Abner Cohen – författare

Based on Cohen's fieldwork in the 1960s among the Hausa migrants, a people of the Yoruba area (then the western region of the Federation of Nigeria), Custom and Politics in Urban Africa looks at how ethnic groups use elements of tradition in jostling for power and privilege in new urban situations. This is a landmark work in urban anthropology and provides a comparative framework for studying political processes in African societies.

A discussion of the process by which some ethnic groups manipulate values, myths, symbols and ceremonials from their traditional culture in order to develop an informal political organisation. This organisation is then used as a weapon in the struggle for power and privilege within contemporary society.

This book examines the complex phenomenon of urban ethnicity focussing on specific societies that include those in Britain, the USA, Indonesia, Israel and East, West and Central Africa. Dealing with basic question of theory and method the studies also present field material on urban ethnicity in different cultures. The topic is also examined within a broader sociological perspective, highlighting its significance for the development of social anthropology.Originally published in 1974.

This book examines the complex phenomenon of urban ethnicity focussing on specific societies that include those in Britain, the USA, Indonesia, Israel and East, West and Central Africa. Dealing with basic question of theory and method the studies also present field material on urban ethnicity in different cultures. The topic is also examined within a broader sociological perspective, highlighting its significance for the development of social anthropology.Originally published in 1974.

This title focuses on the dramatic process underlying the development of cultural mystique in the articulation of elite organization. The symbolic beliefs and practices involved act to reconcile, camouflage, or mystify a major contradiction in the development and functioning of elite groups, a contradiction between their universalistic functions and particularistic interests, between their duties to serve wider publics and their simultaneous endeavor to promote their own sectional power. Concentrating on the detailed, experimental study of one power elite within a modern small-scale nation-state--Sierra Leone--Cohen analyzes these processes. But his findings are systematically worked out within a general, cross-cultural comparative perspective, and he thereby further develops his earlier formulations about the instrumental functions of culture in politcal organization. Culture is analyzed in terms of symbolic forms, symbolic functions, and dramaturgical techniques. Politico-cultural causation is explored as it operates in chains of dramatic performances on different levels of social organization. Familiar, everyday symbolic events are taken out of their ordinary ideological sequences and, as Brecht would put it, thrown into crisis by showing their involvement in major power struggles. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1981.

Custom & Politics in Urban Africa: A Study of Hausa Migrants in Yoruba Towns offers a detailed examination of the intersection of custom, politics, and long-distance trade within the urban settings of West Africa. This scholarly work focuses on the Hausa communities in Yoruba towns, exploring how these migrant groups maintain cultural distinctiveness while adapting to new political and economic realities. Through an intensive study of the Hausa diaspora, the book highlights how traditional norms, values, and ceremonial practices are used to establish informal political organizations. These structures not only safeguard economic monopolies but also navigate the complexities of ethnic interaction and political power in rapidly evolving urban environments.Based on extensive fieldwork conducted in Nigeria from 1962 to 1963, the monograph provides a micro-historical perspective, tracing the sociopolitical and economic dynamics of Hausa communities within the broader context of post-colonial change. By analyzing processes such as ethnic reorganization, religious transformations, and the intricate workings of long-distance trade in cattle and kola, the book illuminates how ethnic groups use custom as a political strategy in diverse settings. Drawing on comparative analyses, the work contributes to understanding political ethnicity as a global phenomenon and positions social anthropology as integral to the study of power, identity, and societal transformation in modern contexts.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1969.

This title focuses on the dramatic process underlying the development of cultural mystique in the articulation of elite organization. The symbolic beliefs and practices involved act to reconcile, camouflage, or mystify a major contradiction in the development and functioning of elite groups, a contradiction between their universalistic functions and particularistic interests, between their duties to serve wider publics and their simultaneous endeavor to promote their own sectional power. Concentrating on the detailed, experimental study of one power elite within a modern small-scale nation-state--Sierra Leone--Cohen analyzes these processes. But his findings are systematically worked out within a general, cross-cultural comparative perspective, and he thereby further develops his earlier formulations about the instrumental functions of culture in politcal organization. Culture is analyzed in terms of symbolic forms, symbolic functions, and dramaturgical techniques. Politico-cultural causation is explored as it operates in chains of dramatic performances on different levels of social organization. Familiar, everyday symbolic events are taken out of their ordinary ideological sequences and, as Brecht would put it, thrown into crisis by showing their involvement in major power struggles. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1981.

Custom & Politics in Urban Africa: A Study of Hausa Migrants in Yoruba Towns offers a detailed examination of the intersection of custom, politics, and long-distance trade within the urban settings of West Africa. This scholarly work focuses on the Hausa communities in Yoruba towns, exploring how these migrant groups maintain cultural distinctiveness while adapting to new political and economic realities. Through an intensive study of the Hausa diaspora, the book highlights how traditional norms, values, and ceremonial practices are used to establish informal political organizations. These structures not only safeguard economic monopolies but also navigate the complexities of ethnic interaction and political power in rapidly evolving urban environments.Based on extensive fieldwork conducted in Nigeria from 1962 to 1963, the monograph provides a micro-historical perspective, tracing the sociopolitical and economic dynamics of Hausa communities within the broader context of post-colonial change. By analyzing processes such as ethnic reorganization, religious transformations, and the intricate workings of long-distance trade in cattle and kola, the book illuminates how ethnic groups use custom as a political strategy in diverse settings. Drawing on comparative analyses, the work contributes to understanding political ethnicity as a global phenomenon and positions social anthropology as integral to the study of power, identity, and societal transformation in modern contexts.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1969.

This study explores the dynamic relations between cultural forms and political formations in some urban cultural movements. The analysis is based on a detailed study of the structure and development of the London Notting Hill Carnival, widely described as Europe's biggest street festival. Started in 1966 as a small-scale, multi-ethnic local festival, it grew into a massive West-Indian dominated affair that over the years occasioned violent confrontations between black youth and the police. The carnival developed and mobilized a homogenous and communal West-Indian culture that helped in the struggle against rampant racism. The celebration is contrasted with other carnival movements, such as California's 'Renaissance Pleasure Faire'. Analytically, this is a follow-up to Cohen's earlier studies of the relations between drama and politics in some urban religious, ethnic and elitist movements in Africa. The conclusion focuses on the processes underlying the transformation of rational political strategies into non-rational cultural forms.

Based on Cohen's fieldwork in the 1960s among the Hausa migrants, a people of the Yoruba area (then the western region of the Federation of Nigeria), Custom and Politics in Urban Africa looks at how ethnic groups use elements of tradition in jostling for power and privilege in new urban situations. This is a landmark work in urban anthropology and provides a comparative framework for studying political processes in African societies.

A discussion of the process by which some ethnic groups manipulate values, myths, symbols and ceremonials from their traditional culture in order to develop an informal political organisation. This organisation is then used as a weapon in the struggle for power and privilege within contemporary society.

Central to this original study, first published in 1974, is that Political Man is also Symbolist Man, that man is two-dimensional. The book explores the possibilities of the systematic study of the dialectical interdependence between power relationships and symbolic action in modern, complex society. The discussion focuses on the processes by which interest groups, that cannot organise themselves formally, manipulate different types of symbolic formations to articulate a number of basic organisational functions: distinctiveness, communication, decision-making, authority, ideology and socialisation. The analysis is worked out in terms of specific case studies of different types of groupings, or ‘invisible organisations’ – ethnic, elitist, religious, ritually secret, cousinhood – which go through processes of cultural metamorphosis, shifting from one symbolic strategy to another, in response to changes in their circumstances. In conclusion, the discussion is brought to bear on the study of stratification in large-scale industrial society generally.