bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The world in creolisation
Authors: Hannerz Ulf 
Published: April 2006

Opening ParagraphFrom the time when I first became entangled with the Third World, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, I have been fascinated by those contemporary ways of life and thought which keep growing out of the interplay between imported and indigenous cultures. They are the cultures on display in market places, shanty towns, beer halls, night clubs, missionary book stores, railway waiting rooms, boarding schools, newspapers and television stations. Nigeria, the country I have been most closely in touch with in an on-and-off way for some time, because of its large size, perhaps, offers particular scope for such cultural development, with several very large cities and hundreds if not thousands of small and middle-size towns. It has a lively if rather erratic press, a popular music scene dominated at different times by such genres as highlife, juju and Afro-beat, about as many universities as breweries (approximately one to every state in the federal republic), dozens of authors published at home and abroad, schoolhouses in just about every village, and an enormous fleet of interurban taxicabs which with great speed can convey you practically from anywhere to anywhere, at some risk to your life.
Nature as myth, symbol and action: notes towards a historical understanding of development and conservation in Kenyan Maasailand
Authors: Knowles Joan N. , Collet D. P. 
Published: April 2006

Opening ParagraphHistory is often presented as a unilineal process whereby events follow on from each other in a causal sequence: A gives rise to B which in turn leads to C. While this structural form is extremely compelling as explanation, it has limitations when applied to the colonial encounter. The differences between the beliefs and practices of the people involved in this encounter, and the consequent variety in perceived significances of individual events, make it almost impossible to construct a unified history. The diversity of perceptions in historical events has been recognised and is most clearly seen in those historical accounts of the colonial encounter written from the perspective of the ‘other’ (Sahlins, 1981; 1985). However, these analyses, by focusing on events, still maintain the structural framework of conventional history.
The pastor and thebabalawo: the interaction of religions in nineteenth-century Yorubaland
Authors: Peel J. D. Y. 
Published: April 2006

1. The Priority of the EncounterThe system of divination called Ifa is among the most elaborate of African systems of divination and occupies a unique position in what is often called ‘Yoruba traditional religion’. That it is inappropriatesimplyto regard it as part of Yoruba traditional religion indicates the nature of our problem. For its saliency in Yoruba religion, as that has been conceived by commentators both Yoruba and non-Yoruba since the early nineteenth century, has precisely been because of its capacity to ‘ride’ social change, to detach itself from much of what Muslims and Christians call paganism, and to impose itself on the respectful attention of the modern educated.
Islamic protest under semi-industrial capitalism: 'Yan Tatsine explained
Authors: Lubeck Paul M. 
Published: April 2006

Opening ParagraphSince 1980, with considerable regularity during the dry season which propels the rural poor into the urban centres of northern Nigeria, religious riots have erupted in or adjacent to five cities: Kano (1980), Kaduna (1982), Bulum-Ketu near Maiduguri (1982), Jimeta near Yola (1984) and Gombe (1985). In each instance the conflict was remarkably similar. When confronted by the state authorities, an Islamic sect, the 'Yan Tatsine, unleashed an armed insurrection against the Nigerian security forces and those outside the sect, resulting in widespread destruction, in thousands of deaths and in millions of naira of property losses. Indeed, if one were to search for a historical equivalent in Nigerian history, only the communal riots of 1966 surpass the destruction wrought by the 'Yan Tatsine insurrections of the eighties. The account appearing inWest Africa, describing the Gombe outbreak, provides a typical press analysis of the insurrection:Fighting began early on Friday, April 29 when a detachment of police moved in to arrest suspected members of a maitatsine type religious sect in the Pantami ward of Gombe. The suspected leader of the religious group is a man named Yusufu Adamu. That was when all hell broke loose. Within hours, some streets had been littered with corpses many of them caught in the cross fire between fanatics and the law enforcement agents. [West Africa, 6 May 1985: 876]For the following analysis it is noteworthy that the correspondent describes the sect as a ‘maitatsine type’, that the insurrection erupted only when the police attempted to arrest an alleged leader and that the members of the dissident sect are labelled ‘fanatics’ without any supporting evidence.
Kikuyu women and the Harry Thuku disturbances: some uniformities of female militancy
Authors: Wipper Audrey 
Published: April 2006

Opening ParagraphAfrican men, like men everywhere, have dominated the public sphere, holding the vast majority of official positions of power and authority. In pre-colonial African societies women were formally subordinate to male authority and male dominance was buttressed by an ideology of male superiority and a status system where women showed deference to men. But formal systems, ideologies and codes of etiquette are not realities. In some societies women wielded considerable influence and authority, so much in fact that these systems have been characterised as dual-sex political systems with each sex managing its own affairs (Okonjo, 1976). Women were not so much involved in hierarchical orders of relationships as in complementary, mutually dependent relationships.
Ritual healing and political acquiescence: the case of the Zionist Churches in southern Africa
Authors: Schoffeleers Matthew 
Published: April 2006

AbstractZionist Churches, especially those emphasising healing, exhibit a strikingly acquiescent attitude towards South African State politicies. This article examines the evidence as well as the explanations that have been put forward by social scientists and theologians. The particular focus of the article, however, is on medical systems as mechanisms of social control, a perspective that in this context has tended to be overlooked.
The isusu: an institution for capital formation among the Ngwa Igbo; its origin and development to 1951
Authors: Nwabughuogu Anthony I. 
Published: April 2006

Opening ParagraphTwo contrasted viewpoints are adopted by scholars towards indigenous credit institutions in underdeveloped societies. The first holds that such institutions cannot play any significant role in capital formation in those societies. Thus Firth (1964: 15–34) doubts ‘if such credit associations can contribute substantially to capital formation to promote economic growth significantly’. The second viewpoint is held by those who accept the important contributions of these institutions in the process of development but understate their functions and value in the process of development. Geertz (1962: 241–63) belongs to this group. After analysing indigenous credit institutions in Asia and Africa, he asserts that they can serve as a kind of ‘middle rung’ in economic development. He sees them as an ‘educational mechanism in terms of which peasants learn to be traders not merely in the narrow occupational sense, but in the broad cultural sense’. These conclusions seem to have influenced other scholars studying credit institutions in Africa. For instance, in his study of credit associations among the Afikpo Igbo, S. Ottenberg (1968: 237–52) adopts much of Geertz's stance.
The Mozambican National Resistance Movement (RENAMO): a study in the destruction of an African country
Authors: Hall Margaret 
Published: April 2006

Opening ParagraphRENAMO is a shadowy movement and ill-understood, save for its well-established genesis as a military artefact of the Rhodesians, then its transition in 1980 to South African patronage. Lacking all the features we have come to associate with successful insurgencies in Africa, such as a charismatic leadership or easily identifiable ideology, it has failed to develop a political identity commensurate with its military strength. It has no clearly defined regional base, relies on widespread forced recruitment, and behaves with notorious brutality towards the civilian population. Yet it operates throughout the length and breadth of Mozambique, and holds the state in virtual paralysis. Since it lacks rear bases and therefore depends upon local provisioning, it must be able to obtain compliance over large areas of rural Mozambique. That also implies effective organisation.
Reform and repression under the Free French: economic and political transformation in the Côte d'Ivoire, 1942–45
Authors: Lawler Nancy 
Published: April 2006

Opening ParagraphFew dispute the proposition that the Second World War marked the beginning of the end of colonialism in Africa. The thesis developed by Hodgkin (1956), Crowder (1968, 1978) and Schachter-Morgenthau (1964)—that coalitions of African veterans, disgruntled planters, peasants and chiefs gave rise to anti-colonialist, nationalist political movements in the immediate post-war era—has not been seriously challenged. The general acceptance of this view has resulted in a neglect of the history of the colonies during the war years themselves. While there is now a growing interest in this subject, most studies of the independence movements begin with the emergence, in 1946, of recognisable political parties in British and French Africa. They take as starting points such visible events as the Brazzaville Conference, the 1946 French Constitution, the launching of the Convention Peoples Party in Ghana, or the founding of the Rassemblement Démocratique Africaine (RDA) in Bamako. What is needed now are thorough case studies of the specific policies and practices of the imperial powers during the Second World War and a consideration of the extent to which they acted as internal catalysts in the struggle for independence. This article, which is offered as a contribution to that end, looks at one chapter in the war experience of the Cote d'Ivoire.
Twins, incest and mediators: the structure of four Zulu folk tales
Authors: Hammond-Tooke W. D. 
Published: April 2006

AbstractThis article attempts to apply Levi-Straussian methods of myth analysis to four Zulu folk tales recorded by Callaway in the 1860s and published, with a number of other stories and fragments, with parallel English and Zulu texts. The folk tales were selected on the grounds that they all dealt with relationships within the family, and appeared to be making, at least subjectively, serious statements on matters of significance.Although they differed greatly in plot, character and locale, it transpired on analysis that all four stories contained the same deep structure. More particularly, all involved the interaction of sets of male and female twins, and all ended on the positive note of marriage. More strikingly, in each case there was a crucial episode in which sour milk was offered by the male twin to his sister, who, in each case, refused it. Also central to all the stories was the intervention of an ambiguous animal, bird or monster.It is suggested that the clue to the interpretation of this set of folk tales lies in the importance of sour milk, in all Nguni societies, as a symbol of kinship: it may be drunk only together with kin. Refusal to drink is therefore a denial of kinship (and a statement of availability for marriage). The possible meaning behind the surface structure of the tales is discussed as an attempt to reconcile the incompatibility between the (universal) drive towards incest (why else the rigid taboos?) and Nguni preoccupation with avoiding it, as expressed in the wide-ranging elaboration of Nguni exogamy rules.
Gender and housing: the case of domestic service in Lusaka, Zambia
Authors: Hansen Karen Tranberg 
Published: April 2006

AbstractLusaka is a city originally designed and built for European residents, to meet European needs and comforts. In the colonial period the African residents were either domestic servants living within European households’ compounds or were other contracted wage-labourers who were confined to the areas of south-western Lusaka specifically allocated to them. Europeans preferred male domestic help; women and children living at close quarters were thought to be potentially disruptive and were therefore discouraged from moving into the towns. A gender division between town and country was created; so too were cultural assumptions about gender, housing and employment, assumptions still widely held today.Pressure to find waged employment in Zambia has increased, and as a result the population of Lusaka is growing rapidly and shelter is in increasingly short supply. The article argues that domestic employment is still the largest single segment of the urban wage-labouring population. The historically constructed cultural assumptions about gender and housing have led to differential access to housing for men and women. Now that more and more women are seeking waged employment, the article uses their relation to domestic employment as an instance through which to explore the wider position of women in Zambia, and to initiate, it is hoped, some gender awareness in Zambian housing policy.
Le Gbe est une langue unique
Authors: Capo Hounkpatin C. 
Published: April 2006

IntroductionII se fait sur le terrain un consensus autour du terme Gbe pour désigner l'ensemble des parlers plus ou moins intelligibles dont le territoire s'étend en gros du fleuve Amugán (connu dans les documents en langues étrangères comme Volta) à l'ouest, au fleuve Wógbó (connu dans les documents en langues étrangères comme Ouémé et Weme) à l'est, puis de l'Océan Atlantique au sud jusqu'en dessous de la latitude 9° nord (cf Capo 1980a). Ce continuum dialectal, mieux connu comme Ewe depuis les importants travaux de Westermann (en particulier Westermann 1930), est maintenant divisé en cinq sections (caractérisées par des innovations précises), à savoir les dialectes Vhe, les dialectes Gen, les dialectes Ajá, les dialectes Fon et les dialectes Phla-Pherá (cf Capo 1980b). En fait, aux expressions comme ‘continuum dialectal’, ‘complexe linguistique’, ‘groupe de parlers’ Gbe, je voudrais proposer qu'on préfère la désignation de ‘la langue Gbe’. Le but de cette étude est done de mettre en lumière certains critères qui permettent d'identifier une langue, et de montrer ainsi que l'option pour ‘la langue Gbe’ n'est pas arbitraire.
Migration and development in Western Kenya, 1971–82: a retrospective analysis of primary school leavers
Authors: Gould W. T. S. 
Published: April 2006

Development in Kenya in the 1970s: Issues and Some TrendsThe early years of the 1970s saw two important milestones for the political economy and historiography of Kenya. The ILO report of 1972 was a major critique of Kenya's development efforts since independence that identified growing problems of poverty and inequality which were the result of policies that in many other respects achieved desirable objectives (International Labour Office, 1972). The ILO diagnosis and proposals had some direct influence on government policies, notably in the Third and Fourth Development Plans, for 1974–78 and 1979–83 respectively, and several but by no means all or even the majority of the proposals were acted upon, e.g. in policies towards agriculture (Clayton, 1978). Equally important, however, was its indirect effect on creating a climate of opinion that emphasized a ‘basic needs’ approach (Ghaiet al., 1979) and ‘redistribution through growth’ (Cheneryet al., 1974) and brought the attention of the public, the government and of scholars to the problems of rural and urban poverty in Kenya at a time when they seemed to be growing alarmingly.
Gender and the structuring of reality in Temne divination: an interactive study
Authors: Shaw Rosalind 
Published: April 2006

An-Yina Musa's DiagnosisIn June 1978, following a series of arguments in her marital home, a young Temne woman called Isatu travelled from her home in Makeni (a town which is the capital of Sierra Leone's Northern Province) to the village of Petbana Masimbo three miles away in order to consult a diviner about the cause. The diviner she consulted was Pa Koroma, a well-patronized Muslim diviner who was also her father's brother. Pa Koroma happened to be conducting a session of the dramatic and relatively expensive α η-yina Musa mediumship method of divination, which is commissioned by a wealthy client but which more minor clients such as Isatu can also participate in. He put a female medium, completely covered by a protective white cloth and gazing into a white bowl of water containing Islamic medicine (mǝ-nαsi), into a trance in which she was able to communicate with αη-yina Musa, the fearful ‘Muslim’ spirit of divination. Around Pa Koroma's central parlour, in which the divination took place, were seated members of the village, some of whom had come to ask questions, others simply to watch and, where appropriate, to interject comments on what was being said. The medium, an elderly woman called Mami Yeno, was a sister-in-law of Pa Koroma from Makaper, a village about two miles from Petbana. Each person who had come to ask about a problem addressed their question to Pa Koroma, who repeated it to Mami Yeno. Mami Yeno then silently conveyed the question to αη-yina Musa and, after a pause, returned the reply to Pa Koroma, the latter repeating and often elaborating upon her utterances to the audience.
Archaeological evidence and conventional explanations of southern Bantu settlement patterns
Authors: Huffman Thomas N. 
Published: April 2006

Opening ParagraphThe settlements of Bantu-speaking people in Southern Africa vary widely in size and distribution, ranging from the dispersed homesteads of the Nguni to the large towns of the Tswana. These two extremes have interested Africanists since the beginning of the nineteenth century, when Europeans first encountered the Thlaping at Dithakong near present-day Kuruman. Today the contrast between Tswana and Nguni settlements are most often attributed to differences in social stratification, cultural preference or environmental conditions.These conventional explanations provide a focus for considering the meaning of settlement patterns among the southern Bantu. I first develop a model of political and settlement hierarchies to isolate the essential differences between Nguni and Tswana communities, and then I present archaeological evidence that calls into question the conventional explanations.
Social institutions and access to resources
Authors: Berry Sara 
Published: April 2006

Opening ParagraphFor over a decade African economies have been plagued by recurrent food shortages, economic decline and growing disparities between the living standards of rich and poor. To a large extent food shortages and rural impoverishment may be attributed to external shocks—world recession, oil price shocks, deteriorating terms of trade and mounting debt service obligations—compounded in the 1970s and early 1980s by drought and war. In addition government policies have exacerbated the effects of adverse environmental and world market trends, aggravating rather than alleviating food shortages and depressing rural output and incomes.
Domesticating personal violence: witchcraft, courts and confessions in Cameroon
Authors: Geschiere Peter , Fisiy Cyprian 
Published: April 2006

In many parts of Africa, discourses on witchcraft and sorcery seem to follow a mod-ernisation process of their own. There are striking regional variations in the ways in which these discourses are articulated with State formation and the emergence of new modes of accumulation. A common denominator remains, however, the close connection between witchcraft and aggression from within the ‘house’. In many respects, witchcraft is still the dark side of kinship, even in modern settings.It is against this background that this article explores the implications of a new type of witchcraft trial in the Eastern Province of Cameroon. Since 1980 State courts have started to convict ‘witches’ mainly on the basis of the expertise of the witch-doctors. This seems to be accompanied by the emergence of a ‘modern’ type of witch-doctor, more intent on punishing than on healing, who try to recruit their clients in very aggressive ways. In other parts of Cameroon the articulation of local witchcraft beliefs and State authority seems to follow different trajectories.
Is there a distinct African sexuality? A critical response to Caldwell
Authors: Ahlberg Beth Maina 
Published: April 2006

In the current HIV debate there are diverse opinions about the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa and the reasons for it. Caldwell and his colleagues, for example, argue that the whole of Africa has a distinct sexuality which is inherently permissive. They claim moreover that no religious moral value is attached to sexual activity, and Christianity has thus not succeeded in changing matters. They find in this failure the reason for the failure of the fertility control programme in sub-Saharan Africa, and they argue that HIV/AIDS control efforts will fail similarly unless the fear it generates forces Africans to adopt the Eurasian model, with its religious, moral value.The article re-examines Caldwellet al.'sconceptualisation of the role of moral value in social change. Without considering the internal expressions, mechanisms and social contexts within and through which moral value is maintained and changed, they assume that Christian moral values could lead to a change in sexual behaviour from permissive (as they see it) African sexuality to the Eurasian model. In making such an assumption they ignore the ethical and behavioural contradictions generally inherent in moral systems. Moreover they pay little attention to the process of change in Western societies, where Christian morality has lost a great deal of its control over behaviour. But even if we assume that internal contradictions and processes of change do not exist, the christianisation process in Africa fundamentally transformed local customs in ways that delinked their role in regulating behaviour, including sexual behaviour.For discussions and decisions on options and strategies for the prevention and control of HIV/AIDS, identifying the nature and impact of that transformation is essential.