Ato Kwamena Onoma

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• Doctor of Philosophy
• Professor at University of Toronto

The idea of sustainable rural learning ecologies in Africa apparently consti- tutes a contradiction in terms. Renowned for its provincialism, rural Africa seems to represent the opposite of the ideal setting for sustainable learning ecologies, which cultivate open, questioning and investigative spirits while fostering the acquisition of knowledge a...

The stigmatization of Senegalese return migrants as COVID-19 vectors by fellow Senegalese during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic troubles the self/other distinction that underpins the scholarly focus on epidemics and xenophobia and encourages the broader task of exploring epidemics and phobia. The casting of return migrants as COVID-19 vect...

The heightening of exclusionary practices targeting migrants during epidemics often creates dilemmas for perpetrators whose resolution undermines the foundational structures of xenophobic narratives. For many perpetrators of xenophobic acts, epidemics amplify dilemmas rooted in the chasm between neat dichotomizing exclusionary tropes and messy soci...

In Senegal, some people are open to burial in cemeteries used for the departed of all faiths, while others wish to be buried only in cemeteries used exclusively for people of their own religion. Research in Fadiouth, which has a mixed cemetery, and Joal, which has segregated cemeteries, indicates that most people, regardless of their faith, embrace...

This article examines the effect of geographical proximity on targeting patterns during Ebola-era xenophobic outbursts by Senegalese against a migrant Peul population of Guinean origins. It highlights the limited extent to which epidemics shape the micro-dynamics of outbreaks of xenophobia during public health crises, demonstrating that epidemics a...

As the Ebola epidemic ravaged the Mano River Basin in 2014, there was concern in Senegal that the resident Peul community of Guinean origins will cause the spread of the disease to Senegal. These fears went unrealized as the Peul migrants embraced many of the epidemic control and prevention measures, which often distanced them from primordial publi...

Burial in cemeteries created by and on the orders of Cheikh Amadou Bamba, the founder of the Mouride Sufi order in Senegal, is said to guarantee passage to paradise. While many Mourides, understandably, prefer to have their corpses transported for burial in these cemeteries, others opt to be interred elsewhere. Focusing on the commune of Joal-Fadio...

In Senegal’s Thies Region, Joal has separate cemeteries for Muslims and Christians, while the neighbouring community of Fadiouth has one cemetery for the dead of all faiths. This paper uses these cases to shed light on why some communities have separate cemeteries for people of different faiths while others bury people of all faiths in the same cem...

Epidemics of contagious diseases often motivate the social constitution of “dangerous communities.” These communities are defined as having a high potential to further spread the diseases involved to a wider public. Migrant communities’ links with sick people in places of origin that are badly affected by such diseases ostensibly justify the constr...

An Epochal Bifurcation: The International Criminal Court, the African Court and the Struggle against Gross Human Rights Abuses Focus on whether a criminal chamber in a reformed African Court represents progress or retrogression relative to advances made in the Rome Statute shifts attention from the similar foundation of the two courts on an epochal...

When understood as an embedded practice in the Mano River Basin, the issue of mobility need not threaten Ebola Virus Disease epidemic control efforts. Rites of mobility in the Mano River Basin ensure that migrants are often enmeshed in circuits of knowledge and compliance that have important implications for epidemic control. Local hosts, with whom...

A key version of the demographic argument that focuses on population size to explain intergroup relations is dependent on the association of population size with power and people's sense of empowerment. A significant flaw of this argument lies in an under conceptualization of power rooted in the fact that researchers do not always engage in the inc...

Why are some countries more successful at carrying out postconflict reconstruction programs than are others? Sierra Leone and Liberia have similar histories and suffered wars that were intimately linked. When the wars ended, foreign-backed efforts were undertaken to reform the security sector in each country. These reforms were more successful in S...

Using comparative cases from Guinea, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, this study explains why some refugee-hosting communities launch large-scale attacks on civilian refugees while others refrain from such attacks even when encouraged to do so by state officials. Ato Kwamena Onoma argues that these attacks happen where governments inst...

This article argues that hostile confrontations between state and societal actors pursuing divergent goals can sometimes end up empowering both. In Botswana, successful efforts by less powerful clients to reclaim the power to allocate land from land boards through various stratagems ended up also strengthening the land boards and also the state. By...

Many African countries have undertaken transitions to democratic rule since the early 1990s. While giving many people the rare opportunity to vote in competitive and pluralistic elections, there have been limits to the empowering effects of these transitions for many. The paper argues that the continued use of English, French and Portuguese in stat...

I wanted a [land] document because it is like a marriage certificate for a woman. It gives you [the husband] confidence that no one will ever bother you. An old farmer in Taita Taveta, Kenya, in a 2005 interview with author [Land titles] are mere pieces of paper. William ole Ntimama, minister of local government, Kenya, “The Indigenous and the Nati...

Why do some political leaders create and strengthen institutions like title registries and land tribunals thatsecure property rights to land while others neglect these institutions or destroy those that already exist? How do theseinstitutions evolve once they have been established? This book answers these questions through spatial and temporal comp...

Mamdani's reflections on African scholars, their language practices and their disempowering effects on African masses typify his preoccupation with the possibilities for non-elitist efforts at social transformation in African societies. This paper engages Mamdani's work on these subjects by excavating the language question in Africa in an anti-esse...

Proefschrift Northwestern University, AAT 3230111.