Navigating Socialist Encounters

This edited volume examines entanglements and disentanglements between Africa and East Germany during and after the Cold War from a global history perspective. Extending the view beyond political elites, it asks for the negotiated and plural character of socialism in these encounters and sheds light on migration, media, development, and solidarity through personal and institutional agency. With its distinctive focus on moorings and unmoorings, the volume shows how the encounters, albeit often brief, significantly influenced both African and East German histories.

Auteur
Eric Burton , Univ. Innsbruck; Anne Dietrich , Univ. Leipzig; Immanuel R. Harisch , Univ. Vienna; Marcia C. Schenck , Univ. Potsdam.

Texte du rabat

The global turn in historical research has yet to fully incorporate the African continent. This series aims to promote historical scholarship which addresses the global connections which shaped African histories; theories and methods of doing Africanist global history; and studies of the limitations of global history from an Africanist perspective. Africa in Global History welcomes (but is not limited to) monographs and edited volumes which tackle the themes of intervention and development, migration and colonial inter-connections, and trade and labour. Throughout much of modern African history, actors have been focused on visions of African futures. In these visions, supposedly traditional , backward or under-developed societies would be replaced. This book series addresses this long history of interventions into African societies from both internal and external groups. The series will trace changing patterns of migration, often associated with the establishment of new settlements and colonies, or changing trade or labour relations. By taking a comparative approach, the series will also intervene into the pressing debates on nationalism, nationalist sentiment and xenophobia (in all its complications); tradition and neo-traditionalism; and the historical processes which shaped Africäs place in the world. The books in this series will both address the particular, regional manifestations of this phenomenon, disaggregating the monolithic notion of Africa in the World , but also examine ways that Africa as a country has been created through discourses of civilisation, improvement and development. We particularly encourage submissions from Africa-based scholars, and we are committed to exploring innovative new methods to support publication. One of the objectives of this series would be to support African scholars to create new research collaborations and publish their research. Advisory Board: Patrick Manning, Conceição Neto, Toyin Falola, Scholastique Diazinga, Babacar Fall, Isabella Kentridge, William Gervase Clarence-Smith ,Felicitas Becker, Emma Hunter, Matt Graham, Erin Jessee, Joe Alie, Ibrahim Sundiata, Lynda Day, Colleen Kriger, Kristin Mann, Lorelle Semley, Vanessa S. Oliveira, Andreas Eckert

Résumé

"This edited volume [comprised of fourteen chapters and an introduction] contributes significantly to our understanding of the still understudied links between East Germany and the Global South. Each author in the volume unearths a treasure trove of sources that draw, among others, on East German and African archives, oral and micro-histories as well as literary and documentary texts and artifacts. All individual essays are well-written, critically informed, and highly innovative." - Anna Horakova (Harvard University) in German Studies Review (2022) 45/2, 384-386

"This variety of formats sets this edited volume apart from other books on similar topics. Another reason to commend this volume is the range of sources used by its contributors. [...] it should be of great interest not only to students of the GDR and African history but also to all those dealing with postsocialism and the global history of the Cold War." - Yulia Gradskova (Södertörn University) in Ab Imperio (2022) 1, 293-297