Abstract One of the critical assets directed at agricultural production is labour. In this context, the effects of migration on farm labour among rice farmers in Mamou Prefecture, Guinea Conakry, were assessed. To achieve this goal, 140 respondents were sampled using a multi-stage sampling procedure. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data to present results and test for correlation between ranked variables. Prominent among the push factors responsible for farm labour migration were poverty ( , sd = 0.83), poor healthcare services ( , sd = 0.74) and unemployment sd = 0.61),) while good government policies ( , sd = 0.75) and food security ( , sd = 0.63) were the pull factors. The highest-ranked migration types with effects on farm labour migration were short term ( , sd = 0.45), internal ( , sd = 0.78) and individual ( , sd = 1.45) migration. Farm labour was unavailable (77.1%) in the study area on a cumulative scale. There was an inverse relationship between unemployment (rho = −0.019, p = 0.024), method of land preparation (rho = −0.219, p = 0.009), marital status (rho = −0.178, p = 0.036), family/friends (rho = −0.184, p = 0.030) and farm labour availability, whereas the relationship was direct for the availability of raw materials for production (rho = 0.240, p = 0.004) and farm labour availability. The enacting and sustaining of enabling government policies to improve the livelihoods and the intensifying of agricultural mechanisation are recommended in order to stem migration and sustain farm labour availability.

Abstract My doctoral dissertation is aimed at gaining a better understanding of how the Kikongo Language Cluster (klc) as we know it today was shaped through time, with a special focus on Cabinda, Angola. It does so by adopting a historical-comparative linguistic approach to phonological, morphophonological and morphological variation which current-day language varieties manifest, both among each other and with regard to historical varieties for which documentation is available. This diachronic study spanning nearly four centuries complements earlier studies on the history of the klc within the BantUGent research group, especially the lexicon-based phylogenetic classifications. It has relied on the vast, multifaceted and long-range documentation on the klc accumulated since the KongoKing project (2012–2016) and continued during the BantuFirst project (2018–2023). The PhD thesis is cumulative, including four articles pertaining to (1) Bantu spirantisation and 7 > 5 vowel reduction, (2) progressive vowel harmony involving verb derivational suffixes, (3) the broader morphophonology of the verb ending *-ide, and (4) diminutive marking. These articles are preceded by an introduction including several original-language maps of Cabinda and other data from several fieldwork missions. The conclusion offers answers to the dissertation’s four main research questions, three pertaining to the historical development of the klc and one to the planned promotion across Cabinda of the standardised language Ibinda.

Abstract Given the far-reaching and long-term impact of collective violence and the post-conflict setting on the entire social ecology of children, this doctoral research explores how caregivers experience and negotiate the changes in children’s upbringing during and after collective violence, and how they receive support therein. Semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions were conducted with 59 caregivers and eight social workers living in post-conflict Kitgum District, northern Uganda, between 2014 and 2016. We gained important insights about the ways individuals, families and communities had coped with and adjusted their individual and communal worlds as a result of living under protracted war and armed conflict, spanning different generations and settings (i.e., forced displacement and encampment, captivity and post-war villages). We further illustrate how post-conflict return and reintegration following forced displacement, encampment and/or captivity can be regarded as complex and ongoing processes, which play out on different relational and structural levels and take place in a changed and changing social landscape.

Abstract Today, female genital cutting (fgc) is more often performed by health professionals. In this dissertation we aim to answer the question of why mothers opt to medicalise their daughters’ cut, and how this decision relates to their social position within their community. We focus on Egypt and Kenya. The first important conclusion of our research is that increasing medicalisation and decreasing fgc prevalence can coexist. Moreover, we identify three major drivers behind mothers’ choice to medicalise their daughters’ cut. Firstly, mothers argue that they opt for a medicalised cut to reduce the health risks related to the cut. They seek a less harmful but still culturally acceptable alternative. Secondly, the medicalisation of fgc is socially stratified. Thirdly, medicalisation may act as a social norm in itself. In conclusion, we state that the debate about medicalisation should be more nuanced and that the general discourse on medicalisation should be challenged and empirically grounded.

After 32 years of dictatorship regime and a decade of various armed conflicts, the newly elected DRC government in 2006 was expected to receive US$4 billion from the traditional Western donors for reconstruction and development to help cement peace. Based on the issue of the lack of trust in the public institutions, the West failed to provide its promised aid following its conditionality. Alternatively, Joseph Kabila approached China to secure his cinq chantiers. Without prior conditionality on good- governance and human rights, China agreed to provide its financial support valued at US$ 9 billion in exchange for mines. Using historical and comparative methods, findings reveal that the Chinese presence in the DRC goes back to the colonial era of the 19th century. The conditionality for financial support seems inadequate for post-conflict countries in need of reconstruction. Also, the Chinese non-interference policy as an alternative to the western approach needs to be transparent. KEY WORDS: CHINESE POLICY, CINQ CHANTIERS, DRC, MINING DEALS, WESTERN CONDITIONALITY

The year 2005 marked the 600th anniversary of Zheng He’s first voyage on the Indian Ocean and the 50th anniversary of the Bandung Conference. In the same year Mwamaka Sharifu, a girl from Lamu island in Kenya, also a descendent of sailors of Zheng He’s fleet (1405-1433), was awarded a scholarship to study in her “home country”. In 2019, the novel The Dragonfly Sea by the Kenyan female writer Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, which incorporates the story of Mwamaka Sharifu, was publishedby Alfred A. Knopf. By using the concept of “fictive ethnicity”, proposed by Balibar, and “push back”, as articulated by Ruth Simbao, this paper tries to explore how the history of Zheng He is adopted and narrated to construct, blur or refute boundaries of nation and ethnicity in The Dragonfly Sea. It also investigates how fictional writing, both aesthetically and culturally, intervenes and responds to the dominant discourses surrounding “China-Africa” by exhibiting the ambiguity and nuances within. It shows that an epistemological and discursive fracture exists between Africa and China that leads to a binary construction of the myth of Zheng He, which might be effective to some degree but runs the risk of repeating nation-state and ethnic configurations. KEY WORDS: ZHENG HE, CHINA-KENYA LITERATURE, FICTIVE ETHNICITY, THE DRAGONFLY SEA

With over 650 million women alive today already suffering the consequences of child marriage, the practice of forced and child marriage disproportionally affects girls and women. Given its impact on physical and psychological wellbeing, it is a serious form of violence against women. In view of the global magnitude of forced and child marriage, and the increasing numbers of international migrants, the general objective of this research is to ascertain the determinants of forced and child marriage in Morocco and the impact of the migratory context on the issue among Moroccan migrants in Belgium. Our research analysed forced and child marriage in both settings from two angles. First, we studied policies and the socio-cultural context in a top-down perspective through the analysis of legislation, public debates and through expert/stakeholder interviews. Secondly, we investigated the determinants of forced and child marriage in both research settings from a bottom-up perspective through Focus Group Discussions and household interviews, as well as investigating the impact of legislative conditions and restrictions on migrants and their families. KEY WORDS: CHILD AND FORCED MARRIAGE, WOMEN’S RIGHTS, SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH, VIOLENCE, MOROCCO, MIGRATION, BELGIUM

This paper explores the Chinese agricultural technology demonstration centers (ATDCs) in Africa, a recent evolution of Chinese-African agricultural cooperation often recognized as a representative example of South-South cooperation. More specifically, the study observes the development of the ATDCs in Africa, through a literature review, and indicates major limitations in ATDCs research. This paper proposes a new political economy approach that accounts for place and space, which are crucial lenses for the analysis of ATDCs in Africa. The reconsideration of spatial relations takes into account the importance of the local territory, where operations are based, as an active constituent in China-Africa agricultural cooperation.