We're thrilled to announce this year's ASR Prize Awardees and Honorable Mentions! Please join us in congratulating these talented authors, editors, and publishers. See the full press release online here: https://africanstudies.org/news/african-studies-review-2026-awardees/

In this issue’s In Memoriam section, James Ogude, Susan Kiguli, Ndirangu Wachanga, Brendon Nicholls, and Gilbert Shang Ndi reflect on the life and work of the late Kenyan visionary author and theorist, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. Read their tributes here: tinyurl.com/2fwmdbrd

Nnanna Onuoha Arukwe surveys four histories—from rural South Africa to Casamance, Djibouti, & Ghana—to show how Africa is reconstructed through violence, defiance, politics, & spiritual revival—beyond state archives & modernization scripts. doi.org/10.1017/asr....

For Dotun Ayobade, “Project a Black Planet,” presented at the Art Institute of Chicago, did more than represent Pan-Africanism: it “enacted” it. This review essay explores the exhibition’s vision of Black art, solidarity, and future-making. doi.org/10.1017/asr....

How to mobilize 170 million people into a coherent political voice? In her Hormuud Lecture, 'On the Demanding Forward Flight of the Diasporan Sankofa Bird,' Abena P.A. Busia examines the promises & contradictions of the AU's 6th Diaspora Region. doi.org/10.1017/asr....

Sudan’s democratic transition faltered as the US “missed another democratic moment.” Rawia Tawfik shows how a self-defeating foreign policy—shaped by strategic priorities, bureaucratic inertia, & regional alliances—undermined civilian rule. doi.org/10.1017/asr....

What political work does rumor do? Diana Felix da Costa traces how claims about Murle infertility in South Sudan hardened into myth, legitimizing exclusion, securitization, and violence. doi.org/10.1017/asr....

Nomthandazo Malambo and Stephen Brown examine how abortion and LGBTI+ rights in Zambia are both stigmatized as “un-Christian” and “un-Zambian,” while activists use those same pressures to build coalitions for reproductive justice. doi.org/10.1017/asr....

What does women’s labor make visible in the African city? Tolulope Akinwole argues that women’s “discursive and performative actions” are central to understanding work, struggle, and urban life in Lagos. doi.org/10.1017/asr....

When queer pleasure becomes public, it can become punishment. Nwando Achebe traces how a 2011 viral video at the University of Benin turned intimacy into “moral evidence” and visibility into violence in Nigeria. doi.org/10.1017/asr....

30 years after his execution, Ken Saro-Wiwa’s legacy endures. Editor-in-Chief Cajetan Iheka traces the “afterlife” of his activism for Ogoni self-determination & environmental justice in art, literature & social movements. Read the editorial doi.org/10.1017/asr....

The new ASR issue (69.1) is here. From Sudan’s stalled transition to Pan-African art, sexual citizenship in Nigeria, reproductive justice in Zambia, and diaspora politics—this issue traces power, embodiment, and resistance. Read it here: tinyurl.com/2fwmdbrd

Call for Proposals: ASR seeks keyword essays for the 2026 ASA Annual Meeting, New Orleans. Engage emerging trends & topics for a broad Africanist audience through critical terms. Peer-reviewed; publication opportunity. Submit by March 13: tinyurl.com/2bmfd3a7

ASR Keywords Proposal

ASR Keywords Proposal :

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Chijioke Onah’s ASR article “#BringBackOurGirls,” from our vol. 67, no. 2, has been named a finalist for the ASWAD Article Prize, which honours outstanding scholarship on Africa and/or the African Diaspora. Congratulations, Chijioke! @kizichiji www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

In this issue’s In Memoriam section, Aliko Songolo, Anjali Prabhu, Pierre-Philippe Fraiture, & Tsitsi Jaji each pay tribute to the late Congolese philosopher & writer V. Y. Mudimbe. Read their thoughtful contributions here: tinyurl.com/6sfz5u4u

Reviewing recent works that focus on “governance deficit in public authority” in Nigeria and Ghana, Bernard Nwosu examines the relationship of such fragility to the “current condition of the political state in Africa.” doi.org/10.1017/asr....

Jennifer Lofkrantz, Bréma Ely Dicko, and Chitra Nagarajan examine how an individual’s perceived positionality affects their response to the evocation of historical memory in the Katiba Macina and Boko Haram-related conflicts. doi.org/10.1017/asr....

Using the concept of “deep listening,” Fauziyatu Moro and Reginold A. Royston examine “podcasting, as a technology of sound…for the way its content resonates with listeners in Africa, with and beyond the physical aspects of hearing.” doi.org/10.1017/asr....

Despite similarly undelivered promises, Pritish Behuria documents how “the ‘democratic’ Mauritian and Botswana governments were more flexible in adapting their luxury tourism strategies than the ‘authoritarian’ Rwandan government. ow.ly/rZah50Y58EV

Hangala Siachiwena challenges “the narrow framing of [former Zambian president Michael] Sata as a populist” and instead, “situates his politics within broader debates on development in post-adjustment Africa.” doi.org/10.1017/asr....

Mahder Serekberhan discusses the central importance of working peoples’ nonhierarchical coordination to the success of the 2018/2019 Sudanese Uprising, an essay for which she won the 2023 ASA Graduate Student Paper Prize. https://doi.org/10.1017/asr.2025.10125

The latest ASR issue (68.4) is now out! Like ASA’s recent 68th meeting, this issue “highlights the rich panoply of research into the urgent questions and issues besetting African societies.” Read the Editors' Introduction here: doi.org/10.1017/asr.....

In their article, Albert Chibuwe and Allen Munoriyarwa analyze how Zimbabweans used WhatsApp humor during lockdown to cope with hardship, sharing jokes that “speak truth to power about the country’s political-economic and socio-cultural conditions.” doi.org/10.1017/asr....

Ampson Hagan shows how African nations struggled to access COVID-19 vaccines due to corporate control and intellectual property regulations. In this article, he employs the concept of "waithood" to critique the coloniality of global vaccine inequality. doi.org/10.1017/asr....

Jia Hui Lee, Laura A. Meek, and Jacob Katumusiime show how anti-imperialist discourses led to pan-African skepticism about COVID-19 in Tanzania and Uganda, analyzing how misinformation, fake news, and alternative remedies shaped public health responses. doi.org/10.1017/asr....

In this article, Bamba Ndiaye and Margaret Rowley show how Senegalese artists used rap, Afrobeat, mbalax, and other genres to spread COVID-literacy, debunk myths, and integrate metaphysical beliefs, playing a key role in the nation's pandemic response. doi.org/10.1017/asr....

David G. Pier and Michael Mutagubya show how Ugandan music artists contested the Museveni regime’s COVID-19 lockdown policies during a tense election. Their songs shared best health practices, generated resistance, and reimagined emergency biopolitics. doi.org/10.1017/asr....

Kristen E. McLean and Liza J. Malcolm examine Sierra Leone’s COVID-19 response, revealing how harsh containment measures led to economic and social hardship, fueling distrust in the state and leading people to describe this epidemic as worse than Ebola. doi.org/10.1017/asr....

William G. Moseley and Jane Battersby explore how African food systems showed resilience during COVID-19 due to widespread subsistence farming and epidemic experience. However, vulnerabilities related to net food imports and slow economic growth remain. doi.org/10.1017/asr....

In this article from ASR’s new virtual issue, Amy S. Patterson and Emmanuel Balogun examine African responses to the COVID-19 epidemic—from Ghana’s faith-led food distribution to Liberia’s Ebola-informed contact tracing. doi.org/10.1017/asr....