Religious Leaders Reduce Intimate Partner Violence in Uganda [Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, July 2022]

Title:

Religious Leaders Reduce Intimate Partner Violence in Uganda

 

Published:

Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, 25 July 2022

Click here to read

From the article:

"In Uganda, a primarily Christian country in East Africa, 56% of women who’ve been married report being sexually violated by a current partner, according to Uganda Bureau of Statistics. Strong patriarchal beliefs often influence this behavior, but those in positions of power, like religious leaders, can shift traditional gender roles.  

 

A team of psychologists, public health and political scientists, human-centered design experts, and nongovernmental organization (NGO) researchers, including Betsy Levy Paluck of Princeton University, wanted to determine whether religious leaders could reduce intimate partner violence by incorporating more progressive interpretations of Bible teachings on romantic partnerships into their couples counseling."

 

Between the ‘yellow-skinned enemy’ and the ‘black-skinned slave’: early modern genealogies of race and slavery in Sa`dian Morocco [Scholarly Article - The Journal of North African Studies, 2021]

Title:

Between the ‘yellow-skinned enemy’ and the ‘black-skinned slave’: early modern genealogies of race and slavery in Sa`dian Morocco 

 

Author:

Samia Errazzouki

Department of History, University of California, USA

 

Published:

The Journal of North African Studies, 25 May 2021

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13629387.2021.1927557

 

Abstract:

This paper situates Morocco’s invasion of the West African Songhai Empire in 1591 within the global histories of race, slavery, and capitalism. Morocco’s invasion, which took place during the height of the Sàdi dynasty (1554–1659), provided Morocco with an influx of capital through Black West African slave labour on Morocco’s sugar plantations and its newfound control over the lucrative gold and salt mines of West Africa. Such wealth and power bolstered Morocco’s regional and global position in the vital node where Africa, Europe, the Mediterranean, and Atlantic all converge. This paper will address the following questions: how did Morocco’s shift from enslaving non-Muslims to enslaving Muslim West Africans from the Songhai based on their race lay down the foundations for centuries of anti-Black violence in North Africa? (2) how did Black slave labour from the Songhai allow Morocco to become England’s primary source of sugar imports prior to the rise of sugar plantations in the Americas and the Caribbean? (3) how can we move beyond normative taxonomies that view North and West Africa as separate spaces instead of as regions whose conditions were shaped by one another? Ultimately, my paper will demonstrate how the Sàdi dynasty was an active player in the rise of racialized forms of slavery that eventually dominated the Atlantic for centuries and whose afterlives continue to endure on both sides of the Atlantic.

 

Ethnicity and clinical outcomes in COVID-19: A systematic review and meta-analysis [Scholarly Article - The Lancet, 12 November 2020]

Title:

Ethnicity and clinical outcomes in COVID-19: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Authors:

Shirley Sze, Daniel Pan, Clareece R. Nevill, Laura J. Gray, Christopher A. Martin, Joshua Nazareth, Jatinder S. Minhas, Pip Divall, Kamlesh Khunti, Keith R. Abrams, Laura B. Nellums & Manish Pareek

Published:

The Lancet, 12 November 2020

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(20)30374-6/fulltext

Abstract:

Background 

Patients from ethnic minority groups are disproportionately affected by Coronavirus disease (COVID-19). We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to explore the relationship between ethnicity and clinical outcomes in COVID-19. 

 

Methods 

Databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, PROSPERO, Cochrane library and MedRxiv) were searched up to 31st August 2020, for studies reporting COVID-19 data disaggregated by ethnicity. Outcomes were: risk of infection; intensive therapy unit (ITU) admission and death. PROSPERO ID: 180654. 

 

Findings 

18,728,893 patients from 50 studies were included; 26 were peer-reviewed; 42 were from the United States of America and 8 from the United Kingdom. Individuals from Black and Asian ethnicities had a higher risk of COVID-19 infection compared to White individuals. This was consistent in both the main analysis (pooled adjusted RR for Black: 2.02, 95% CI 1.67–2.44; pooled adjusted RR for Asian: 1.50, 95% CI 1.24–1.83) and sensitivity analyses examining peer-reviewed studies only (pooled adjusted RR for Black: 1.85, 95%CI: 1.46–2.35; pooled adjusted RR for Asian: 1.51, 95% CI 1.22–1.88). Individuals of Asian ethnicity may also be at higher risk of ITU admission (pooled adjusted RR 1.97 95% CI 1.34–2.89) (but no studies had yet been peer-reviewed) and death (pooled adjusted RR/HR 1.22 [0.99–1.50]). 

 

Interpretation 

Individuals of Black and Asian ethnicity are at increased risk of COVID-19 infection compared to White individuals; Asians may be at higher risk of ITU admission and death. These findings are of critical public health importance in informing interventions to reduce morbidity and mortality amongst ethnic minority groups.

Scholarly Article: ‘The data is gold, and we are the gold-diggers’: whiteness, race and contemporary academic research in eastern DRC / ‘Les données, c'est de l'or, et nous sommes les chercheurs d’or’: la blanchité, la race et la recherche universitaire contemporaine dans l'est de la RDC

Title:

‘The data is gold, and we are the gold-diggers’: whiteness, race and contemporary academic research in eastern DRC  / ‘Les données, c'est de l'or, et nous sommes les chercheurs d’or’: la blanchité, la race et la recherche universitaire contemporaine dans l'est de la RDC

Authors:

Gauthier Marchais, Paulin Bazuza & Aimable Amani Lameke

 

Published:

Critical African Studies, Volume 12, 29 September 2020

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21681392.2020.1724806

 

Abstract:

The boom of the humanitarian and development industry in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the demand for qualitative and quantitative research that has accompanied it have created a novel political economy of academic research in the region. An array of research associations and private data collection firms have emerged to respond to the international demand by Western universities and research projects. Like many industries operating on the continent, academic research has a racial dimension, which is rarely reflected upon, in part because it is often invisible to white Western researchers. This paper reflects on the creation and evolution of a non-profit association specialized in the collection of data in conflict-affected areas of eastern DRC. The research association was conceived by its Congolese and European founders as an enclave against the racism that pervades professional relations in the region, an experiment upheld by a collective commitment to academic research and an egalitarian ethos. Written from the perspective of three of its founding members, this paper analyses how racialized discursive repertoires and cognitive biases (re)appeared within the organization. We argue that these repertoires and biases serve to activate a particular mode of production, based on racial and geographic inequalities in working conditions and prospects. We interrogate the relationship between race and the system of production underpinning contemporary research, and show that, far from solely being a remnant of the colonial era, race constitutes a resource that can be tapped into, particularly in a context where empirical data, competition for funding, and ‘value for money’ are increasingly becoming the norm.  

 

Le boom du secteur humanitaire et du développement à l’Est de la RDC et la demande en recherche qualitative et quantitative l’ayant accompagné ont créé une nouvelle économie politique de recherche universitaire dans la région. Un éventail d’associations de recherche et de cabinets privés de collecte de données a émergé pour répondre à la demande internationale de la part d’universités occidentales et de projets de recherche. Comme de nombreux secteurs opérant sur le continent, la recherche universitaire a une dimension raciale, à laquelle il est rare que l’on réfléchisse, en partie car cela est souvent invisible pour les chercheurs occidentaux blancs. Cet article se penche sur la création et l’évolution d’une association à but non lucratif spécialisée dans la collecte des données dans des régions de l’Est de la RDC affectées par les conflits. L’association de recherche a été conçue par ses fondateurs congolais et européens comme une ‘enclave’ contre le racisme qui caractérise les relations professionnelles dans la région, une experience soutenue par un engagement collectif à la recherche universitaire et une philosophie égalitaire. Rédigé du point de vue de trois de ses membres fondateurs, cet article analyse dans quelle mesure les répertoires discursifs et les biais cognitifs racialisés sont (re)apparus au sein de l’organisation. Nous avançons que ces répertoires et biais servent à activer un mode de production particulier, basé sur des inégalités raciales et géographiques de conditions et perspectives de travail. Nous interrogeons la relation entre la race et le système de production soutenant la recherche contemporaine, et montrons que, loin de n’être qu’un ‘résidu’ de l'ère colonial, la race constitue une ressource pouvant être utilisée, en particulier dans un contexte où, de plus en plus, les données empiriques, la concurrence pour obtenir des financements, et le rapport qualité prix deviennent la norme.