bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Ways of Death: Accounts of Terror from Angolan Refugees in Namibia
Authors: Brinkman Inge 
Published: July 2008

AbstractIn their accounts of the war in Angola, refugees from south-eastern Angola who now live in Rundu (Namibia) draw a distinction between warfare in the past and the events that happened in their region of origin after Angolan independence in 1975. Although they process their experiences through recounting history, these refugees maintain that the incidence of torture, mutilation and massive killing after 1975 has no precedent in the area's history and forms an entirely new development. This article investigates the reasons for this posited modernity of killing, torture and mutilation. The placement of the recent events outside local history is shown to represent an expression of outrage, anger and indignation at the army's treatment of the civilian population during the recent phase of the war. The outrage not only concerns the scale of the killing, torture and mutilation but is also linked with the issue of agency. The informants accuse UNITA army leaders in particular of wanton disregard for the lives and livelihood of their followers. They furthermore maintain that UNITA ordered ordinary soldiers to take part in killings which released powers the soldiers were unable to handle.
Medicine Murder in Basutoland: Colonial Rule and Moral Crisis
Authors: Murray Colin , Sanders Peter 
Published: July 2008

AbstractThis article analyses an acute moral crisis in the colonial administration of Basutoland in the late 1940s. It was provoked by a contagious rash of what became known as ‘medicine murders’, apparently perpetrated by senior chiefs. Two particular murders of this kind are examined in detail, as a result of which, in 1949, two very senior chiefs and some of their followers were hanged. This harshly dramatic episode brought into stark question the meaning of generations of the ‘civilising mission’, the fitness of the chiefs as leaders of the people, the moral integrity of the Basotho nation and the legitimacy both of colonial rule in general and of certain specific practices of the police. The political context of the murders is outlined, and the judicial process is dissected with special reference to the question of the validity of accomplice evidence.
Dollars and Lipstick: The United States Through the Eyes of African Women
Authors: Monga Yvette Djachechi 
Published: July 2008

AbstractIn their quest for material well-being Cameroonian women see the United States as a country of virtually boundless opportunities. It is Eldorado, offering chances of earning money by selling cosmetics that are guaranteed not to have been tampered with. It is the new frontier, the Far West, where mothers send their children to study in the hope that a job-oriented education will make it easier for them to return home. It is the future, prefigured in the New York skyscrapers; Cameroonian mothers dream of bringing forth American children, and so giving tham a better chance of absorbing this world of the future. When the American dream is not accessible, the United States still offers an imaginary space where women reinvent the conditions of their existence by adopting some of the signs of American culture in their everyday life in the tropics. The use of lipstick thus appears as the symbol of a world-culture behind which hovers the giant image of the United States. The experiences of Cameroonian women can be extended to women in other African countries and, beyond, to the men of Africa, also suffering the precariousness of the present, faced with the same challenges of the future and engaged in the same quest for material well-being.
The Father as Witch
Authors: Colson Elizabeth 
Published: July 2008

AbstractIn the 1990s the feared witch among Tonga-speakers of Gwembe Valley, Zambia, is often the father, whose adult children accuse him of using witchcraft to gain power over the child's life force to use in his enterprises. Suspicions of the father arise from changing family dynamics associated with restricted economic opportunities and a changing agricultural system involving cash cropping where family labour is of vital importance. Witchcraft fears, as elsewhere in Zambia, have become more salient as worsening economic conditions have led to general malaise and the loosening of restraints on public accusation. Feeling victimised and vulnerable in a world where transport minimises distance has led to witches being endowed with the power to operate without regard to distance. Nevertheless witchfinding deflects hostility from national political figures to elders in the neighbourhood, especially fathers, who are continuous sources of immediate frustration and are also vulnerable to local action.
Power, Honour and Shame: The Ideology of Royal Slavery in the Sokoto Caliphate
Authors: Stilwell Sean 
Published: July 2008

AbstractThis article takes issue with ahistorical typologies that depict all slaves as ‘dishonoured’ persons. It demonstrates that royal slaves in Kano emirate of the Sokoto Caliphate were initially valuable to the elite because they were indeed dishonoured outsiders. But, over time, slaves tried to limit their exploitation by developing their own systems of honour and status. The article traces when, where and how royal slaves in Kano acquired and attempted to acquire ‘honour’ as officials, kin and members of a broader social world. However, it concludes that, although slaves did indeed develop systems of honour, their ability to acquire an honourable identity was nonetheless limited by their status as slaves, which they remained despite their power and position.
‘Islam Does Not Belong to Them’: Ethnic and Religious Identities Among Male Igbo Converts in Hausaland
Authors: Anthony Douglas 
Published: July 2008

AbstractBefore the civil war, conversion to Islam for Igbo men resident in the predominantly Hausa city of Kano in northern Nigeria usually meant becoming Hausa. More recent converts, however, have retained their Igbo identity and created an organisation, the Igbo Muslim Community. Three case studies from the first group detail the process and criteria of becoming Hausa, including immersion in Hausa economic and social networks; three case studies from the second group demonstrate that, while Hausa-centred networks remain important, converts have worked to construct new, Igbo-centred support structures. The watershed in the changing relationship between religious and ethnic affiliation for Igbo converts is the end of the war in 1970 and resultant changes in Igbo perceptions of Muslims, and changes in Igbo community structures.
‘Her Name is Kamundage’: Rethinking Women and Property Among the Haya of Tanzania
Authors: Manji Ambreena 
Published: July 2008

AbstractThis article introduces three models by which it is possible to interpret women's relations to property: the structuralist model, the interactionist model and the entitlement model. By reference to fleldwork carried out in the Kagera region of Tanzania, it discusses the potential of each model to deepen our understanding of women's relations to land and argues that none of the models taken alone is adequate fully to explain the range of ways in which women interact with property in Kagera nor their experiences of struggling over land. The article therefore attempts to construct a theoretical framework for rethinking women and property.
Being of ‘One Heart’: Power and Politics Among the Iraqw of Tanzania
Authors: Snyder Katherine A. 
Published: July 2008

AbstractThis article explores local understandings of and experience with democracy in an Iraqw community in northern Tanzania. At independence, President Julius Nyerere in his development of a one-party state, argued that democracy in this new nation state would be modelled on that which is found in indigenous, pre-colonial political systems. In the Iraqw homeland, pre-colonial ‘democracy’ was expressed in elders’ councils in which male elders made decisions on behalf of the rest of the community. Differences of opinion were voiced but eventually the group would come to one opinion to achieve the state of being of ‘one heart’ before decisions could be put into effect. While Nyerere claimed that this practice of democracy and achieving consensus would provide the model for the post-colonial state, in actuality the state drew more on colonial models characterised by top-down decision-making and autocratic governance. Overlaying both the pre-colonial and post-colonial political systems is an ideological emphasis on ‘unity'. This article explores how the central notion of unity is expressed and perceived among the Iraqw in Tanzania and how it forms the screen through which people view démocratisation.
Reinterpreting the Rural–Urban Connection: Migration Practices and Socio-Cultural Dispositions of Buhera Workers in Harare
Authors: Andersson Jens A. 
Published: July 2008

AbstractIn the academic debate on labour migration and urbanisation in Southern Africa the persistence of links between urban workers and people in rural areas has proved a pertinent issue. As is implied by the termlabour migration, economic forces have always been regarded as a major determinant of migratory behaviour. State-centred perspectives have dominated studies of rural–urban migration in Zimbabwe, where a restrictive legal framework regulated migration to urban centres during the colonial era in an attempt to prevent large numbers of Africans becoming permanent town dwellers. This ethnographic study of labour migrants in Harare originating from the Buhera district, however, shifts away from perspectives that reduce migratory behaviour to an effect of state intervention and/or economic forces. Such external forces are mediated by migrants’ networks that encompass both rural and urban localities. Rather than being only economically motivated, individual migrants’ participation in these networks has to be understood as an expression of a socio-cultural pattern in which rural identification and kinship ideology are of major importance. Viewing migration practices in this way—i.e. as observable outcomes of migrants’ socio-cultural dispositions—not only helps us to understand better the preferences that motivate economic behaviour but also challenges conventional perspectives in which the rural and urban are often viewed as distinct social worlds and the urbanisation process as part of a wider evolutionary development or transition towards a modern class society.
Border Zone Trade and the Economic Boundaries of the State in North-East Ghana
Authors: Chalfin Brenda 
Published: July 2008

AbstractFocusing on the tri-juncture of Ghana, Togo and Burkina Faso, this article examines the role of cross-border traders in the construction and redefinition of international boundaries. Through the study of the social and spatial patterning of trade surrounding three commodities–imported cloth, beans and shea butter (karite)—it explores the multiple ways the border is endowed with or deprived of significance. When the border is viewed as a socio-geographic region the importance of popular practice to the on-going constitution of state power and presence becomes evident.
The Politics of Land Acquisition and Struggles Over Land in the ‘Communal’ Areas of Zimbabwe: The Gokwe Region in the 1980s and 1990s
Authors: Nyambara Pius Shungudzapera 
Published: July 2008

AbstractHistorical writing on agrarian differentiation in rural Zimbabwe has moved away from conceptualising the peasantry as a homogeneous class, and has therefore enhanced our understanding of the process of rural differentiation. While such writing recognises patterns of differential land holding, however, it has not shown clearly how the differences developed over time. There has been a tendency to argue that land distribution in the ‘communal’ areas is less skewed than other variables and therefore acts as a brake on the process of accumulation and differentiation among the peasantry. The article challenges this basic assumption, arguing that ‘communal’ tenure actually facilitated the development of significant disparities in landholding and accumulation by rural households.
In Search of Nyo: Lyela Farmers' Perceptions of the Forest in Burkina Faso
Authors: Hagberg Sten 
Published: July 2008

AbstractThis study deals with the cultural construction of the forest by focusing on a group of farmers in Burkina Faso. It explores forest perceptions among Lyela farmers living in the vicinity of the Tiogo Forest Reserve through an analysis of cultural notions, specific historical circumstances and daily practices. Forest discourses articulate the process by which people's perceptions of forest resources are shaped both by religious and cultural notions of how to behave towards spirits, ancestors and human beings, on the one hand, and by sociopolitical and economic practices of how to make a living on the other. In search of nyo—that is, food, new farmland and a better living—people handle at least three layers of apparently contradictory conceptions of the forest. First, they follow the way of the ancestors according to which the Earth is sacred. Second, they cope with the legacy of colonial and post-colonial state administrations and particularly the Forestry Office. Third, they deal with market demands and the making of money by cotton cropping and woodcutting. The study concludes that these different layers of perception need to be understood as part of a present-day social struggle in which the Lyela farmers are engaged.
By the Sweat of Their Brow? ‘Street Children’, NGOs and Children's Rights in Addis Ababa
Authors: Nieuwenhuys Olga 
Published: July 2008

AbstractIn the past two decades NGOs helping ‘street children’ in Addis Ababa have distinguished themselves by their adherence to highly controversial assumptions about the nature of childhood and the failure of the poor to raise their children in ways that they conceive as ‘proper’. The ratification of the UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child by the Ethiopian government has inspired them to stop food relief in order to persuade the children in their care to seek a way out of their miserable ways of life through work on the street. In a remarkable replication of late Victorian philanthropic thinking, NGOs dispel hereby local middle-class fears that relief agencies may foster truancy and idleness and reassuringly define the code—work—that confers legitimacy on children's presence on the streets. Anticipating their escape from undeniably harsh and unjust family relations, the children of the poor are enticed into accepting this solution as the price of a ‘decent’ and morally acceptable childhood. They remain nevertheless highly critical of the rights-based approach, claiming that in the name of their rights they are denied what used to be children's normal entitlement such as protected food prices, free basic health and education. The article is based on the findings of an action research project by social workers among the children assisted by eight Addis Ababa-based NGOs in the period 1996-98.
Africa's ‘Last Wilderness’: Reordering Space for Political and Economic Control in Colonial Tanzania
Authors: Neumann Roderick P. 
Published: July 2008

ABSTRACTFocusing on south-eastern Tanzania, this article explores the colonial state's spatial strategies for economic and political control of its citizenry and their concurrence with strategies to control and conserve nature. Analysing British colonial archival documents, it demonstrates that Africa's most famous wilderness, the Selous Game Reserve, is a product of colonisers' economic and political control schemes, not a vestigial pre-modern landscape. The analysis reveals that the control of nature was inseparable from the state's efforts to control African subjects (mostly Ngindo peasants) and ultimately to create a new kind of person: ‘civilised’, productive and surveillable. Control schemes had significant ecological consequences, specifically increasing elephant(Loxondata africana)populations and the creation of vast tracts of tsetse fly-infested bush. The result, sometimes unintended, but more often orchestrated, was the displacement of African land use and settlement and a new geography of society and nature. The article concludes that colonial efforts to reorder south-eastern Tanzania were fundamental to the process of modern nation-state building, a process that was propelled by a particular way of thinking about social order in visual terms.
Creolisation in Secret: The Birth of Nationalism in Late Colonial Uluguru, Tanzania
Authors: Pels Peter 
Published: July 2008

AbstractThis article restudies assumptions about the nature of nationalism in Africa on the basis of the brief moment when African nationalism emerged in the mountain area of Uluguru, in eastern Tanzania. It suggests that our understanding of the emergence of the concept of nationality was far too narrowly focused on the idea of the state and of the unity of the public existing within that state. By exploring a multiplicity of coexisting colonial and indigenous political discourses in terms of ‘creolisation’, and setting this multiplicity of public discourses against the background of the secret politics that determined their interaction, the article suggests directions for the rethinking of African politics in modernity.
Matan Bariki, ‘Women of the Barracks’ Muslim Hausa Women in an Urban Neighbourhood in Northern Nigeria
Authors: Werthmann Katja 
Published: July 2008

AbstractMuslim Hausa-speaking women in the city of Kano in northern Nigeria form a heterogeneous population, differentiated by many social, economic and individual characteristics. New concepts of community and identity beyond the level of kinship, descent and marriage have developed among women in specific urban neighbourhoods, as on a modern housing estate (bariki) for civil servants in the old city of Kano. Although the term matan bariki, ‘women of the barracks’, is synonymous with ‘prostitutes’ for most Hausa-speakers, the secluded wives of policemen living on this housing estate use it as a self-designation that signifies membership of an urban middle class. The article explores the ambivalent meanings of the term bariki as a symbol of modernity and ‘Westernisation’ as well as the relation between seclusion as a religiously defined institution and its significance as a mark of socio-economic status. By redefining the term matan bariki the women of the barracks use a strategy of distinction in order to differentiate themselves from other groups and milieux of women in Kano.
Patronage, Millennialism and the Serpent God Mumbo in South-West Kenya, 1912–34
Authors: Shadle Brett L. 
Published: July 2008

AbstractThis article traces the history of Mumboism, a millennial cult of south-west Kenya, 1912–34. Mumbo, the serpent god of Lake Victoria, promised to eject whites and chiefs from the region and usher in a period of prosperity. Mumboism gained followers, it is argued, because it mixed older ideas of patron–client relations with newer ideas of omnipotent, unseen beings, introduced by Europeans as Government and God. Mumbo challenged chiefs and missionaries, struggling to create patronage networks, by attracting clients, and threatened to unmask Government and God as impotent. Chiefs and, to a lesser extent, missionaries directed state power to the repression of Mumbo, eliminating it before it could undermine the very basis of European power.
Muslims and Meals: The Social and Symbolic Function of Foods in Changing Socio-Economic Environments
Authors: Kifleyesus Abbebe 
Published: July 2008

AbstractThis article is about ideas and practices concerning the production, distribution, preparation and consumption of food among the Muslim Argobba of Ethiopia. Food among the Muslim Argobba of Ethiopia is an essential idiom, both for drawing a hierarchy of in-group/out-group distinctions and for expressing relationships within groups. The in-group/out-group relations are typically expressed in terms of what foods are consumed by the Muslim Argobba and their non-Muslim Amhara neighbours, by the Muslim Argobba and their Muslim Oromo and Adal neighbours and indeed by some wealthy trader Argobba families and poor Argobba peasant households. Food preparation and distribution, on the other hand, express relations internal to the group, either in terms of gender within the household, as in who serves what to whom, where and in what quantities, or in informal exchanges, as in establishing social links among men and women. Nowadays fewer and fewer Argobba are producing the food they consume, and many are drawn away from their rural homelands either as merchants or as wage labourers. The article examines how Argobba consumers have become accustomed to foreign foods and new modes of preparation and distribution and how such changes have also altered the ways in which food has expressed social relations in terms of class, ethnic and gender identity. It investigates the relative importance of the social and symbolic function of Muslim meals, and discusses the material life of cooking and cuisine in changing socio-economic environments.
Himba Animal Classification and the Strange Case of the Hyena
Authors: Crandall David P. 
Published: July 2008

AbstractContinent-wide in African folklore the hyena is depicted as a dull witted, easily duped creature—despite the fact that the hyena is also known as a cunning and dangerous predator. This article explores why in particular the Himba of northwestern Namibia entertain the characterisation of the hyena as stupid yet from the management of their flocks and herds have experienced first hand how clever a predator the hyena is. For the Himba, the answer lies in the hyena's anatomy, in the perception that the hyena is a hermaphrodite. As such, the hyena stands at the margins of fixed social categories; it is neither this nor that but a hybrid, a creature acting outside of its proper bounds. Among the Himba, such marginal people or creatures are not felt to be dangerous, rather, their primary characteristic is stupidity.
Converts to Human Rights? Popular Debate About War and justice in Rural Central Sierra Leone
Authors: Archibald Steven , Richards Paul 
Published: July 2008

AbstractInternationally, war in Sierra Leone (1991–2002) is regarded as an instance of violent conflict driven by economic factors (attempts to control the mining of alluvial diamonds). Fieldwork (2000–01) in rural areas recovering from war suggests a very different picture. War victims and combatants from different factions stress the importance of political decay, corruption, injustice and the social exclusion of young people. Other studies confirm the picture. There is broadly based discussion in rural communities about how to address the injustices held to have been responsible for the war. It seems in line with wider debate about human rights. Are people being converted to international ideals? Applying a neo-Durkheimian perspective, the article shows that this discourse about rights is a product of local social changes brought about by the war itself. The article concludes by asking how it might be consolidated by rights-oriented reconstruction activity. Human rights in Sierra Leone are as much a local development as an imposed change. In this respect the study confirms the importance of local agency already argued by anthropologists who have studied the process of conversion to world religions.