Perspectives on Africa

The second edition of Perspectives on Africa: A Reader in Culture, History, and Representation is both an introduction to the cultures of Africa and a history of the interpretations of those cultures. Key essays explore the major issues and debates through a combination of classic articles and the newest research in the field.

• Explores the dynamic processes by and through which scholars have described and understood African history and culture
• Includes selections from anthropologists, historians, philosophers, and critics who collectively reveal the interpenetration of ideas and concepts within and across disciplines, regions, and historical periods
• Offers a combined focus on ethnography and theory, giving students the means to link theory with data and perspective with practice
• Newly revised and updated edition of this popular text with 14 brand new chapters and two new sections: Conflict and Violent Transformations; and Development, Governance and Globalization

Acknowledgments x

List of Maps xiv

List of Figures xv

List of Plates xvii

List of Tables xviii

Introduction: Africa in Perspective 1

Part I Representation and Discourse 19

Introduction 21

1 Africa Observed: Discourses of the Imperial Imagination 31
Jean and John Comaroff

2 The Meaning of Our Work 44
Cheikh Anta Diop

3 Europe Upside Down: Fallacies of the New Afrocentrism 48
Kwame Anthony Appiah

4 Discourse of Power and Knowledge of Otherness 55
V. Y. Mudimbe

Part II From Tribe to Ethnicity: Kinship and Social Organization 61

Introduction 63

5 The Nuer: Time and Space 71
E. E. Evans-Pritchard

6 The Illusion of Tribe 83
Aidan W. Southall

7 Ethnicity in Southern African History 95
Leroy Vail

Part III Economics as a Cultural System 109

Introduction 111

8 Lele Economy Compared with the Bushong 123
Mary Douglas

9 Research on an African Mode of Production 139
Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch

10 The Cattle of Money and the Cattle of Girls among the Nuer, 1930–83 151
Sharon Hutchinson

Part IV Hunter-Gatherers in Africa 167

Introduction 169

11 The Lesson of the Pygmies 175
Colin M. Turnbull

12 Houses in the Rainforest: Gender and Ethnicity among the Lese and Efe in Zaire 184
Roy Richard Grinker

13 Land Filled with Flies: The Evolution of Illusion 200
Edwin N. Wilmsen

14 Foragers, Genuine or Spurious? Situating the Kalahari San in History 219
Jacqueline S. Solway and Richard B. Lee

Part V Witchcraft, Science, and Rationality: The Translation of Culture 237

Introduction 239

15 Conversations on Rain-making 245
David Livingstone

16 The Notion of Witchcraft Explains Unfortunate Events 249
E. E. Evans-Pritchard

17 Understanding a Primitive Society 257
Peter Winch

18 The Moral Economy of Witchcraft: An Essay in Comparative History 270
Ralph A. Austen

Part VI Ancestors, Gods, and the Philosophy of Religion 283

Introduction 285

19 Conversations with Ogotemmêli 291
Marcel Griaule

20 African Philosophy, Myth and Reality 302
Paulin J. Hountondji

21 Ancestors as Elders in Africa 314
Igor Kopytoff

Part VII Arts, Aesthetics, and Heritage 323

Introduction 325

22 Humorous Masks and Serious Politics among the Afikpo Igbo 335
Simon Ottenberg

23 Art, Identity, Boundaries: Postmodernism and Contemporary African Art 348
Olu Oguibe

24 As Plato Duly Warned: Music, Politics, and Social Change in Coastal East Africa 354
Kelly M. Askew

25 In Place of Slavery: Fashioning Coastal Identity 372
Bayo Holsey

Part VIII Sex and Gender Studies in Africa: Economy and Society 379

Introduction 381

26 The Economics of Polygamy 389
Ester Boserup

27 “Sitting on a Man”: Colonialism and the Lost Political Institutions of Igbo Women 399
Judith Van Allen

28 Virginity Testing: Managing Sexuality in a Maturing HIV/AIDS Epidemic 411
Suzanne Leclerc-Madlala

Part IX Europe in Africa: Colonization 423

Introduction 425

29 The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa: Methods of Ruling Native Races 431
Frederick D. Lugard

30 How Europe Underdeveloped Africa 439
Walter Rodney

31 The Invention of Tradition in Colonial Africa 450
Terence Ranger

32 Detained: A Writer’s Prison Diary 462
Ngugi wa Thiong’o

Part X Nations and Nationalism 471

Introduction 473

33 Negritude: A Humanism of the Twentieth Century 477
Léopold Sédar Senghor

34 On National Culture 484
Frantz Fanon

35 Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Modernity: The Paradox of Mau Mau 498
Bruce J. Berman

36 The Invisible Face: Masks, Ethnicity, and the State in Côte d’Ivoire 514
Christopher B. Steiner

Part XI Violent Transformations: Conflict and Displacement 521

Introduction 523

37 Rituals of Rebellion in South-East Africa 531
Max Gluckman

38 Fighting for the Rainforest: War, Youth and Resources in Sierra Leone 543
Paul Richards

39 Sacrifice as Terror: The Rwandan Genocide of 1994 555
Christopher C. Taylor

40 Where to Be an Ancestor? Reconstituting Socio-spiritual Worlds among Displaced Mozambicans 569
Stephen Lubkemann

Part XII Development, Governance, and Globalization 583

Introduction 585

41 Expectations of Modernity: Myths and Meanings of Urban Life on the Zambian Copperbelt 595
James Ferguson

42 Development Aid and Structural Violence: The Case of Rwanda 609
Peter Uvin

43 Nigerian Scams as Political Critique: Globalization, Inequality and 419 616
Daniel Jordan Smith

44 The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly 629
Jean-François Bayart

45 “Govern Yourselves!” Democracy and Carnage in Northern Mozambique 644
Harry G. West

46 Nuer-American Passages 660
Dianna Shandy

Index 671

REVIEWS OF FIRST EDITION:

"Here is an excellent anthology that illustrates magnificently processes of Africa's invention, the complexity of her cultures, the paradoxes and predicament of discourses that claim to render her being." V. Y. Mudimbe Stanford University.

"A volume for all students and teachers seriously interested in understanding the unity and diversity of African cultures, and engaging in a dialogue with African Studies literary ancestors and their creative and critical successors. Grinker and Steiner have offered a doorway for those who dare to embrace the masters of the field and join new academic worlds in the making." Sulayman S. Nyang, Professor, Howard University and Director of the African Voices Project, Smithsonian Institute.

"Perspectives on Africa is a much needed addition to African studies and literature. They attempt, quite successfully, to place each article within, not only an historical time frame, but also within a theoretical progression. Its bibliographies contain a useful starting point and reference on all the major trends and subjects." Sean Pratt, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge.

Roy Richard Grinker, Ph.D. is Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs at George Washington University, Director of the GW Institute for Ethnographic Research, and Editor-in-Chief of Anthropological Quarterly. He is author of four other books, including In the Arms of Africa: The Life of Colin M. Turnbull , Houses in the Rainforest: Ethnicity and Inequality Among Farmers and Foragers in Central Africa, and Unstrange Minds: Remapping the World of Autism.

Christopher B. Steiner is the Lucy C. McDannel ’22 Professor of Art History and Director of Museum Studies at Connecticut College. He is the author of the award-winning book African Art in Transit, and co-editor (with Ruth Phillips) of Unpacking Culture: Art and Commodity in Colonial and Postcolonial Worlds.

Stephen Lubkemann is Associate Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs at George Washington University. He is author of Culture in Chaos: An Anthropology of the Social Condition in War and is associate editor for Anthropological Quarterly and a co-founder of GWU’s Diaspora Research Program.

“This welcome new edition of key texts, written about Africa as well as from within it, builds on the past but speaks boldly to the current generation — with some striking contributions on contemporary issues.”

Wendy James, University of Oxford

“This carefully chosen and brilliantly edited collection is an extraordinary resource for anthropologists of Africa. Some of the most seminal works in one of the most foundational domains in the discipline take on new significance in the light of the new current scholarship represented in the volume and of the new conversations among them that Grinker, Lubkemann and Steiner have brought out. This volume is a treasure.”

Caroline H. Bledsoe, Northwestern University

“This impressive volume provides a critical genealogy of scholarship in Africa, weaving together historical and contemporary pieces to provide insights not only into the political economy and cultural dynamism of Africa’s past, but of its future too.”

Henrietta Moore, University of Cambridge and Centre for the Study of Global Governance, London School of Economics

“This superb collection of influential contemporary and classic works in African studies will be indispensable to both students and instructors. Twelve thematic sections, each masterfully framed by the editors, offer a deft blend of intellectual history, theory, and ethnography.”

Angelique Haugerud, Rutgers University

The second edition of the popular reader Perspectives on Africa: A Reader in Culture, History, and Representation offers forty six articles illustrating the dynamic processes by which scholars have described and understood African history and culture over the past several decades. This new edition presents fourteen new selections as well as two entirely new parts, “Violent Transformations: Conflict and Displacement” and “Development, Governance, and Globalization,” revealing the historical trajectory, daily experience, and vital influence of African people in the modern world.