Open research questions in African history and culture studies

What the literature leaves open

• Understanding of post-slavery in East Africa has increased in recent years, but the role of marronage and maroon settlements in the mainland remains to be explored.

  Kijiji cha Watoro : Resistance, Identity, and Social Life of Nyamwezi Runaway Slaves along the Central Caravan Route in Tanzania · 2025 · DOI

• Largely understudied, a full analysis of this movement in Britain and the African colonies offers a fresh perspective on the changing rhetoric and conception of empire in the inter-war period.

  An ‘obligation which we are not entitled to get rid of’: Competing Notions of Empire and the British Opposition to the Colonial Appeasement of Germany · 2025 · DOI

• Great War commemoration in West Africa remains poorly understood, and the role of Africans within it has rarely been examined by historians.

  Beyond Anonymity: Nigerian Participation in World War One Commemoration: 1919–1939 · 2025 · DOI

• While acknowledging literature that emphasises the unprecedented opportunities availed by the Second World War for such sectors as secondary industries and agriculture, we argue that the war imposed a huge fiscal burden on the country that existing scholarship has scarcely explored.

  ‘Britain’s Wars are our Wars’: The Politics and Economics of Southern Rhodesia’s Support for Britain During the Second World War, 1939–1945 · 2025 · DOI

• The structural limitation of the improvised non-coercive mechanisms. The bounded ethnic identities and spatial arrangements that made intergroup conflict structurally persistent. The lack of community legitimacy of the Native Authority Police and military patrols.

  COERCION AND ITS LIMITS: COLONIAL POLICING, NON-COERCIVE IMPROVISATION, AND THE ORIGINS OF HYBRID CONFLICT MANAGEMENT IN NIGERIA'S MIDDLE BELT, 1920S–1960 · 2026 · DOI

• The lack of systematic tracing of the colonial origins of the conflict management architecture in the Middle Belt. The limited understanding of the improvisation of non-coercive mechanisms and their role in the development of the hybrid conflict management architecture.

  COERCION AND ITS LIMITS: COLONIAL POLICING, NON-COERCIVE IMPROVISATION, AND THE ORIGINS OF HYBRID CONFLICT MANAGEMENT IN NIGERIA'S MIDDLE BELT, 1920S–1960 · 2026 · DOI

• The paper identifies a gap in understanding the complexities of human experience under political oppression. The study highlights the need to consider the role of art in resistance and trauma.

  Quatro Filmes, Quatro Contextos de Resistência e Trauma · 2026 · DOI

• The limited understanding of vigilantism in Africa, particularly in the context of state-centric problematizations. The lack of nuanced analysis of the phenomenon, going beyond simplistic portrayals of indiscriminate punishment.

  Vigilantismus in Sphären sozialer Nähe: Zur Emergenz der Strafpraxis urbaner Koglweogo-Gruppen in Burkina Faso · 2026 · DOI

• Future research could explore the implications of the study's findings for our understanding of postcolonial disillusionment in African literature. Future research could examine the ways in which other African dramatists contribute to the re-examination of postcolonial disillusionment.

  Rethinking Postcolonial Disillusionment in African Literature: The Case of Femi Osofisan’s Drama · 2026 · DOI

• The gap in current research is the dominance of the jeremiad account of disillusionment, which scapegoats leadership in African literature. The study identifies a need to re-examine the concept of postcolonial disillusionment in African literature.

  Rethinking Postcolonial Disillusionment in African Literature: The Case of Femi Osofisan’s Drama · 2026 · DOI

• The historiography of African liberation movements has long been shaped by masculinist narratives that privilege male political leadership. Women's contributions to these movements have often been relegated to the margins of official accounts.

  Reclaiming Female Masculinity: Political Memory and the Re-imagining of Bibi Titi Mohamed in Mbogo’s Play · 2026 · DOI

• Children born in captivity face rejection, discrimination, and stigma in their communities. The Lango kinship system presents challenges for children born in captivity. The study highlights the need to consider the role of temporality in the reception and integration of children born in captivity.

  Temporality of experiencing and overcoming stigma for children born in captivity (CBIC) among the Lango people of Northern Uganda · 2026 · DOI

• Future research should explore the experiences of children born in captivity in other contexts. The study's findings highlight the need for further research on the role of temporality in the reception and integration of children born in captivity. Future research should consider the development of interventions aimed at supporting children born in captivity in Northern Uganda.

  Temporality of experiencing and overcoming stigma for children born in captivity (CBIC) among the Lango people of Northern Uganda · 2026 · DOI

• The difficulties associated with applying laws across different languages, customs, religions, and socio-political organisations. The lack of African participation and input in the preparation and development of IHL.

  Pre-colonial Eggon Warfare and the Humanization of War · 2026 · DOI

• The paper identifies a gap in the discourse of IHL, where African participation and input were lacking until the 1970s.

  Pre-colonial Eggon Warfare and the Humanization of War · 2026 · DOI

• The paper identifies a gap in our understanding of the agency of the dead, particularly in the context of collective memory and cultural significance. The study highlights the need for further research on the complex relationships between the living and the dead.

  Uloga Fikreta, bodybuildera sa osmjehom, na život žene Suade / The Enduring Agency of Fikret the Smiling Bodybuilder in Suada's Journey · 2026 · DOI

• Future research could explore the potential of tricksterism in other speculative narratives. The paper's findings suggest the need for further analysis of the intersection of Africanfuturism and feminist theory.

  Africanfuturistic Cosmovision: Tricksterism in Nnedi Okorafor’s "Remote Control" · 2026 · DOI

• The paper identifies a gap in the existing literature on Africanfuturist fiction and its potential to challenge dominant discourses. The analysis highlights the need for further exploration of the trickster archetype in Africanfuturist narrative.

  Africanfuturistic Cosmovision: Tricksterism in Nnedi Okorafor’s "Remote Control" · 2026 · DOI

• Future research can explore the application of Amazonian feminism to other African feminist texts. The paper's findings can inform the development of feminist pedagogies adapted to African contexts. Further research can examine the impact of feminist parenting on dismantling patriarchal structures.

  MOTHERHOOD AS A TOOL OF SUBVERSION: AN AMAZONIAN ANALYSIS OF DEAR IJEAWELE BY ADICHIE · 2026 · DOI

• The paper identifies a gap in the analysis of motherhood as a space of feminist resistance against patriarchal norms in African feminist literature. The study highlights the need for a theoretical framework that values collective memory, community resilience, and intergenerational solidarity.

  MOTHERHOOD AS A TOOL OF SUBVERSION: AN AMAZONIAN ANALYSIS OF DEAR IJEAWELE BY ADICHIE · 2026 · DOI

• The paper identifies a gap in our understanding of the Yanomami concept of enemy, - The study highlights the need for further research on the complex systems of classification used by indigenous cultures.

  The Notion of Enemy According to Davi Kopenawa and Bruce Albert · 2026 · DOI

• There is a lack of research on the phenomenon of Bad-Belleism in Nigerian academia. The study aims to fill this gap by providing a nuanced understanding of the impact of Bad-Belleism on scholarly integrity.

  Bad-Belleism in Nigerian Academia: Intellectual Sabotage and the Cankerwormic Decline of Scholarly Integrity · 2026 · DOI

• The study identifies a gap in existing satirical readings of the play. The play's central motif of Acquired Prison Traumatic Syndrome has not been interpreted as a metaphor for national dependency.

  When Prison Becomes Safer than Freedom: Mutual Entrapment in Prison Graduates · 2026 · DOI

• The four protagonists never quite cross the International Journal of Language and Literary Studies 135 When Prison Becomes Safer than Freedom: Mutual Entrapment in Prison Graduates threshold; Mawugbe leaves his audience with the open question of whether the institutions that built that threshold, and the citizens who learned to live within it, can be remade in time for the next generation to walk across it.

  When Prison Becomes Safer than Freedom: Mutual Entrapment in Prison Graduates · 2026 · DOI

• To continue Prof. Naoi's work on monoamine oxidase and its inhibitors. To explore the potential use of TCM substances in neuropsychopharmacotherapy. To develop new treatments for Parkinson's disease and depression.

  A tribute to Prof. Makoto Naoi (1935–2026) · 2026 · DOI

Most-cited papers in African history and culture studies

• The Extended Case Method · Sociological Theory · 1998 · 1,629 citations
• Occult economies and the violence of abstraction: notes from the South African postcolony · American Ethnologist · 1999 · 1,118 citations
• Popular Arts in Africa · African Studies Review · 1987 · 371 citations
• The Decolonizing Generation: (Race and) Theory in Anthropology since the Eighties · Current Anthropology · 2016 · 276 citations
• NEO-TRADITIONALISM AND THE LIMITS OF INVENTION IN BRITISH COLONIAL AFRICA · The Journal of African History · 2003 · 274 citations
• Dangerous tales: Dominant narratives on the Congo and their unintended consequences · African Affairs · 2012 · 263 citations
• The Colonial State as a Social Field: Ethnographic Capital and Native Policy in the German Overseas Empire before 1914 · American Sociological Review · 2008 · 224 citations
• Pictorial Depth Perception in Sub-Cultural Groups in Africa · The Journal of Social Psychology · 1960 · 205 citations
• Sons of Which Soil? The Language and Politics of Autochthony in Eastern D.R. Congo · African Studies Review · 2006 · 190 citations
• the madman and the migrant: work and labor in the historical consciousness of a South African people · American Ethnologist · 1987 · 185 citations

Most recent work

• ‘Don’t call me mzungu’: negotiating migration categories and privilege in Nairobi · Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies · 2026
• Afrobeats, Moral Disengagement and the Cultural Politics of Online Fraud: The Difference Between a Twitch and a Wink Is Vast · Deviant Behavior · 2026
• Frottage: friction, intimacy and rethinking African Diasporas · Safundi · 2026
• “ Today they are going to kill us”: Ethnicization of the Nigerian Army (1957–1966) and Consequences for Society · Armed Forces & Society · 2026
• From Wounds to Words: A Constructivist Case Study of Narrative Self-Reconstruction After Childhood Trauma in Shaka Senghor’s Writing My Wrongs · Journal of Constructivist Psychology · 2026
• Rethinking postcolonial justice: Issakaba and the role of vigilante power in Nigerian cinema · Journal of Contemporary African Studies · 2026
• Labour struggles in southern Africa 1919-1949: new persepctives on the Industrial Commercial Workers' Union (ICU) · Human Science Research Council SA · 2026
• Ikoka’s Monetization Blueprint · The International Journal of Social Sustainability in Economic, Social, and Cultural Context · 2026
• COERCION AND ITS LIMITS: COLONIAL POLICING, NON-COERCIVE IMPROVISATION, AND THE ORIGINS OF HYBRID CONFLICT MANAGEMENT IN NIGERIA'S MIDDLE BELT, 1920S–1960 · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2026
• The triad of exploitation: Migration, remittance pressures and the politics of survival in transnational spaces · Transitions Journal of Transient Migration · 2026

Related topics in Social Sciences