International African Library – serie

This study of local perceptions of population and development in a rural southwestern Nigerian town questions some of the underlying assumptions of the demographic theory of fertility transition. Fertility transition theory and modernisation theory from which it derives have not explained why fertility remains high, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, despite the presence of some conditions associated with its decline in Western societies, nor why development, despite a plethora of projects, has failed to ‘take-off’. As this study demonstrates, neither fertility change nor development follows a universal trajectory. Whether lower fertility or Western models of development are viewed as possible or advantageous reflects cultural ideas about proper social relations as well as political and economic conditions, which may hinder or facilitate these changes. Key Features:Its example of grass-roots development complements economic development textsProvides an ethnographic study of fertility changeExamines the historical processes of social change in the context of Nigeria under military rule

At a time when so-called fundamentalism has become the privileged analytical frame for understanding Muslim societies past and present, this study offers an alternative perspective on Islam. In an innovative combination of anthropology, history, and social theory, Benjamin Soares explores Islam and Muslim practice in an important Islamic religious centre in West Africa from the late nineteenth century to the present. Drawing on ethnography, archival research, and written sources, Soares provides a richly detailed discussion of Sufism, Islamic reform, and other contemporary ways of being Muslim in Mali and offers an original analytical perspective for understanding changes in the practice of Islam more generally.

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.

This book is an account of murder and politics in Africa, and an historical ethnography of southern Annang communities during the colonial period. Its narrative leads to events between 1945 and 1948 when the imperial gaze of police, press and politicians was focused on a series of mysterious deaths in south-eastern Nigeria attributed to the 'man-leopard society'. These murder mysteries, reported as the 'biggest, strangest murder hunt in the world', were not just forensic but also related to the broad historical impact of commercial, Christian and colonial aid relations on Annang society.

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 study of knowledge and intellectual practice around the world.

This book explores the roles of contemporary urban shrines and their visual traditions in Benin City. It focuses on the charismatic priests and priestesses who are possessed by a pantheon of deities, the communities of devotees, and the artists who make artifacts for their shrines. The visual arts are part of a wider configuration of practices that include song, dance, possession and healing. These practices provide the means for exploring the relationships of the visual to both the verbal and performance arts that feature at these shrines. The analysis in this book raises fundamental questions about how the art of Benin, and non-Western art histories more generally, are understood. The book throws critical light on the taken-for-granted assumptions which underpin current interpretations and presents an original and revisionist account of Benin art history.

How do those on the margins of modernity face the challenges of globalization? This book demonstrates that secrecy is one of the means by which a society on the fringe of modernity produces itself as locality. Focusing on initiation rituals, masked performances and modern art, this study shows that rituals and performances long deemed obsolete, serve the insertion of their performers in the world at their own terms.The Jola and Mandinko people of the Casamance region in Senegal have always used their rituals and performances to incorporate the impact of Islam, colonialism, capitalism, and contemporary politics. Their performances of secrecy have accommodated these modern powers and continue to do so today. The performers incorporate the modern and redefine modernity through secretive practices. Their traditions are not modern inventions, but traditional ways of dealing with modernity.This book will interest anthropologists, historians, political scientists and all those studying how globalisation affects peripheral societies. It shows that secrecy, performed as a weapon of the weak, empowers their performers. Secrecy serves to mark boundaries and define the local in the global.

In this innovative study, Ben Jones argues that scholars too often assume that the state is the most important force behind change in local political communities in Africa. Studies look to the state, and to the impact of government reforms, as ways of understanding processes of development and change. Using the example of Uganda, regarded as one of Africa's few "success stories", Jones chronicles the insignificance of the state and the marginal impact of Western development agencies. Extensive ethnographic fieldwork in a Ugandan village reveals that it is churches, the village court, and organizations based on family and kinships obligations that represent the most significant sites of innovation and social transformation. Groundbreaking and critical in turn, Beyond the State offers a new anthropological perspective on how to think about processes of social and political change in poorer parts of the world. It should appeal to anyone interested in African development. Key features:*Offers a new approach to studying development and change*Gives a fresh perspective on Christianity in Africa*Looks at problems of international development assistance*Provides a rich ethnographic rural study from east Africa

Shaped around the stories of one extended family, their friends, neighbours, and community, Pandemic Kinship provides an intimate portrait of everyday life in Botswana's time of AIDS. It challenges assumptions about a 'crisis of care' unfolding in the wake of the pandemic, showing that care - like other aspects of Tswana kinship - is routinely in crisis, and that the creative ways families navigate such crises make them kin. In Setswana, conflict and crisis are glossed as dikgang, and negotiating dikgang is an ethical practice that generates and reorients kin relations over time. Governmental and non-governmental organisations often misread the creativity of crisis, intervening in ways that may prove more harmful than the problems they set out to solve. Moving between family discussions, community events, and the daily work of orphan care projects and social work offices, Pandemic Kinship provides provocative insights into how we manage change in pandemic times.

In 1978, Congolese inventor David Wabeladio Payi (1958–2013) proposed a new writing system, called Mandombe. Since then, Mandombe has grown and now has thousands of learners in not only the Democratic Republic of Congo, but also France, Angola and many other countries. Drawing upon Ramon Sarró's personal friendship with Wabeladio, this book tells the story of Wabeladio, his alphabet and the creativity that both continue to inspire. A member of the Kimbanguist church, which began as an anticolonial movement in 1921, Wabeladio and his script were deeply influenced by spirituality and Kongo culture. Combining biography, art, and religion, Sarró explores a range of ideas, from the role of pilgrimage and landscape in Wabeladio's life, to the intricacies and logic of Mandombe. Sarró situates the creative individual within a rich context of anthropological, historical and philosophical scholarship, offering a new perspective on the relationships between imagination, innovation and revelation.

Youth, Pentecostalism, and Popular Music in Rwanda offers fascinating insight into the lived experiences of young people in Rwanda through ethnographic analysis of the ambiguities and ambivalences that have accompanied the country's rapid post-genocide development. Andrea Mariko Grant considers how Pentecostalism and popular music offer urban young people ways to craft themselves and their futures; to imagine alternative ways to 'be' Rwandan and inhabit the city in the post-genocide era. Exploring the idiom of the heart – and efforts to transform it – this book offers a richly nuanced perspective of urban young people's everyday lives, their aspirations and disappointments, at a political moment of both great promise and great constraint. Rather than insist on a resistance-dominance binary, Grant foregrounds the possibilities of agency available to young people, their ability to make 'noise', even when it may lead to devastating consequences.

Bus stations are among the most prominent sites of social and economic activity in Africa. Integral to transport, trade, and exchange over distance, they provide livelihoods for large numbers of people. Through a detailed ethnography of one of Ghana's busiest long-distance bus stations, Michael Stasik explores the dialectical relationship between the ways in which people make the station work and how the station shapes popular economic engagement and social life. Drawing on a dual understanding of 'hustle' as a distinct mode of economic activity and organisation, as well as a marker of complex and sometimes bewildering situations, Stasik challenges dominant views of transport work in urban Africa, especially those wedded to generic notions of 'informality'. Bus Station Hustle offers a nuanced anthropological perspective on the hands-on work in and the institutional workings of an infrastructural hub of mobility and exchange. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.