Status And Identity In West Africa

Author : David C. Conrad
Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780253112644
Total Pages : 234 pages
Book Rating : 4.48/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Status and Identity in West Africa written by David C. Conrad and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1995-05-22 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "... the contributors to Status and Identity in West Africa have swept away the dust that has obscured the study of the societies of western Sudan and have made it possible to pursue the salutory work of decolonizing the history and sociology of these regions."Â -- American Ethnologist "This discussion is among the most significant contributions that African studies can make to the contemporary global dialogue on multicultural issues." -- Choice "It is 'must' reading for anyone who works in African literature today." -- Research in African Literatures "…an indispensable guide to understanding the producers of art in the Mande world, including the art of the spoken word. The writing and arguments are clear and jargon-free…it will provide a rich harvest of detailed original research…" -- African Arts "[This] book... is the most impressive effort to look at these groups in comparative perspective. The essays fit together nicely to challenge notions that came out of colonial scholarship." -- Journal of Interdisciplinary History "... the volume makes a significant contribution to the social history and ongoing processes of cultural pluralism in West Africa." -- Journal of Religion in Africa The nyamakalaw -- blacksmiths, potters, leather-workers, bards, and other artists and specialists among the Mande-speaking peoples of West Africa -- play powerful roles in Mande society. This book presents the first full portrait of one of Africa's most powerful and least understood social groups.

Author : Michelle Apotsos
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317275551
Total Pages : 231 pages
Book Rating : 4.58/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Architecture, Islam, and Identity in West Africa written by Michelle Apotsos and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-20 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Architecture, Islam, and Identity in West Africa shows you the relationship between architecture and Islamic identity in West Africa. The book looks broadly across Muslim West Africa and takes an in-depth study of the village of Larabanga, a small Muslim community in Northern Ghana, to help you see how the built environment encodes cultural history through form, material, and space, creating an architectural narrative that outlines the contours of this distinctive Muslim identity. Apotsos explores how modern technology, heritage, and tourism have increasingly affected the contemporary architectural character of this community, revealing the village’s current state of social, cultural, and spiritual flux. More than 60 black and white images illustrate how architectural components within this setting express the distinctive narratives, value systems, and realities that make up the unique composition of this Afro-Islamic community.

Author : John Middleton
Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 025322201X
Total Pages : 353 pages
Book Rating : 4.15/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Media and Identity in Africa written by John Middleton and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2010-01-04 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the role of the media in Africa? How do they work? How do they interact with global media? How do they reflect and express local culture? Incorporating both African and international perspectives, Media and Identity in Africa demonstrates how media outlets are used to perpetuate, question, or modify the unequal power relations between Africa and the rest of the world. Discussions about the construction of old and new social entities which are defined by class, gender, ethnicity, political and economic differences, wealth, poverty, cultural behavior, language, and religion dominate these new assessments of communications media in Africa. This volume addresses the tensions between the global and the local that have inspired creative control and use of traditional and modern forms of media.

Author : Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong
Publisher : Ohio University Press
ISBN 13 : 0821445669
Total Pages : 459 pages
Book Rating : 4.62/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Themes in West Africa’s History written by Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong and published by Ohio University Press. This book was released on 2006-01-15 with total page 459 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There has long been a need for a new textbook on West Africa’s history. In Themes in West Africa’s History, editor Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong and his contributors meet this need, examining key themes in West Africa’s prehistory to the present through the lenses of their different disciplines. The contents of the book comprise an introduction and thirteen chapters divided into three parts. Each chapter provides an overview of existing literature on major topics, as well as a short list of recommended reading, and breaks new ground through the incorporation of original research. The first part of the book examines paths to a West African past, including perspectives from archaeology, ecology and culture, linguistics, and oral traditions. Part two probes environment, society, and agency and historical change through essays on the slave trade, social inequality, religious interaction, poverty, disease, and urbanization. Part three sheds light on contemporary West Africa in exploring how economic and political developments have shaped religious expression and identity in significant ways. Themes in West Africa’s History represents a range of intellectual views and interpretations from leading scholars on West Africa’s history. It will appeal to college undergraduates, graduate students, and scholars in the way it draws on different disciplines and expertise to bring together key themes in West Africa’s history, from prehistory to the present.

Author : Peter Mark
Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780253215529
Total Pages : 226 pages
Book Rating : 4.28/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Portuguese Style and Luso-African Identity written by Peter Mark and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2002-12-05 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this detailed history of domestic architecture in West Africa, Peter Mark shows how building styles are closely associated with social status and ethnic identity. Mark documents the ways in which local architecture was transformed by long-distance trade and complex social and cultural interactions between local Africans, African traders from the interior, and the Portuguese explorers and traders who settled in the Senegambia region. What came to be known as "Portuguese" style symbolized the wealth and power of Luso-Africans, who identified themselves as "Portuguese" so they could be distinguished from their African neighbors. They were traders, spoke Creole, and practiced Christianity. But what did this mean? Drawing from travelers' accounts, maps, engravings, paintings, and photographs, Mark argues that both the style of "Portuguese" houses and the identity of those who lived in them were extremely fluid. "Portuguese" Style and Luso-African Identity sheds light on the dynamic relationship between identity formation, social change, and material culture in West Africa.

Author : W. Alade Fawole
Publisher : African Books Collective
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.12/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Crisis of the State & Regionalism in West Africa written by W. Alade Fawole and published by African Books Collective. This book was released on 2005 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays critically interrogates the internal dimensions of the identity and citizenship crises at the root of the political crises of states in West Africa, and considers the steps that have been taken thus far to address them. It shows how the progressive alienation of ordinary people from the state, coupled with factors of historical identity and post-colonial citizenship are at the heart of the political crisis and conflicts in the region; and argues that these matters must be addressed if West African states are to achieve democratic nationhood.

Author : Anita Schroven
Publisher : Berghahn Books
ISBN 13 : 178920190X
Total Pages : 230 pages
Book Rating : 4.01/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Playing the Marginality Game written by Anita Schroven and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2019-03-27 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Guinea, situated against the background of central government struggles, rural elites use identity politics through contemporary political reforms to maintain their privileges and perpetuate a generations-old local social contract that bridges ethnic and religious divides. Simultaneously, administrative reform and national unrest lead to the creative re-combination of sources of authority and practices of legitimate rule. Past periods of colonization, socialism and authoritarian regime are reflected in contemporary struggles to make sense of participatory democracy and the future of the embattled Guinean national state.

Author : Séverine Awenengo Dalberto
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000380033
Total Pages : 392 pages
Book Rating : 4.33/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Identification and Citizenship in Africa written by Séverine Awenengo Dalberto and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-05-09 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the context of a global biometric turn, this book investigates processes of legal identification in Africa ‘from below,’ asking what this means for the relationship between citizens and the state. Almost half of the population of the African continent is thought to lack a legal identity, and many states see biometric technology as a reliable and efficient solution to the problem. However, this book shows that biometrics, far from securing identities and avoiding fraud or political distrust, can even participate in reinforcing exclusion and polarizing debates on citizenship and national belonging. It highlights the social and political embedding of legal identities and the resilience of the documentary state. Drawing on empirical research conducted across 14 countries, the book documents the processes, practices, and meanings of legal identification in Africa from the 1950s right up to the biometric boom. Beyond the classic opposition between surveillance and recognition, it demonstrates how analysing the social uses of IDs and tools of identification can give a fresh account of the state at work, the practices of citizenship, and the role of bureaucracy in the writing of the self in African societies. This book will be of an important reference for students and scholars of African studies, politics, human security, and anthropology and the sociology of the state.

Author : Ukpokolo, Chinyere
Publisher : Spears Media Press
ISBN 13 : 1942876076
Total Pages : 278 pages
Book Rating : 4.76/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Being and Becoming written by Ukpokolo, Chinyere and published by Spears Media Press. This book was released on 2016-02-27 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book illuminates the complex and constantly shifting social and cultural dynamics that shape people's identity. Specifically, the volume focuses on the intersections of gender with, culture and identity, and at different historical epochs; on the way men and women define themselves and are defined by diverse peoples and cultures across time and space in sub-Saharan Africa. The discussions presented in this anthology primarily focus on 'being' as 'a state' or 'condition', defined by sex identity, and how this identity shifts, and hence 'becoming', assuming diverse meanings in disparate societies, contexts, and time. The discourse, therefore, moves from how the perception of the self in cultural and historical contexts has informed actions and at some other times shaped interpretations given to historical facts, to how changing economic realities also shape the definitions and constructions of social and relational issues in Sub-Saharan Africa. The historical trajectories of Islamic religion, colonialism and Christian missionary activities in sub-Saharan Africa have shaped the worlds of the peoples of the region and impacted on gender relations.

Author : Alfred B. Zack-Williams
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 135196044X
Total Pages : 155 pages
Book Rating : 4.41/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Africa Beyond the Post-Colonial written by Alfred B. Zack-Williams and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The poor economic performance of some African countries since independence has been a major concern to both African leaders and policy makers. This volume, which draws together contributions from academics based in Africa and its diaspora, situates the continent within its historic and socio-political background: from the 1960s, the decade of independence, through to its development outlook as the new millennium unfolds. It examines a broad range of contemporary issues -- from development and culture to linguistics and is unique in identifying and examining issues that are common both to Africa and the diaspora.