James Anthony (Tony) Binns (born 1948 in Greater Manchester) [1] is the Ron Lister Professor of Geography at the University of Otago in New Zealand.
Tony Binns was born in Prestwich and grew up in Bury, Greater Manchester, UK. He attended Stand Grammar School, [2] Whitefield. He graduated from Sheffield University (Geography, 1970; Dip.Ed., 1971) and taught geography in schools while attending the University of Birmingham (MA African Studies 1973; PhD African Studies and Geography, 1981). He taught geography at University of Sussex from 1975 to 2004, before moving to the University of Otago as Professor and latterly Head of Department.
Binns has two children, and holds British and New Zealand citizenship.
Binns' prime interest is African community development and the livelihoods and wellbeing of Africans. His early work was in Sierra Leone, working from Kayima in the north east of the country on links between diamond mining and the farming sector, the two main occupations of local residents. He has continued to follow these trends since 1974, and in 2014 he was elected an honorary chief of Kayima for his continued support to the community. [3]
Since then he has worked in
He has also worked in
Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered to the southeast by Liberia and by Guinea to the north. Its land area is 71,740 km2 (27,699 sq mi). It has a tropical climate and environments ranging from savannas to rainforests. As of the 2023 census, Sierra Leone has a population of 8,908,040. Freetown is both its capital and its largest city. The country is divided into five administrative regions, which are further subdivided into 16 districts.
The economy of Sierra Leone is $4.558 billion by gross domestic product as of 2024. Since the end of the Sierra Leone Civil War in 2002, the economy is gradually recovering with a gross domestic product growth rate between 4 and 7%. In 2008 it in PPP ranked between 147th by World Bank, and 153rd by CIA, largest in the world.
Freetown is the capital and largest city of Sierra Leone. It is a major port city on the Atlantic Ocean and is located in the Western Area of the country. Freetown is Sierra Leone's major urban, economic, financial, cultural, educational and political centre, as it is the seat of the Government of Sierra Leone. The population of Freetown was 1,347,559 as of the 2024 census.
Surgeon-Major James Africanus Beale Horton was a British Army officer, surgeon, writer and banker. Born in Gloucester, Sierra Leone into a Creole family who were liberated from enslavement by the Royal Navy, he began attending the SLGS in 1845. After graduating from Fourah Bay College, Horton received a War Office scholarship study medicine in Britain to prepare him for a career in the British Armed Forces, and he attended King's College London and the University of Edinburgh. Serving in the West India Regiments, Horton was posted to various locations within the British Empire, including Lagos, the Gambia, Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast and participated in the Anglo-Ashanti wars.
Fourah Bay College is a public university in the neighbourhood of Mount Aureol in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Founded on 18 February 1827, it is the first western-style university built in Sub-Saharan Africa and, furthermore, the first university-level institution in Africa. It is a constituent college of the University of Sierra Leone (USL) and was formerly affiliated with Durham University (1876–1967).
The Temne, also called Atemne, Témené, Temné, Téminè, Temeni, Thaimne, Themne, Thimni, Timené, Timné, Timmani, or Timni, are a West African ethnic group. They are predominantly found in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone. Some Temne are also found in Guinea. The Temne constitute the largest ethnic group in Sierra Leone, at 35.5% of the total population, which is slightly bigger than the Mende people at 31.2%. They speak Temne, which belongs to the Mel branch of the Niger–Congo languages.
Kasewe Forest Reserve is an area of hills in the Moyamba District of Sierra Leone. It is designated as a forest reserve and contains moist semi-deciduous and evergreen forests that cover an area of 1.224 km2. Made up of volcanic rock the hills stand about 500m above the interior plains of the country. The nearest town is Lunsar.
Paul Richards is an emeritus professor of technology and agrarian development at Wageningen University, The Netherlands, and adjunct professor at Njala University in central Sierra Leone. He was formerly a professor in the Department of Anthropology, University College London for many years, and previously taught anthropology and geography, at the School of Oriental and African Studies, and the University of Ibadan, Nigeria.
The African Institution was founded in 1807 after British abolitionists succeeded in ending the slave trade based in the United Kingdom. The Institution was formed to succeed where the former Sierra Leone Company had failed—to create a viable, civilised refuge for freed slaves in Sierra Leone, in West Africa. It was led by James Stephen and William Wilberforce. From 1823, its work was mostly taken over by the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery Throughout the British Dominions, and it ceased to exist sometime between 1826 and 1828.
George William Wright was an Anglican Bishop in Africa in the mid-20th century. He was born on 17 December 1873, educated at Barnsley Grammar School and ordained in 1906 following a 15-year career as a civil servant. After a curacy at Christ Church, Derby he went as a CMS missionary to Mombasa where he remained in various capacities until 1921 when he returned to England as Vicar of Boulton. In 1923 he was consecrated Bishop of Sierra Leone and in 1936 of North Africa. He was Vicar of Templecombe from 1942 to 1951 and an Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Bath and Wells. He died on 11 August 1956
Agriculture in Sierra Leone is a significant part of the economy of Sierra Leone, with it accounting for 58 percent national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2007. Two-thirds of the population of Sierra Leone are involved in subsistence agriculture.
Sylvia Hamilton Chant was a British academic who was professor of Development Geography at the London School of Economics and Political Science and was co-director of the MSc Urbanisation and Development Programme in the LSE's Department of Geography and Environment.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Freetown, Sierra Leone.
Robert B. Potter was a British academic geographer, focussing on urbanisation and development issues in the Caribbean. He was Emeritus Professor at the University of Reading, UK.
The Sierra Leone Creole people are an ethnic group of Sierra Leone. The Sierra Leone Creole people are descendants of freed African-American, Afro-Caribbean, and Liberated African slaves who settled in the Western Area of Sierra Leone between 1787 and about 1885. The colony was established by the British, supported by abolitionists, under the Sierra Leone Company as a place for freedmen. The settlers called their new settlement Freetown. Today, the Sierra Leone Creoles are 1.2 percent of the population of Sierra Leone.
Peri-urban regions can be defined as 'superficial' rural areas that are within the orbit of immediate urban hubs, in other words, areas that surround large population centers. These regions can also be referred to as 'exurban areas', 'the rural-urban fringe' or the 'fringe', they include the transition zones between the outer limits of the commuter belt and the edge of newly constructed suburban areas.
Orishatukeh Faduma was a Nigerian-American Christian missionary and educator who was also an advocate for African culture. He contributed to laying the foundation for the future development of African studies.
Sierra Leone–Turkey relations are the foreign relations between Sierra Leone and Turkey. Turkey has an embassy in Freetown since February 2018 and Sierra Leone has an embassy in Ankara since January 2020.
The Sierra Leone Women's Movement (SLWM) was a Sierra Leonean women's organization founded by Constance Cummings-John in 1951 in collaboration with women leaders from Sierra Leone markets.
Deborah Fahy Bryceson is a British academic currently affiliated to the Centre of African Studies (CAS) at the University of Edinburgh and University of Uppsala. She pioneered research into sectoral change in Africa, looking primarily at 'transnational families' and coining the terms 'de-agrarianisation' and 'mineralized urbanization'. She has published 16 books and over 130 journal articles and book chapters, specialising on livelihood, labour, urbanization and agrarian studies.