This article investigates the introduction of human rights reforms in late colonial Africa, a period defined by the disintegration of European colonial rule. While existing scholarship often attributes these reforms to European efforts to ensure a smooth transition to independence, foster post-colonial stability, and address post-war geopolitical challenges, such analyses frequently overlook the agency of indigenous nationalist leaders and anti-colonial activists. These groups perceived the reforms as strategically motivated maneuvers by departing colonial powers and engaged with them accordingly. Focusing on the decolonisation era in Africa, this study argues that both colonisers and the colonised approached human rights rhetoric primarily as a tool for pragmatic objectives rather than as an expression of ideological commitment to human rights norms. European powers framed these reforms as altruistic, yet their underlying motivations were rooted in political and economic interests. Conversely, African leaders appropriated human rights discourse to expose colonial hypocrisy and advance their political agendas. This engagement underscores the tension between universal human rights ideals and the pragmatic realities of political strategy (realpolitik) during a transformative period in the development of the international human rights framework. It also highlights how political calculations constrained the realization of universal human rights principles such as dignity, equality, and inalienability.

Public attitude surveys provide invaluable insights into societal views on women’s rights, democracy and other critical issues. However, many research studies do not account for biases introduced by the gender of the interviewer, which can distort estimates of public opinion and key relationships among covariates of interest. This article examines gender-of-interviewer effects on public support for women’s rights to work, own and inherit land, as well as support for democracy and feelings of closeness to opposition (versus ruling) parties, using Afrobarometer data from 34 African countries. In line with prevailing conservative social norms in Africa, the analysis reveals significant gender-of-interviewer effects, with respondents reporting more gender-unequal attitudes when interviewed by male interviewers. Additionally, gender-of-interviewer effects appear in responses to questions on support for democracy and feelings of closeness to opposition (versus ruling) parties, with respondents more likely to voice pro-democratic attitudes and close affiliation with opposition parties to male interviewers, regardless of their own gender. These findings highlight the importance of accounting for such biases to ensure the validity of public opinion research and analyses based on these political variables.

This study investigated the hypothesis that 9- to 11-month-old multilingual infants learning Advanced Tongue Root (ATR) harmony languages (such as Akan) alongside other non-vowel harmony languages in Ghana (Africa) can use ATR harmony cues for speech segmentation. Using the central fixation procedure, infants were familiarized with bisyllabic words in two passages, one with ATR cues and one without, and then tested on isolated familiarized and novel bisyllabic words. Results indicate that, as a group, infants segmented words in their native language using ATR harmony cues, showing a familiarity preference. No effect of exposure to ATR harmony language(s) was found. These results provide the first evidence of word segmentation in infants learning between two and five languages, and with infants in Africa. The findings contribute to our understanding of multilingual infants’ language processing, suggesting their sensitivity to phonotactic cues for speech processing.

Is Christian nationalism a threat to democracy in Africa, and to what extent are its adherents “anti-democratic” as is often claimed? Using the Afrobarometer Round 7 (2016-18), I examine how extensive these attitudes are held among Africans. Although I find that the proportion of the population on the continent that holds Christian nationalist views is somewhat limited, I find support for the argument that Christian nationalists tend to be less supportive of democracy than others, and more receptive to authoritarian alternatives to democracy. However, they are not more likely to hold intolerant attitudes with regard to other religions and LGBTQ individuals. In addition, I do not find, contrary to the existing literature on Christian nationalism in Africa, that Pentecostals are more intolerant of out groups than other Africans.

More than 116 million people in Africa live with mental health conditions. However, many African countries lack the infrastructure, training and workforce to effectively manage psychiatric emergencies. This has led to overuse of controversial practices such as physical and chemical restraint and involuntary seclusion, often violating patient rights. We conducted a scoping review of restraint and seclusion practices and their impacts in African clinical settings using the PubMed, Embase, CINAHL, PsycInfo and ProQuest databases. Titles/abstracts and full texts were reviewed for inclusion using the Covidence platform, and 29 studies were included in the final extraction. Restraint and/or seclusion were employed to manage aggression, enable involuntary treatment or prevent self-harm. Patients found restraint and seclusion to be dehumanizing, a cause of posttraumatic stress and a barrier to future help-seeking. Healthcare workers described inadequate training, overuse of restraint and seclusion, injuries and emotional distress after employing these treatments. Further research, intervention development and policy reform are urgently needed to promote humane and patient-centered psychiatric care, including verbal de-escalation training, in underresourced healthcare systems.

While a growing body of literature studies the effects of weather shocks on economic activity in low-income countries, relatively little is known about their impact on cross-border capital flows. This study investigates whether weather shocks, specifically deviations in precipitation and temperature from their long-term averages, trigger capital flight from Africa. Exploiting the variation in within-country exposure to weather shocks, we find that temperature shocks lead to increased capital outflows and trade misinvoicing. The long-run relationship between temperature and capital flight is conditional upon country-specific factors, such as reliance on oil exports, institutional frameworks and financial infrastructures. Our findings reveal a moderate role of state capacity in the relationship between weather shocks and capital flight, highlighting the need for further investigation into other potential mechanisms.

Archaeogenetics, the study of ancient DNA, can reveal powerful insights into kinship and the movement of individuals in (pre)history. Here, the authors report on the identification of two individuals with genetic profiles consistent with recent sub-Saharan African ancestry, both of whom were buried in early-medieval cemeteries in southern Britain. Focusing primarily on a sub-adult female from Updown in Kent, the authors explore the societal and cultural contexts in which these individuals lived and died, and the widening geographic links indicated by their presence, pointing back to the Byzantine reconquest of North Africa in AD 533–534.

Tax collection is difficult in low-income countries, and bureaucracies exist alongside non-state actors that extract revenue and provide services informally. Might weak states leverage these actors’ strengths to collect taxes, or should they invest in building fiscal capacity on their own? We conducted a field experiment in Lagos, Nigeria that randomly assigned market vendors to tax appeals delivered by state or non-state agents. Contrary to expectations, non-state actors were not effective messengers. Tax appeals delivered by representatives of marketplace associations, an important social intermediary in this context, were ineffective even at higher levels of trust and message credibility. Messages delivered by state agents, however, were sometimes effective in spurring registration and tax payments, especially among ethnic minorities. This study underlines the importance of social intermediaries in shaping the social contract, and it draws attention to the uneven effects of these kinds of institutions within populations.

Despite growing interest in African varieties of French, few attempts have been made to examine them from a variationist perspective. This contribution aims to use phonetic variation as a vantage point for exploring language ideologies surrounding the use of French in postcolonial contexts. The study focuses on the French variety spoken in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and draws on a bilingual Lingala–French dataset elicited from L1 Lingala speakers. The sample reflects a key social distinction in Kinshasa: that between long-term urban residents and recent rural migrants. Are there multiple phonetic varieties of Kinshasa French? To what extent do their forms merely reflect variation in Lingala? The study finds that the most focused variety of Kinshasa French is strongly associated with urban women and is approximated to varying degrees by rural migrants, particularly women. In addition to features with likely origins in either rural or urban Lingala, Kinshasa French exhibits hypercorrect forms and features that may mirror variation trends in Parisian French.