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Jahresbericht ... / ZIAF - Zentrum für interdisziplinäre Afrikaforschung

Mon, 13 May 2013 10:46:32 +0200

Jahresbericht 2012 / ZIAF - Zentrum für interdisziplinäre Afrikaforschung

Mon, 13 May 2013 10:41:46 +0200

Flora et Vegetatio Sudano-Sambesica : Volume 15 - 2012

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 12:33:53 +0100

The German administration in East Africa // by John William East : a select annot. bibliogr. of the German colonial administration in Tanganyika, Rwanda and Burundi, from 1884 to 1918

John W. East — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 17:34:27 +0100

Grammatische Beschreibung des Nyam - eine westtschadische Minoritätensprache

Heike Andreas — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 13:54:06 +0100

Die vorliegende Arbeit stellt die Phonologie, Morphologie und Syntax des Nyam, einer westtschadischen Minoritätensprache Nordostnigerias, dar. Es handelt sich um eine Erstbeschreibung, die im Zuge eines von der DFG finanzierten Projekts mit dem Titel „Das Nyam – Dokumentation einer westtschadischen Minoritätensprache“ durchgeführt werden konnte. Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es, eine grammatische Beschreibung des Nyam – eine bis dato unbekannte Sprache – vorzulegen. Mit nur ca. 5000 Sprechern ist sie schon im Hinblick auf die geringe Zahl, vor allem aber durch die regionale Dominanz der mit ihr genetisch verwandten Verkehrssprache Hausa, akut in ihrer Existenz bedroht. Zudem befindet sich diese Sprache in einer geographisch exponierten Lage, d.h. sie ist weitgehend von Benue-Kongo-Sprachen umgeben. Vor diesem Hintergrund kann die Dokumentation des Nyam einerseits den Nyam-Sprechern selbst zur Erhaltung ihrer kulturellen Identität und der damit verbundenen Traditionen dienen. Andererseits ist dieser wissenschaftliche Beitrag als Ergänzung zu den noch fehlenden Grammatiken innerhalb der tschadischen Sprachfamilie und im Besonderen der Bole-Tangale-Sprachgruppe zu sehen und kann als Grundstein zukünftiger Forschungen für vergleichende Arbeiten mit den benachbarten Benue-Kongo-Sprachen betrachtet werden.

Ältestquartäre Säugetiere aus der südlichen Serengeti, Deutsch-Ostafrika

Wilhelm O. Dietrich — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 11:19:16 +0100

Die Knochenansammlung im grauen vulkanischen Tuff der Südserengeti gibt als ökologisch unmögliches Gemisch ein gutes Abbild des Gesamtbestandes und des Lebensraumes der altquartärcn ost- und innerafrikanischen Fauna. Diese lebte formenreich in Urwald, Savanne und offener Steppe. Das Fehlen wasserlebender Tiere ist hier auf örtliche Umstände zurückzuführen: die vulkanischen Aschen gingen auf Steppenboden nieder, Die benachbarten, ungefähr gleichalten Knochenlager enthalten solche Tiere. Neu ist an der Serengetifauna der bereits beträchtliche Anteil von Kleinsäugern (Nager; Insektivoren fehlen noch). Diese wird weitere Forschung vermehren. Die klimatische Entsprechung der Fauna wird in tropischen, feuchtwarmen Bedingungen erblickt. Obwohl viele tertiäre Formen enthaltend, wird die Fauna nicht als jungtertiär angesehen, sondern wegen des Auftretens moderner· Formen als eine Tiergesellschaft, welche das Quartär eröffnet. Als Leitfossil für dessen Beginn wird der Gattung Archidiskodon, aus welcher die echten Elefanten, darunter auch der afrikanische (Loxodonta africana ) entstanden sind, vor den Equiden der Vorzug gegeben. Ostafrika, das ja als Tierparadies schlechthin gilt, lebte bis vor kurzem noch im Quartär. Das Schrifttum über seine Tierwelt scheint zwar fast unermeßlich groß, aufs Ganze gesehen ist das Wissen weder tief noch auch nur oberflächlich vollständig. Die Hauptleistung des "weißen Mannes" bestand in der Störung und Vernichtung der Fauna. Aber die Natur ist groß; sie hält noch einen Schatz im Inneren ihrer Gebirge bereit, damit der Mensch seine Stellung zu ihr und den Sinn seines Lebens ergründe, einen von vielen: dle quartäre Lebewelt selbst. Möge die hohe Aufgabe, ihn zu heben, uns Deutschen vergönnt sein! Eine Probe hat Dr. KOHL-LARSEN gesichert.

Modelling the impact of future climate and land use change on vegetation patterns, plant diversity and provisioning ecosystem services in West Africa

Jonathan Heubes — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 12:58:02 +0100

Global climate change and land use change will not only alter entire ecosystems and biodiversity patterns, but also the supply of ecosystem services. A better understanding of the consequences is particularly needed in under-investigated regions, such as West Africa. The projected environmental changes suggest negative impacts on nature, thus representing a threat to the human well-being. However, many effects caused by climate and land use change are poorly understood so far. Thus, the main objective of this thesis was to investigate the impact of climate and land use change on vegetation patterns, plant diversity and important provisioning ecosystem services in West Africa. The three different aspects are separately explored and build the chapters of this thesis. The findings help to improve our understanding of the effects of environmental change on ecosystems and human well-being. In the first study, the main objectives were to model trends and the extent of future biome shifts in West Africa that may occur by 2050. Also, I modelled a trend in West African tree cover change, while accounting for human impact. Additionally, uncertainty in future climate projections was evaluated to identify regions with reliable trends and regions where the impacts remain uncertain. The potential future spatial distributions of desert, grassland, savanna, deciduous and evergreen forest were modelled in West Africa, using six bioclimatic models. Future tree cover change was analysed with generalized additive models (GAMs). I used climate data from 17 general circulation models (GCMs) and included human population density and fire intensity to model tree cover. Consensus projections were derived via weighted averages to: 1) reduce inter-model variability, and 2) describe trends extracted from different GCM projections. The strongest predicted effect of climate change was on desert and grasslands, where the bioclimatic envelope of grassland is projected to expand into the Sahara desert by an area of 2 million km2. While savannas are predicted to contract in the south (by 54 ± 22 × 104 km2), deciduous and evergreen forest biomes are expected to expand (64 ± 13 × 104 km2 and 77 ± 26 × 104 km2). However, uncertainty due to different GCMs was particularly high for the grassland and the evergreen forest biome shift. Increasing tree cover (1–10%) was projected for large parts of Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Togo, but a decrease was projected for coastal areas (1–20%). Furthermore, human impact negatively affected tree cover and partly changed the direction of the projected climate-driven tendency from increase to decrease. Considering climate change alone, the model results of potential vegetation (biomes) showed a ‘greening’ trend by 2050. However, the modelled effects of human impact suggest future forest degradation. Thus, it is essential to consider both climate change and human impact in order to generate realistic future projections on woody cover. The second study focused on the impact and the interplay of future (2050) climate and land use change on the plant diversity of the West African country Burkina Faso. Synergistic forecasts for this country are lacking to date. Burkina Faso covers a broad bioclimatic gradient which causes a similar gradient in plant diversity. Thus, the impact of climate and land use change can be investigated in regions with different levels of species richness. The LandSHIFT model from the Centre of Environmental System research CESR (Kassel, Germany) was adapted for this study to derive novel regional, spatially explicit future (2050) land use simulations for Burkina Faso. Additionally, the simulations include different assumptions on the technological developments in the agricultural sector. Oneclass support vector machines (SVMs), a machine learning method, were performed with these land use simulations together with current and future (2050) climate projections at a 0.1° resolution (cell: ~ 10 × 10 km). The modelling results showed that the flora of Burkina Faso will be primarily negatively impacted by future climate and land use changes. The species richness will be significantly reduced by 2050 (P < 0.001, paired Wilcoxon signed-rank test). However, contrasting latitudinal patterns were found. Although climate change is predicted to cause species loss in the more humid regions in Southern Burkina Faso (~ 200 species per cell), the model projects an increase of species richness in the Sahel. However, land use change is expected to suppress this increase to the current species diversity level, depending on the technological developments. Climate change is a more important threat to the plant diversity than land use change under the assumption of technological stagnation in the agricultural sector. Overall, the study highlights the impact and interplay of future climate and land use change on plant diversity along a broad bioclimatic gradient in West Africa. Furthermore, the results suggest that plant diversity in dry and humid regions of the tropics might generally respond differently to climate and land use change. This pattern has not been detected by global studies so far. Several of the plant species in West Africa significantly contribute to the livelihoods of the population. The plants provide so-called non-timber forest products (NTFPs), which are important provisioning ecosystem services. However, these services are also threatened by environmental change. Thus, the third study aimed at developing a novel approach to assess the impacts of climate and land use change on the economic benefits derived from NTFPs. This project was carried out in cooperation with Katja Heubach (BiK-F) who provided data on household economics. These data include 60 interviews that were conducted in Northern Benin on annual quantities and revenues of collected NTFPs from the three most important savanna tree species: Adansonia digitata, Parkia biglobosa and Vitellaria paradoxa. The current market prices of the NTFPs were derived from respective local markets. To assess current and future (2050) occurrence probabilities of the three species, I calibrated niche-based models with climate data (from Miroc3.2medres) and land use data (LandSHIFT) at a 0.1° resolution (cell: ~ 10 × 10 km). Land use simulations were taken from the previous study on plant diversity. Three different niche-based models were used: 1) generalized additive models (regression method), 2) generalized boosting models (machine learning method), and 3) flexible discriminant analysis (classification method). The three model simulations were averaged (ensemble forecasting) to increase the robustness of the predictions. To assess future economic gains and losses, respectively, the modelled species’ occurrence probabilities were linked with the spatially assigned monetary values. Highest current annual benefits are obtained from V. paradoxa (54,111 ± 28,126 US$/cell), followed by P. biglobosa (32,246 ± 16,526 US$/cell) and A. digitata (9,514 ± 6,243 US$/cell). However, in the prediction large areas will lose up to 50% of their current economic value by 2050. Vitellaria paradoxa and Parkia biglobosa, which currently reveal the highest economic benefits, are heavily affected. Adansonia digitata is negatively affected less strongly by environmental change and might regionally even supply increasing economic benefits, in particular in the west and east of the investigation area. We conclude that adaptive strategies are needed to create alternative income opportunities, in particular for women that are responsible for collecting the NTFPs. The findings provide a benchmark for local policy-makers to economically compare different land use options and adjust existing management strategies for the near future. Overall, this thesis improves our understanding of the impacts of climate and land use changes on West African vegetation patterns, plant diversity and provisioning ecosystem services. Climate change had spatially varying impacts (positive and negative effects) on the vegetation cover and plant diversity, while predominantly negative effects resulted from human pressure. Regional contrasting impacts of environmental change were also found considering the provisioning ecosystem services.

Contribuïção cultural da Agência Geral das Colónias nas comemorações centenárias : notas bibliograficas / [Vorr.: Júlio Caiolla]

Júlio Caiolla — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 15:00:52 +0200

A study on the impact of mobile telecommunication on the welfare of sub saharan african countries

Hauke Heinrich Friedrich Plambeck — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 10:58:36 +0200

Africa: A continent is waking up. Not through aid or wealth from the exploitation of natural resources, but through a technological revolution. The access to affordable mobile telecommunication. Inspired by deregulation and pioneered by local champions who have taken a lead in what is today's fastest growing mobile market in the world. There is money to be made in these markets, attracting more and more operators from the northern hemisphere. However positive the short term impact of this revolution may be, governments should try hard to assure a market of continued competition among network operators, as this competition is the source of a self propelled creation of welfare and new opportunities, motivated from within Africa. Chapter 1 of this thesis highlights the positive impact of mobile telecommunication on the social and economic life in Sub Saharan Africa. Chapter 2 builds on the static as well as the dynamic version of the Network Pricing Game, a model developed by Dr. Carolyn Gideon, to stress the immanent threat of network markets turning into a monopoly. This theses ends in Chapter 3 with an brief outlook on further drivers of economic growth and opportunities awaiting Sub Saharan Africa in the coming decade.

Illustriertes Sonntagsblatt : Beilage zur Deutsch-Ostafrikanischen Zeitung

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 14:01:31 +0200

Wie sollen wir unsere Straußenzucht-Betriebe In Deutsch-Südwestafrika einrichten?

Hermann W. Scherer — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 09:45:49 +0200

Adressbuch für Deutsch-Ostafrika

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 10:02:36 +0200

Aurelyo Augustino : mkuu katika Wakristo wa kale

Herrmann Krelle — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 11:19:24 +0200

Centre Culturel Français : Programme

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 09:56:46 +0200

African studies – striving for integrated information services: Recent developments in Germany and Europe

Hartmut Bergenthum; Thomas Siebold — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 15:58:37 +0200

New projects, services and collaborations have recently brought the infrastructural services for African Studies a big step forward. This report gives an account of new subject gateways and digitisation projects. It discusses recent European cooperation ventures in the field of librarianship. Additionally, new developments and services of the Africa Collection at Frankfurt University Library are presented, which help to address the changing needs of researchers and to handle information overload, while keeping up with the latest developments. Nevertheless, the fragmentation and compartmentalisation of the different services still hinder more integrated information services.

Urban life-worlds in motion: In Africa and beyond

Hans Peter Hahn — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 10:15:46 +0200

Although throughout the history of anthropology the ethnography of urban societies was never an important topic, investigations on cities in Africa contributed to the early theoretical development of urban studies in social sciences. As the ethnography of rural migrants in towns made clear, cultural diversity and creativity are foundational and permanent elements of urban cultures in Africa (and beyond). Currently, two new aspects complement these insights: 1) Different forms of mobility have received a new awareness through the concept of transnationalism. They are much more complex, including not only rural–urban migration, but also urban–urban migration, and migrations with a destination beyond the continent. 2) Urban life-worlds also include the appropriation of globally circulating images and lifestyles, which contribute substantially to the current cultural dynamics of cities in Africa. These two aspects are the reasons for the high complexity of urban contexts in Africa. Therefore, whether it is still appropriate to speak about the “locality” of these life-worlds has become questionable. At the same time, these new aspects explain the self-consciousness of members of urban cultures in Africa. They contribute to the expansive character of these societies and to the impression that cities in Africa host the most innovative and creative societies worldwide.

Den Ressourcenfluch zum Segen machen : Perspektiven afrikanischer und europäischer Autoren

Tim Bittiger — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:26:17 +0200

Rezension zu: Jürgen Runge, James Shikwati (Hrsg.) Geological Resources and Good Governance in Sub-Saharan Africa: Holistic Approaches to Transparency and Sustainable Development in the Extractive Sect. Taylor & Francis, London 2011, ISBN 978-0-415-58267-4, 292 Seiten, Hardcover, 16 Abbildungen, 16 Farbtabellen, 80,99 Euro.

Über Geburt, Blüte und Kollaps der Nok-Kultur im subsaharischen Afrika

Ulrike Jaspers — Wed, 16 May 2012 16:47:26 +0200

DFG gibt weitere 1,6 Millionen Euro – Prof. Breunig und sein Team können ihre Forschungen bis 2020 fortsetzen – Ausstellung im Liebieghaus geplant

African publishing review

Wed, 16 May 2012 09:57:26 +0200

Fespaco Newsletter

Tue, 15 May 2012 18:33:55 +0200

Südwestafrikanische Schizopoden

Carl Zimmer — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 08:45:09 +0100

Climate change, environment and migration in the Sahel : selected issues with a focus on Senegal and Mali

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 13:40:56 +0100

Flora et Vegetatio Sudano-Sambesica : Volume 14 - 2011

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 01:38:48 +0000

Some plants used by the Bushmen in obtaining food and water

Robert Story — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 11:35:27 +0000

Kampf und Tanz: Ein ethnologischer Vergleich von Capoeira, Moringue und Danmyé in ehemaligen portugiesischen und französischen Kolonien

Marie-Claire Thull — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 02:19:37 +0000

Die Kampftänze der afrikanischen Diaspora wurden unter den Umständen der Sklavenzeit und als Weiterführung afrikanischer Rituale entwickelt. Bis ins 20. Jahrhundert hinein wurde ihre Ausübung offiziell verboten. Die Missachtung der Öffentlichkeit über die Jahrhunderte hinweg steht im krassen Gegensatz zu der Bedeutung, die die Kampftänze für die kulturelle Identität der Bevölkerungen afrikanischen Ursprungs haben. Heute geniessen die Kampftänze als Kampfsport besonders in den westlichen Industrieländern eine wachsende Popularität. Der folgende Aufsatz bietet eine Übersicht über die Kampftänze Capoeira (Brasilien), Moringue (La Réunion) und Danmyé (Martinique). Aufgrund der Ähnlichkeit der drei Kampftänze wird die ethnische Verbindung historisch rekonstruiert, um den gemeinsamen Ursprung in Afrika auszumachen.