Chamada de artigos

Dossiê temático da revista African Economic History

África e Capitalismo: Conectando dimensões econômicas, materiais e visuais na era do comércio atlântico de africanos escravizados

Organizadoras:

Ana Lucia Araujo (Howard University)

Mariana P. Candido (Emory University)

Os historiadores estudaram os impactos do comércio de pessoas escravizadas no continente africano por várias décadas. Frequentemente, esses estudos se concentraram nas dimensões econômicas e demográficas dessas trocas. No entanto, essa tendência de longa data foi desafiada e, finalmente, transformada nos últimos vinte e cinco anos, à medida que um número crescente de estudiosos se debruçou sobre a história do continente africano e da diáspora africana passou a escrever histórias sociais e culturais centradas na dimensão humana, bem como biografias que colocam homens e mulheres africanos no centro de suas análises. Enquanto isso, nos últimos anos, historiadores que estudam a escravidão e a comércio atlântico de escravizados desenvolveram um interesse renovado pelas obras de Walter Rodney e Eric Williams, que tentaram explicar as histórias entrelaçadas do capitalismo, dos lucros gerados pelo comércio de africanos escravizados e do trabalho fornecido por africanos e seus descendentes.

Apesar desses desenvolvimentos, a maioria dos historiadores que exploraram as dimensões econômicas mais amplas do comércio de africanos escravizados se concentrou nas Américas, negligenciando amplamente o continente africano em suas análises. Em contraste, um número crescente de historiadores, arqueólogos e historiadores da arte tem prestado mais atenção aos impactos culturais, sociais, religiosos e materiais do comércio de seres humanos na África. Os tecidos de rafia, por exemplo, eram usados como moeda em trocas comerciais na África Central e Ocidental antes e depois do surgimento do comércio atlântico de escravizados. Na África Ocidental, assim como na África Central Ocidental, itens de ferro de diferentes tamanhos e formas também eram empregados como moeda no comércio a longa distância. Com o desenvolvimento do comércio atlântico de africanos escravizados, os europeus começaram a fabricar itens de prestígio, como espadas, coroas, tronos e cetros, para oferecer como presentes aos comerciantes e governantes africanos. O comércio de povos africanos alimentou uma violência extrema que, por fim, interrompeu a vida cotidiano e os meios de subsistência de homens, mulheres e crianças na África Ocidental, na África Central Ocidental e no sudeste da África. Em resposta, artesãos e especialistas religiosos criaram esculturas e amuletos para se protegerem de inimigos internos e externos e para evitar serem vendidos como escravizados. Muitas dessas esculturas e artefatos religiosos, conhecidos como objetos de poder, contém plantas, cabelos humanos, pelos de animais e fluidos corporais, como sangue. Eles também incorporam pedaços de tecidos, itens de ferro, como pregos, e búzios, materiais que compunham os artigos usados como moedas para comprar africanos escravizados.

Envie o título, o resumo do seu artigo (300 palavras) e uma breve nota biográfica (200 palavras) para aaraujo@howard.edu e mariana.pinho.candido@emory.edu até 15 de fevereiro de 2025

As propostas selecionadas serão notificadas até 28 de fevereiro de 2025.

Os artigos devem ser entregues até 15 de agosto de 2025. Os artigos devem ter entre 6.000 e 10.000 palavras, incluindo notas, tabelas e apêndices. Inclua 5 palavras-chave em inglês e um resumo em inglês, que não deve ultrapassar 150 palavras, no topo do manuscrito, após o título. Artigos em francês e português terão resumos na língua de publicação e em inglês. Os colaboradores devem também incluir uma folha de rosto separada com uma biografia curta (75–100 palavras), incluindo nome, afiliação e e-mail.

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CALL FOR ARTICLES

[French follows]

Special issue of the journal African Economic History

Africa and Capitalism: Connecting Economic, Material, and Visual Dimensions in the Era of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Issue editors:

Ana Lucia Araujo (Howard University)

Mariana P. Candido (Emory University)

 

Historians have studied the impacts of the trade in enslaved peoples on the African continent for several decades. Often, these studies have focused on the economic and demographic dimensions of these trades. However, this long-standing trend was challenged and ultimately transformed over the past twenty-five years, as a growing number of scholars focusing on the history of the African continent and the African diaspora have authored human-centered social and cultural histories, as well as biographies that place African men and women at the center of their analyses. Meanwhile, in recent years, historians studying slavery, and the Atlantic slave trade have developed a renewed interest in the works of Walter Rodney and Eric Williams, who attempted to explain the intertwined histories of capitalism, the profits generated from the trade in enslaved Africans, and the labor provided by Africans and their descendants.

Despite these developments, most historians who explored the broader economic dimensions of the trade in enslaved Africans have focused on the Americas, largely neglecting the African continent in their analyses. In contrast, a growing number of historians, archaeologists, and art historians have paid increasing attention to the cultural, social, religious, and material impacts of the trade in human beings in Africa. Raffia textiles were used as currency in commercial exchanges in West Central Africa before and after the rise of the Atlantic slave trade. In West Africa, as well as in West Central Africa, iron items of different sizes and shapes were also employed as money in long-distance trade. With the development of the Atlantic trade in enslaved Africans, Europeans began manufacturing prestige items such as swords, crowns, thrones, and scepters to offer as gifts to African traders and rulers. The trade in African peoples fueled extreme violence that ultimately disrupted the daily lives and livelihoods of men, women, and children in West Africa, West Central Africa, and southeastern Africa. In response, artisans and religious specialists created sculptures and amulets to protect themselves from internal and external enemies and to avoid being sold into slavery. Many of these sculptures and religious artifacts, known as power objects, enclose plants, human and animal hair, and body fluids such as blood. They also feature pieces of textiles, iron items such as nails, and cowry shells, materials that composed the articles used as currencies to purchase enslaved Africans.

This special issue argues that economic histories of Africa are inseparable from the material and visual dimensions of the history of the trade in enslaved peoples. With a focus on the African continent, this issue will feature articles by scholars who have addressed the economic history of the Atlantic slave trade, along with the work of historians, archaeologists, and art historians who have focused on the material and visual cultures of the Atlantic slave trade and slavery. The special issue will put in conversation articles addressing the broader economic histories of the Atlantic slave trade in Africa and articles focusing on the material and visual cultures of slavery. By doing so, we argue that the economic dimensions of the trade in enslaved Africans were not dissociated from the histories of the African, American, and European peoples who engaged in these exchanges. We also contend that these connections were intertwined and embodied in objects, artworks, and buildings created by these agents.

 

References

Araujo, Ana Lucia. “Did Rodney Get It Wrong? Europe Underdeveloped Africa, But Enslaved People Were Not Always Purchased with Rubbish.” African Economic History Review 50, no. 2 (2022): 22–32.

Araujo, Ana Lucia. The Gift: How Objects of Prestige Shaped the Atlantic Slave Trade and Colonialsim. Cambridge University Press, 2024.

Beaujean, Gaëlle. L’art de la cour d’Abomey : Le sens des objets. Paris: Presses du Réel, 2019.

Benjamin, Jody. The Texture of Change: Dress, Self-Fashioning and History in Western Africa, 1700–1850. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2024.

Blier, Suzanne Preston. African Vodun: Art, Psychology, and Power. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.

Blier, Suzanne Preston. Asen: Mémoires de fer forgé. Art vodun du Danhomè. Geneva: Musée Barbier-Mueller, 2018.

Candido, Mariana P. “Women’s Material World in Nineteenth-Century Benguela.” In African Women in the Atlantic World: Property, Vulnerability and Mobility, 1660–1880, edited by Mariana P. Candido and Adam Jones, 70–85. Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer, 2019.

Drayton, Richard Harry. Nature’s Government: Science, Imperial Britain, and the ‘Improvement’ of the World. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.

Evans, Chris and Louise Miskell. Swansea Copper: A Global History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020.

Fromont, Cécile. The Art of Conversion: Christian Visual Culture in the Kingdom of Kongo. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014.

Green, Toby. A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019.

Green, Toby. “Africa and Capitalism: Repairing a History of Omission.” Capitalism: A Journal of History and Economics 3, no. 2 (2022): 301–32.

Hesse, Hermann W. von. “‘A Modest, but Peculiar Style’: Self-Fashioning, Atlantic Commerce, and the Culture of Adornment on the Urban Gold Coast." The Journal of African History (2023): 1-23.

Kriger, Colleen E. Pride of Men: Ironworking in 19th Century West Central Africa. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1999.

Kriger, Colleen E. Cloth in West African History. Lanham: AltaMira Press, 2006.

Kriger, Colleen E. Making Money: Life, Death, and Early Modern Trade on Africa’s Guinea Coast. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2017.

Lovejoy, Paul E. Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Monroe, J. Cameron. The Precolonial State in West Africa: Building Power in Dahomey. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. 

Ogundiran, Akinwumi. "Cowries and Rituals of Self-Realization in the Yoruba Region, ca. 1600-1860.” In Materialities of Ritual in the Black Atlantic, edited by Akinwumi Ogundiran and Paula Saunders, 68–86. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2014.

Thiaw, Ibrahima, ed. Espaces, culture matérielle et identités en Sénégambie. Dakar: Codesria, 2010.

Send your paper abstract (300 words) and title to aaraujo@howard.edu and mariana.pinho.candido@emory.edu no later than February 15, 2025.

Selected proposals will be notified until February 28, 2025.

Articles will be due on August 15, 2025. Articles be 6,000–10,000 words in length, including notes, tables, and appendices. Please include 5 English keywords and an English abstract, not to exceed 150 words, at the top of the manuscript following the title. Articles in French and Portuguese will have abstracts in their language of publication and English. Contributors should also include a separate cover sheet with a short bio (75–100 words), including name, affiliation, and e-mail.
 

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​APPEL D’ARTICLES

Dossier thématique de la revue African Economic History

L'Afrique et le capitalisme : Relier les dimensions économiques, matérielles et visuelles à l'époque de la traite transatlantique des personnes mises en esclavage

Sous la direction de

Ana Lucia Araujo (Howard University)

Mariana P. Candido (Emory University)

Les historiens ont étudié les impacts de la traite des personnes mise en esclavage sur le continent africain pendant plusieurs décennies. Souvent, ces études se sont concentrées sur les dimensions économiques et démographiques de ces échanges. Cependant, cette tendance de longue date a été remise en question et finalement transformée au cours des vingt-cinq dernières années, à mesure qu'un nombre croissant de chercheurs se concentrant sur l'histoire du continent africain et de la diaspora africaine ont rédigé des histoires sociales et culturelles centrées sur les dimensions humaines, ainsi que des biographies qui placent les hommes et les femmes africains au centre de leurs analyses. Parallèlement, ces dernières années, les historiens étudiant l'esclavage et la traite atlantique des esclaves ont développé un intérêt renouvelé pour les travaux de Walter Rodney et Eric Williams, qui ont tenté d'expliquer les histoires entrelacées du capitalisme, des profits générés par la traite des africaines esclavisé.et du travail fourni par les personnes africaines et leurs descendants.

Malgré ces développements, la plupart des historiens ayant exploré les dimensions économiques plus larges de cette traite esclavagiste se sont concentrés sur les Amériques, négligeant largement le continent africain dans leurs analyses. En revanche, un nombre croissant d'historiens, d'archéologues et d'historiens de l'art ont prêté de plus en plus attention aux impacts culturels, sociaux, religieux et matériels de la traite des êtres humains en Afrique. Par exemple, les textiles en raffia étaient utilisés comme monnaie dans les échanges commerciaux en Afrique centrale de l'Ouest avant et après l'essor de la traite atlantique des Africains réduits en esclavage. En Afrique de l'Ouest, ainsi qu'en Afrique centrale de l'Ouest, des objets en fer de différentes tailles et formats étaient également employés comme monnaie dans le commerce à longue distance. Avec le développement du commerce atlantique des esclavisé, les Européens ont commencé à fabriquer des objets de prestige tels que des épées, des couronnes, des trônes et des sceptres pour les offrir en cadeau aux commerçants et aux dirigeants africains. La traite des peuples africains a alimenté une violence extrême qui a finalement perturbé la vie quotidienne et les moyens de subsistance des hommes, des femmes et des enfants en Afrique de l'Ouest, en Afrique centrale occidentale et dans le sud-est de l'Afrique. En réponse, des artisans et des spécialistes religieux ont créé des sculptures et des amulettes pour se protéger des ennemis internes et externes et éviter d'être vendus en esclavage. Nombre de ces sculptures et artefacts religieux, appelés objets de pouvoir, enferment des plantes, des cheveux et des poils humains et animaux, ainsi que des fluides corporels tels que du sang. Ils comportent également des morceaux de textiles, des objets en fer comme des clous et des cauris, matériaux qui composaient les articles utilisés comme monnaie pour acheter des Africains réduits en esclavage.

Ce numéro spécial soutient que les histoires économiques de l'Afrique sont inséparables des dimensions matérielles et visuelles de l'histoire de la traite des esclaves. Avec un accent sur le continent africain, ce dossier comprendra des articles de chercheurs qui ont abordé l'histoire économique de la traite atlantique des esclaves, ainsi que le travail d'historiens, d'archéologues et d'historiens de l'art qui se sont concentrés sur les cultures matérielles et visuelles de la traite esclavagiste. Notre objectif est de mettre en conversation des articles traitant des histoires économiques plus larges de la traite atlantique des esclaves en Afrique et des présentations se concentrant sur les cultures matérielles et visuelles de l'esclavage. Ce faisant, nous soutenons que les dimensions économiques de la traite esclavagiste n'étaient pas dissociées des histoires des peuples africains, américains et européens qui ont participé à ces échanges. Nous soutenons également que ces connexions étaient entrelacées et incarnées dans des objets, des œuvres d'art et des bâtiments créés par ces agents.

Envoyez le titre et le résumé de votre article (300 mots) à aaraujo@howard.edu et mariana.pinho.candido@emory.edu au plus tard le 15 février 2025.

Les propositions sélectionnées seront notifiées avant le 28 février 2025.

Les articles devront être soumis d'ici le 15 août 2025. Les articles doivent avoir entre 6 000 et 10 000 mots, y compris les notes, les tableaux et les annexes. Veuillez inclure 5 mots-clés en anglais et un résumé en anglais, ne devant pas dépasser 150 mots, en haut du manuscrit, après le titre. Les articles en français et en portugais auront des résumés dans leur langue de publication et en anglais. Les contributeurs doivent également inclure une feuille de couverture séparée avec une courte biographie (75 à 100 mots), comprenant le nom, l'affiliation et l'e-mail.