A stereotype is an over-generalized belief about a particular group of people, e.g., Asians are good at math or African Americans are athletic. Such beliefs (biases) are known to hurt target groups. Since pretrained language models are trained on large real-world data, they are known to capture stereotypical biases. It is important to quantify to what extent these biases are present in them. Although this is a rapidly growing area of research, existing literature lacks in two important aspects: 1) they mainly evaluate bias of pretrained language models on a small set of artificial sentences, even though these models are trained on natural data 2) current evaluations focus on measuring bias without considering the language modeling ability of a model, which could lead to misleading trust on a model even if it is a poor language model. We address both these problems. We present StereoSet, a large-scale natural English dataset to measure stereotypical biases in four domains: gender, profession, race, and religion. We contrast both stereotypical bias and language modeling ability of popular models like BERT, GPT-2, RoBERTa, and XLnet. We show that these models exhibit strong stereotypical biases. Our data and code are available at https://stereoset.mit.edu.
Background: Public health recommendations and governmental measures during the COVID-19 pandemic have resulted in numerous restrictions on daily living including social distancing, isolation and home confinement. While these measures are imperative to abate the spreading of COVID-19, the impact of these restrictions on health behaviours and lifestyles at home is undefined. Therefore, an international online survey was launched in April 2020, in seven languages, to elucidate the behavioural and lifestyle consequences of COVID-19 restrictions. This report presents the results from the first thousand responders on physical activity (PA) and nutrition behaviours. Methods: Following a structured review of the literature, the “Effects of home Confinement on multiple Lifestyle Behaviours during the COVID-19 outbreak (ECLB-COVID19)” Electronic survey was designed by a steering group of multidisciplinary scientists and academics. The survey was uploaded and shared on the Google online survey platform. Thirty-five research organisations from Europe, North-Africa, Western Asia and the Americas promoted the survey in English, German, French, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese and Slovenian languages. Questions were presented in a differential format, with questions related to responses “before” and “during” confinement conditions. Results: 1047 replies (54% women) from Asia (36%), Africa (40%), Europe (21%) and other (3%) were included in the analysis. The COVID-19 home confinement had a negative effect on all PA intensity levels (vigorous, moderate, walking and overall). Additionally, daily sitting time increased from 5 to 8 h per day. Food consumption and meal patterns (the type of food, eating out of control, snacks between meals, number of main meals) were more unhealthy during confinement, with only alcohol binge drinking decreasing significantly. Conclusion: While isolation is a necessary measure to protect public health, results indicate that it alters physical activity and eating behaviours in a health compromising direction. A more detailed analysis of survey data will allow for a segregation of these responses in different age groups, countries and other subgroups, which will help develop interventions to mitigate the negative lifestyle behaviours that have manifested during the COVID-19 confinement.
Summary Background Hospital-acquired infections (HAI) are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality globally. These infections are diverse, but the majority are lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI), surgical site infection (SSI), bloodstream infection (BSI), and urinary tract infection (UTI). For most sub-Saharan African countries, studies revealing the burden and impact of HAI are scarce, and few systematic reviews and meta-analysis have been attempted. We sought to fill this gap by reporting recent trends in HAI in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) with attention to key patient populations, geographic variation, and associated mortality. Methods Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, we conducted a literature search of six electronic databases (Web of Science, Pubmed, APA PsycInfo, CINAHL, Embase, and the Cochrane Library) to identify studies assessing the prevalence of HAI in SSA countries. Studies published between 01 January 2014 and 31 December 2023 were included. We applied no language or publication restrictions. Record screening and data extractions were independently conducted by teams of two or more reviewers. Using the R software (version 4.3.1) meta and metafor packages, we calculated the pooled prevalence estimates from random-effect meta-analysis, and further explored sources of heterogeneity through subgroup analyses and meta-regression. This study is registered with PROSPERO, CRD42023433271. Findings Forty-one relevant studies were identified for analysis, consisting of 15 from West Africa (n = 2107), 12 from Southern Africa (n = 2963), 11 from East Africa (n = 2142), and 3 from Central Africa (n = 124). A total of 59.4% of the patient population were associated with paediatric admissions. The pooled prevalence of HAI was estimated at 12.9% (95% CI: 8.9–17.4; n = 7336; number of included estimates [k] = 41, p < 0.001). By subregions, the pooled current prevalence of HAI in the West Africa, Southern Africa, East Africa and Central Africa were estimated at 15.5% (95% CI: 8.3–24.4; n = 2107; k = 15), 6.5% (95% CI: 3.3–10.7; n = 2963; k = 12), 19.7% (95% CI: 10.8–30.5; n = 2142; k = 11) and 10.3% (95% CI: 1.1–27.0; n = 124; k = 3) of the patient populations respectively. We estimated mortality resulting from HAI in SSA at 22.2% (95% CI: 14.2–31.4; n = 1118; k = 9). Interpretation Our estimates reveal a high burden of HAI in SSA with significant heterogeneity between regions. Variations in HAI distribution highlight the need for infection prevention and surveillance strategies specifically tailored to enhance prevention and management with special focus on West and East Africa, as part of the broader global control effort. Funding No funding was received for this study.
Abbas Jessani, Teagan Berry-Moreau, Reeya Parmar
et al.
Transgender and gender diverse (TGD) people face significant challenges in accessing timely, culturally competent, and adequate healthcare due to structural and systemic barriers, yet there is a lack of research exploring the access and utilization of healthcare services within African TGD communities. To address this gap, this systematic review explored: (1) barriers to accessing healthcare services and gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT) faced by TGD people, (2) demographic and societal factors correlated with the utilization of healthcare services and GAHT, (3) common healthcare and support services utilized by TGD people, and (4) patterns of accessing healthcare services and GAHT within TGD communities. A systematic literature search was conducted in PubMed, Embase, and Scopus in September 2023. Eligible studies included peer-reviewed original research, reports, and summaries published in the English language assessing health service accessibility and utilization of TGD people in Africa between January 2016 and December 2023. From 2072 potentially relevant articles, 159 were assessed for eligibility following duplicate removal, and 49 were included for analysis. Forty-five articles addressed barriers to accessing healthcare services and GAHT, seven focused on demographic and societal factors correlated with the utilization of healthcare services and GAHT, 16 covered common healthcare and support services utilized by TGD people, and seven examined patterns of accessing healthcare services and GAHT. Findings suggested a limited availability of health services, inadequate knowledge of TGD healthcare needs among healthcare providers, a lack of recognition of TGD people in healthcare settings, healthcare-related stigma, and financial constraints within African TGD communities. An absence of studies conducted in Northern and Central Africa was identified. TGD people in Africa encounter significant barriers when seeking healthcare services, leading to disparity in the utilization of healthcare and resulting in a disproportionate burden of health risks. The implications of these barriers highlight the urgent need for more high-quality evidence to promote health equity for African TGD people. PROSPERO CRD42024532405.
Background Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is understudied in sub-Saharan Africa. The epidemiology of CL is determined by the species involved in its transmission. Our objectives were to systematically review available data on the species of Leishmania , along with vectors and reservoirs involved in the occurrence of human cases of CL in sub-Saharan Africa, and to discuss implications for case management and future research. Methods We systematically searched PubMed, Scopus, Cochrane and African Index Medicus. There was no restriction on language or date of publication. The review was conducted according to PRISMA guidelines and was registered on PROSPERO (CRD42022384157). Results In total, 188 published studies and 37 reports from the grey literature were included. An upward trend was observed, with 45.7% of studies published after 2010. East Africa (55.1%) represented a much greater number of publications than West Africa (33.3%). In East Africa, the identification of reservoirs for Leishmania tropica remains unclear. This species also represents a therapeutic challenge, as it is often resistant to meglumine antimoniate. In Sudan, the presence of hybrids between Leishmania donovani and strictly cutaneous species could lead to important epidemiological changes. In Ghana, the emergence of CL in the recent past could involve rare species belonging to the Leishmania subgenus Mundinia . The area of transmission of Leishmania major could expand beyond the Sahelian zone, with scattered reports in forested areas. While the L. major – Phlebotomus duboscqi –rodent complex may not be the only cycle in the dry areas of West Africa, the role of dogs as a potential reservoir for Leishmania species with cutaneous tropism in this subregion should be clarified. Meglumine antimoniate was the most frequently reported treatment, but physical methods and systemic agents such as ketoconazole and metronidazole were also used empirically to treat L. major infections. Conclusions Though the number of studies on the topic has increased recently, there is an important need for intersectional research to further decipher the Leishmania species involved in human cases of CL as well as the corresponding vectors and reservoirs, and environmental factors that impact transmission dynamics. The development of molecular biology in sub-Saharan Africa could help in leveraging diagnostic and research capacities and improving the management of human cases through personalized treatment strategies. Graphical Abstract
This explores the pedagogical benefits and strategic methodologies of integrating contemporary Francophone literature into French language instruction, with a focus on bridging linguistic proficiency and cultural competency. While traditional curricula often prioritize canonical texts from metropolitan France, contemporary Francophone literature from Africa, the Caribbean, North America, and the Maghreb presents diverse linguistic registers, sociopolitical contexts, and lived experiences that enrich language acquisition and cultural understanding. By exposing learners to a plurality of voices and worldviews, such integration aligns language instruction with global perspectives, decolonial approaches, and inclusive pedagogies. This proposes that incorporating contemporary Francophone works enhances vocabulary acquisition, pragmatic competence, and intercultural sensitivity. Through authentic literary narratives, learners engage with real-world sociolinguistic variations, idiomatic expressions, and culturally embedded discourse patterns, all of which contribute to functional fluency. Furthermore, literature-based instruction encourages critical thinking and interpretive skills by challenging students to analyze themes such as identity, migration, postcolonial memory, gender, and globalization in the target language. Drawing on case studies and classroom-based applications, this outlines a framework for selection, adaptation, and assessment of contemporary Francophone texts in instructional settings. It advocates for a thematic, task-based approach that integrates reading, writing, speaking, and listening activities aligned with CEFR language proficiency standards. This also addresses potential challenges, including lexical complexity, cultural unfamiliarity, and limited instructional resources, offering pedagogical solutions grounded in scaffolded instruction and collaborative learning. The integration of contemporary Francophone literature offers a dynamic and culturally responsive model for French language instruction. It empowers learners to navigate diverse Francophone worlds while deepening their linguistic competence, thereby bridging the gap between language and culture in meaningful, transformative ways.
With Nigerian novelist Amos Tutuola as primary subject, this paper at[1]tempts to understand the construction of sociocultural identities in Nigeria in the wake of independence. Despite the international success of his literary publications, Tutuola was denied access to the most intimate discourses on the development of African literature by his Nigerian elite contemporaries, who emerged from University College, Ibadan, in the 1950s and early 1960s. Having completed only a few years of colonial schooling, Tutuola was differentiated from his elite literary contemporaries in terms of education. Yet if education represented a rather concrete, institutionalized divide between the elite and the everyday Nigerian, this paper will suggest that the resulting epistemological difference served as a more fluid, ideological divide. Both Western epistemology, rooted in Western academic spaces, and African epistemology, preserved from African traditions like proverbs and storytelling, informed the elite and Tutuola’s worldviews. The varying degrees to which one epistemology was privileged over the other reinforced the boundary between Tutuola and the elite. Furthermore, educational experiences and sociocultural identities informed the ways in which independent Nigeria was envisioned by both Tutuola and the elite writers. While the elites’ discourse on independence reflected their proximity to Nigeria’s political elite, Tutuola positioned himself as a distinctly Yoruba writer in the new Nigeria. He envisioned a state in which traditional knowledge remained central to the African identity. Ultimately, his life and work attest to the endurance of indigenous epistemology through years of European colonialism and into independence. 148 Mackenzie Finley During a lecture series at the University of Palermo, Italy, Nigerian novelist Amos Tutuola presented himself, his work, and his Yoruba heritage to an audience of Italian students and professors of English and Anglophone literatures. During his first lecture, the Yoruba elder asked his audience, “Why are we people afraid to go to the burial ground at night?” An audience member ventured a guess: “Perhaps we are afraid to know what we cannot know.” Tutuola replied, “But, you remember, we Africans believe that death is not the end of life. We know that when one dies, that is not the end of his life [. . .] So why are all people afraid to go to the burial ground at night? They’re afraid to meet the ghosts from the dead” (emphasis in original).1 Amos Tutuola (1920–1997) was recognized globally for his perpetuation of Yoruba folklore tradition via novels and short stories written in unconventional English. His works, especially The Palm-Wine Drinkard (1952) and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1954), were translated into numerous European languages, including Italian. Given the chance to speak directly with an Italian audience at Palermo, Tutuola elaborated on the elements of Yoruba culture that saturated his fiction. His lectures reflected the same sense of purpose that drove his writing. Tutuola explained, “As much as I could [in my novels], I tried my best to bring out for the people to see the secrets of my tribe—I mean, the Yoruba people—and of Nigerian people, and African people as a whole. I’m trying my best to bring out our traditional things for the people to know a little about us, about our beliefs, our character, and so on.”2 Tutuola’s didactics during the lecture at Palermo reflect his distinct intellectual and cultural commitment to a Yoruba cosmology, one that was not so much learned in his short years of schooling in the colonial education system as it was absorbed from his life of engagement with Yoruba oral tradition. With Tutuola as primary subject, this paper attempts to understand the construction of sociocultural identities in Nigeria in the wake of independence. The educated elite writers, such as Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe, who emerged from University College, Ibadan, during the same time period, will serve as a point of comparison. On October 1, 1960, when Nigeria gained independence from Britain, Tutuola occupied an unusual place relative to the university-educated elite, the semi-literate “average man,” the international 1 Alassandra di Maio, Tutuola at the University: The Italian Voice of a Yoruba Ancestor, with an Interview with the Author and an Afterword by Claudio Gorlier (Rome: Bulzoni, 2000), 38. The lecture’s transcriber utilized graphic devices (italicized and bolded words, brackets denoting pauses and movements) to preserve the dynamic oral experience of the lecture. However, so that the dialogue reads more easily in the context of this paper, I have removed the graphic devices but maintained what the transcriber presented as Tutuola’s emphasized words, simply italicizing what was originally in bold. 2 Di Maio, Tutuola at the University, 148. Constructing Identities 149 stage of literary criticism, and the emerging field of African literature. This position helped shape his sense of identity. Despite the success of his literary publications, Tutuola was not allowed to participate in the most intimate dis[1]courses on the development of African literature by his elite contemporaries. In addition to his lack of access to higher education, Tutuola was differentiated from his elite literary contemporaries on epistemological grounds. If education represented a rather concrete, institutionalized divide between the elite and the everyday Nigerian, an epistemological difference served as a more fluid, ideological divide. Both Western epistemology, rooted in Western academic spaces, and African epistemology, preserved from African traditions like proverbs and storytelling, informed the elite and Tutuola’s worldviews. The varying degrees to which one epistemology was privileged over the other reinforced the boundary between the elite and Tutuola. This paper draws largely on correspondence, conference reports, and the personal papers of Tutuola and his elite contemporaries housed at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, as well as on interviews transcribed by the Transcription Centre in London, the periodical Africa Report (1960–1970), and Robert M. Wren and Claudio Gorlier, concentrating on primary sources produced during the years immediately prior to and shortly after Nigerian independence in 1960. Tutuola’s ideas generally did not fit into the sociocultural objectives of his elite counterparts. Though they would come in contact with one another via the world of English-language literature, Tutuola usually remained absent from or relegated to the margins of elite discussions on African creative writing. Accordingly, the historical record has less to say about his intellectual ruminations than about those of his elite contemporaries. Nonetheless, his hand-written drafts, interviews, and correspondences with European agents offer a glimpse at the epistemology and sense of identity of an “average” Nigerian in the aftermath of colonialism and independence.
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For many decades, the Kampala City Council (KCC) tolerated street vending was as a positive livelihood strategy for many poor urban dwellers. In 2010, the Parliament of Uganda passed legislation that changed the management of Kampala city from elected (KCC) to central government-appointed officials (KCCA). The main argument given for this change was that it would reduce endemic corruption, improve working conditions of very poor groups, and streamline service delivery. However, Kampala witnessed an unprecedented increase in the number of street vendors between 2014 and 2019. The central government and KCCA officials framed vendors’ ongoing presence and refusal to vacate the streets as a suicidal problem. Ruthless eviction operations by KCCA law enforcement officers have yielded very limited success. This article argues that deliberate neglect of market vendors’ needs and corruption embedded in the process of demolishing, redevelopment, and management of redeveloped/purchased markets left thousands of low-income market vendors without adequate relocation alternatives. Many resorted to street vending thus, turning an already existing issue into a crisis. Having contributed to this street vending crisis, state actors used ruthless means to evict but without success. Street vendors have used defiance, building alliances with opposition politicians, and bribing some KCCA law enforcement officers to defy KCCA eviction efforts. Heightened fear by the central government that continued crude eviction of street vendors without any viable livelihood option would have serious political drawbacks combined with the other factors to further circumvent KCCA efforts to evict them.
History of Africa, African languages and literature
Background: Overweight/obesity is an emerging health concern among African children. The aim of this study was to summarise available evidence from school-based interventions that focused on improving nutrition and physical activity knowledge, attitude, and behaviours, and weight status of children aged 6–15 years in the African context. Methods: Multiple databases were searched for studies evaluating school-based interventions of African origin that involved diet alone, physical activity alone, or multicomponent interventions, for at least 12 weeks in duration, reporting changes in either diet, physical activity, or body composition, and published between 1 January 2000 and 31 December 2018. No language restrictions were applied. Relevant data from eligible studies were extracted. Narrative synthesis was used to analyse and describe the data. Results: This systematic review included nine interventions comprising 10 studies. Studies were conducted among 9957 children and adolescents in two African countries, namely South Africa and Tunisia, and were generally of low methodological quality. The sample size at baseline ranged from 28 to 4003 participants. Two interventions reported enrolling children from both urban and rural areas. The majority of the study participants were elementary or primary school children and adolescents in grades 4 to 6. Participants were between the ages of 12.4 and 13.5 years. All but one intervention targeted children of both sexes. Four studies were described as randomised control trials, while five were pre- and post-test quasi-experiments. Except for one study that involved the community as a secondary setting, all were primarily school-based studies. The duration of the interventions ranged from four months to three years. The interventions focused largely on weight-related behaviours, while a few targeted weight status. The results of the effectiveness of these interventions were inconsistent: three of five studies that evaluated weight status (body mass index (BMI), BMI z-score, overweight/obesity prevalence), three of six studies that reported physical activity outcomes (number of sports activities, and physical activity duration ≥ 30 min for at least six days/week), and four of six reporting on nutrition-related outcomes (number meeting fruit and vegetable intake ≥ 5 times/day) found beneficial effects of the interventions. Conclusion: Given the dearth of studies and the inconsistent results, definite conclusions about the overall effectiveness and evidence could not be made. Nonetheless, this study has identified research gaps in the childhood obesity literature in Africa and strengthened the need for further studies, the findings of which would contribute valuable data and inform policy.
The era of formal colonialism is long gone but its effects still linger in popular views of Africa. From time to time a politician, or some other influential public figure, echoes the old adage that Africa has no history, let alone high-culture or civilization. Michael A. Gomez’s brilliant new book, African Dominion: A New History of Empire in Early and Medieval West Africa, offers another powerful rebuttal to such misconceptions. African Dominion is a meticulous study of West African experiment with empire over a period of many centuries before European contact in a region that could very well accommodate the entire continental area of the United States of America. It places the likes of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay on a par with some of the greatest empires of history, such as the Inca, Mongol, or Roman empires. Although essentially a political history, African Dominion also pays attention to the role of Islam in empire building, the place of women in West African politics and society, as well as the region’s connections with the broader world through the trans-Saharan trade of gold, salt, and slaves. African Arts readers will be disappointed to learn, however, that the book rarely discusses West Africans’ artistic achievements during this long period. Nonetheless, it provides solid grounds to explore any other work addressing that particular issue. African Dominion is divided into four parts comprising a total of fourteen chapters in addition to a prologue and an epilogue. Part 1 focuses on West Africans’ earliest experiments with centralization of power, state building, and imperial expansion along the Middle Niger River, Gao, and the Kingdoms of Ghana. It also examines how the transition to reform Islam in the eleventh century coincided with an intensification in slaving, shaping subsequent discussions regarding eligibility for enslavement predicated on notions of race and gender. “The imbrication of slavery, race, and gender,” Gomez explains, “would partially inform processes by which West African elites claimed archaic origins in the central Islamic lands, creating distance from the land of their actual birth” (p. 43). Part 2 shifts the focus to the rise and fall of imperial Mali between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. Mali, more than any other polity in the region, represents the epitome of African dominion. “There,” Gomez argues, “emerges a new articulation in medieval West Africa—the empire—and so begins an analysis of a political formation lasting some 350 years” (p. 61). Part 3 examines how Songhay emerged and, perhaps, superseded the Malian model of empire, achieving a “remarkable social compact by which new levels of mutual respect and tolerance were reached, and through which Songhay came to be characterized” (p. 170). Different from Mali, essentially a Mande operation, Songhay was a “much more ethnically heterogeneous society in which allegiance to the state transcended loyalties to clan and culture” (p. 170). Finally, Part 4 addresses the fall of imperial Songhay and the end of dominion in West Africa. Civil war, coupled with the increased political influence of slaves in the government, weakened the empire, making it vulnerable to foreign threats by the end of the sixteenth century. Although Songhay had previously experienced moments of instability, “this time,” Gomez emphasizes, “there would be no recovery” (p. 367). The author’s focus on African political traditions and innovations sets African Dominion apart from any other book on West African history. Gomez is not simply organizing the region’s past into political periods. Rather, he offers a deep reflection on West African governance, political institutions, and of course, responses to an issue commonly found in any other civilization: significant concentration of power in the hands of just a few. Gomez makes thorough use of a wide array of sources—oral traditions, written accounts, archaeological reports—to advance new interpretations of the region’s political history. While most historians situate the earliest traces of empire in the western Sahel, where Ghana emerged, Gomez locates it in the Middle Niger, more specifically in Gao. Although Timbuktu was indeed an important economic and political center since at least imperial Mali, historians’ fascination with the city may have attributed it a larger role in the region’s history than cities like Dia, Gao, or Jenne. Timbuktu’s leaders governed the city with the sanction of, when not directly appointed by, Mali and Songhay rulers. Further, its agricultural production and trade were subjected to taxation levied by these powers’ respective capitals. Another point worth mentioning has to do with slavery. As Gomez demonstrates, slavery was spread throughout West Africa long before the rise of the transatlantic slave trade. However, the institution’s antiquity and pervasiveness says little about its role in the region’s political history and subsequent connections with the Atlantic. Slavery’s development shaped West African’s conceptions of gender and race and, together with Islam’s continued expansion, “would constitute the double predicate upon which polity in the region would greatly expand [from the eleventh] over the next three centuries” (p. 57). While West African experience with empire is clear, African Dominion has little to say about some of the hallmarks that usually come with such political developments. Readers of African Arts will no doubt notice the near complete absence of references to West Africans’ artistic achievements during imperial Mali and Songhay. Apart from the mosques and libraries built in Mali during the reign of Mansa Musa (1312–1337), little else is said about art or architecture. Surely, there must have been more to it. Or are we to believe that imperial elites in Mali or Songhay were devoid of artistic taste? Writing is another enigma. Why does there seem to be so little about these empires written by their own subjects? Here Gomez provides an interesting explanation. Although Mali could produce many written transcripts, convention dictated oral media and memorization, with one sixteenth-century traveler stating that written records were viewed as “antithetical to principles of trustworthiness” (p. 142). Nevertheless, if there is one fascinating institution in Timbuktu, that would be the library and, although Timbuktu’s are no doubt the most famous, it is possible that other cities also had libraries. What was the literate class reading? Who wrote these works? In what languages were they written? Finally, one cannot help but wonder why the book’s subtitle frames the history of empire in West Africa within an European chronological framework. If empire in West Africa collapsed in the sixteenth century never to rise again, what would be its modern equivalent? In other words, what is medieval in the African dominion? It is in the nature of every good book to raise more questions than answers. However rigorous an analysis, Gomez’s African Dominion falls into that category. It provides a tour de force of the history of empire in West Africa over a period of almost two millennia, placing Mali and Songhay among the greatest empires in history, while at the same time offering new research directions. The feat requires significant knowledge of the related literature and a profound grasp of the existing sources. The book is a must-read for any student of early Africa, world history, or ancient civilizations.
P. Lindhout, J. Kingston-Howlett, Genserik Reniers
Abstract Misunderstandings due to language problems are emerging as an underlying causal factor in a wide variety of occupational accidents. Implicated in this are language proficiency and literacy, but also readability of instructions. Coupled to these is the fact that the global workforce holds more migrant workers than ever before, and there are a growing number of multi-lingual shop floor environments, especially in the transportation and health care sectors. The term ‘language problem related accident’ (LPRA) is proposed here. This article reviews LPRA trends in industry, especially in the process industry and construction industry. Proposals are made about how to better manage the safety risks associated with LPRAs. LPRA information was gathered via a literature survey using search-terms related to LPRAs. This search included the governmental resources in Europe, the USA, Australia, several Far East countries, and Africa. Both the information found and the difficulties encountered while gathering this information were analysed and validated by interviews with experts. Causal information about LPRAs is partial at best: 21 access difficulties are identified. Their resolution will create opportunities for further safety improvement. The main proposals made here relate to public information systems, company safety management, regulatory inspections, accident investigation activities and safety science research.
The article investigates the dialectics between homeland and identity in the poetry of the Sudanese poet, Mohamed Al-Fayturi and his literary master, Langston Hughes in order to underline their attitudes toward crucial issues integral to the African and African-American experience such as identity, racism, enslavement and colonisation. The article argues that – in Hughes’s early poetry –Africa is depicted as the land of ancient civilisations in order to strengthen African-American feelings of ethnic pride during the Harlem Renaissance. This idealistic image of a pre-slavery, a pre-colonial Africa, argues the paper, disappears from the poetry of Hughes, after the Harlem Renaissance, to be replaced with a more realistic image of Africa under colonisation. The article also demonstrates that unlike Hughes, who attempts to romanticize Africa, Al-Fayturi rejects a romantic confrontation with the roots. Interrogating western colonial narratives about Africa, Al-Fayturi reconstructs pre-colonial African history in order to reveal the tragic consequences of colonisation and slavery upon the psyche of the African people. The article also points out that in their attempts to confront the oppressive powers which aim to erase the identity of their peoples, Hughes and Al-Fayturi explore areas of overlap drama between the turbulent experience of African-Americans and the catastrophic history of black Africans dismantling colonial narratives and erecting their own cultural mythology.
Due to her geographical position, the African continent has for many centuries hosted visitors from other continents such as Asia and Europe. Such visitors came to Africa as explorers, missionaries, traders and colonialists. Over the years, the continent has played host to the Chinese, Portuguese, Persians, Indians, Arabs and Europeans. Arabs have had a particularly long history of interaction with East African people, and have therefore made a significant contribution to the development of the Swahili language. Swahili is an African native language of Bantu origin which had been in existence before the arrival of Arabs in East Africa. The long period of interaction between Arabs and the locals led to linguistic borrowing mainly from Arabic to Swahili. The presence of loanwords in Swahili is evidence of cultural interaction between the Swahili and Arabic people. The Arabic words are borrowed from diverse registers of the language. Hence, Swahili literature is loaded with Arabic cultural aspects through Arabic loanwords. Many literary works are examples of Swahili literature that contains such words. As a result, there is evidence of Swahili integrating Arabic culture in its literature, an aspect that this paper seeks to highlight.