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WORK TITLE: Ivory: Power and Poaching in Africa
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://africajournalismtheworld.com/
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
https://www.kent.ac.uk/journalism/staff/profiles/keith-somerville.html * https://theconversation.com/profiles/keith-somerville-275605 * http://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/ivory/ * http://research.sas.ac.uk/institute-icws/fellow/625/professor-keith-somerville/ * https://africajournalismtheworld.com/about/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 86140888
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n86140888
HEADING: Somerville, Keith
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PERSONAL
Male.
EDUCATION:Attended University of Southampton, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, and Brunel University.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer. Centre for Journalism, University of Kent, honorary professor; Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London, senior research fellow. Brunel University, instructor of journalism, 2008-2011; University of Kent, instructor of the humanitarian communications module, 2012-2014. Formerly worked as a journalist for BBC World Service and BBC News.
WRITINGS
Contributor to numerous periodicals, including Conversation, Global Geneva, Talking Humanities, African Arguments, and Commonwealth Opinion.
SIDELIGHTS
Keith Somerville is a research fellow, professor, and writer. He is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, where he researches and lectures on topics including African affairs, journalism and the global media. He teaches the communications and humanitarianism and propaganda modules at the Centre for Journalism at the University of Kent. Somerville has worked as a journalist for organizations including BBC World Service and BBC News, reporting, writing, presenting, and editing on topics.
Somerville lectures on journalism theory and practice, covering topics such as the history and use of propaganda, the global media’s coverage of major world events, interview techniques, and media law and ethics. Somerville’s research interests include African contemporary history with regards to the relationship between structure and human agency; radio propaganda in apartheid South Africa; and the intersections of insurgency, organized crime and poaching in central and southern Africa.
Africa’s Long Road Since Independence
In Africa’s Long Road Since Independence, Somerville documents the history of Africa as a continent as well as through analysis of the individual countries that encompass it within the context of colonialism, independence, and modern political, economic, and social dynamics. Somerville attempts to avoid generalizations by focusing on individual countries and regions, highlighting the ways in which economic, social and political structures have influenced the development of the place.
“Dates, data and analysis are laced with the lived experience of a journalist to evoke time and place in a way academic journals are often incapable of doing,” wrote Sarah Bradbury in London School of Economics and Political Science. The majority of the book is presented chronologically, touching on the eras of colonization and moving into the immediate post-independence eras of the 1960s and to the ensuing military coups and civil wars of the 1970s. The 1990s are defined by economic crises, and the focus of the chapters describing the ensuing decades highlights slow economic recovery.
In addition to analyzing post-independence historical events, Somerville evaluates the ways in which these political movements have been portrayed by the media. He notes that the media places amplified focus on corruption in Africa, often pointing to ethnic differences as a simple answer for much more complicated relation conflicts. Somerville concludes the book by suggesting that the colonial influence is still present and influential in countries in Africa, which is perpetuated by tradition as well as the ways in which the media chooses to depict the regions.
Ivory
Somerville’s Ivory explores the ivory trade industry, examining the history, current state, and potential future of the black market industry. The book presents the voices of both those who have dedicated their lives to defending elephants, as well as to those who question if banning poaching is an effective method in conserving the animals. His findings suggest that banning the trade and burning ivory is a cosmetic fix and does little to address underlying corruption, which is fueled by western demand of the product.
The book highlights the dark history of ivory trade. Somerville explains how the colonizing British banned Africans from hunting the animals, while encouraging the trophy hunting of the British elite, a practice which resulted in a lasting alienation of local peoples from control over wildlife. Somerville explains that a simple solution will not fix this issue. Rather, he suggests a combination of community based conservation along with a regulated and limited trade system would be the best approach.
Robert Eagan in Library Journal described the book as “deeply sourced and meticulously argued,” while also suggesting, “readers generally interested in conservation issues may have a tougher go of it, as the plethora of dates, numbers, and acronyms tend to have a dizzying effect.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Library Journal, November 1, 2016, Robert Eagan, review of Ivory: Power and Poaching in Africa, p. 97.
Publishers Weekly, October 10, 2016, review of Ivory, p. 67.
ONLINE
Foreign Affairs, https://www.foreignaffairs.com (July 11, 2017), Nicolas van de Walle, review of Africa’s Long Road Since Independence.
Literary Review, https://literaryreview.co.uk (July 11, 2017), review of Ivory.
London School of Economics and Political Science, http://blogs.lse.ac.uk (June 17, 2017), Sarah Bradbury, review of Africa’s Long Road Since Independence.
Times Higher Education, https://www.timeshighereducation.com (November 17, 2016), Karen Shook, review of Ivory.*
Keith Somerville
Centre for Journalism - Honorary Professor
journalism@kent.ac.uk
AboutPublicationsResearch InterestsTeaching
About
Keith Somerville was appointed honorary professor at the Centre for Journalism in April 2016 and teaches the Communications and Humanitarianism and Propaganda - Media, Manipulation and Persuasion modules .He has taught at the Centre for three years and before that taught in the School of Politics and International Relations. A writer and lecturer on African affairs, the history and uses of propaganda, the politics and media coverage of conservation and the global media, he founded and runs the Africa, News and Analysis website. His latest book, Africa’s Long Road Since Independence. The Many Histories of a Continent was published in January 2016 and his next book, Ivory. Power and Poaching in Africa will be published at the end of 2016. Radio Propaganda and the Broadcasting of Hatred was published in 2012. He is now working on studies of human-lion conflict as reflected in media coverage of the Cecil the Lion Affair, and radio propaganda in South Africa under apartheid.
A career journalist with the BBC World Service and BBC News for three decades before entering the academic world, Keith was a producer and radio documentary maker and then a news programme editor with the World Service. He has an established track record as a trainer and training designer for the BBC, initially with BBC World Service training and latterly with the recently-established BBC College of Journalism, where he was part of an award winning team that produced online legal training and scenario-based journalism training tools. His knowledge of journalism theory and practice is based on three decades of reporting for, producing, presenting and editing World Service news programmes.
A career journalist with the BBC World Service and BBC News for three decades, Keith has an established track record as a trainer and training designer for the BBC, initially with BBC World Service training and latterly with the recently-established BBC College of Journalism, where he was part of an award winning team that produced online legal training and scenario-based journalism training tools.
The major world events he has covered include running the World Service team in South Africa for the first post-apartheid elections in 1994; presenting live coverage of the attempted coup against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev; overseeing the first 10 hours of World Service coverage of the death of Princess Diana; running of live World Service radio coverage on 9/11; and producing and presenting radio documentaries from South Africa, Angola, Botswana, Tanzania, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Guyana, Barbados, Jamaica and the wilds of deepest Cardiff and Norfolk.
Keith Somerville
19
Articles
29
Comments
Visiting Professor, University of Kent
ProfileArticlesActivity
Professor Keith Somerville is a writer and lecturer on African affairs, journalism and the global media. In January 2013, he was appointed as a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London. He teaches the Communications and Humanitarianism and Propaganda modules at the Centre for Journalism at the University of Kent.His book, Africa’s Long Road Since Independence. The Many Histories of a Continent has just been published by Hurst and Co and his work on the history of the ivory trade in Africa – Ivory. Poaching and Power in Africa will be published at the end of 2016. . Professor Somerville founded and runs the Africa, News and Analysis website.
Keith writes on Africa’s military and political affairs; the politics of conservation in Africa; Africa and the media; the history and use of propaganda and hate broadcasting; analysing the global media and its coverage of major world events; finding and developing stories; news and feature writing; interview techniques; broadcast and online news reporting and production; media law and ethics, and international journalism.
He has specialist knowledge of African politics and military/strategic issues; foreign intervention in Africa; environmental and wildlife issues in Africa and beyond; Marxism and the foreign policy of the former Soviet Union; and rugby (he has years of playing and team captaincy experience and is an RFU-qualified rugby coach). His current research interests are the contemporary history of Africa in light of the interplay bet ween structure and human agency; radio propaganda in apartheid South Africa; and the links between insurgency, organized crime and poaching in central and southern Africa
A career journalist with the BBC World Service and BBC Newsi for three decades, Keith has an established track record as a trainer and training designer for the BBC, initially with BBC World Service training and latterly with the recently-established BBC College of Journalism. He was executive producer for the BBC’s international award-winning Legal Online course; co-author and role-play developer for the BBC’s post-Hutton Sources, Scoops and Stories course; he in charge of and the scenario writer for the BBC’s interactive journalism teaching tool, The Journalism Tutor.
His knowledge of journalism theory and practice is based on nearly three decades of reporting, writing, presenting and editing World Service news programmes. He also has extensive online production experience and has written for specialist publications on African affairs.
The major world events he has covered include running the World Service team in South Africa for the first post-apartheid elections in 1994; presenting live coverage of the attempted coup against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev; overseeing the first 10 hours of World Service coverage of the death of Princess Diana; running of live World Service radio coverage on 9/11; and producing and presenting radio documentaries from South Africa, Angola, Botswana, Tanzania, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Guyana, Barbados, Jamaica and the wilds of deepest Cardiff and Norfolk.
Keith has an extensive publication record on African continental and international politics.
From 2012 to 2014 he taught the Humaniatarian Communications module and a module on Conflict and Security in Africa in the School of Politics and International Studies at the University of Kent. From 2008 to 2011, he taught journalism at undergraduate and postgraduate level at Brunel University and was BA (Hons) Journalism course leader and Admissions Tutor for the MA in International Journalism. He was educated at St Clement Danes Grammar School, the University of Southampton, the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, and Brunel University.
Experience
Professor Keith Somerville
Professor Keith Somerville
Contact details
Name:
Professor Keith Somerville
Qualifications:
Bsc (International Relations), PGCE Higher Education (Brunel)
Position/Fellowship type:
Senior Research Fellow
Fellowship term:
18-Jan-2013 to 31-Jul-2018
Institute:
Institute of Commonwealth Studies
Home institution:
University of Kent
Location:
Centre for Journalism University of Kent, Room G1-08 Gillingham Building, University of Kent at Medway, Chatham Maritime, Kent ME4 4AG
Phone:
07595388866
Email address:
K.Somerville@kent.ac.uk
Website:
http://africajournalismtheworld.com/
Research Summary and Profile
Research interests:
Colonies & Colonization, emigration & immigration, Communications, Communities, Classes, Races, Contemporary History, Globalization & Development, International Relations, Political Institutions, Politics, Regional history, Socialism, Communism, Anarchism
Regions:
Africa
Summary of research interests and expertise:
Contemporary African history, images of Africa in the media, radio and other forms of propaganda, the use of radio by the government and the ANC in South Africa 1960-1994; ivory, conservation and links between conflict and the wildlife trade; human wildlife conflict in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2016 awarded the Marjan-Marsh Award by the Marjan Centre f for the Study of War and the Non-Human Sphere and the Marsh Trust. "Marjan-Marsh Award which is given annually to someone who has made an invaluable contribution to an area where conflict and conservation overlap".
Project summary relevant to Fellowship:
Ivory. Power and Poaching in Africa - history and political economy of the ivory trade in Africa, London: Hurst and Co, 130,000 words. Expected to be published in November 2016
Research-publication plans for 2016-7 - research and write analytical piece on the media coverage of the killing of Cecil the Lion, examining the framing of wildlife stories in Western media, anthropomorphism and the dominance of a discourse that removes megafauna from their true context and ignores issues of human-animal conflict in African range states. Will be aimed at peer-reviewed journals in the field of media and Africa, perhaps the Journal of African Media Studies.
Continue researching and write peer-reviewed journal piece on the role of the newly-launched external radio service Radio South Africa ( by SABC and the South African government) and the Rhodesian UDI crisis of 1965-66. Would be thinking of a journal like the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television.
2017 and onwards - research and publication on how the ivory-insurgency discourse came to dominate media coverage and NGO campaigning over the ivory trade between 2011-2015 on the basis of one possibly manufactured report about Al Shabab and the ivory trade. Would be aimed at a peer-reviewed media journal. mobilizational propaganda or hate broadcasting? Would be aimed at African affairs or African media journal. Also study and publication on the role of community-based, sustainable-use conservation in former conflict zones, concentrating on northern Namibia.
Research and publication on the ANC's Radio Freedom and its propaganda concerning landmine campaigns in rural areas of South Africa and attacks on white farmers - mobilizational propaganda or hate broadcasting? Would be aimed at African affairs or African media journal.
Publication Details
Contact and biographical details
Keith Somerville
Keith.Somerville@sas.ac.uk
Professor Keith Somerville is a writer and lecturer on African affairs, the politics of conservation, journalism and the global media. In January 2013, he was appointed as a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London. He teaches the Communications and Humanitarianism, and Propaganda modules at the Centre for Journalism at the University of Kent.His updated and revised version of his book, Africa’s Long Road Since Independence. The Many Histories of a Continent has just been published by Penguin and his work on the history of the ivory trade in Africa – Ivory. Poaching and Power in Africa was published in November the end of 2016. . Professor Somerville founded and runs the Africa, News and Analysis website. He is currently researching a book on the history of human lion coexistence and conflict from early hominids to the present; and researching South Africa propaganda at the time of the Soweto Uprising of 1976.
Keith writes on Africa’s military and political affairs; the politics of conservation in Africa; Africa and the media; the history and use of propaganda and hate broadcasting; analysing the global media and its coverage of major world events; finding and developing stories; news and feature writing; interview techniques; broadcast and online news reporting and production; media law and ethics, and international journalism.
He has specialist knowledge of African politics and military/strategic issues; foreign intervention in Africa; environmental and wildlife issues in Africa and beyond; Marxism and the foreign policy of the former Soviet Union; and rugby (he has years of playing and team captaincy experience and is an RFU-qualified rugby coach). His research interests include are the contemporary history of Africa in light of the interplay between structure and human agency; radio propaganda in apartheid South Africa; and the links between insurgency, organized crime and poaching in central and southern Africa
A career journalist with the BBC World Service and BBC Newsi for three decades, Keith has an established track record as a trainer and training designer for the BBC, initially with BBC World Service training and latterly with the recently-established BBC College of Journalism. He was executive producer for the BBC’s international award-winning Legal Online course; co-author and role-play developer for the BBC’s post-Hutton Sources, Scoops and Stories course; he in charge of and the scenario writer for the BBC’s interactive journalism teaching tool, The Journalism Tutor.
His knowledge of journalism theory and practice is based on nearly three decades of reporting, writing, presenting and editing World Service news programmes. He also has extensive online production experience and has written for specialist publications on African affairs.
The major world events he has covered include running the World Service team in South Africa for the first post-apartheid elections in 1994; presenting live coverage of the attempted coup against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev; overseeing the first 10 hours of World Service coverage of the death of Princess Diana; running of live World Service radio coverage on 9/11; and producing and presenting radio documentaries from South Africa, Angola, Botswana, Tanzania, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Guyana, Barbados, Jamaica and the wilds of deepest Cardiff and Norfolk.
Keith has an extensive publication record on African continental and international politics.
From 2012 to 2014 he taught the Humaniatarian Communications module and a module on Conflict and Security in Africa in the School of Politics and International Studies at the University of Kent. From 2008 to 2011, he taught journalism at undergraduate and postgraduate level at Brunel University and was BA (Hons) Journalism course leader and Admissions Tutor for the MA in International Journalism. He was educated at St Clement Danes Grammar School, the University of Southampton, the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, and Brunel University.
Recent Publications:
Framing conflict – the Cold War and after: Reflections from an old hack, Media, war and Conflict, April 2017
Broadcasting Ambivalence: South Africa’s radio RSA on African Independence and UDI in Rhodesia, Historical Journal of Film Radio and Television, March 2017
Africa’s Long Road Since Independence. The Many Histories of a Continent, London: Penguin 2017 – revised and updated edition.
Ivory. Power and Poaching in Africa, London: Hurst, November 2016
Africa’s Long Road Since Independence. The Many Histories of a Continent, London: Hurst, December 2015
Radio Propaganda and the Broacasting of Hatred: Historical Development and Definitions (12 October 2012)
Regular contributions to The Conversation, Global Geneva, Talking Humanities, African Argumentsand Commonwealth Opinion.
South Sudan: how hate radio was used to incite Bentiu massacres, African Arguments, http://africanarguments.org/2014/04/24/south-sudan-how-hate-radio-was-used-to-incite-bentiu-massacres-by-keith-somerville/
Radio Wars – Index on Censorship, volume 43, no 1, March 2014 – special 3dition on propaganda an conflict. Article on South Africa’s radio wars during the apartheid era, looking at Radio RSA and Radio Freedom propaganda.
African Wars and the Politics of Ivory, e-international relations Apr 9 2013http://www.e-ir.info/2013/04/09/african-wars-and-the-politics-of-ivory/
War of the Worlds as a Radio News Training Tool in Joy Elizabeth Hayes, Kathleen Battles and Wendy Hilton-Morrow (eds) War of he Worlds to Social media, New York: Pee lang, 2013
Violence, hate speech and inflammatory broadcasting in Kenya: The problems of definition and identification, Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies, vol 32, 1, 2011, pp.82-101
Kenya: Violence, Hate Speech and Vernacular Radio, Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, March 2010
British media coverage of the post-election violence in Kenya, 2007-8, Journal of Eastern African Studies, vol 3, no 3, 2009.
Submission to House of Commons Committee:
Written evidence from Keith Somerville, Lecturer in Journalism, Brunel University – http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmselect/cmfaff/849/849vw07.htm
Age old tribal bloodlust – the curse of Africa, Red Pepper
Committee for Concerned Journalists articles:
South Africa: The end of the beginning or the beginning of the end?
Impartial or Cowardly: A Journalist’s View of BBC Rejection of Gaza Aid Plea
Motors, Murders and Mugabe: A Car Crash or a Conspiracy to Kill?
Africa is Tribal, Europea is Ethnic: The Power of Words in the Media
BBC wounds that won’t heal, British Journalism Review, vol 20, no 1, 2009
Earlier Books:
Southern Africa and the Soviet Union: from Communist International to Commonwealth of Independent States London, Macmillan, 1993
Foreign Military Intervention in Africa London, Pinter, 1990
Angola: Politics, Economics and Society London, Pinter, 1986
Co-wrote – Benin, Burkina Faso and Congo: Politics, Economics and Society, London, Pinter, 1988.
Articles/Chapters:
Written Evidence on South African Foreign Policy in House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee Fifth report 2003-4.
Africa after the Cold War: Frozen in Time or Frozen Out in Fawcett and Sayigh, The Third World Beyond the Cold War Oxford University Press, 1999
Angola: Groping Towards peace or Slipping Back Towards War? in William Gutteridge and Jack Spence (ed) Violence in Southern Africa Frank Cass 1997
The Failure of Democratic Reform in Angola and Zaire, IISS Survival, 35, 3, I993
USSR and Africa in Alex Pravda (ed) Yearbook of Soviet Foreign Relations, IB Tauris 1991
Angola: Soviet Client State or State of Socialist Orientation in Millennium Journal of International Studies, vol 13, no3 1984
The Soviet Union and Zimbabwe in R. Craig Nation and Mark V. Kauppi, The Soviet Impact in Africa DC Heath, 1984
The Soviet Union and Southern Africa Since 1976 in Journal of Modern African Studies, vol 22, I, 1984.
Regular contributions on Angola, Malawi and African democratisation in the RIIA journal, World Today, 1990-1995.
Africa Chapter in Strategic Survey IISS 1994 and 1995
Western Siberia and the Prospects for Soviet Oil in International Relations vol 7, 5, 1983.
1981-1990 Malawi chapter in Africa Contemporary Record
1983-1990 China and Africa chapter in Africa Contemporary Record
Keith has contributed numerous articles and book reviews for publications such as the Guardian, Independent, Economist, Listener, New African, African Business, Africa, Africa Now, Journal of Modern African Studies, African Affairs, Third World Quarterly, International Affairs (RIIA), World Today (RIIA) and Modern Africa.
Online and interactive teaching output:
BBC Legal Online – an interactive course on defamation, contempt, sex offences, children in law and copyright.
Sources, Scoops and Stories – a face-to-face role play course dealing with corroborating complex stories and the use of anonymous sources.
Doubts, Dilemmas and Decisions – an ethical decision-making course for senior BBC journalists.
Journalism Tutor – a live, online interactive writing and decision-making tool (on the BBC College of Journalism website).
Keith Somerville is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London and Honorary Professor of Journalism at the Centre for Journalism, University of Kent. His latest book, Africa’s Long Road Since Independence: The Many Histories of a Continent, has just been published by Hurst.
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Print Marked Items
Somerville, Keith. Ivory: Power and Poaching in
Africa
Robert Eagan
Library Journal.
141.18 (Nov. 1, 2016): p97.
COPYRIGHT 2016 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution
permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
Somerville, Keith. Ivory: Power and Poaching in Africa. Hurst. Jan. 2017.256p. notes. ISBN 9781849046763. $29.95.
SCI
This rigorous history of the ivory trade comes at a time when the elephants' plighte.g., a population drop of 30 percent
in the last seven years; 100,000 elephants killed in Africa between 2011 and 2014has been much in the news.
Somerville (journalism, Univ. of Kent; Africa's Long Road Since Independence), formerly a BBC journalist who spent
three decades working in Africa, argues that trade bans and ivory burnings are cosmetic, doing little to negate the
corruption and crime that underlie poaching. Somerville's analysis of the booming ivory trade under colonial rule is
masterly: more firearms, more organized trading, and greater demand for ivory in the West meant escalated killing. He
shows the more pernicious, lasting effect to be the alienation of indigenous people from control over wildlife, which
happened when British game officials banned Africans from hunting while encouraging white trophy pursuers.
Eschewing simple solutions, Somerville concludes that communitybased conservation and a regulated, strictly limited
trade system might be the most effective approach. VERDICT Deeply sourced and meticulously argued, this book
should be a required text for students of Africa's political economy, particularly the ivory trade. Readers generally
interested in conservation issues may have a tougher go of it, as the plethora of dates, numbers, and acronyms tend to
have a dizzying effect.Robert Eagan, Windsor P.L., Ont.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Eagan, Robert. "Somerville, Keith. Ivory: Power and Poaching in Africa." Library Journal, 1 Nov. 2016, p. 97. General
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p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA467830427&it=r&asid=b90415b5914ed46ee7d5dafd41b82623.
Accessed 10 June 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A467830427
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Ivory: Power and Poaching in Africa
Publishers Weekly.
263.41 (Oct. 10, 2016): p67.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Ivory: Power and Poaching in Africa
Keith Somerville. Hurst, $29.95 (256p) ISBN 9781849046763
Somerville (Africa's Long Road Since Independence) examines the 21st century's persistent and illegal ivory trade in
the face of the failure of the 1989 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora
(CITES). Since 9/11, many Western governments and NGOs have viewed the ivory trade as intimately connected to the
funding of insurgent groups throughout Africa. Somerville believes this framing obscures a long history of
governmental corruption and ignores real frustration about local landuse policy in East and Southern Africa. He asserts
that locally workable, sustainableuse solutions, rather than NGOmediated antipoaching measures, will ensure longterm
elephant and human survival. Somerville's chronological, countrybycountry narrative shows that the ivory trade
has been externally driven since "the last millennium BCE." More recently, European colonial governments funded
themselves through licensing, regulation, and exports, providing for "colonialism on the cheap" at the same time that
indigenous hunting was severely restricted by wildlifemanagement programs. By the time African countries gained
their independence, the structures and abuse of government systems and safari tourism were in place, and the
smuggling trade well established. Those seeking to understand the political and economic complexity of the ivory trade
will appreciate Somerville's clear analysis. Maps & tables. (Jan.)
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"Ivory: Power and Poaching in Africa." Publishers Weekly, 10 Oct. 2016, p. 67+. General OneFile,
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p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA466616196&it=r&asid=72e1038d21e0abd54d4bc990c601e602.
Accessed 10 June 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A466616196
Ivory: Power and Poaching in Africa
Keith Somerville
Hurst
Who, in 2016, wouldn’t want to prohibit the criminal and environmentally immoral ivory trade? Ask Africanist, documentarist and journalism scholar Somerville. Part historical overview, part polemic and call for policy change, his book is dedicated not only to those who gave or risk their lives to conserve elephants but also to “those who have the courage to question the ruling orthodoxy” that burnings and bans save elephants. The author’s own appetite for questioning – from the “flexible meanings” of the word “poaching” to the high ideals and more nuanced realities of NGOs’ work – makes for informative reading. With demand for ivory unlikely to disappear, Somerville insists, “locally-acceptable forms of sustainable use is likely to be the only answer”.
karen.shook@tesglobal.com
The sombre probability is that by the end of this century few large land animals will survive in the wild. Especially at risk is the African elephant, which is now critically endangered. It is the elephant’s misfortune to possess a commodity worth (at current black market rates) $1,500 a pound. Keith Somerville’s book is an account of the part played by ivory in African history and a detailed survey of the African elephant from the end of the colonial era. It makes grim reading.
Book Review – Africa’s Long Road Since Independence: The Many Histories of a Continent By Keith Somerville
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Africa’s Long Road Since Independence: The Many Histories of a Continent by Keith Somerville is timely given that even recent African history fails to permeate our modern day consciousness and understanding of the current status of the African continent, says Sarah Bradbury.
“African history is the history of Africans and their societies – plural not singular, but singularly African.”
Providing a fine balance between academic rigour and a journalistic narrative style, Keith Somerville’s text, charting the divergent histories of a complex and oft-misunderstood continent is both an informative and engaging read. Dates, data and analysis are laced with the lived experience of a journalist to evoke time and place in a way academic journals are often incapable of doing.
africas-long-road-since-independence-cover-webStarting with Africa’s long colonial period, Somerville reveals the idiosyncratic approaches of colonising nations and how their decisions regarding power structures, ruler-drawn border lines and the elevation of some peoples above others came to shape the woes that continue to blight those colonised states long since their independence. Persistently resisting the all-too-easy generalisation of Africa’s national histories, Somerville continually returns to the distinct internal structures and particular economic, social and political forces at play within each country, such as the distinct relationship Rwanda and Burundi had with Belgium.
Somerville deftly handles the nuances of the battles for independence which swept across Africa from the 1950s, with different factions of nationalist movements holding varying visions for post-independence. He highlights the close cooperation between the South African independence movement with communism and the Soviet Union, which had implications for a West dependent on South Africa’s exports and severely suspicious of communist power during the Cold War. He elucidates that divides ran not only along black and white lines but independence movements had support from radical white, mixed-raced and Indian South African groups as well.
The troubled relationship of post-independence governments with flailing African economies is investigated, pointing to the absence of an entrepreneurial bourgeoisie, the driving force of capitalism in Europe, North America and East Asia, as resulting in a lop-sided development pattern of shored-up export dependence, aid dependence and power of global markets and companies at the expense of the future of African economies. While this, and the need for a priority of development over democracy, has suited powerful donor nations, it has allowed a deeply damaging system to become entrenched. Despite the uprisings of the early ‘90s, Somerville marks the good governance ‘mantra’ and democratisation process from the late 1980s as superficial and as primarily a further tool used by Western governments to exercise control, criticising the naivety of donor and international financial institutions that privatisation and divestment of state resources would encourage plurality.
Photo Credit: David Stanley via Flickr (http://bit.ly/2eUjEcV) CC BY 2.0
Photo Credit: David Stanley via Flickr (http://bit.ly/2eUjEcV) CC BY 2.0
He seeks to unearth an inbuilt bias in reporting on Africa, a proposition all the more compelling from a hack who has himself been privy to the pressures and perverse incentives of the media. Corruption and conflict dominated coverage and ethnicity is often the easy answer given by the media for complex processes. He makes reference to the recent Ebola crisis, in which he suggests the media vastly over-reported the Western aid organisations role and underplayed the sacrifice of Guinean, Liberian and Sierra Leonean health workers, only a handful of stories succeeding in capturing the problems of poverty, poor sanitation and water supply that allowed the epidemic to break and spread and recognising links to decimated social provisions caused by Structural Adjustment Programs: “Africa as a whole was represented as affected, with scaremongering media reports depicting it as a continent ravaged by Ebola.”
He ends on the most recent chapter of post-independence Africa, dominated by the concept of Africa rising, the emergence of development ‘role model’ China’, further calls for African unity and African answers to African problems, while the continent seeks to find its place on the global stage amidst a war on terror and continued hegemony of neoliberal ideals. The picture Somerville creates is one riddled with stubborn underlying issues and a lack of empowerment for regular people despite significant advances made: modern day Africa has seen improved quality of life, freedom of speech and increased international economic interest but poverty and its drivers persist, dependence on primary exports remain and the curse of gatekeeping elites continue to exist in evolved forms. He make links to a burgeoning refugee crisis caused by those fleeing authoritarian and repressive systems of rule, such as those in Eritrea, resulting in the thousands of washed-up deaths we continue to see splashed across our papers.
He concludes that external forces have and continue to mould Africa, with the effects of colonialism still reverberating. But African agency, which operates within and has reacted to outside factors, remains crucial to any understanding of the continent. He convincingly warns of the dangers of ‘examining Africa through a normative lens calibrated to view Western-style development as the ideal,” particularly understanding the informal structures which still hold sway in African societies but which remain hidden beneath formal institutions and structures.
His book is timely given that even recent African history fails to permeate our modern day consciousness and understanding of the current status of the continent. Where international development, humanitarian and political and economic forces continue to face barriers to progression, looking into history to understand better the status quo can be as, if not more, enlightening. Ultimately, this is a top recommendation for anyone curious to understand more about the African continent – whether to get behind the generalising headlines, past the impenetrable linguistic style of academia or simply be immersed in its history for a while.
Africa’s Long Road Since Independence: The Many Histories of a Continent. Keith Somerville. Hurst. 2016.
Sarah Bradbury (@sarabradbury) is a freelance journalist and campaign manager for NGO Communities for Development (@CommunitiesForD). She holds an MSc in Globalisation and Development from the School of Oriental and African Studies.
CAPSULE REVIEW September/October 2016 Issue Africa
Africa's Long Road Since Independence: The Many Histories of a Continent
by Keith Somerville
Reviewed by Nicolas van de Walle
In This Review
Africa's Long Road Since Independence: The Many Histories of a Continent
Keith Somerville
This introductory overview of the region’s history by a veteran BBC journalist focuses on broad political and economic trends and eschews simple takeaways. The book unfolds mostly in chronological order, from the disappointments of the immediate postindependence era in the 1960s, to the breakdown of many ruling regimes amid the military coups and civil wars of the 1970s, to the economic crises of the 1980s and 1990s, and finally to the tentative recovery of the last two decades. Somerville’s most trenchant analysis concerns civil conflicts such as the Rwandan genocide and the liberation struggles in southern Africa. He emphasizes what he considers to be powerful structural constraints on the region: the historical weight of the slave trade and colonialism and Africa’s weak position in the global economy. Ironically, however, his book illustrates the enduring influence of the colonial era: its primary subject is Anglophone Africa, and the material on Francophone and Lusophone Africa is rather perfunctory, reflecting the fact that media and governments in colonial powers continue to see the continent through the lens of the places their countries used to control.