Suchergebnisse

The entwined histories of Blacks and Indians defy easy explanation. From Black Lives Matter protests against Gandhi statues to Kamala Harris's historic election, this relationship - notwithstanding moments of common struggle - seethes with conflicts that reveal important lessons about race in the modern world. Shobana Shankar's groundbreaking intellectual history tackles the controversial question of how Africans and Indians see their differences. Drawing on archival and oral sources from seven countries, she traces how economic tensions surrounding the Indian diaspora in East and Southern Africa collided with the twentieth century's widening Indian networks in West Africa and the Black Atlantic.

"Welcome to Lagos; here everything is possible' were the words with which my research collaborator Dr Mustapha Bello greeted me when I first arrived in Nigeria's former capital in 2010. That 'everything is possible' in this megacity, I soon discovered when we drove by a three-storey building that, as Mustapha pointed out to me, hosted a mainline church, a Pentecostal church, and a mosque. Although he described himself as a 'die-hard Muslim', Mustapha did not seem to have any problem with a mosque sharing the same space with a church. Underlining the pragmatism that characterizes Lagosians, he argued that this was an 'economic use of space'. While in this particular building different religious institutions occupied different floors, I also came across movements mixing Islam and Christianity, sometimes in interaction with 'Yoruba religion',1 during the course of my nine-month ethnographic field research in Lagos"--

In recent years, the growth of a middle class has been a key feature of the 'Africa Rising' narrative. Here, Jason Sumich explores the formation of this middle class in Mozambique, answering questions about the basis of the class system and the social order that gives rise to it. Drawing extensively on his fieldwork, Sumich argues that power and status in dominant party states like Mozambique derives more from the ability to access resources, rather than from direct control of the means of production. By considering the role of the state, he shows how the Mozambican middle class can both be bound to a system they benefit from and alienated from it at the same time, as well as exploring the ways in which the middle classe attempts to reproduce its positions of privilege and highlighting the deeply uncertain future that it faces. --- Book description

Defining Salafism, analysing canons -- Salafism and its transmission -- The canon and canonizers -- Africans and Saudi Arabia -- Nigerians in Medina -- The canon in action -- Teaching the canon -- The canon in religious debates and electronic media -- The canon in politics -- Boko Haram and the canon -- Boko Haram from Salafism to Jihadism -- Reclaiming the canon

Based on a decade of fieldwork in southeastern Ghana and analysis of secondary sources, this book aims to reconstruct the religious history of the Anlo-Ewe peoples from the 1850s. In particular, it focuses on a corpus of rituals collectively known as 'Fofie', which derived their legitimacy from engaging with the memory of the slave-holding past. The Anlo developed a sense of discomfort about their agency in slavery in the early twentieth century which they articulated through practices such as ancestor veneration, spirit possession, and by forging links with descendants of peoples they formerly enslaved. Conversion to Christianity, engagement with 'modernity', trans-Atlantic conversations with diasporan Africans, and citizenship of the postcolonial state coupled with structural changes within the religious system - which resulted in the decline in Fofie's popularity - gradually altered the moral emphases of legacies of slavery in the Anlo historical imagination as the twentieth century progressed

'Philosophising in Mombasa' provides an approach to the anthropological study of philosophical discourses in the Swahili context of Mombasa, Kenya. Entry-points and guidelines for the ethnography are provided by discussions on Swahili literary genres, life histories, and social debates

"Drawing on two decades of research this social and political history of North-Western Ghana traces the creation of new ethnic and territorial boundaries, categories and forms of self-understanding, and represents a major contribution to debates on ethnicity, colonialism and the 'production of history'. It explores the creation and redefinition of ethnic distinctions and commonalities by African and European actors, showing that ethnicity's power derives from a contradiction: while ethnic identities purport to be non-negotiable, creating permanent bonds, stability and security, the boundaries of the communities created and the associated traits and practices are malleable and adaptable to specific interests and contexts."--Jacket

Philosophising in Mombasa provides an approach to the anthropological study of philosophical discourses in the Swahili context of Mombasa, Kenya. In this historically established Muslim environment, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, philosophy is investigated as social discourse and intellectual practice, situated in everyday life. This is done from the perspective of an 'anthropology of philosophy', a project which is spelled out in the opening chapter. Entry-points and guidelines for the ethnography are provided by discussions of Swahili literary genres, life histories, and social debates. From here, local discourses of knowledge are described and analysed. The social environment and discursive dynamics of the Old Town are portrayed, firstly, by means of following and contextualising informal discussions among neighbours and friends at daily meeting points in the streets; and secondly, by presenting and discussing in-depth case studies of local intellectuals and their contributions to moral and intellectual debates within the community. Taking recurrent internal discussions on social affairs, politics, and appropriate Islamic conduct as a focus, this study sheds light on local practices of critique and reflection. In particular, three local intellectuals (two poets, one Islamic scholar) are portrayed against the background of regional intellectual history, Islamic scholarship, as well as common public debates and private discussions. The three contextual portrayals discuss exemplary issues for the wider field of research on philosophical discourse in Mombasa and the Swahili context on the whole, with reference to the lives and projects of distinct individual thinkers. Ultimately, the study directs attention beyond the regional and the African contexts, towards the anthropological study of knowledge and intellectual practice around the world.

1.Introduction --2.Place, space and frame --3.The failure of the state --4.Bounded revolt --5.Generations, resources and ideas --6.Commanding the territory --7.The private utopia --8.Realism and revolution --9.Nationalism and theatricality --10.From victory to defeat --11.Memory and forgetting --12.Epilogue.