R. Joseph Parrott & Danielle Porter Sanchez 
African Islands 
Leading Edges of Empire and Globalization

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 of Africa.


In
African 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 is Assistant Professor of History at Ohio State University. DANIELLE PORTER SANCHEZ is Assistant Professor of History at Muhlenberg College.

Tabla de materias

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

Sobre el autor

TOYIN FALOLA is Professor of History, University Distinguished Teaching Professor, and the Jacob and Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin.