Category: MIL-OSI

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Nhlanhla Mpofu, Researcher in TESOL & Literacy, University of Notre Dame Australia

In many South African classrooms, learners continue to experience the subject of history through the language, concepts and perspectives inherited from colonial traditions. Changes have been made to what children are taught. But the curriculum changes might not be enough to change what children learn in history classrooms.

The reason for this is that English continues to dominate as the language of learning and teaching in most secondary schools. This is despite the fact that South Africa officially recognises 12 languages.

As education researchers with an interest in the languages used in the classroom, we wanted to examine the relationship between language choice and the teaching of history.

We did this through a study of Grade 8 history classrooms in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. Focusing on a local historical event, learners were encouraged to examine whose perspectives become visible or invisible through different language choices.

We found that this allowed them to think critically about how history is recorded, challenge the standard versions of the event, and create more of a connection between their own lives and the bigger historical picture.

Our research suggests that if learners are to engage critically with history, they must also be empowered to question the language through which the subject is taught.

The Kimberley diamond rush

Our research focused on the Kimberley diamond rush. The development of Kimberley can be traced back to the discovery of diamonds around 1870 on a farm in what was then known as Griqualand West, now part of South Africa’s Northern Cape province. News of the discovery spread quickly and attracted thousands of prospectors, fortune seekers and labourers from across the region and beyond. As people flocked to the area in search of wealth and employment, a small settlement rapidly grew into the bustling town of Kimberley. The diamond rush played a significant role in shaping South Africa’s economic and social history, establishing Kimberley as one of the country’s most important mining centres.

This is a topic taught in South African schools in Grade 8 (for learners in the age group 14-16 years).

Traditionally, learners encounter this history through narratives centred on economic development, industrialisation and influential figures such as Cecil John Rhodes. All these texts are written in English. While these accounts are important, they leave little room for the experiences, languages and perspectives of African communities affected by mining, land dispossession and labour exploitation.

Our study followed an approach known as decolonial language awareness. The approach positions indigenous languages as legitimate sources of knowledge.

The study took place in two public secondary schools in the Northern Cape. Participants were two Grade 8 History teachers and learners in linguistically diverse classrooms. The schools served multilingual communities where isiXhosa, Setswana, Afrikaans and English were commonly used, although English remained the primary language of learning and teaching.

The intervention began with what looked like a simple question posed by teachers:

Why is the story of Kimberley diamonds always taught in English?

The discussion that followed revealed a level of critical awareness often underestimated in young learners. Students quickly linked English to political power, pointing out that many historical records were written by colonial administrators, mine owners and government officials. They recognised that the voices preserved in textbooks were often those of people who held power rather than those who experienced the consequences of that power.

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Read more: History teaching in South Africa could be vastly improved – if language skills were added to the mix

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What happened next was perhaps the most significant aspect of the project.

Teachers and learners in this study worked together to develop a historical glossary in English and isiXhosa. This was more than a simple translation exercise. Instead, learners explored whether familiar historical terms accurately represented the experiences of African communities. They drew on family histories, community memories, oral narratives, cultural knowledge, and contemporary experiences of language, identity and inequality to make sense of events that had occurred generations earlier.

Take the term “compound system”. In many history textbooks, it is presented as a labour arrangement that housed African mine workers in employer-provided accommodation to facilitate the management and control of the workforce. Yet when learners explored isiXhosa alternatives such as inkampu yabakhonziswa (“a camp of those compelled to labour”), they began to question the neutrality of the textbook term. Their discussions shifted attention from labour organisation to the lived realities of confinement, coercion and restricted freedom.

In this way, language became a tool for uncovering different interpretations of the same historical phenomenon and for foregrounding perspectives often absent from dominant historical accounts.

A similar process unfolded around the concept of “dispossession”. When discussions shifted towards isiXhosa expressions such as ukuncothulwa emhlabeni (“being uprooted from the land”), the historical event acquired a more human and emotional dimension. Learners connected the concept not only to the loss of land but also to disrupted ties of belonging, community, identity and ancestry. What had previously appeared as an abstract textbook term was reinterpreted as a lived experience with profound social and cultural consequences.

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Read more: History with a human face and voice: how museum theatre gets kids to care about the past

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These discussions transformed the dynamics of the classroom. Learners who were often quiet during conventional history lessons became active participants. Some brought stories, expressions and insights from parents and grandparents into classroom debates. Others challenged textbook terminology and proposed alternative ways of understanding historical events. Home language was no longer treated as something left at the classroom door. It became a valuable academic resource.

Perhaps most importantly, learners began to recognise that history was not a single story.

When presented with a British mine manager’s report describing workers as “industrious but sullen”, learners asked how those same workers might have described the manager. Whose perspective was represented? What experiences were omitted? How would the story change if told from another viewpoint? These questions demonstrate a level of historical thinking that goes far beyond memorising facts and dates.

Beyond curriculum change

Critics may argue that such approaches make history too political. Yet history has always been political. Decisions about which events are recorded, whose voices are preserved and which languages are regarded as authoritative are never neutral. By making these processes visible, learners are being equipped to think critically about knowledge itself.

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Read more: South Africa’s history uncovered: the 1,000-year gap they don’t teach in school

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The broader implications extend beyond history classrooms. Three decades after the end of apartheid, South Africa continues to grapple with questions of transformation, equity and inclusion. If educational success remains tied to English, many learners will continue to experience a disconnect between their lived realities and what schools recognise as knowledge.

Decolonising education is not about replacing one version of history with another. It is about giving learners the agency to ask difficult questions, evaluate competing perspectives and participate in the ongoing construction of historical knowledge.

– Changing the history curriculum is not enough if English always dominates the classroom – South African study
– https://theconversation.com/changing-the-history-curriculum-is-not-enough-if-english-always-dominates-the-classroom-south-african-study-289515

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Marloes Janson, Professor of West African Anthropology, SOAS, University of London

The highway between Lagos and Ibadan was built in 1978 at the height of Nigeria’s oil boom. Lagos is the country’s largest city, with an estimated population of over 20 million, and Ibadan the third-largest and home to a globally renowned university.

But the boom years are over and rising traffic and decades of neglect have turned the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway into one of Nigeria’s deadliest motorways, earning it the nickname “highway of death”.

Yet even as the 127km stretch of road has faltered as a transport corridor linking north and south, it has flourished as a stage for public religion. Today, lined with sprawling prayer camps, it’s also known as the “spiritual highway”. Religious billboards have replaced road signs and religious camps have been established along the route.

For years my research as an anthropologist has explored how multi-faith settings challenge conventional ideas of religion. I have studied the more than 30 religious organisations that have established vast prayer camps along the course of the highway since the 1980s. Attracting tens of thousands of worshippers seeking health and wealth, they have transformed the expressway into an urban spiritual centre.

These sites consist of vast, factory-like prayer halls. They offer a wide range of facilities, including shopping malls, restaurants, banks, hotels, health clinics, schools, and even universities. As a result, many have evolved into “prayer cities” that combine urban and religious worlds within a single space.

While drawing vast crowds during religious programmes, a growing number of camps provide permanent residence for members seeking to escape what they perceive as the moral corruption of urban life. By supplying services often lacking in Lagos and Ibadan, like reliable electricity, a clean and secure environment, and spiritual redemption, these camps have developed into “religiocities”.

My research shows that the prayer camps lining the expressway challenge enduring portrayals of Nigeria – particularly its cities – as chaotic, dysfunctional, and driven by religious tensions.

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Read more: Shopping for God in Lagos: what is Chrislam?

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One of the ways they do this is by blurring the lines between religious traditions. Muslim prayer camps borrow from Pentecostal models, Christians attend Muslim programmes. And many Lagosians move between these religious spaces in search of healing, prosperity, or spiritual fulfilment. These religious crossovers point to a faith landscape shaped less by fixed identities than by interaction and exchange.

The camps also reveal how urban development and religious life are deeply intertwined. Through investments in land, infrastructure, education and healthcare, religious organisations have emerged as key forces in the making of new urban spaces.

Faith at the crossroads

The best-known prayer camp along the expressway, found 46km from Lagos, is Redemption City. It’s the headquarters of the Redeemed Christian Church of God. Founded in 1983, this 3,500-hectare camp was the first to be established along the highway and continues to be the largest of its kind.

It has a resident population of about 250,000 and an estimated half a million workers. To serve their needs, Redemption City has developed its own electricity, water and waste-management infrastructure. It has been transformed into a city-like environment in both scale and functionality.

Added to this, a monthly Holy Ghost Service draws hundreds of thousands of worshippers to an all-night programme of prayer, preaching, healing and deliverance.

Redemption City’s success spurred other religious organisations to establish camps along the expressway. One of them is the Nasrul-Lahi-L-Fathi Society of Nigeria, which opened its camp in 2000. An official told me:

We didn’t want to be left behind by the Pentecostal churches, so we followed their example and bought land along the expressway … We are investing heavily in developing our camp.

Once a month, Muslims travel from Lagos and beyond for asalatu, a mass prayer gathering held on Sunday mornings to coincide with Pentecostal services. Mirroring Pentecostal formats, the event combines praise worship, prayer requests, testimonies and thanksgiving offerings.

The close proximity of Christian and Muslim camps has encouraged mutual borrowing of spatial forms and religious practices. During my fieldwork in Redemption City, I met a young professional who moved between Pentecostal and Muslim prayer gatherings to “multiply” his chances of success.

Such practices, often described by Lagosians as “religious shopping”, suggest that the city’s religious landscape is shaped less by rigid boundaries than by reciprocal exchange.

Christianity and Islam are not the only forces reshaping the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. Near Ibadan stands Guru Maharaj Ji’s 40-hectare ashram – a Hindu term for the place where the pupils of a guru or spiritual leader are taught. Lacking the monumental architecture of the neighbouring Christian and Muslim camps, and distinguished by images of Hindu deities, the camp appears as an unlikely presence within this landscape.

The site centres on a temple where thousands of followers gather weekly to hear teachings that blend African religious traditions, Hinduism and Rastafarianism. Presenting these as complementary paths to spiritual liberation, Guru Maharaj Ji rejects Christianity and Islam as foreign, imperial faiths. Instead, he draws on traditions he sees as closer to Africa’s indigenous spiritual heritage.

The ashram appeals to urban Nigerians looking for a different spiritual path than the Pentecostal megachurches and Muslim mass movements that shape life in Lagos and Ibadan. Followers often describe Christianity and Islam as restrictive. As one told me:

Guru Maharaj Ji teaches us practical exercises for a better life. His knowledge is divine; it’s not book knowledge.

Rethinking the city

The prayer camps illustrate the strong links between urban growth and religious practice. Religion does not simply occupy the spaces along the highway, it’s helped develop them. Through investments in land, infrastructure and municipal services, religious organisations have emerged as powerful agents of making orderly and secure urban spaces.

The religious groups have taken over the role of the state. The withering of the state’s ability to play a meaningful role in urban development stretches back to the 1980s when structural adjustment and neoliberal reforms led to the privatisation of state functions. Religious organisations emerged as influential public actors.

A second factor behind the developments was soaring land prices and limited space in Lagos that pushed fast-growing churches to the city’s outskirts. The forested land along the expressway offered room to grow. It was gradually folded into the expanding urban corridor between Lagos and Ibadan.

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Read more: God in Nigeria: the country’s novelists help us understand the complexity of Christianity

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Prayer camps challenge stereotypes of African cities as deficient and Nigerian cities as sites of religious conflict. My research shows that they provide viable urban alternatives to Lagos, fostering coexistence and everyday forms of conviviality across religious boundaries.

In the process, they shift attention away from dominant portrayals of African cities as spaces of deprivation and “slums”. Instead, they highlight Lagos and surrounds as a site of creativity, innovation and emerging urban futures.

– Along Nigeria’s ‘spiritual highway’, prayer camps create a new urban future
– https://theconversation.com/along-nigerias-spiritual-highway-prayer-camps-create-a-new-urban-future-289769

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Sheila Petty, Professor Emerita of Film Studies, University of Regina

African film festivals were once quite rare, but in the past decades they’ve been growing in the continent and mushrooming around the world. A recent open access book explores these events through case studies.

The book’s editor, African cinema scholar Sheila Petty, has also written chapters in it about the role film festivals play in creating a living and lasting conversation about African culture. We asked her five questions.

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What generally happens at a film festival?

Since the world’s first international film festival in Venice, Italy, in 1932, film festivals have created spaces for the discovery of new stories and cultures. The main idea is to bring films to local audiences that wouldn’t otherwise have the opportunity to see them in movie theatres. These festivals can be large or small, annual or a one-off event.

Some film festivals offer premiere screenings and red carpet events. A jury awards prizes for best film, best directing, best acting and the like. This can include audiences voting for the most popular film. Many festivals focus on a single topic or genre (like documentary or fantasy or climate change) and this determines the type of films shown at them.

Festivals act as community-builders. They are also spaces where lifelong friendships and working relationships can be formed through the love of cinema. They don’t just programme films, they also hold workshops and discussion panels, and often other cultural exhibits of art, music and performance.

Filmmakers and industry professionals might attend them to market and discuss their films, often with the hopes of attracting funding to make their next movie or find distribution deals. Local audiences have the opportunity to chat with film directors and learn about the production process. Emerging talent is often showcased in pitching forums.

How has the film festival grown in Africa?

The oldest film festivals on the continent include:

Other festivals have followed, like the Zanzibar International Film Festival in Tanzania, the Marrakech International Film Festival in Morocco and Afriff (the African International Film Festival) in Nigeria. Some of these are also partnering with festivals outside the continent.

Two chapters in the book focus on festivals in Africa. One is on the mythology of Fespaco and how this event has remained the continent’s most prestigious meeting place for cinephiles despite ongoing threats of political instability, regional insecurity and financial precarity.

Another chapter focuses on how the Festival Films Femmes Afrique and the StLouis’ Docs in Senegal are innovating how networking can build capacity and boost the circulation of African films.

How does the book cover African film festivals overseas?

I’m interested in what happens to knowledge, cultural expressions and creative forms that arise in Africa and then travel around the globe and adapt to new places.

Chapters in the book focus on North American film festivals whose mandates include providing a meeting place and space of celebration and dialogue between diverse local communities and African cultures in the diaspora.

Vues d’Afrique is North America’s largest and longest-running African film festival. It was established in Montreal in 1984 to introduce African and Creole cinema and culture to Quebec and Canada. One of its goals is to forge links with other African cinema festivals around the world.

Over the years it has expanded its offerings to include conferences, art exhibitions, film training projects for school kids, and year round screenings. Every July, it hosts free public moonlight screenings in a park that attract thousands.

In 2015, the first edition of the New York Forum of Amazigh Film was established. It celebrates north Africa’s Amazigh history, culture and language through film.

In Mexico, FestAfro (the Festival Artistico Audiovisual Afrodescendencias) was founded in 2021 by a group of researchers, artists, activists and communities. The goal is to celebrate Afro-Mexican identity through a multidisciplinary travelling showcase of arts.

Festivals like these, from Brazil to the UK, are discussed in the book. They highlight the value of film festivals for the exchange of living cultural heritage between communities and societies.

How does cultural exchange happen at festivals?

In the book there’s a fascinating case study. In 2022 and 2023, three different African film festivals in Brazil and Canada chose the same film to screen so that they could compare audience reactions. The film, produced in Kenya a year earlier, was Maïmouna Jallow’s Tales of the Accidental City.

Her Nairobi comedy looks at social justice issues through five characters who gather over a Zoom call for a court-ordered anger management class. The filmmaker attended all three festivals and led conversations with very different audiences in Curitiba, Winnipeg and Montreal.

In Brazil, the audience was in laughter and tears. The injustices shown in the film resonated with the experiences of members of local Black and Indigenous communities present. Winnipeg’s audience had a large presence of Kenyan migrants, who laughed harder at certain comedy scenes than other audience members. They related their lived experiences back home to those of the film’s characters. Many viewers in Montreal couldn’t recall when they had laughed so hard at a screening at the festival. With many women present, the conversation also focused on the vital role of African women in shaping their own, authentic stories on screen.

The experiment showed how inter-cultural conversation can be sparked by a film and how it is programmed at a festival, creating a space of sharing and learning about a diverse world.

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Read more: Meet the woman bringing Aboriginal cinema to the screens of Paris

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This book presents cultural heritage, exhibited through film festivals, as a shared human and transglobal concern that must move across borders and be passed on to future generations.

When cultures are forgotten, humanity loses access to perspectives and worldviews that could help address life’s challenges. A broad, diverse understanding of history and culture helps us see where we are and how we arrived here.

– Film festivals take African cultural heritage around the world – and help keep it alive
– https://theconversation.com/film-festivals-take-african-cultural-heritage-around-the-world-and-help-keep-it-alive-286698