Download or read book Resisting State Iconoclasm Among the Loma of Guinea written by Christian Kordt Højbjerg and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Resisting State Iconoclasm Among the Loma of Guinea is an anthropological study of a West African people's ongoing commitment to a specific religious tradition that involves both secrecy and public ritual. Loma secret religious practice appears to have been relatively unaffected by a long-term suppression, including the exposure of secrecy, by the postcolonial authorities. In recent years the famous male ritual association known as Poro has even taken on new significance in the context of political upheaval in the war-torn border area between Guinea and Liberia. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and regional comparative research, the study not only provides a detailed account of hitherto unknown ritual practices in the Upper Guinea forest and coastal region. It also challenges recurring claims about the political role of secret societies in this part of West Africa. The retention of "tradition" in the face of "change" is of central analytical concern to Resisting State Iconoclasm. Against presentist accounts of persistent culture, Højbjerg argues that an adequate explanation of Loma religious resilience requires a composite approach addressing both the political dynamics of the studied area and the cognitive and relational processes involved in the transmission of religious and ritual tradition. The result of this approach serves as background for a critical engagement with current theories of the successful, enduring distribution of cultural ideas and practices. This book is part of the Ritual Studies Monograph Series, edited by Pamela J. Stewart and Andrew Strathern, Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh. "Højbjerg underscores religious resilience through a deeply researched study of sale, a secretive power widely shared through interethnic Poro and Sande initiatory societies. Rich masquerade, the violence of identity politics, and how religion is transmitted even when obliged to go underground are among the topics considered. Summing Up: Recommended." -- CHOICE Magazine "Højbjerg's account will undoubtedly provide valuable ethnographic material to regional specialists, and it documents a wealth of religious practices. It will also provide a valuable addition to the body of literature focusing on theories of cognition, symbolism, and change." -- Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
Download or read book Unmasking the State written by Mike McGovern and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "... A historical ethnography of the socialist period in Guinea"--Page 5.
Download or read book The Upper Guinea Coast in Global Perspective written by Jacqueline Knörr and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2016-02-01 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For centuries, Africa’s Upper Guinea Coast region has been the site of regional and global interactions, with societies from different parts of the African continent and beyond engaging in economic trade, cultural exchange and various forms of conflict. This book provides a wide-ranging look at how such encounters have continued into the present day, identifying the disruptions and continuities in religion, language, economics and various other social phenomena. These accounts show a region that, while still grappling with the legacies of colonialism and the slave trade, is both shaped by and an important actor within ever-denser global networks, exhibiting consistent transformation and creative adaptation.
Download or read book Youth and the State in Guinea Meandering Lives written by Michelle Engeler and published by transcript Verlag. This book was released on 2019-09-30 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By combining an ethnographic study of youth with an analysis of the local state in the making, this research monograph introduces the perspective of »meandering lives« to grasp being young and growing up in the Guéckédou borderland, a remote space approximately 700 kilometers southeast of Conakry, Guinea's capital. This history-sensitive perspective represents a fruitful lens to not only depict youth but to also draw a nuanced picture of the functioning of the state in Guinea.
Download or read book Politics of Religious Change on the Upper Guinea Coast written by Ramon Sarro and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2008-12-18 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2009 Amaury Talbot Prize for African Anthropology. The Politics of Religious Change on the Upper Guinea Coast offers an in-depth analysis of an iconoclastic religious movement initiated by a Muslim preacher among coastal Baga farmers in the French colonial period. With an ethnographic approach that listens as carefully to those who suffered iconoclastic violence as to those who wanted to 'get rid of custom', this work discusses the extent to which iconoclasm produces a rupture of religious knowledge and identity, and analyses its relevance in the making of modern nations and citizens.The book will appeal to a wide range of readers, particularly those with an interest in the anthropology of religion, iconoclasm, the history and anthropology of West Africa, or the politics of heritage.* This book examines the historical complexity of the interface between Islam, tradition religions and Christianity in west Africa, and how this interface links with dramatic political changes* It gives a detailed ethnographic approach through which such complex history is unveiled and analysed* It presents a dialogue between the field findings, a long tradition of anthropology and the most recent anthropological debates
Download or read book The Powerful Presence of the Past written by Jacqueline Knörr and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010-10-25 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book conceptualizes integration and conflict as interrelated dimensions of social interaction impacted by specific historical experiences. Contributions aim at a better understanding of the social mechanisms affecting processes of integration and conflict at the local, national and regional levels.
Download or read book Politics and Policies in Upper Guinea Coast Societies written by Christian K. Højbjerg and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-11-15 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the radical changes in social and political landscape of the Upper Guinea Coast region over the past 30 years as a result of civil wars, post-war interventions by international, humanitarian agencies and peacekeeping missions, as well as a regional public health crisis (Ebola epidemic). The emphasis on ‘crises’ in this book draws attention to the intense socio-transformations in the region over the last three decades. Contemporary crises and changes in the region provoke a challenge to accepted ways of understanding and imagining socio-political life in the region – whether at the level of subnational and national communities, or international and regional structures of interest, such as refugees, weapon trafficking, cross-border military incursions, regional security, and transnational epidemics. This book explores and transcends the central explanatory tropes that have oriented research on the region and re-evaluates them in the light of the contemporary structural dynamics of crises, changes and continuities.
Download or read book Archaeological Interpretations written by Peter Eeckhout and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2020-06-15 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presenting studies in Andean archaeology and iconography by leading specialists in the field, this volume tackles the question of how researchers can come to understand the intangible, intellectual worlds of ancient peoples. Archaeological Interpretations is a fascinating ontological journey through Andean cultures from the fourth millennium BC to the sixteenth century, A.D. Through evidence-based case studies, theoretical models, and methodological reflections, contributors discuss the various interpretations that can be derived from the traces of ritual activity that remain in the material record. They discuss how to accurately comprehend the social significance of artifacts beyond their practical use and how to decode the symbolism of sacred images. Addressing topics including the earliest evidence of shamanism in Ecuador, the meaning of masks among the Mochicas in Peru, the value of metal in the Recuay culture, and ceremonies of voluntary abandonment among the Incas, contributors propose original and innovative ways of interpreting the rich Andean archaeological heritage. Contributors: Luis Jaime Castillo Butters | Peter Eeckhout | Christine Hastorf | Abigail Levine | Geroge F. Lau | Frank Meddens | Charles S. Stanish | Edward Swenson | Gary Urton | Francisco Valdez
Download or read book Women Agency and the State in Guinea written by Carole Ammann and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-03-05 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines how women in Guinea articulate themselves politically within and outside institutional politics. It documents the everyday practices that local female actors adopt to deal with the continuous economic, political, and social insecurities that emerge in times of political transformations. Carole Ammann argues that women’s political articulations in Muslim Guinea do not primarily take place within women’s associations or institutional politics such as political parties; but instead women’s silent forms of politics manifest in their daily agency, that is, when they make a living, study, marry, meet friends, raise their children, and do household chores. The book also analyses the relationship between the female population and the local authorities, and discusses when and why women’s claim making enjoys legitimacy in the eyes of other men and women, as well as representatives of ‘traditional’ authorities and the local government. Paying particular attention to intersectional perspectives, this book will be of interest to scholars of African studies, social anthropology, political anthropology, the anthropology of gender, urban anthropology, gender studies, and Islamic studies.
Download or read book Infinite Repertoire written by Adrienne J. Cohen and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2021-07-23 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Guinea’s capital city of Conakry, dance is everywhere. Most neighborhoods boast at least one dance troupe, and members of those troupes animate the city’s major rites of passage and social events. In Infinite Repertoire, Adrienne Cohen shows how dance became such a prominent—even infrastructural—feature of city life in Guinea, and tells a surprising story of the rise of creative practice under a political regime known for its authoritarianism and violent excesses. Guinea’s socialist state, which was in power from 1958 to 1984, used staged African dance or “ballet” strategically as a political tool, in part by tapping into indigenous conceptualizations of artisans as powerful figures capable of transforming the social fabric through their manipulation of vital energy. Far from dying with the socialist revolution, Guinean ballet continued to thrive in Conakry after economic liberalization in the 1980s, with its connection to transformative power retrofitted for a market economy and a rapidly expanding city. Infinite Repertoire follows young dancers and percussionists in Conakry as they invest in the present—using their bodies to build a creative urban environment and to perform and redefine social norms and political subjectivities passed down from the socialist generation before them. Cohen’s inventive ethnography weaves the political with the aesthetic, placing dance at the center of a story about dramatic political change and youthful resourcefulness in one of the least-studied cities on the African continent.
Download or read book Decolonizing Heritage written by Ferdinand De Jong and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-03-17 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Senegal's cultural heritage sites are in many cases remnants of the French empire. This book examines how an independent nation decolonises its colonial heritage, and how slave barracks, colonial museums, and monuments to empire are re-interpreted to imagine a postcolonial future.
Download or read book Elements of Ritual and Violence written by Margo Kitts and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-31 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ritualized violence is by definition not haphazard or random, but seemingly intentional and often ceremonial. It has a long history in religious practice, as attested in texts and artifacts from the earliest civilizations. It is equally evident in the behaviors of some contemporary religious activists and within initiatory practices ongoing in many regions of the world. Given its longevity and cultural expanse, ritualized violence presumably exerts a pull deeply into the sociology, psychology, anthropology, theology, perhaps even ontology of its practitioners, but this is not transparent. This short volume will sketch the subject of ritualized violence, that is, it will summarize some established theories about ritual and about violence, and will ponder a handful of striking instantiations of their link.
Download or read book Losing Culture written by David Berliner and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2020-05-15 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Around the world, you will hear complaints that people are losing their culture and their heritage. This study explores what is triggering this sense of cultural loss, to what ends this rhetoric gets deployed, and how anthropologists deal with their own feelings of nostalgia.
Download or read book The State and the Paradox of Customary Law in Africa written by Olaf Zenker and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-02-02 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Customary law and traditional authorities continue to play highly complex and contested roles in contemporary African states. Reversing the common preoccupation with studying the impact of the post/colonial state on customary regimes, this volume analyses how the interactions between state and non-state normative orders have shaped the everyday practices of the state. It argues that, in their daily work, local officials are confronted with a paradox of customary law: operating under politico-legal pluralism and limited state capacity, bureaucrats must often, paradoxically, deal with custom – even though the form and logic of customary rule is not easily compatible and frequently incommensurable with the form and logic of the state – in order to do their work as a state. Given the self-contradictory nature of this endeavour, officials end up processing, rather than solving, this paradox in multiple, inconsistent and piecemeal ways. Assembling inventive case studies on state-driven land reforms in South Africa and Tanzania, the police in Mozambique, witchcraft in southern Sudan, constitutional reform in South Sudan, Guinea’s long durée of changing state engagements with custom, and hybrid political orders in Somaliland, this volume offers important insights into the divergent strategies used by African officials in handling this paradox of customary law and, somehow, getting their work done.
Download or read book The Politics of Conflict Economies written by Morten Bøås and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-08-21 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conflict economies cannot be approached in isolation but must instead be contextualised socially and historically. These economies did not emerge in vacuum, but are part and parcel of the history of people and place. This book explores the informal and illicit extraction and trade of minerals and other types of natural resources that takes place in the 'borderlands' during periods of conflict. This type of extraction and marketing, often referred to as ‘conflict trade’ depends on a weak state, and works alongside the structures of the state and its officials. The book emphasises that conflicts do not start as competition over natural resources and in turn suggests that the integration of the extraction and marketing of natural resources only starts once fighting is well under way. Boas argues that although economic agendas are an integral part of African conflicts, the desire to accumulate is not the only motivation. Thus, in order to present a more comprehensive analysis of conflict we need to take into account political, cultural, and historical factors, in addition to the economic dimensions of conflict. This book will be of very strong interest to students and scholars of political economy, conflict studies, international relations and development.
Download or read book A Creole Nation written by Christoph Kohl and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2018-04-25 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite high degrees of cultural and ethnic diversity as well as prevailing political instability, Guinea-Bissau’s population has developed a strong sense of national belonging. By examining both contemporary and historical perspectives, A Creole Nation explores how creole identity, culture, and political leaders have influenced postcolonial nation-building processes in Guinea-Bissau, and the ways in which the phenomenon of cultural creolization results in the emergence of new identities.
Download or read book The Ashgate Research Companion to Anthropology written by Andrew J. Strathern and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-03 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This companion provides an indispensable overview of contemporary and classical issues in social and cultural anthropology. Although anthropology has expanded greatly over time in terms of the diversity of topics in which its practitioners engage, many of the broad themes and topics at the heart of anthropological thought remain perennially vital, such as understanding order and change, diversity and continuity, and conflict and co-operation in the reproduction of social life. Bringing together leading scholars in the field, the contributors to this volume provide us with thoughtful and fruitful ways of thinking about a number of contemporary and long-standing arenas of work where both established and more recent researchers are engaged. The companion begins by exploring classic topics such as Religion; Rituals; Language and Culture; Violence; and Gender. This is followed by a focus on current developments within the discipline including Human Rights; Globalization; and Diasporas and Cosmopolitanism. It provides an interesting and challenging look at the state of current thinking in anthropology, serving as a rich resource for scholars and students alike.
