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I'm proctoring the final exam in African Politics today. One question I asked was for students to describe a transformational learning moment. Name some piece of course material (reading, film, lecture, activity) we covered and how your thinking was before and after learning it.
Let me use some of their responses to make suggestions for anyone looking for readings to include in a future version of your African politics course. 2/
Perhaps the most frequently cited material was Alcinda Honwana's 2015 essay in @africaarguments, "Enough! Will youth protests drive social change in Africa?" Students see waithood as a global phenomenon & personally relevant. https://africanarguments.org/2015/12/07/enough-will-youth-protests-drive-social-change-in-africa/ 3/
Claude Ake's 1991 paper "Rethinking African Democracy" has been mentioned by so many students as having changed their understanding of what democracy actually means (and that their ideas on democracy can evolve) https://muse.jhu.edu/article/225609/pdf 4/
Other students mentioned the class simulation we had on the Nubian predicament. It opened their eyes to statelessness. In addition to reading an essay published on @OpenSociety ( https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/nubian-predicament-story-about-colonial-legacy-discrimination-and-statelessness), we watched this @Refugees video:
The last thing I'll mention was the class devoted to discussing the legacy of the African slave trade. Among other things, they read @DrNathanNunn & @lwantchekon's seminal paper on how we can still see the long-lasting impact on trust between groups: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.101.7.3221
This has been a roller coaster of a quarter, but I'm so very grateful to have had the opportunity to teach African Politics for the first time it was ever offered at @UCRiverside and to have had such thoughtful and engaged students. /fin
BONUS: having now read more of the exam responses, I feel moved to share that my LGBTQ+ students felt "seen" and other students learned a great deal from my lecture on political homophobia, which features the photography of @MuholiZanele & this video:
