Scholars have emphasized the importance and autonomy of African intermediaries in European imperial projects. However, intermediaries have not been studied as founders of (proto) colonial administrations. Between 1840 and 1874, the inchoate British establishment on the Gold Coast was largely a project of Anglo-African merchants, rooted in their political visions of “progress.” Merchants like James Bannerman provided infrastructure, institutions, and material form to the administration and intended it as a force for development. Ultimately, the British administration exercised its hegemony through Euro-African infrastructures, spaces, and ideas. Consequently, merchants like Bannerman undermined their local networks, rulers, and dependents who opposed British domination.

“Queer” is a relatively recent and somewhat controversial term in African studies. Yet it is proving to be productive, not only for understanding African subjectivities of sexuality and gender, but also for situating Africa’s position in the larger economy of knowledge. Otu and van Klinken explore the productive tensions between “queer” and “Africa,” and aim to read Africa as queer and to read queer from Africa. Thus, rather than imagining Africa and queer as polar opposites, the authors seek to harness the critical, productive, and creative affinities between these two terms that are vital for the project of decolonizing and queering queer Africa.

Phillips and Cheney preface an analysis of the ASA’s Graduate Student Paper Prize in a discussion with past Prize winners with a review of the sociological literature on awards and scholarly critiques of the history of African Studies. They find that the Prize has played an important role in amplifying and recognizing the voices of young scholars who have pushed the thematic and theoretical boundaries of the field. But these contributions are attended by limitations that the ASA should remediate as they consider the GSP Prize in relation to efforts to realize anti-colonial and social justice-oriented approaches to knowledge production.

Why is African Studies in North America dominated by white scholars? In this reflection piece, the 2018 president of the African Studies Association revisits the organization’s sixty-year history, exposing the processes by which white privilege was hardwired into African Studies at the organization’s founding in 1957 and then secured first by the displacement of the much older tradition of African American scholarship on Africa and second by the “recolonization American-style” of knowledge production on the continent in the postcolonial era.

This article considers what African Studies needs to look like in order for it to retain its disciplinary relevance for the next generation and in the larger context of the Black Lives movement globally. It asks questions about where we have come from in terms of race consciousness in our discipline and why this issue matters today. It begins by tracing the development of African Studies’ epistemic journey, and follows this with an examination of the recent Black student movements in South Africa and the U.S. It concludes by suggesting where we should be going.

The primary goal of this article is to examine why Ali A. Mazrui is a relatively obscure figure in postcolonial theory despite the outstanding contributions he has made to it. It argues that the explanation can be found in the nature of postcolonial theory itself, and in Mazrui’s perceived ideology and cultural identity. The article, then, introduces Mazrui’s theory of the “triple heritage,” his most innovative and, possibly, most enduring contribution to scholarship. It also explains the specificity of Mazrui’s brand of postcolonial theory as well as the complexity and breadth of his thinking about Africa in general.

The literature on African pollination biology is reviewed. It is found that relatively little work has been done on pollination biology in Africa, and a very small proportion of pollination relationships has so far been studied. Much of the research which has been done is of an evolutionary nature. Very little work has been conducted at the community level and comparatively little applied work, either to agriculture or conservation, was encountered. Most research has been conducted in South Africa, in particular, from the Cape region, which is the only part of Africa for which a reasonably comprehensive body of work on pollination biology exists. In a number of instances results of African studies challenge conventional understanding of pollination biology. It is argued that as more work on pollination is done in Africa, more differences between African systems and the rest of the world, particularly the North temperate regions will be found and changes to the overall conceptualization of pollination systems in different ecosystems are likely to ensue. A more thorough understanding of pollination biology would also make an important contribution to food security and conservation of biodiversity on the continent. Scientists working in fields other than pollination biology, and amateurs, should be encouraged to contribute to the groundwork of African pollination biology by the documentation of pollination relationships.