Activities
Before Viewing
1. Glossary
Pick out four or five words from the list below whose meaning may not be clear to you. Find out the meaning of these words and use them to add to your own glossary of keywords on the history of race in the 20th century. You will be able to add to your glossary when you watch Programmes 2 and 3.
Try to write the meanings in your own words rather than copying them out of a dictionary. Imagine you are trying to explain the words to a younger person. What would you say? How could you use examples to help explain the meaning to them?
The section 'What do the terms mean'? below is a good starting point.
- Imperial
- Colony/colonies
- Colonialism
- Slavery/slave trade
- Trade
- Agriculture
- Resources
- Profits
- Economic
- Propaganda
- Power
- Political
- Cultural
- Social
- World War One
- World War Two
- Independence
- Nationalism
- Partition
- Migration
Note to teachers
Some pupils may require additional support with the keywords. Ways of helping them include:
• Giving pupils words and meanings on cards and asking them to match them.
• Asking pupils to 'strike a pose' or do a mime to convey a keyword. Can the others guess which keyword they have chosen?
2. What do the keywords mean?
Look at the meanings below for two very important keywords: 'race' and 'black'. Now write the meanings for the other keywords.
'Race'
There is no biological validity (truth) behind the idea of 'race'. However, it is a term which people use to describe others, for example, the black 'race'. Social scientists and historians tend to use the term in quotation marks, to show that it is a social construct not based on fact.
'Black'
In Britain today, we use the term for people of African, African- Caribbean and Asian origin (taken as a group) or in the phrase 'black and Asian', where 'black' refers only to those of African and African-Caribbean origin. The expressions 'non-white', 'coloured' and 'half-caste' are outdated and generally found offensive by black people, since they represent an aspect of white ethnocentricity (view of the world). 'Mixed race' and 'dual heritage' have replaced the term 'half-caste'.
Prejudice
Racism
Discrimination
Racial Harassment
Ethnicity
Nationality
3. Starting to think about Africa
• What do we know about Africa today?
• What can we learn about our own society from this activity?
In pairs, take two minutes to tell your partner what you know about Africa. Think about:
• History
• Geography (names of countries, mountains, rivers, deserts, weather, landscape, food, raw materials and natural resources);
• Languages
• Popular culture (music, sport, art, sculpture)
• Science (art, architecture, mathematics)
• Other topics
As you listen, think about where your partner's knowledge has come from. Think about:
• Education
• Television
• Diet
• Films
• Music
• Other topics
Now assess what you have learned about each other.
• Was this activity difficult or easy? Why?
• What sorts of images do you have? Are they positive or negative?
• Are any of these images 'stereotypical'?
• Where does our knowledge about Africa come from?
• Do you have more knowledge about one area than another? Why/why not?
Keep your responses to these questions in mind. Remember there are no hard-and-fast, right or wrong answers to these questions. Your views and their expression is the point of this exercise. You can compare them with your knowledge, ideas and attitudes at the end of the three programmes to see if this has influenced your thinking.
What are the links and connections between Africa today and in the past?
Note to teachers
You will need to stress to the pupils that there are no 'right' or 'wrong' answers. They must feel safe to explore their own knowledge, its strengths and weaknesses, and its origins.
4. Marking out territories and borders
You can supplement this activity by using a range of atlases and maps, including ones that are now out of date. The Internet is a useful source of maps.
This activity links up with Activity 5 – Changing borders of Africa
• Compare old and current maps or atlases.
• Where have there been border changes?
• Why have these border changes occurred?
• Listen to the news or read a newspaper.
• Do any items connect to changes in borders or disputes (quarrels) over borders?
Note to teachers
Think about personal space. Talk to the pupils about their personal space? How do they mark out their 'borders' – at school and at home? Ask them to look at the playground at break. Do any particular groups dominate certain areas? How do they mark out their territories?
After Viewing
5. Changing borders of Africa
You will need maps of Africa at different times:1870, 1880, 1914, 1948 are all key dates.
• Identify changes between the maps, for example:
• place names
• control of land
• borders
• Identify the period of most rapid change.
• What can you learn from these maps?
• What cannot be learnt from these maps?
• What else would you like to know?
• Identify patterns of settlement e.g. coastal to inland pattern of colonisation, and reasons for these patterns.
6. Analysing film as propaganda
See extract 3 (1.19)
Sanders of the River (1935)
As you view the extract, fill in a table similar to the one below.
