Guidelines for authors

Presentation of the journal

Revue d'Histoire Contemporaine de l'Afrique (RHCA), a bi-annual journal, is interested in the more or less recent facts that explain the present of the continent. It aims to critically reflect on certain mechanisms - economic, political, social and cultural - by freeing itself from preconceived ideas, particularly in terms of the periodisation of African history. The Revue d'Histoire Contemporaine de l'Afrique wishes above all to publish articles that promote a historical approach. The common denominator of this journal is therefore the study of the facts of the past. However, the journal remains open to dialogue with other disciplines of the Humanities and Social Sciences.

RHCA is a place for the publication of articles in French, but also for exchanges between historians of Africa, regardless of their place of residence (Africa, Europe, North America). The publications will make it possible to report on research into the history of Africa by French-speaking researchers, and to translate the work of non-French-speaking researchers on areas of the continent that are often not very accessible in French-language literature (English-, Portuguese- and Spanish-speaking Africa). Finally, the journal claims to be an accessible journal, publishing in continuous flow and entirely in open access. This approach is guided by the desire to facilitate the publication process and to make the results of current historical research accessible to as many people as possible, particularly on the African continent.

Submitting an article

Texts submitted for publication to RHCA (whether as part of a special issue or for the journal's sections) must be unpublished works. They are evaluated in a double-blind process by researchers solicited by the journal's committee for their expertise on the subject. In the event of a negative double evaluation, the article will be rejected.

Failure to comply with the guidelines will block the review process. The article may therefore be rejected as long as it does not meet the journal's standards.

Instructions for authors

Presentation of the article

  • A title with a translation of the title into French
  • A signature with the author's name and institutional affiliation
  • An abstract of approximately 150 words (including spaces) in French and English
  • Five to six keywords in French and English;

Size of the article:

  • For articles in special issues and Varias: 40,000-55,000 signs (including spaces and footnotes, without bibliography)
  • For articles in the "Sources, Fields & Cntexts" section: up to 30,000 characters (including spaces and footnotes, without bibliography)

 Presentation standards

The text should be presented in a simple manner

  • Justified text, Times New Roman 12 font for the body of the text and Times New Roman 10 for the footnotes
  • Single line spacing, no paragraph indentation, no particular style sheet ("Normal" style), no hyphenation of words. Bold, underlined characters and page breaks should be avoided.
  • The text should have visible headings and subheadings (1 level maximum) to facilitate reading, in bold for headings, in italics for subheadings.

Bibliographical references

Bibliographical references are included as footnotes and a final bibliography appears at the end of the document. Primary sources only appear in footnote.

The names of the authors appear in small capitals in the final bibliography (not in the footnotes).

If you are using Zotero, please make sure you click on the "break link with Zotero" option before submitting the article.

By convention, we never place footnotes in titles and subtitles.

Sources (archives and interviews) only appear as footnotes.

  • Archives: Archives Nationales du Sénégal (ANS), K321(26), Rapport politique du cercle de Casamance, 26 April 1930.
  • English Book: Miescher Stephan (2005), Making Men in Ghana, Bloomington, Indiana University Press.
  • French book: Sow Alfa Ibrahim (1978), Les structures anthropologiques de la folie en Afrique Noire, Paris, Payot.
  • Press article: Babacar Sarr, "Le problème de la jeunesse en Afrique", Dakar-Soir, 23 January 1978.
  • Article published in a journal: Beek Jan (2010), "Étiqueter les 'déviants' : le travail des policiers au Nord-Ghana", Déviance et Société, 34(2), pp. 279-290.
  • Chapter in a collective work: Beek Jan (2012), 'Étiqueter les "déviants" : le travail des policiers au Nord-Ghana', in J. Beek and B. Jan (eds.), Déviances et sociétés en Afrique, Paris, L'Harmattan, pp. 49-76.
  • PhD : Mubashankwaya Michel (1971), "Le Rwanda depuis 1959. Évolution politique, économique et sociale", PhD thesis, University of Provence.
  • Web source: Author, 'title', Journal, date. Online, accessed on DATE. URL: web link
  • References already cited will be noted:
    • for journal articles: Beek J., "Labelling 'deviants'", art. cité, p. 80.
    • for book chapters: Beek J., "Étiqueter les 'déviants'", art. cité, p. 80.
    • for books: Miescher S., Making Men..., op. cit., p. 89.

NB: art. cit. in roman; op. cit. in italics

Calls for notes and citations

Quotations of more than 3 lines appear in a separate paragraph, font 11, indented. The footnote should be placed as close to the word as possible and before the final punctuation.

  • For inverted commas in the presence of inverted commas :
    • If it is a whole sentence in inverted commas, the final punctuation is placed inside the inverted commas and the note call is placed as close to the word as possible. For example: "this is an example2 ".
    • If it is only a portion of a sentence, the punctuation is placed outside the inverted commas. For example: This is another example2.

Images, tables and graphics

Please indicate their place in the text, their caption, and send them to the editor with permission to reproduce them, if applicable.

Special typographical rules

  • Quotations of less than four lines must be placed in inverted commas and without italics. Quotations longer than four lines should be indented, single-spaced, size 11, without inverted commas.
  • Indented quotations should be indented after the punctuation.
  • Foreign words should be italicized and without inverted commas, except for foreign language quotations which are both italicized and in inverted commas.
  • In the case of translated quotations, the footnote should read "author's own translation".
  • Centuries are indicated in Roman numerals and small capitals, with the "e" following the superscript century. E.g. 20th century.
  • Capital letters should be accented where appropriate, e.g. Church, State, Being.
  • Numbers are written out in full from one to fifteen, for tens (twenty, thirty...) and hundreds (one hundred, two hundred...). For all others, Arabic numerals are used (16, 21, 101), as well as for percentages (1%).
  • When they are pronounced, acronyms are written with a capital letter only on the first letter (Unesco, Unita, etc.).