- Explores the dynamic processes by and through which scholars have described and understood African history and culture
- Includes selections from anthropologists, historians, philosophers, and critics who collectively reveal the interpenetration of ideas and concepts within and across disciplines, regions, and historical periods
- Offers a combined focus on ethnography and theory, giving students the means to link theory with data and perspective with practice
- Newly revised and updated edition of this popular text with 14 brand new chapters and two new sections: Conflict and Violent Transformations; and Development, Governance and Globalization
1. Jean and John Comaroff
1991. “Africa Observed: Discourses of the Imperial Imagination
2. Cheikh Anta Diop
1974. “The Meaning of Our Work,”
3. Kwame Anthony Appiah
1993. “Europe Upside Down: Fallacies of the New Afrocentrism
4. V.Y. Mudimbe
1988. “Discourse of Power and Knowledge of Otherness,”
II. From Tribe to Ethnicity: Kinship and Social Organization
5. Evans-Pritchard, E.E. The Nuer: Time and Space
6. Southall, Aidan W. The Illusion of Tribe
7. Vail, Leroy. Ethnicity in Southern African History
III. Economics as a Cultural System
8. Douglas, M. Lele Economy Compared with the Bushong
9. Coquery-Vidrovitch, C. Research on an African Mode of Production
10. Hutchinson, S. The Cattle of Money and the Cattle of Girls among the Nuer, cf. Smith
IV. Hunter-Gatherers in Africa
11. Turnbull, C. M. The Lesson of the Pygmies
12. Grinker, R.R. Houses in the Rainforest
13. Wilmsen, E. Land Filled with Flies
14. Solway, J. S. and R. B. Lee. Foragers, Genuine or Spurious?
V. Witchcraft, Science and Rationality
15. Livingstone, D. Conversations on Rain-making
16. Evans-Pritchard, E.E. The Notion of Witchcraft Explains Unfortunate Events
17. Winch, P. Understanding a Primitive Society
18. Austen, Ralph A
1993. “The Moral Economy of Witchcraft.”
VI. Ancestors, Gods, and the Philosophy of Religion
19. Griaule, M. Conversations with Ogotommeli
20. Houtondji, P. J. African Philosophy, Myth and Reality
21. Kopytoff, I. ancestors as Elders in Africa, cf. Lubkemann, West
VII. Arts, Aesthetics, and Heritage
22. Simon Ottenberg
1972. “Humorous Masks and Serious Politics among the Afikpo Igbo,”
23. Olu Oguibe
1999. “Art, Identity, Boundaries: Postmodernism and Contemporary African Art,”
24. Kelly M. Askew. As Plato Duly Warned: Music, Politics and Social Change in Costal East Africa
25. Bayo Hosley. “In Place of Slavery: Fashioning Coastal Identity.”
VIII.Sex and Gender Studies in Africa
26. Boserup, E. The Economics of Polygamy
27. Van Allen, J. “Sitting on a Man”
28. LeClerc, S. Virginity Testing: Managing Sexuality in a Maturing HIV/AIDS Epidemic
IX. Europe in Africa: Colonization
29. Lugard, F.D. The Dual Mandate
30.Rodney, W. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
31. Ranger, T. The Invention of Tradition in Colonial Africa
32. Ngugi, W. T. Detained: A Writer’s Prison Diary
X. Nations and Nationalism
33.Senghor, L. S. Negritude: A Humanism of the Twentieth Century
34. Fanon, F. On National Culture
35. Berman, B. Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Modernity: The Paradox of Mau Mau
36. Steiner, C.B. The Invisible Face: Masks, Ethnicity, and the State in Cote d’Ivoire
XI. Violent Transformations: Conflict and Displacement
37. Gluckman, Max. Order and Rebellion in Tribal Africa
38. Richards, P. "Fighting for the Rainforest"
39. Taylor, C. Sacrifice as Terror: The Rwandan Genocide of 1994
40. Lubkemann, S. Where to be an Ancestor
XII. Development, Governance and Globalization
41. Ferguson, J. “Expectations of Modernity”
42. Uvin, P. Development Aid and Structural Violence: The case of Rwanda
43. Daniel J. Smith. “Culture of Corruption”
44. J.Francois-Bayart. “The Politics of the Belly.”
45. West, H. “ ‘Govern Yourselves’, Democracy and Carnage in Northern Mozambique”
46. Shandy, D. “Nuer-American Passages”
Stephen C. Lubkemann George Washington University, USA.
Christopher B. Steiner Connecticut College, USA.