Anwar Bougroug

Creative Director

Sector: Fashion

‍bougroug.com

Anouar Boukhars

Professor, Africa Center  for Strategic Studies

Sector: Counterterrorism, Countering Violent Extremism, Radicalization

Contact: Phone: +1  202-685-7343

Bourgouin, France. “Cosmopolitan Culture as Elite Distinction among African Business Professionals in Johannesburg.” Comparative Sociology 10, no. 4 (2011): 571–90. https://doi.org/10.1163/156913311X590637.

This article unpacks the practices of cosmopolitan elite distinction among a group of successful business professionals of African origin, who were employed in middle and senior management positions in Johannesburg during the height of the “bull market” in 2004. It considers the self-identification of these professionals as cosmopolitan in light of our theoretical understanding of social distinction. Building on Veblen, Bourdieu, and Goffman, this article shows how these business professionals claiming to belong to a cosmopolitan community enacted these hierarchies through everyday distinctions in place, leisure and dress. The article concludes that while cosmopolitanism is an escape from local African identity, appeals to a cosmopolitan community transform and reconfigure society through the inscription of new inequalities and particularities.

Source: Article's abstract

Alain Michel Boyer

Professor, African Art, Université de Nantes, France

Tél: 0240141050/Alain-Michel.Boyer@univ-nantes.fr

Boyer, Alain-Michel. Comment regarder les arts d’Afrique [How to Look at Arts from Africa]. Paris: Hazan, 2017.

Dealing with African art, the black continent scale in its variety and specificities. This book invites the reader to a journey in four steps. In the first section, by tracing out the main periods of African civilizations, we discover that these arts sometimes go back millennia. Secondly, this book identifies some formal and stylistic principles based on leading artforms such as statuettes or masks. In the third section, emphasis is put on so-called ‘minor’ arts that created the conditions of ‘major’ art forms such as cutlery, jewellery, etc. Finally, the last section covers an area from the Sahara to South Africa to illustrate how diverse African creation is and the countless solutions which are each time unexpected.

[Source: Hazan publishing house, adapted and translated from French].

Amelia Broodryk

Director of Communication, Institute  for Security Studies

Sector:

NGO

Location:

South Africa

Contact:

iss@issafrica.org

Browne, Evie, and Jonathan Fisher. “Key Actors Mapping: Somalia - GSDRC.” Applied Knowledge Services. GSDRC, November 13, 2013.

This rapid review provides a synthesis of some of the most recent, high-quality literature on the topic of power and influence in Somalia. It aims to orient policymakers to the key debates and emerging issues. This report was researched and written in September 2013, before the attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi that Al-Shabaab said it carried out.

Source: report description  

Brown, Ryan Lenora. “Whose Stories Get Streamed? Netflix Tells More Africans: Yours.” The Christian Science Monitor, March 5, 2019. https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/2019/0305/Whose-stories-get-streamed-Netflix-tells-more-Africans-yours

“Since May of last year, Netflix has commissioned original shows and films from Nigeria, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. Last week, the service debuted the Sundance darling “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind,” a film by the Nigerian-British director Chiwetel Ejiofor set in rural Malawi and acted mostly in a local language, Chichewa. The growing interest in Africa reflects a growing market, as more people go online and earn enough disposable income to subscribe. And a handful of African productions is a relatively low-stakes investment for Netflix, which rolled out about 700 original movies and shows last year alone. But in courting African filmmakers, it’s also helping to shake up tired notions of whose stories are worth paying attention to.”

[Source: Excerpt from the article].