chapters explore how innovative pedagogical projects studying African history and identity—facilitated by the internet and new social media—transform and connect with the African continent. Each author provides important insights on how mobilization around identity issues has been shifting with the internet and social media.

Sports in African History, Politics, and Identity Formation explores how sports can render a key to unlocking complex social, political, economic, and gendered relations across Africa and the Diaspora. Sports hold significant value and have an intricate relationship with many components of African societies throughout history. For many Africans, sports are a way of life, a site of cultural heroes, a way out of poverty and social mobility, and a site for leisurely play. This book focuses on the many ways in which sports uniquely reflect changing cultural trends at diverse levels of African societies. The contributors detail various sports, such as football, cricket, ping pong, and rugby, across the continent to show how sports lay at the heart of the discourse of nationalism, self-fashioning, gender and masculinity, leisure and play, challenges of underdevelopment, and ideas of progress. Bringing together the newest and most innovative scholarship on African sports, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of contemporary Africa, African history, culture and society, and sports history and politics.

The book is aimed at students and scholars of conflict, Africa, ethnic politics, and religion. It may also appeal to religious and political leaders. It proposes a new perspective on how ethnicity and religion shape political outcomes and violence in Africa, adding psychological elements to standard political science arguments.

Two LGBTQ affirmative US Supreme Court Rulings occurred in the second decade of the twenty-first century: the 2015 Obergefell ruling in support of same sex marriage, and the 2020 Bostock decision ruling that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity is prohibited by Title VII. In The Politicization of Trans Identity: An Analysis of Backlash, Scapegoating, and Dog-Whistling from Obergefell to Bostock, Loren Cannon critiques the opinions of the court in both cases. Cannon carefully presents the evidence that transgender identity itself has become politicized post Obergefell and provides a thorough consideration of the ramifications of this politicization across the nation, especially in the form of proposed legislation and violence. Cannon argues that the politicization of trans identity can rightfully be understood as a backlash response to the Obergefell decision and increased LGBTQ equality. According to Cannon, aspects of the politicization can be characterized as scapegoating and as dog-whistling. This book offers unique contributions to the understanding of these ideas, including a creative application of Rene Girard’s theory of scapegoating. Lastly, Cannon argues that conceptually, virtue signaling needs to be paired with dog-whistling to have the political result that the whistler intends.

Publisher Description

This book presents a theory to account for why and when politics revolves around one axis of social cleavage instead of another. It does so by examining the case of Zambia, where people identify themselves either as members of one of the country's seventy-three tribes or as members of one of its four principal language groups. The book accounts for the conditions under which Zambian political competition revolves around tribal differences and under which it revolves around language group differences. Drawing on a simple model of identity choice, it shows that the answer depends on whether the country operates under single-party or multi-party rule. During periods of single-party rule, tribal identities serve as the axis of electoral mobilization and self-identification; during periods of multi-party rule, broader language group identities play this role. The book thus demonstrates how formal institutional rules determine the kinds of social cleavages that matter in politics.

"This book examines the history of community relations across the Kenya-Uganda border using the case of the Bukusu and the Bagisu. From this microcosmic level, the book explores the social, economic, and political relations that have evolved between the two communities and states over time"--