Download or read book West African Masking Traditions and Diaspora Masquerade Carnivals written by Raphael Chijioke Njoku and published by Rochester Studies in African H. This book was released on 2020-06-23 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A revisionist account of African masquerade carnivals in transnational context that offers readers a unique perspective on the connecting threads between African cultural trends and African American cultural artifacts

Download or read book Senufo Unbound written by Susan E. Gagliardi and published by 5Continents. This book was released on 2015-03-31 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York's now-defunct Museum of Primitive Art opened its landmark exhibition Senufo: Sculpture from West Africa in February 1963. Under the directorship of art historian Robert Goldwater, the museum displayed together for the first time a stunning array of arts attributed to Senufo artists: face masks, helmet masks, and figurative sculptures, all from a region spanning the borders of present-day Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, and Mali. Now, more than 50 years later, this new book draws on archival, museum, and field-based data, including previously unpublished letters, photographs, and objects, to look back at that tour-de-force exhibition, and offers a fresh, expanded view of a dynamic region's arts and identities.

Download or read book Masquerades in African Society written by Walter E. A. Van Beek and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2023-10-17 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the dynamics of African masquerades and mask performances on the continent, linking performative expressions to societal characteristics. What is the meaning of masks and masquerades in African traditions and how can we understand their role in rituals and performances? Why do we find masks in some African regions and not in others, and what does this 'mask habitat' say about the general dynamics of masquerades in Africa? Though masks are among the most famous art icons of Africa, exploration of their uses and the way in which they articulate social characteristics of African societies has been underexamined. This book takes an anthropological perspective on the phenomenon of masquerades on the African continent to show how mask rituals are an integral part of African indigenous religions and societies, and are informed by and linked to specific types of social and ecological conditions. Having established the commonalities of mask rituals and a mask typology, the authors look at the varieties of mask performances and the types of rituals in which masks function in rites of passage and in rituals of gender, power, and identity. The following chapters focus on different types of rituals featuring masks, from initiation and death ceremonies to secrecy, kingship, law and war. With its broad examination of the use of masks on the continent, from Angola to Burkina Faso, Cameroon, DRC, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, this well illustrated book will stand as an authoritative study of the use of masks, of interest not only to those in African Studies but to anthropologists and ethnographers worldwide.

Download or read book African Hosts Their Guests written by W. E. A. van Beek and published by Boydell & Brewer Ltd. This book was released on 2012 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Africa is a 'theme park' for Western tourists to experience untouched wilderness, untamed nature, and truly 'authentic' cultures, where the hosts, too, are part of a discourse about the 'other' and ourselves, about wildness, danger and roots. Tourism is important for Africa: international tourist arrivals to Africa continue to grow, income from tourism is crucial to national economies, and tourism investments are considered among the most profitable. This edited volumedeals with the interaction of local communities with tourists coming into their areas and villages. Based upon a common theoretical approach, fourteen cases of African tourism are discussed which involve direct contact between 'hosts' and 'guests'. The viewpoint throughout is from the side of the locals, establishing how the processes of interaction shape each small scale destination. Crucial in Africa is the fact that the large majority of tourism is game oriented and the interaction between locals and visitors is very much 'tainted' by this fact. Central is the notion of the tourist bubble - the infrastructure that is generated locally (and internationally) for hosting tourists, as it is this institutional interface that tends to impact on the local society and culture, not the tourists themselves directly. The examples come from all over Africa, from the Sahara to the Eastern Cape, and from Kenyato Ghana. All contributions are based upon original fieldwork. Walter van Beek is professor of anthropology at Tilburg University and Senior Researcher at the African Studies Centre, Leiden; Annette Schmidt is curatorof the African department at the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden, and is an archaeologist with a long experience in cultural management projects.

Download or read book Africa s Development Dynamics 2019 Achieving Productive Transformation written by African Union Commission and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2019-11-05 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Africa’s Development DynamicsWhat are the major economic and social trends in Africa? What is Africa’s role in globalisation? This annual report presents an Africa open to the world and towards the future. uses the lessons learned in the five African regions – Central, East, North, Southern and West Africa – to develop recommendations and share good practices. The report identifies innovative policies and offers practical policy recommendations, adapted to the specificities of African economies. Drawing on the most recent available statistics, this analysis of development dynamics aims to help African leaders reach the targets of the African Union’s Agenda 2063 at all levels: continental, regional, national, and local. Every year this report will focus on one strategic theme. This 2019 edition explores policies for productive transformation. It proposes three main policy focus for transforming firms: providing business services to clusters of firms; developing regional production networks; and improving exporting firms’ ability to thrive in fast-changing markets. This volume feeds into a policy debate between African Union’s nations, citizens, entrepreneurs and researchers. It aims to be part of a new co-operation between countries and regions focused on mutual learning and the preservation of common goods. This report is the result of a partnership between the African Union Commission and the OECD Development Centre.

Download or read book Learning from West African Experiences in Security Sector Governance written by Alan Bryden and published by Ubiquity Press. This book was released on 2015-11-05 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many efforts have been undertaken to address dysfunctional security sector governance in West Africa. However, security sector reform (SSR) has fallen short of radical – transformational – change to the fundamental structures of power and governance in the region. Looking more closely at specific examples of SSR in six West African countries, Learning from West African Experiences in Security Sector Governance explores both progress and reversals in efforts by national stakeholders and their international partners to positively influence security sector governance dynamics. Written by eminent national experts based on their personal experiences of these reform contexts, this study offers new insights and practical lessons that should inform processes to improve democratic security sector governance in West Africa and beyond.

Download or read book Indigenous Land Management in West Africa written by Kathleen M. Baker and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2000 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines tropical resource management in West Africa. Drawing widely on field examples, it argues that more account should be taken of ecological conditions and indigenous land-use methods in decision-making about tropical management projects.

Download or read book Dynamic Aspects Of Natural Products Chemistry written by Takeshi Ogura and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 1997-11-21 with total page 694 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Preface: Natural products chemistry has a long history, and could be regarded as having its roots in the use of many kinds of herbal mixtures as crude drugs in traditional medicine. Systems of traditional medicine have been practiced in China and Japan for thousands of years, and virtually all regions of the world have used natural materials to treat human disease. It was clear that many plants, herbs, etc. contain components with powerful biological activities. The dawn of modern natural products chemistry began with the isolation of the active component, morphine, from opium. Subsequently, various alkaloids were isolated from medicinal plants and employed clinically. The discovery and the development of penicillin as a microbial metabolite opened up the era of antibiotics, which have saved countless lives in the past half century or so. The isolation and synthesis of steroid hormones resulted in the development of new concepts in molecular stereochemistry and organic synthetic techniques, as did the discovery of bioactive lipids such as prostaglandins and leukatrienes, bioactive peptides such as enkephalins and endetherines, and oligosaccharides, including glycoproteins. Further, the discovery of plant hormones has led to great strides in plant biotechnology, including plant tissue cultures, and derivatives of insect hormones and pheromones are now used as pesticides. Thus, applications of natural products chemistry have become all-pervasive in modern society. Apart from the extensive practical applications of natural products and their derivatives, natural products chemistry has played a central role in the development of modern organic chemistry as a result of its focus on structural and synthetic studies of often highly complex and inaccessible molecules. Biosynthetic studies have also attracted much attention, aiming to answer the questions of why and how such a large number and variety of compounds are synthesised by organisms. Researchers in the field of biosynthesis first focused on elucidation of the pathways of secondary metabolism, and then on the mechanisms, of the enzymes catalyzing the biosynthetic reactions. This was an extremely difficult task, because rather large amounts of enzymes are required for the investigation of reaction mechanisms and the enzyme proteins are often unstable and not easy to purify. However, in recent years the development of molecular biology has made gene and protein engineering rather routine. Thus, studies of mechanistic enzymology can now be conducted with cloned and overexpressed enzyme proteins. It has been shown that the enzymes responsible for the biosynthesis of antibiotics in Streptomyces spp. are encoded in gene clusters. Further, cloning and functional analysis of the genes associated with flavonoid biosynthesis should soon cast light on the interesting question of why flavonoids are ubiquitously present in plant leaves. Life is maintained not only by large molecules such as proteins and nucleic acids, but also by many small molecules which have essential and diverse roles in the physiology of living organisms. Such compounds often have highly specific interactions with target receptors, but the mechanisms involved largely remain to be explored. Current methodology means that this task can be addressed, and this in turn should lead to a host of new applications for natural products and their derivatives. The key may be an interdisciplinary approach taking account of both biological function and molecular behaviour based on precise structure recognition. As we increasingly understand the mechanisms of molecular recognition that operate in nature, many possibilities should open up for artificial control or modification of biological functions, as well as new challenges for synthetic organic chemists. Our intention in this book is to focus on such dynamic aspects of natural products chemistry. By dealing in detail with representative topics to which the most modern techniques of research have been applied, we hope to emphasize the value of combining traditional approaches to natural products chemists with current biochemical and molecular-biological ideas. Each chapter provides sufficient background information and experimental detail to make the subject accessible to non-specialists. It is our hope that these examples of recent progress in key areas of natural products chemistry will stimulate work in related topics by illustrating the power of a modern interdisciplinary approach to the subject.

Download or read book Demographic Dynamics and Development written by Yves Charbit and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2022-02-17 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the major challenges facing the world today is the interaction between demographic change and development. Demographic Dynamics and Development reviews the dominant demographic theory, demographic transition, and then presents a thorough investigation covering aging, fertility, contraception, nuptiality, mortality and migration, which are all aspects that drive these changes. Each chapter combines the latest empirical data with theoretical reflections on the implications for development. This book thus offers an overview of worldwide demographic data, studied with a view towards development. In doing so, it provides researchers and specialists with clear information through in-depth case studies, focusing on a country, a region or a particularly important scientific sub-theme.

Download or read book Dynamics of masks in West Africa written by and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book West African Studies Settlement Market and Food Security written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2013-05-21 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the population of West Africa set to double by 2050, this book explores how agricultural production systems and policy will have to change to support this growth.

Download or read book A Fistful of Shells written by Toby Green and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-03-21 with total page 651 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the time the “Scramble for Africa” among European colonial powers began in the late nineteenth century, Africa had already been globally connected for centuries. Its gold had fueled the economies of Europe and the Islamic world for nearly a millennium, and the sophisticated kingdoms spanning its west coast had traded with Europeans since the fifteenth century. Until at least 1650, this was a trade of equals, using a variety of currencies—most importantly, cowrie shells imported from the Maldives and nzimbu shells imported from Brazil. But, as the slave trade grew, African kingdoms began to lose prominence in the growing global economy. We have been living with the effects of this shift ever since. With A Fistful of Shells, Toby Green transforms our view of West and West-Central Africa by reconstructing the world of these kingdoms, which revolved around trade, diplomacy, complex religious beliefs, and the production of art. Green shows how the slave trade led to economic disparities that caused African kingdoms to lose relative political and economic power. The concentration of money in the hands of Atlantic elites in and outside these kingdoms brought about a revolutionary nineteenth century in Africa, parallel to the upheavals then taking place in Europe and America. Yet political fragmentation following the fall of African aristocracies produced radically different results as European colonization took hold. Drawing not just on written histories, but on archival research in nine countries, art, oral history, archaeology, and letters, Green lays bare the transformations that have shaped world politics and the global economy since the fifteenth century and paints a new and masterful portrait of West Africa, past and present.

Download or read book Transmodern written by Christian Kravagna and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2022-10-11 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can we reconfigure our picture of modern art after the postcolonial turn without simply adding regional art histories to the Eurocentric canon? Transmodern examines the global dimension of modern art by tracing the crossroads of different modernisms in Asia, Europe and the Americas. Featuring case studies in Indian modernism, the Harlem Renaissance and post-war abstraction, it demonstrates the significance of transcultural contacts between artists from both sides of the colonial divide. The book argues for the need to study non-western avant-gardes and Black avant-gardes within the west as transmodern counter-currents to mainstream modernism. It situates transcultural art practices from the 1920s to the 1960s within the framework of anti-colonial movements and in relation to contemporary transcultural thinking that challenged colonial concepts of race and culture with notions of syncretism and hybridity.

Download or read book Mask Makers and Their Craft written by Deborah Bell and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-01-10 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Profiling 30 mask makers from around the world, this book explores the motivations and challenges of contemporary artists working to bring the traditional methods and conventions of mask making to an evolving global theatre. There are 181 photographs--including two sections of color plates--which illustrate how the mythic iconography of masks is used in the modern fields of dance, mime, theatre and storytelling. Topics include the ways in which mask artists and performers maintain a sense of universality despite varying local customs; the legacies of Italian mask makers Amleto and Donato Sartori and of the California-based Dell'Arte International School of Physical Theatre; and the ways in which traditional approaches in mask artistry continue to influence commercial mask performance ventures in film, on Broadway, and in touring companies.

Download or read book Rural migration in sub Saharan Africa patterns drivers and relation to structural transformation written by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2020-02-13 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sub-Saharan Africa has a long history of internal and international migratory movements. Migration patterns and dynamics from, to and between rural areas are profoundly differentiated across regions, and flows have considerably evolved over time. Yet, more recently, rural migration takes place in the unique situation of a major rural and urban demographic increase, which results in critical socio-economic and environmental challenges. In this context, intertwined migration drivers emerge and call for a better understanding of on-going dynamics. This working paper draws on a combination of literature review and data analysis, building on the results of the Atlas "Rural Africa in motion. Dynamics and drivers of migration South of the Sahara". This mixed approach is used to propose a conceptual framework based on past, current and future drivers of migration, then to examine observed patterns of rural migration and finally to discuss drivers’ characteristics and dynamics from case studies and existing datasets.

Download or read book The Dynamic Dance written by Barbara J. KING and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using dynamic systems theory, employed to study human communication, King demonstrates the complexity of apes' social communication, and the extent to which their interactions generate meaning. As King describes, apes create meaning primarily through their body movements--and go well beyond conveying messages about food, mating, or predators.

Download or read book The SAGE Encyclopedia of African Cultural Heritage in North America written by Mwalimu J. Shujaa and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2015-07-13 with total page 993 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Encyclopedia of African Cultural Heritage in North America provides an accessible ready reference on the retention and continuity of African culture within the United States. Our conceptual framework holds, first, that culture is a form of self-knowledge and knowledge about self in the world as transmitted from one person to another. Second, that African people continuously create their own cultural history as they move through time and space. Third, that African descended people living outside of Africa are also contributors to and participate in the creation of African cultural history. Entries focus on illuminating Africanisms (cultural retentions traceable to an African origin) and cultural continuities (ongoing practices and processes through which African culture continues to be created and formed). Thus, the focus is more culturally specific and less concerned with the broader transatlantic demographic, political and geographic issues that are the focus of similar recent reference works. We also focus less on biographies of individuals and political and economic ties and more on processes and manifestations of African cultural heritage and continuity. FEATURES: A two-volume A-to-Z work, available in a choice of print or electronic formats 350 signed entries, each concluding with Cross-references and Further Readings 150 figures and photos Front matter consisting of an Introduction and a Reader’s Guide organizing entries thematically to more easily guide users to related entries Signed articles concluding with cross-references