bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The politics of transporting
Authors: Peace Adrian
Published: April 2006

Opening Paragraph

This paper describes the political organisation of transporting in Agege, a Nigerian town located on the northern boundary of Lagos. Its aim is to provide an anthropological interpretation of this important domain of modern entrepreneurship, for, while social anthropologists have increasingly studied African urban economies, the analysis of transportation remains the preserve of economists and geographers. When anthropologists do make mention of those who own vehicles geared to the movement of produce and passengers, their social and political significance is confirmed. Wealthy Hausa transporters emerge as key figures in Cohen's (1969) careful dissection of the Sabon Gari of Ibadan, while Peel (1983) details how those traders who were also transporting magnates exercised continuous influence in the political transformation of Ijesha throughout much of the present century. Despite such occasional commentaries, the organisation of transportingper seremains a field unexplored by anthropologists. Accordingly, it is the micropolitics of relationships between bus owners, drivers and conductors that constitute my major concern, although the analysis also leads to examining relationships between prominent transporters and those who exercise authority in the contemporary Nigerian state.
Thomas Decker and the death of Boss Coker
Authors: Shrimpton Neville
Published: April 2006

Opening Paragraph

Thomas Alexander Leighton Decker,o.b.e., teacher, journalist, broadcaster, poet, dramatist, linguist and senior civil servant—to name only some of the major occupations or preoccupations of his busy life—was the man who, more than any other, crusaded for the acceptance of Krio as a language in its own right. At a time when others dismissed Sierra Leone's mainlingua francaas a debased or corrupt form of English and failed to recognise its distinct identity and full potential, Thomas Decker never once faltered in his conviction that it was as good a language as any other. He spent much of his life trying to convince others of the truth of this, and the fact that Krio has at last begun to gain the acceptance he sought for it is in no small measure due to him and his efforts on its behalf.
The loibon as sorcerer: a Samburu loibon among the Ariaal Rendille, 1973–87
Authors: Fratkin Elliot
Published: April 2006

Abstract

Historical studies of the Maasailoibonokhave emphasised their ritual and political leadership, particularly during the inter-Maasai warfare of the nineteenth century. This study of a modern Samburuloibonillustrates that theloibon'sprimary activity i n non-crisis periods is the private performance of rituals of divination (nkidong) and the dispensation of protective medicines (ntasim) to combat acts of sorcery. Although the loibon will occasionally perform public divinations and protect communities from natural misfortune with ntasim, these activities are infrequent and secondary to his main role.

Lekati Leaduma practisedntasimandnkidongamong the Ariaal Rendille of northern Kenya until his death in 1987, mainly among communities isolated from administrative centres with adequate medical care and police protection. This study analyses thenkidongandntasimof Leaduma as private curative rituals, and suggests historical and symbolic linkages and differences with other Samburu and Maasailoibonok. It is argued that, although Samburuloibonokaspire to leadership and moral authority, their association with sorcery and supernatural power isolates them as dangerous outsiders to moral Samburu society.
The dirty smith: smell as a social frontier among the Kapsiki/Higi of north Cameroon and north-eastern Nigeria
Authors: Beek Walter E. A. van
Published: April 2006

Among the Kapsiki/Higi of the Mandara mountains the division between black-smith and non-smith pervades society. Blacksmiths dominate technical and ritual specialisations—including the forge—and through their association with death are considered dirty. One way in which this opposition is expressed is through the definition of smell.

Using ideophones, the Kapsiki distinguish fourteen types of smell, each associated with specific ‘smelly’ objects, animals or persons (i.e. blacksmiths). The definition of smells by blacksmiths, however, is different from that of non-smiths; also the women of both ‘castes’ define smell differently from the men. Whereas men use the definition of smell to accentuate the gap between smith and non-smith, the women tend to mediate the division.

In Kapsiki culture smell is not associated with notions of evil or witchcraft. It is, however, tied in with burial, which in Kapsiki culture entails protracted exposure to a decomposing corpse. The connection smith-corpse may be one reason for the smelly definition of the smith. Another may be the notion of ambivalence and the tendency to draw strict dividing lines between social groups. Smell in Kapsiki seems to stress borderline situations and the mutual dependence of opposing groups.
The role of language in West African Islam
Authors: Brenner Louis , Last Murray
Published: April 2006

Opening Paragraph

‘A translation of the meaning of the Holy Koran into the Hausa language’ – this is the careful wording of the title of the work sponsored by the Jama'atu Nasril Islam (whose President is the Sultan of Sokoto) and signed by Abubakar Mahmoud Gummi, the chairman of its executive committee and former Grand Khadi (Gummi, 1980). It is, in short, as official a Muslim publication as there can be in Nigeria. The Arab text (set in a standard Beirutnaskhtypeface) is on the right of the page, the Hausa, in roman script (boko), on the left; yet colleagues say that the Hausa still reads as if it was simply part of an oral, abbreviated tafsiri transcribed for printing. Though it is nowhere labelled as tafsiri, it has some footnotes and a sentence introducing each sura; and it is a truly vernacular translation – that is, it is not as awkward to read as, say, the books translated by Haliru Binji into what one could best describe as ‘malamanci’. Lastly, the printed text originally was circulated in sections – in part, it is said, to assess people's reactions to a Hausa translation of the Holy Koran being sold in the streets of Nigerian cities. It is a measure of the public's acceptance of this work – which is in reality no more than a printed version of the various oral ‘translations’ one can hear every year in public, on the radio or on tape – that not merely has it now appeared as a single volume but that it has already gone into a second edition; indeed, Alhaji Nasiru Kabara has now almost completed the process of producing his own version.
Land expropriation and accumulation in the Sokoto periphery, Northwest Nigeria 1976–86
Authors: Swindell K. , Mamman A. B.
Published: April 2006

Opening Paragraph

In 1976, Sokoto became the capital of the newly created Sokoto State, one of nineteen comprising Federal Nigeria. This caliphal city and former colonial provincial town subsequently experienced an exponential growth of population from some 80,000 to around 200,000 by 1980. The city expanded physically into the surrounding countryside and new buildings and infrastructures absorbed large areas of farmland, and encircled several villages. This urban advance into the countryside was exacerbated by the fact that it took place within a densely populated area of annual upland cultivation, dissected by tracts of dry-season irrigated floodland. Not surprisingly, access and rights to farmland have become highly charged and sensitive issues. The peripheries and hinterlands of many Nigerian towns have become arenas of conflict and change, where state expropriation and private accumulation have dispossessed and impoverished rural people. The state has taken over land for institutional use or agricultural development projects, while urban and rural capital have accumulated land for speculative building on the edges of cities and for farming within the surrounding countryside. The increased numbers of landless and, more important, the land-poor constitute new kinds and degrees of rural poverty.
Marriage rules on the Plateau: an exchange
Authors: Muller J. C. , Sharp Barrie
Published: April 2006

In his recent review article (Sharpe, 1983) Barrie Sharpe submits two of my books (Muller, 1976, 1981) to dissection but he does so in such a carefree manner, with so many mistakes and gratuituous assumptions, that I am prompted to reply in order to set the record straight.

I am first accused of not having dealt with ’religious conversion, social change and economy in [my] two books’. This is partly true forDu bon usage, and I have explained the reasons for not analysing the matrimonial changes brought about by British colonization (p. 28). It would have made too cumbersome a book and would have been beside the point. As forParenté et manage, I have dealt with ‘economy, social change and conversion’ (pp. 46–67 for economy; 99–100 on the changes in bridewealth payments for literate people; 138–40 about the introduction of reimbursement of bridewealth, for instance, but there are many more changes examined together with the influence of Christianity on marriage throughout the book). These aspects are also covered in three articles published separately: one on inter-tribal trade, another on conversion, and a third on economic change and tin mining, a topic also dealt with in the review article in question (Muller, 1972, 1974, 1980a).
The contextual significance of the charismatic movements in independent Nigeria
Authors: Ojo Matthews A.
Published: April 2006

Introduction

The emergence of the charismatic movements in Nigeria in the 1970s is a remarkable religious phenomenon. Their rapid growth and success could be attributed to many factors, but the central factor which clearly emerges is that the movements have been presented in a manner acceptable and relevant to Nigerians, and they have been adapted to the situation in Nigeria. The continuous growth of the movements into the 1980s suggests that they are acting as responses to certain areas of need in Christian commitment in Nigeria. The concept of contextualisation is therefore the major key to an understanding of their rapid growth. Were it not for their contextualisation, the movements might have crystallised without any growth or might even have condemned themselves to decline and dissolution.
State intervention and commodity production in Ugogo: a historical perspective
Authors: Thiele G.
Published: April 2006

Introduction

During the 1970s the Tanzanian state moved a very substantial part of the rural population into nucleated settlements. This was followed by the setting up of new village institutions. It was villagization in a double sense: the creation of physical ‘villages’ from dispersed households and the establishment of corporate ‘villages’ (more precisely, village councils) intended to regulate the activities of those households. It was an intervention officially justified as a means of increasing collective consumption (through the provision of health care, schools and other services) and simultaneously of transforming an essentially traditional hoebased agricultural system (by facilitating the use of modern inputs). External commentators have seen it either as a large scale example of misguided bureaucratic practice (Coulson, 1977) or as part of a process of state expansion intended to increase control over peasant production (Bernstein, 1981; Hyden, 1980). My objective here is not to provide another theoretical commentary, but to show that ultimately any overall assessment of the impact of villagization must rest upon detailed analyses of particular local economies. I have restricted my discussion of this impact to household production.
Access, control and use of resources in African agriculture: An Introduction
Authors: Berry Sara
Published: April 2006

Recent literature on the agrarian crisis in Africa questions the adequacy of a technocratic approach to explaining and alleviating the crisis. Bringing about sustained growth in African agricultural output and rural incomes will require more than a technological breakthrough. Farmers' capacity to employ improved technology and to increase output and investment depends on their access to productive resources—broadly defined to include not only human, financial and material inputs, but also the knowledge and institutional means to use them effectively. To advance knowledge of the causes of the agrarian crisis and strengthen capacity to develop meaningful measures to alleviate it, it is necessary to understand the conditions under which African farmers gain access to productive resources and the ways in which conditions of access affect resource use and agricultural performance.
The adaptability of African communal land tenure to economic opportunity: the example of land acquisition for oil palm farming in Ghana
Authors: Gyasi Edwin A.
Published: April 2006

A school of thought sees the African communal system of land ownership as an inherently conservative arrangement which does not adapt or adapts only slowly to economic opportunity and, therefore, acts as a constraint on development. However, this view, which partly underlies the call for radical land reform measures such as nationalisation, is, generally, not borne out by the performance of the Ghanaian system as assessed on the basis of historical evidence and the findings of a recent survey of peasant oil palm farming. In the nineteenth century, when there was a substantial increase in demand for land for the oil palm against a background of relative land abundance in Ghana, the system responded with land sales, tenancy and other temporary transfers which allowed enterprising migrant farmers, notably Krobo farmers, access to land, while sufficient parcels were retained for use by the communal owners, including the Akyem people, the major vendors of land for oil palm and cocoa farming in the forest zone. This response pattern was repeated in subsequent periods characterised by greater demand for land for the cultivation of cocoa, which supplanted the oil palm as the premier export early in the present century. Further evidence of the adaptability of the communal system is provided by its response to the renewed demand for land in respect of the remarkable post-1970 oil palm boom. A recent sample study of oil palm farming in the Kade, Twifo Praso and Pretsea - Adum Banso areas in the heart of the oil palm belt found that the communal system had been responding to the renewed demand for land associated with the crop's growing profitability, mainly by temporary transfer arrangements to the almost total exclusion of outright sale, apparently to protect the sovereign interest of the community of owners and to secure land for their own use in the wake of rapidly expanding population, urbanisation and attendant increasing land scarcity. But the communal system as traditionally organised continues to be characterised by the insecurity of the tenure granted, especially to stranger farmers, while there are signs that the number of inequitable tenancies is on the increase. These problems might be minimised and land development enhanced by greater enforcement of the new land title registration law, and byflexibletenancy and other land-holding regulatory measures within the general framework of a free market system.
‘Caste’ in Africa: the evidence from south-western Ethiopia reconsidered
Authors: Pankhurst Alula
Published: April 2006

This article questions the prevalent use of the ‘caste’ concept to describe marginalised occupational minorities in the south-western Ethiopian context. Three types of objection are discussed: ideological, genetic and structural, relating to cultural, historical and social factors respectively. In ideological terms, marginalisation is generally not justified through a coherent religious philosophy; myths are often absent, are seldom elaborate and do not explain adifferentialranking of occupational groups. Notions of pollution are prevalent and usually presented in the dominant idiom of food transgressions; but the farming majority is not considered pure. In genetic terms, none of the existing models explains the origins of all marginalised groups. Whereas the ‘remnants’ model is largely discredited, and the ‘internal differentiation’ model currently favoured, this article emphasises the importance of migration, which is intimately linked with non-farming occupations as well as with marginalised and minority statuses. The lack of a single cross-culturally valid model, combinations of explanations, and differences among various types of occupational groups within and between groups, all militate against a ‘caste’ interpretation of the origins of marginalised groups in south-western Ethiopia. In structural terms ‘caste’ is not used for the farming majority but only for minority craftsmen and hunters. However, the argument that relations between the marginalised and the dominant groups are based on dyadic patron-client relations does not invalidate the clear structural political, economic and social marginalisation. As for the argument that the marginalised form a single undifferentiated bloc, it is suggested that, though strict hierarchies are rare, endogamy makes for differentiation. Rather than a lack of ranking, spatial variations and changes over time deserve explanation; this suggests that one cannot speak of a coherent organisational principle such as one would expect to find in ‘caste’ societies. It is concluded that the lack of a uniform ideological cultural underpinning, the complex and varied origins and processes of marginalisation, and the specific structural relations between the majority and the dominated groups, all suggest that the ‘caste’ concept is of minimal analytical value and is therefore best left to the Indian context. A better understanding of marginalisation can start by analysing different local conceptions, and how endogamy structures differentiation and is related to occupation. A clearer analysis of marginalisation processes would mean tracing migrations, competition for resources and changing technological, economic, social and cultural relations between craft producers and dominant groups and interactions across ethnic boundaries.
Dagara bagr: ritualising myth of social foundation
Authors: Tengan Alexis B.
Published: April 2006

The article explores the ritualising processes of a myth of social foundation, the bagr myth, among the Dagara of north-west Ghana and south-west Burkina Faso. It describes how rituals form part of the daily life of the Dagara and shows how bagr rituals form a series of private and public events lasting the whole year or the bagr season. The article describes the social life in the neighbourhood within which most ritual activities take place and outlines the historical events which are possibly responsible for the creation of the bagr myth itself as a narrative text. The rest of the article is devoted to the ritualising processes of the bagr myth. Much of the article, particularly this section, is structured around the author's own experiences and participant observation of ritual activities. The aim is to show why the public rituals of bagr are not about initiating particular individuals into a secret society or lodges but are about how Dagara society constitutes itself. The day and night ritual narration of the bagr myth involving different segments of society and described in detail in the second half of the article seems to justify this claim. The article includes excerpts from bagr narratives recorded by the author to illustrate how the text is being constructed and the sort of information it is intended to communicate.
Power, legitimacy and ‘democratisation’ in Africa
Authors: Schatzberg Michael G.
Published: April 2006

This article explores the cultural bases of political legitimacy in sub-Saharan Africa. It proceeds by concentrating on the language, imagery, and metaphors that Africans use to convey perceptions about politics and political life. After examining the nature of power and reflecting on the importance of political language, it presents four premises of a model called the moral matrix of legitimate governance, noting their relation to political legitimacy. In conclusion it relates the analysis of power and legitimacy to the political turmoil current throughout much of Africa, focusing specifically on the question of ‘democratisation’.
Decentralisation, participation and accountability in Sahelian forestry: legal instruments of political-administrative control
Authors: Ribot Jesse C.
Published: April 2006

Colonial relations of political administration are being reproduced in the current era of participation and decentralisation. In natural resource management, participation and decentralisation are promoted on the basis that they can increase equity, yield greater efficiency, benefit the environment and contribute to rural development. Reaping these benefits is predicated on (1) the devolution of some real powers over natural resources to local populations, and (2) the existence of locally accountable authorities to whom those powers can be devolved. However, a limited set of highly circumscribed powers are being devolved to locally accountable authorities, and most local authorities to whom powers are being devolved are systematically structured to be upwardly accountable to the central state, rather than downwardly accountable to local populations. Many of the new laws being passed in the name of participation and decentralisation administer rather than enfranchise. The article examines the historical legal underpinnings of the powers and accountability of state-backed rural authorities (chiefs and rural councils), the authorities through which current natural resource management projects in Burkina Faso and in Mali represent local populations, and the decisions being devolved to local bodies in new natural resource management efforts. Without reform local interventions risk reproducing the inequities of their centralised political-administrative context. Rather than pitting the state against society by depicting the state as a negative force and society and non-state institutions as positive—as is done in many decentralisation and participatory efforts—this article suggests that representation through local government can be the basis of general and enduring participation by society in public affairs.
Negotiating Asante family survival in Kumasi, Ghana
Authors: Clark Gracia
Published: April 2006

Extreme flexibility in the residential and financial arrangements attached to marriage and matrilineal kinship have remained a consistent characteristic of Asante throughout this century. The constant renegotiation processes that constitute and renew family relations have kept them remarkably strong through a series of radical changes in the enacted content and boundaries of those relations, linked with dramatic fluctuations in the economic and political environment of Ghana. The degree of personal agency sustaining this Asante social framework has challenged and stretched a succession of theoretical models, since this negotiability extends to the principles and limits of negotiation itself. The continuing vitality of Asante matriliny actually requires a high degree of individual autonomy, including the economic autonomy that anchors the negotiating position of each social adult. Recent life history work among Kumasi women traders shows that the elastic framework of family relations can absorb considerable change in the expectations and the balance of power between spouses or between parents and children as long as the pace remains slow enough and individual self-reliance stable enough to preserve the continuity of the renegotiation process. The economic crisis of the final decade of the century has threatened the basis of social reproduction by reducing the opportunities for financial independence. Without basic autonomous subsistence young men and women can no longer function effectively as Asante adults.
The impact of British imperialism on the landscape of female slavery in the Kano palace, northern Nigeria
Authors: Nast Heidi J.
Published: April 2006

Spatial analysis of the Kano palace shows that colonial abolitionist policies enacted in northern Nigeria after the British conquest of 1903 affected the lives and places of female and male slaves differently. The differences derived from historical differences in the placement and function of slave women and men in the palace: whereas slave women lived and/or worked in a vast secluded private domain and engaged in state household reproduction on behalf of the emir, male state slaves inhabited ‘public’ places and held state-related offices. Colonial abolitionist policies, which restructured traditional ‘public’ spheres of state, accordingly forcefully altered male slave spaces while the private domain of female slavery initially went largely undisturbed. In time, as palace slave patronage was more severely undermined, domestic slave women left the palace to follow slave husbands and/or heads of households who had been exiled or who were in search of better outside opportunities, resulting in a decrease in the reserve of slave women from which concubines were chosen. The reserve declined further as slave men were permitted to marry freeborn women, resulting in a marked decrease in concubine numbers and a marked transformation of the internal organisation of the inner household. The spatial organisation of female slavery in the palace was thus affected indirectly and later than that of male slavery.

The article demonstrates the utility of spatial analysis in understanding historical change and points to the need for greater sensitivity to issues of gender, ‘class’ and power in analyses of slavery and its abolition. It was the gender, wealth and power of royal patrons as well as the state-level skills and authority of male palace slaves, for example, that initially led British officials to promote state slavery for their own ends—advantages for slaves that women and/or masters of lesser means could not provide. Ironically, it was because male slaves held so much authority that British officials eventually intervened directly to erode their places and powers. The analysis establishes that the spatial organisation of slavery was constructed and eroded variably across time and place.
The failure of ethnic nationalism: land, power and the politics of clanship on the South African high veld 1860–1990
Authors: Bank Leslie
Published: April 2006

During the 1980s a great deal was written about the role of missionaries, anthropologists, colonial officials and intellectuals in the ‘invention’ of ethnic and tribal categories in Africa. Today few scholars would question the complicity of colonial agents in the construction of ethnic or tribal identities. Despite these interventions, however, there is a growing realisation that processes of ethnicity formation are contingent on other factors as well. This article explores this proposition by investigating the role of the sub-ethnic politics of clanship in the north-eastern Orange Free State of South Africa over the past century and its specific contribution to thefailureof ethnic nationalism in the region. It concludes that, given the abuse of ethnicity by the South African state, there is an enormous temptation to over-determine the role of the state in ethnic formation in South Africa and to underplay the internal dynamics of ethnicity building.
Art as process and product: patronage and the problem of change in Tuareg blacksmith/artisan roles
Authors: Rasmussen Susan J.
Published: April 2006

This article contributes to recent dialogues in anthropology and African humanities on the problematic translation and application of Western and non-Western aesthetic concepts—for example, ‘authentic’ ‘original’ and ‘touristic’—in the domain of artisan practices. It analyses, compares and contrasts art patronage among the Nigérien Tuareg in rural and urban social settings. The role of Tuareg ‘smiths’, a word variously translated in local conversation and ethnographic literature as ‘artisans’, ‘technicians’ and ‘jewellers’, suggests a need to revise cross-cultural perspectives on the ceremonial, aesthetic and commercial aspects of artisan activity. The article focuses upon changing roles, the materials craftsmen use and the beliefs surrounding blacksmiths. It argues that these complexes of action and belief have a bearing not solely upon art products but also on ritual and socio-economic processes to which producer, patron and audience contribute in different settings and contexts.
Introduction: the urban–rural connection: changing issues of belonging and identification
Authors: Geschiere Peter , Gugler Josef
Published: April 2006

Since the 1960s researchers have emphasised the continuing importance of rural–urban connections as a special aspect of urbanisation in Africa. It is clear that since then, in many parts of Africa, the involvement of urbanites with their ‘home’ village has increased rather than decreased. Four of the articles in this issue were originally papers presented at two ASA panels (Toronto, 1994) which set out to explore these rural–urban connections. The content of the exchanges and the moral involvement of city people and villagers in such relations vary greatly. The variations have important implications for regional differences in, for instance, the development of new modes of accumulation or the cementing of ethnic networks. The other article (by Dickson Eyoh) addresses the effects of recent political changes in this context—a theme also raised by the other articles. In many parts of Africa democratisation seems to evoke an obsession with ‘autochthony’, origin and belonging. The increasing role of elite associations, as an alternative to multi-party politics, makes the rural connection of vital importance to urban politicians. Hence ‘the village’, and more generally the region of origin, acquire new importance as a power base in national politics.
‘Dangerous to eat’: rethinking pollution states among the Nuer of Sudan
Authors: Hutchinson Sharon
Published: April 2006

This article offers a novel interpretation of a highly complex and deadly form of pollution (nueer) that powerfully shapes contemporary social relations among the Nuer of Sudan. Through a careful examination of the myriad events thought to trigger off the condition nueer, the author challenges earlier attempts by Evans-Pritchard to interpret this condition via Judaeo-Christian notions of ‘sin’. It is argued that nueer is better understood as a pollution concept that distinguishes—via the notion ‘dangerous to eat’ —blood flows that are culturally denned as negative, death-ridden and anomalous from others deemed to be properly mediated, positive and life-promoting. As a powerful force governing the social circulation of blood and food, nueer helps to ground these more abstract distinctions in the immediacies of bodily experience, thereby lending them greater significance and intensity.
Individualisation and the assault on customary tenure in Africa: title registration programmes and the case of Somalia
Authors: Besteman Catherine
Published: April 2006

Over the past forty years, programmes intended to individualise rights to land have been introduced across Africa. These programmes are supported by an ideology which argues that individualisation is a necessary prerequisite of agricultural investment and development. Utilising data collected on the effects of the national title registration programme in Somalia, and drawing on similar studies of registration programmes in other African countries, this article challenges the assumption that individualisation and registration necessarily result in improved agricultural investment and productivity. On the contrary, the data reviewed here suggest that such programmes have contributed to concentration of ownership, growing landlessness, insecurity of tenure, wealth inequalities, and even declining productivity in many areas. The motivation behind individualisation and registration programmes is analysed, including an examination of the colonial and Western ideological distinction between African ‘communal’ land tenure and modern Western individualised tenure, struggles for power over control of resources, and a tendency to treat land tenure as solely an economic (rather than social) institution.
The politics of elections in Botswana
Authors: Charlton Roger
Published: April 2006

Botswana's history of uninterrupted competitive elections since 1965, and the extensive literature that these contests have engendered, are re-examined in order, first, to illuminate the developing views of Batswana on the purposes and meanings of these events, second, to examine the evolution of electoral processes in that state, and third, to elucidate the effects that elections have had on the institutionalisation of a stable polity. A principal finding is that elections are increasingly widely accepted by the electorate, and that electoral outcomes are perceived as materially important to a population that apparently now judges candidates and parties very instrumentally on the basis of their observed political achievements. Electoral competition, in turn, has become an increasingly important factor in shaping some central elements in Botswana's political processes, perhaps particularly since the competition between government and opposition has emerged primarily as a contest between the ruling BDP and the aspirant BNF. Overall, the extensive data generated by earlier election studies, notably the results of recent mass opinion surveys, permit the development of a perspective on Botswana's politics that accords elections a more central role than has hitherto been conventional.
Reading Comprehension Instruction for Secondary Students: Challenges for Struggling Students and Teachers
Authors: Mastropieri Margo A. , Scruggs Thomas E. , Graetz Janet E.
Published: April 2006

This article describes research on reading comprehension instruction with secondary students with learning disabilities. Specific difficulties for the struggling reader at the secondary level are described, followed by a review of reviews of the reading comprehension instruction research. Specific details from the most promising practices that have scientific evidence are highlighted. These practices include peer tutoring that incorporates comprehension strategy instruction and elaborative strategies in history and science classes. Research using Inspiration software to generate spatially organized graphic organizers to facilitate comprehension of content-area instruction is presented. Finally, implications for practice and for future research are discussed.
Vocabulary Instruction for Students with Learning Disabilities: A Review of the Research
Authors: Bryant Diane Pedrotty , Goodwin Marilyn , Bryant Brian R. , Higgins Kellie
Published: April 2006

This article reviews research on vocabulary interventions involving students with learning disabilities. The purpose of the review was to summarize the findings of vocabulary intervention research and to present implications for vocabulary instruction. The studies were analyzed based on the following intervention research variables: word selection procedure, materials, instructional design and procedures, duration of the intervention, mastery criterion, measures of vocabulary learning (word knowledge level and reading comprehension), maintenance, and generalization (reading comprehension). Based on the selection criteria, six articles spanning the period from 1978 to the present were identified. Vocabulary interventions were categorized into four areas, computer-assisted instruction (CAI), fluency-building vocabulary practice activities, mnemonic strategy instruction, and concept enhancement instruction. Overall, positive results were found for the interventions on measures of immediate recall, maintenance, and generalization.
Middle Woodland Culture History in the Great Lakes Riverine Area
Authors: Struever Stuart
Published: April 2006

There are multiple structural and stylistic differences between local Middle Woodland expressions in the Great Lakes-Riverine area. These reflect not only different cultural systems but also in some cases different levels of cultural complexity. At present these manifestations are grouped into a single Hopewellian culture on the basis of selected artifact commonalities. Variations within Great Lakes-Riverine Middle Woodland are of several kinds: (1) complexes that include diagnostic Hopewellian culture artifacts are concentrated in the major river valleys, while apparently contemporary manifestations in neighboring localities lack Hopewellian forms; (2) if we employ artifact classes other than those used as Hopewellian diagnostics, Middle Woodland regional traditions can be defined that have distributions sharply different from those of specifically Hopewellian complexes; (3) comparison of Hopewellian manifestations in Ohio, Illinois, and elsewhere indicates that these are not local expressions of a homogeneous culture but probably representatives of more than one cultural system; and (4) structural analysis of Middle Woodland mortuary and subsistence-settlement patterns in two regions, Illinois and Ohio, indicates contrasting cultural systems. It is argued that if ceramics of the Havana tradition are classified according to criteria developed in the central Illinois Valley, then potentially significant local style variations will go unrecognized. Tentative definition of four microstyle zones within the Havana tradition illustrates the utility of a system of analysis geared to recognition of small-scale style differences.
Ambo: A New Preceramic Site in Peru
Authors: Ravines Rogger
Published: April 2006

At the Ambo site, chips, splinters, cores, and broken or unfinished implements were spread along a terrace of the Huallaga River near the city of Ambo, Department of Huanuco, Peru. Most of the finds are obviously rejects abandoned near the source of the material from which they were made. Projectile points are abundant and were made by the percussion method, although some were retouched by the pressure method. Many of these resemble projectile points of Lauricocha II and Canario in Peru and of Ayampitin and Intihuasi in the Argentine sierra region, which are dated between 6000 and 4000 B.C.
Rural Communities in the Black Warrior Valley, Alabama: The Role of Commoners in the Creation of the Moundville I Landscape
Authors: Maxham Mintcy D.
Published: April 2006

Mississippian sites are generally believed to fall into one of three categories: paramount political center, local political center, and farmstead. Elites lived at paramount and local centers while the rest of a polity’s population lived in scattered farmsteads. Archaeologists identify paramount and local centers by the presence of earthen mounds and usually classify all small sites without mounds as farmsteads. In this examination of rural settlement in the Moundville chiefdom, I argue that there was more variation in Mississippian landscapes than the traditional tripartite site classification scheme allows. The vessel assemblage from 1TU66, a small site in the Black Warrior Valley, does not reflect domestic activities, but rather suggests that this site was a place where neighbors gathered to share food as a community.
Response to Critique of the Claim of Cannibalism at Cowboy Wash
Authors: Lambert Patricia M. , Leonard Banks L. , Billman Brian R. , Marlar Richard A. , Newman Margaret E. , Reinhard Karl J.
Published: April 2006

The original authors of Billman et al. (2000) are joined by three other analysts from the Cowboy Wash research team to respond to the critique of this article by Dongoske et al. (2000). Dongoske and his coauthors state that Billman et al. (2000) failed to test alternative hypotheses or to consider alternative explanations for the findings at 5MT10010 and similar sites. The original authors point out that alternative hypotheses were examined and rejected, leaving a violent episode of cannibalism as the most plausible explanation for the remains found at 5MT10010. Dongoske et al. also question many aspects of the osteological, archaeological, coprolite, and biochemical analyses that were presented in the 5MT10010 study. Our response addresses issues of data collection, procedure, and interpretation, and attempts to clarify some points that were not fully developed in the original text due to length restrictions.
Picosa: The Elementary Southwestern Culture
Authors: Irwin-Williams Cynthia
Published: April 2006

Picosa is defined as a continuum of similar closely related preceramic cultures existing in the southwestern United States during the last three millennia before Christ. It is seen as representing the elementary period of the development of the Southwest as a discrete culture area and is believed to be the result of a cultural synthesis of uniform developments originating as early as 8000 B.C. Although similar to the Desert culture in a culture-typical sense, the Picosa is distinct in terms of detailed inventory and historic derivation. Its role as the progenitor of most of the ceramic period cultures of the Southwest is examined.
A Logical Sequence of Archaeological Objectives
Authors: Swartz B. K.
Published: April 2006

A series of seven idealized levels of procedure in conducting archaeological research is proposed: preparation, acquisition, analysis, interpretation, integration, comparison, and abstraction. This scheme was employed to investigate archaeological phenomena from Lava Beds National Monument, northern California.
Investigating Correlates of Sedentism and Domestication in Prehistoric North America
Authors: Odell George H.
Published: April 2006

Throughout the Holocene occupation of the North American continent, residential mobility declined while plant domestication increased. Direct results of these processes have been investigated through structural, paleobotanical and ceramic analyses, but have rarely been detected in assemblages of stone tools. This study involves intensive technological and use-wear analyses of lithic materials from five excavated sites in the Illinois Valley that span 7,500 years of the Holocene. Results of functional trends analyzed through time indicate that most of the specific activities and worked materials in which the tools were engaged are stochastic in nature. Nevertheless, certain trends, including increases in the proportion of chopping/percussion damage and the presence of hoeing wear in later components, are consistent with changes in mobility and plant manipulation. The presence of other coeval processes is indicated by increases in wear from drilling and projectile use. In addition, support is found for the contention that highly mobile foragers of the Early Holocene needed standardized, multi-functional implements such as bifaces. The decline in bifacial technologies throughout the Holocene provides a measure of increasing sedentism, as considerations of versatility and portability were eschewed in favor of more expedient technologies.
Prehistoric Marine Mammal Hunting on California's Northern Channel Islands
Authors: Colten Roger H. , Arnold Jeanne E.
Published: April 2006

Prehistoric marine mammal hunting is of interest to archaeologists worldwide because these animals were exploited by a wide range of coastal societies. Sorting out the roles of particular groups of fauna in prehistoric economies requires detailed attention to the analysis of the entire faunal assemblage. Although marine mammals typically provided large quantities of fat and protein and were desirable prey, they were not always central to the diets of the groups that exploited them, particularly in temperate zones. To evaluate effectively the importance of marine mammal exploitation, scholars should calculate the relative contribution of these animals to the economy, identify changes in hunting techniques, determine the relationship between fauna and other aspects of society, assess changing environmental conditions, and consider alternate explanations for those relationships. A large body of research on the northern Channel Islands of California demonstrates that fishing was relatively more important than marine mammal exploitation in subsistence and in stimulating sociopolitical and technological developments. Recent attempts to credit marine mammal hunting as a driving force in the invention of the plank canoe and the evolution of a chiefdom in the Santa Barbara Channel area misunderstand environmental factors and site histories in this region. Rather than assuming that a pan-Pacific Coast set of traditions existed to exploit these taxa, we see evidence of local and regional differences rooted in variable cultural settings, physiographic and oceanographic conditions, and available technologies. Data from the Santa Barbara Channel are used to explore the relationships among marine mammal use, sociological change, and environmental change.
Radiocarbon Analyses of Modern Organics at Monte Verde, Chile: No Evidence for a Local Reservoir Effect
Authors: Taylor R. E. , Vance Haynes C. , Kirner Donna L. , Southon John R.
Published: April 2006

Radiocarbon measurements have been obtained on contemporary plant samples collected at the site of Monte Verde, Chile, to examine the possibility that a locall4C reservoir effect impinges on the accuracy of thel4C values obtained on previously recovered archaeological samples. Thel4C activity of the modern plants do not reveal any offset from expected contemporaryl4C values and thus provide no support for a major postulated reservoir effect at least for the recent past. Although there is, at present, no direct means of measuring potentiall4C reservoir offsets in the late Pleistocene for this region, we are not aware of any current data that would indicate that there have been major changes during geologically recent times.
Archaeological Politics and Public Interest in Paleoamerican Studies: Lessons from Gordon Creek Woman and Kennewick Man
Authors: Owsley Douglas W. , Jantz Richard L.
Published: April 2006

This paper discusses the Kennewick lawsuit as it relates to the intended purposes of Nagpra. It also reflects upon comments made by Swedlund and Anderson (1999) in a recent American Antiquity Forum, which conceptually linked two ancient skeletons, Gordon Creek Woman and Kennewick Man. Their assertions indicate the need for clarifying specific issues and events pertaining to the case. We comment on how times have changed with the passage of NAGPRA, how differently these two skeletons have been treated by the media and the scientists interested in them, and show how discussions of biological affiliation have relevance. There is still much to be learned from Kennewick Man and Gordon Creek Woman. But attempts to bring the concept of race or racial typing into the picture show misunderstanding regarding the use of morphological data in tracing population historical relationships, not to mention obfuscating the scientific issues they raise.
Pots and Evolution: Response to Neff and Schiffer et al.
Authors: Loney Helen L.
Published: April 2006

This reply seeks to answer the comments by Neff and Schiffer et al. by stating the following: 1) evolutionary theory in archaeology is limited by the overextension of biological attributes to nonbiological artifacts, such as pottery; 2) evolutionary theory when applied to technological studies has an underlying technological determinist implication, and hence is inappropriate for use in the study of ancient technologies; 3) the subfields and disciplines of ceramic studies in archaeology are becoming increasingly isolated from each other and from the mainstream of interpretation, as evidenced by exclusionary bibliographies, language and study groups; and 4) ceramic studies are best approached on a contextual, case-by-case basis.
On a Fundamental False Dichotomy in Evolutionary Archaeology: Response to Hurt, Rakita, and Leonard
Authors: Ortman Scott G.
Published: April 2006

My comments on evolutionary archaeology (EA) were not intended to address assumptions of the neutral model of style, but rather the readiness of evolutionary archaeologists to conclude that decorative variation is selectively neutral. In light of this misunderstanding, I welcome the opportunity to clarify my position on implications of my research for EA, as there was insufficient space in the original article to do more than hint at the issues raised by Hurt and her coauthors.