Latest Books by JSAS Members
Seifudein Adem, Africa’s Quest for Modernity: Lessons from Japan and China, Springer, 2023, 283 pages, 18,171 yen (Amazon.co.jp).
This book fills a major gap in the existing literature on the triad of Africa, China, and Japan. Under the guidance of the disciplines of African studies, international relations, political sociology, and international political economy, this volume elucidates and examines the complexities of the foreign policies of the two Asian powers toward Africa as well as their economic, political, and cultural underpinnings. This "is a giant leap forward...Demonstrating through complex cultural analysis and critical reviews of data on how Africa could re-imagine itself, Seifudein Adem has opened an entirely new field of research" (Molefi Kete Asante).
Vick Lukwago Ssali, POWER BACK TO THE PEOPLE: The Relevance of Ethnic Federalism in Uganda,
Langaa RPCIG, Cameroon, 2023, 250 pages, 4,938 yen (Amazon.co.jp).
This book highlights the dynamics of ethnic politics and relevance of the debate on ethnic federalism in Uganda. Its thesis is based on the voices of samples of ordinary people in ten tribal areas of Uganda and their attitude towards federalism. Is their loyalty growing towards the centre or fading out towards traditional and cultural units? But while this book’s main thesis is the focus on grassroots perceptions of the relevance (or not) of ethnic political autonomy in Uganda, it is also partly a narration of the author's experiences growing up in an independent but turbulent Uganda.
David Arase and Pedro Miguel Amakasu Raposo de Medeiros Carvalho eds, The Belt and Road Initiative in Asia, Africa, and Europe, Routledge, 2022, 324 Pages, GBP25.89 (e-book).
This book examines the progress and reception of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in key subregions of Asia, Africa and Europe. Through its exploration of the patchwork of distinctive sub regions of each continent, the book analyses how well the BRI accommodates sub regional variation as it attempts to integrate Asia, Africa, and Europe under Chinese auspices. Individual chapters focus on how developing subregions experience BRI relations with China, while others focus on how liberal powers seek to compete with China’s BRI agenda. The contributions also gauge the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the BRI in regional settings and point to its future implications.
Meyu Yamamoto, Ethnoracial Politics of Honorary Whiteness in Twentieth-Century South Africa,
Tokyo: Shinyosha, 2022, March, 2,700 yen + tax.
山本めゆ『「名誉白人」の百年―南アフリカのアジア系住民をめぐるエスノ-人種ポリティクス』新曜社、2022年3月、2,700円＋税
人種隔離政策アパルトヘイトが猛威を奮っていた1960年代の南アフリカ。当地に暮らす日本人を指す呼称として、「名誉白人 honorary whtites」は誕生した。この奇妙な概念はどのような文脈で生まれ、どのように理解されてきたのだろう。南アフリカに到来したアジア系移民と日本人コミュニティの動態史が、この概念を生成させた社会関係や言説的実践とともに検討されている。アフリカ・アジア関係の研究に貢献する新たな名著。
Yoichi Mine, Connecting Africa and Asia: Afrasia As a Benign Community, Routledge, 2022, Open Access.
By 2100, more than 80 percent of the world's population is expected to live in Afrasia (Africa and Asia). This book draws lessons from history, provides a new cognitive map of the world, and discusses multiple challenge global citizens will face in the age of Afrasia, an emerging macro-region. The centre of gravity is shifting. Whether the world can manage a soft landing into a peaceful stationary state depends on the nature of the dialogue people in Africa and Asia will organise. The author argues that a state of equilibrium between the two is achievable, provided issues related to gender, employment, agriculture, human-nature relationships, and multicultural coexistence are simultaneously addressed. The book is downloadable at a Routledge Open Access website.
Rangarirai Gavin Muchetu, After Radical Land Reforms: Restructuring agricultural cooperatives in Zimbabwe and Japan, Langaa RPCIG, 2021, GBP 40.00.
This book examines the aftermath of Japanese and Zimbabwean radical land reforms and the development of their cooperatives. Based on data collected in the countryside, it is demonstrated that three broad types of cooperatives emerged in Japan, providing relevant lessons for restructuring the British-Indian type of cooperatives in Zimbabwe. The central argument is that the radical Fast-Track Land Reform Programme gave rise to a rare platform (as it did in Japan) to develop robust, genuine grassroots cooperatives from below. The book discusses the pros and cons of the Japanese cooperative system and the Zimbabwe movement to advance a new framework of agricultural cooperatives for post-colonial states in Africa.
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Seifudein Adem, Postcolonial Constructivism: Mazrui's Theory of Intercultural Relations, Palgrave, 2021, 10,777 yen.
This book introduces Ali Mazrui’s vast and stimulating scholarship about intercultural relations to a wider audience and seeks to do so as comprehensively as possible. The book is therefore partly semi-autobiographical in the sense that it lets Mazrui speak to the reader, mostly in his own words, but also through the words of those who knew him well. Furthermore, the author attempts to read into Mazrui’s work his own interpretation to formulate a theory he calls postcolonial constructivism. In short, the intention of the author was to write a book that could serve as a useful source of information about Mazrui and his ideas in a manner that is both scholarly and decidedly of human interest.
Ruth Achenbach et al, eds, Afrasian Transformations: Transregional Perspectives on Development Cooperation, Social Mobility, and Cultural Change, Brill, 2020, 340 pp. USD 85.00.
African-Asian interactions contribute to the emergence of a decentred, multi-polar world in which different actors need to redefine themselves and their relations to each other. Afrasian Transformations explores these changes to map out several arenas where these transformations have already produced startling results: development politics, South-South cooperation, cultural memory, mobile lifeworlds and transcultural connectivity. Seifudein Adem and his colleague contributed a chapter on Agricultural transformation in Africa.
Pedro Miguel Amakasu Raposo de Medeiros Carvalho, David Arase and Scarlett Cornelissen eds, Routledge Handbook of Africa-Asia Relations, Routledge, 2018, 5,692 yen (Kindle).
The Routledge Handbook of Africa–Asia Relations is the first handbook aimed at studying the interactions between countries across Africa and Asia in a multi-disciplinary and comprehensive way. Providing a balanced discussion of historical and on-going processes which have both shaped and changed intercontinental relations over time, contributors take a thematic approach to examine the ways in which we can conceptualise these two very different, yet inextricably linked areas of the world.
Katsuhiko Kitagawa, Japan's Economic Relations with Africa in a Historical Perspective: A Study of the Pre-War Japanese Consular Reports, Kansai University Press, 2020, 2,200 yen + tax.
This book is a unique empirical study on Japan-Africa relations based on Japanese pre-war consular reports. It investigates how and why the complex relationships between Japan and Africa started to develop. An attempt is made to identify the forms and structures upon which these historical relations were constructed against the backdrop of the changing global system and the internal dynamics of the Japanese political economy. The book addresses an important question: whether the relationships were characterized by equality/reciprocity or by imperialism/dependency.
Ross Anthony and Uta Ruppert eds, Reconfiguring Transregionalisation in the Global South: African-Asian Encounters, Palgrave, 2020, Euro 85.59.
This book examines the Africa-Asia relationship from a transregional perspective. Drawing on a host of countries from both regions, the contributions illustrate how encounters increasingly transcend fixed territorial categories at local, national and regional levels. With an emphasis on the “trans” aspects of inter-regional exchange, the volume contributes to a better understanding of new forms of space-making between these two increasingly important regions. The book contains a chapter written by Seifudein Adem: "Reason and Number: African Reflections on Japan".
Keiichi Shirato, Seeing Africa, Seen by Africa, Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo 2019, August, 820 yen + tax.
This another Afrasian Manifesto is written in Japanese.
白戸圭一『アフリカを見る アフリカから見る』ちくま新書、2019年8月、820円＋税
「平成」の30年間で、日本とアフリカを取り巻く状況は激変した。経済成長が止まり、国力が低下する日本。一方、かつて日本人が時に哀れみの視線を注ぎながら援助していたアフリカでは、多くの国で経済成長が持続し、平和と民主主義の定着が進む。2050年に世界人口の4人に一人を占める「豊穣の大陸」と、少子高齢化に喘ぐ日本はどう向き合えばよいのか。
Yoichi Mine, World Maps in 2100: The Age of Afrasia, Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2019, August, 960 yen + tax.
This Afrasian Manifesto is written in Japanese.
峯陽一『2100年の世界地図－アフラシアの時代』岩波新書、2019年8月、960円＋税
世界人口の重心が変化していく。2100年までに世界の人口は100億人を超え、アフリカとアジア、すなわち「アフラシア」の人々が世界人口の8割以上を占める。本書は地理情報システム（GIS）の手法を駆使し、人口分布などの地球規模の情報を多彩なカラー地図で示す2100年の未来予測である。
Scarlett Cornelissen and Yoichi Mine eds, Migration and Agency in a Globalizing World: Afro-Asian Encounters, Palgrave, 2018, Euro 96.29.
This book – through a collection of case studies covering Southern and East Africa, China, India, Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia – offers insights into the nature of social exchanges between Africa and Asia. In the age of the ‘Rise of the South’, it documents the entanglements and the lived experiences of African and Asian people on the move. Divided into three parts, the authors look at Asians in Africa, Africans in Asia, and the ‘connected histories’ that the two share, which illuminate emerging and historical modalities of Afro-Asian human encounters.