African Affairs

African Affairs  
Former names
 Journal of the African Society
Journal of the Royal African Society
Discipline African studies, Political science, International Relations, Sociology
Language English
Publication details
Publisher
Oxford University Press (United Kingdom)
Publication history
 1901–present
Frequency Quarterly
1.904
Indexing
ISSN 0001-9909 (print)
1468-2621 (web)
LCCN 2002-227380
OCLC no. 51206437
JSTOR 00019909
Links

African Affairs is a peer-reviewed academic journal published quarterly by Oxford University Press on behalf of the London-based Royal African Society. The journal covers any Africa-related topic: political, social, economic, environmental and historical. Each issue also includes a section of book reviews.

It is the No 1. ranked journal in African Studies and the No 1. ranked journal in Area Studies. The journal is also ranked within political science.

It was established as the Journal of the African Society in 1901, and was published as the Journal of the Royal African Society from 1936 until it obtained its current name in 1944.

History

African Society dinner. Photograph by Swaine, 1931

The Royal African Society and its journal grew out of the travels of Mary Kingsley, an English writer and explorer who travelled to Africa several times in the 1890s and greatly influenced European study of Africa. In 1893, Kingsley travelled to Luanda, Angola, where she lived with the indigenous peoples to learn their customs. In 1895 she returned to study cannibal tribes, travelled up the Ogooué River collecting specimens of previously undiscovered fish, and became the first European to climb Mount Cameroon. Upon her return to England, Kingsley upset many people, particularly the Church of England: she criticized missionaries, and supported many traditional aspects of African life, most controversially the practice of polygamy. Kingsley wrote that a "black man is no more an undeveloped white man than a rabbit is an undeveloped hare".[1]

The African Society was founded in 1901 to commemorate and continue Kingsley's work. The Society works to promote relations between the United Kingdom and Africa. In addition to the journal, the Society promotes conferences and meetings. The journal was established in 1901 as the Journal of the African Society and was published as the Journal of the Royal African Society (ISSN 0368-4016) from 1936 to 1944. In 1944, the journal obtained its current name.

The journal offers an African Author prize, which is awarded for the best article published in the journal by an author based in an African institution, or an African Ph.D student based in an overseas university.[2]

Abstracting and indexing

According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal has a 2015 impact factor of 1.904, ranking it 23rd out of 163 journals in the category "Political Science".[3]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Mary H. Kingsley (1897). Travels in West Africa; Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons.
  2. ↑ http://www.oxfordjournals.org/our_journals/afrafj/authorprize.html
  3. ↑ "Journals Ranked by Impact: Political Science". 2015 Journal Citation Reports. Web of Science (Social Sciences ed.). Thomson Reuters. 2016.
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