Download or read book Culture and Customs of South Africa written by Funso Afolayan and published by Greenwood. This book was released on 2004-04-30 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: South Africa can be considered the newest of African nations, with the ending of Apartheid in 1994. It is one of the most ethnically, culturally, and linguistically varied countries on the continent and the economic powerhouse of southern Africa. This inclusive overview is a must-have for all readers wanting a meaty introduction to South Africa today, in an historical context that pulls the strands of all South Africans, from Zulu to Afrikaner to Indian, together. Some highlights from the myriad of topics covered include oral history, multireligious traditions, wood sculpture, communal ties, cone-on-cylinder housing, changing roles of women, conjugal arrangements, and British and Boer influences. This timely work expands our knowledge of South Africa beyond the headlines. The European angle with the story behind the Boers, the Afrikaners, and Apartheid is made clear. The African angle is the strongest, with balanced insights into various traditions and ways of life. A chronology, glossary, photos, and map complement the narrative.
Download or read book South Africa written by Domini Clark and published by Crabtree Publishing Company. This book was released on 2009 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: View the mix of people and cultures that make up South Africa today, including a special section on tradtional beliefs and customs.
Download or read book Black Cultural Life in South Africa written by Lily Saint and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2018-09-20 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Under apartheid, black South Africans experienced severe material and social disadvantages occasioned by the government’s policies, and they had limited time for entertainment. Still, they closely engaged with an array of textual and visual cultures in ways that shaped their responses to this period of ethical crisis. Marshaling forms of historical evidence that include passbooks, memoirs, American “B” movies, literary and genre fiction, magazines, and photocomics, Black Cultural Life in South Africa considers the importance of popular genres and audiences in the relationship between ethical consciousness and aesthetic engagement. This study provocatively posits that states of oppression, including colonial and postcolonial rule, can elicit ethical responses to imaginative identification through encounters with popular culture, and it asks whether and how they carry over into ethical action. Its consideration of how globalized popular culture “travels” not just in material form, but also through the circuits of the imaginary, opens a new window for exploring the ethical and liberatory stakes of popular culture. Each chapter focuses on a separate genre, yet the overall interdisciplinary approach to the study of genre and argument for an expansion of ethical theory that draws on texts beyond the Western canon speak to growing concerns about studying genres and disciplines in isolation. Freed from oversimplified treatments of popular forms—common to cultural studies and ethical theory alike—this book demonstrates that people can do things with mass culture that reinvigorate ethical life. Lily Saint’s new volume will interest Africanists across the humanities and the social sciences, and scholars of Anglophone literary, globalization, and cultural studies; race; ethical theories and philosophies; film studies; book history and material cultures; and the burgeoning field of comics and graphic novels.
Download or read book Culture and Customs of Mozambique written by George O. Ndege and published by Greenwood. This book was released on 2007 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This solid, thorough overview of Mozambique is crucial for beginning to understand the country's progress in the new Africa.
Download or read book Culture and Customs of Ghana written by Steven J. Salm and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2002-03-30 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The decades of independence in Ghana have strengthened the idea of a national Ghanaian culture. The culture and customs of Ghana today are a product of diversity in traditional forms, influenced by a long history of Islamic and European contact. Culture and Customs of Ghana is the first book to concisely provide an up-to-date narrative on the most significant elements of the established cultural life and institutions as well as the most recent changes in the cultural landscape. Written expressly for students and the general reader, it belongs in every library supporting multicultural and African studies curricula. Ghana seeks to cultivate the philosophy of the African personality, to revive, maintain, and promote Ghanaian ways of life and integrate them into political and social institutions. Ghanaians also recognize their relationship to the rest of the world and continue to develop with the forces of globalization. Culture and Customs of Ghana authoritatively discusses the vibrant and adaptable people, from their religions to music and dance. A chronology, glossary, and numerous photos complement the text.
Download or read book Culture and Customs of Zambia written by Scott D. Taylor and published by Greenwood. This book was released on 2006-10-30 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Zambia stands out in Africa as one of the continent's most peaceful countries. In its early years as an independent state, Zambia became a regional bulwark against colonial domination and South African apartheid. This book explores Zambia's culture, through various topics, focusing on how "traditional" and "modern" interact, and sometimes collide.
Download or read book Culture and Customs of the Central African Republic written by Jacqueline Cassandra Woodfork and published by Greenwood. This book was released on 2006-09-30 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the culture and customs of the people of the Central African Republic.
Download or read book Covid and Custom in Rural South Africa written by Leslie Bank and published by Hurst Publishers. This book was released on 2022-06-09 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the impact of Covid-19, and the associated state lockdown, on rural lives in a former homeland in South Africa. The 2020 Disaster Management Act saw the state sweep through rural areas, targeting funerals and other customary practices as potential ‘super-spreader’ events. This unprecedented clampdown produced widespread disruption, fear and anxiety. The authors build on path-breaking work concerning local responses to West Africa’s Ebola epidemic, and examine the HIV/AIDS pandemic, to understand the impact of the Covid crisis on these communities, and on rural Africa more broadly. To shed light on the role of custom and ritual in rural social change during the pandemic, Covid and Custom in Rural South Africa applies long-term historical and ethnographic research; theories of people’s science, local knowledge and the human economy; and fieldwork conducted in ten rural South African communities during lockdown. The volume highlights differences between developments in Southern Africa and elsewhere on the continent, while exploring how the former apartheid homelands–commonly, yet problematically, represented as former ‘labour reserves’–have since been reconstituted as new home-spaces. In short, it explains why rural people have been so angered by the state’s assault on their cultural practices and institutions in the time of Covid.
Download or read book Culture and Customs of Senegal written by Eric Ross and published by Greenwood. This book was released on 2008-04-30 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A blend of indigenous life in the rural countryside and metropolitan culture in urban centers, Senegal has been a small, yet prominent country on Africa's western coast. In this comprehensive study of contemporary Senegalese life, readers will learn how daily lifestyles are celebrated through both religious and secular customs. Students can investigate how Senegal's oral storytelling, Islamic roots, and French colonialism have shaped literature and media in today's society. From the street to the studio, the topic of art in Senegalese life is also covered. Ross also delves into architectural styles and modern housing in urban environments, while also covering typical cuisine and traditional fashion. Readers will learn about the typical Senegalese family as a social and economic unit, and will see how music, dance, and sports play an integral role in their lives. Ideal for high school students and general readers, this volume in the Culture and Customs of Africa series is a perfect addition to any library's reference collection.
Download or read book Funeral Culture written by Casey Golomski and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-04 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary forms of living and dying in Swaziland cannot be understood apart from the global HIV/AIDS pandemic, according to anthropologist Casey Golomski. In Africa's last absolute monarchy, the story of 15 years of global collaboration in treatment and intervention is also one of ordinary people facing the work of caring for the sick and dying and burying the dead. Golomski's ethnography shows how AIDS posed challenging questions about the value of life, culture, and materiality to drive new forms and practices for funerals. Many of these forms and practicesnewly catered funeral feasts, an expanded market for life insurance, and the kingdom's first crematoriumare now conspicuous across the landscape and culturally disruptive in a highly traditionalist setting. This powerful and original account details how these new matters of death, dying, and funerals have become entrenched in peoples' everyday lives and become part of a quest to create dignity in the wake of a devastating epidemic.
Download or read book South Africa Culture Smart written by Isabella Morris and published by Kuperard. This book was released on 2018-02-01 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: South Africa has been described as "A World in One Country" and a "Rainbow Nation." Its landscape ranges from miles of glorious beaches to the inland desert of the Karoo, the sweeping grasslands of the Highveld plateau, and the subtropical bush of the Lowveld. Its ethnic makeup is equally varied. There are eleven official languages, nine major black African tribes, two major white tribes, as well as a representation of all the world's major religions. It has a free market economy while communists share in government; one of the world's most liberal constitutions and a deeply patriarchal society; and very rich and very poor people coexisting. South Africa has come through fire, and although there is still considerable heat, it is doing pretty well. This insiders' guide will introduce you to the universal warmth and cultural diversity of its people, explain the backdrop of their troubled past, and familiarize you with their everyday life so that you'll feel comfortable whether you're invited to a shack in the townships, a mansion in the suburbs, or a braai on the beach. You'll learn how to stay safe in potentially dangerous areas, and you'll know where to go if you want to feel like the only person on the planet.
Download or read book Predicaments of Culture in South Africa written by Ashraf Jamal and published by Imagined South Africa. This book was released on 2005 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Symptomatic of an emergent shift away from prescriptive and deterministic accounts of change in South Africa, Predicaments of culture in South Africa posits an open-ended and speculative approach to the question and agency of culture. The key question, posed by Justice Albie Sachs of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, 'what does it mean to be a South African?' is shifted from its familiar ontological and epistemological habitat, 'what is identity?', the better to embrace its ethical and political rider, 'what are identities for?', and its more pragmatic possibility, 'what can identities do?' These qualifications - Bhabha's - form the building blocks that skew and enrich existing presumptions about South Africa's history, its present moment and its future. Jamal challenges and qualifies the conflicting and contiguous drives of fatalism, positivism and relativism, which are the dominant claimants upon the South African cultural imaginary. It is this critical non-positionality that forms the distinctive trait of an inquiry which, in eschewing allegiance and closure, opens up the debate about what it means to be South African and the role of culture therein. 'In hindsight, and with the hither side of the future before us', Jamal's driving assumption is that 'world society is advancing towards yet another age of ignorance; an age beyond suspicion and irony, in which thought, whether self-critical or not, is no longer the agent of reason'. Jamal calls for an urgent reappraisal of the absence of love - of lovelessness - which he sees as the infected root of South Africa's inability to create a positively affirmative cultural imaginary.
Download or read book Culture and Customs of Gambia written by Abdoulaye Saine and published by Greenwood. This book was released on 2012-04-13 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ideal for high school and undergraduate students, this addition to the Culture and Customs of Africa series examines the contemporary cultures and traditions of modern Gambia, from religious customs to literature to cuisine and much more. This title in the Culture and Customs of Africa series examines the traditions and customs of contemporary Gambia, a geographically tiny nation in the vast landscape of Africa that is home to a large number of various ethnic groups, each with its own distinctive way of life. It is a country that has been largely unknown in Western culture, with the exception of Alex Haley's book Roots and subsequent TV series, which highlights Gambia's historic significance in the slave trade. This book illuminates Gambian religion and worldview; literature and media; arts and architecture/housing; gender roles, marriage, and family; social customs, traditional dress, cuisine, and lifestyle; and music and dance. The author has successfully encapsulated both long-ago history and contemporary Gambia to provide students with a complete look at life in Gambia today. Information on past traditions and historic events is discussed in the context of how they pertain to life today and their influence on the constant evolution of Gambian life and culture.
Download or read book Culture and Customs of Rwanda written by Julius O. Adekunle and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2007-05-30 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rwanda has been in the news for the genocide of 1994 and its aftermath. This volume exposes Western readers to the fuller picture of Rwanda. Early European travelers attested to Rwanda's beauty, describing it variously as the Switzerland of Africa and the Pearl of Africa. Rwanda has also been referred to as the Land of a Thousand Hills and the Land of Gorillas. The spectacular volcanoes, mountains, and natural resources are significant assets. The nation been dominated by two colonial powers, the Germans and Belgians. In spite of these political upheavals and acts of ethnic violence, Rwanda remains a country with rich culture and customs. Readers will learn that living together in harmony has been part of the Rwandan society, with its few ethnic groups, and traditional values supported a culture of peace. The traditionally pastoral and agricultural society is overviewed. The chapter on religion includes discussion of polytheism to Christianity. Other chapters cover the strong family and women's roles, the arts and oral cultures, celebrations, food, and dress.
Download or read book The Zulu written by Ulrich von Kapff and published by Penguin Random House South Africa. This book was released on 2012-07-20 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a single decade, between 1818 and 1828, Shaka transformed a modest chieftaincy into one of the most powerful kingdoms in southern Africa. His empire, whose heartland lay to the north of the Thukela River in present-day KwaZulu-Natal, was renowned for its military might and expansionist drive. But the sovereignty of the Zulu was short-lived, their realm crushed in the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879, at the battles of Rorke’s Drift and Ulundi, despite trouncing the British at Isandlwana. Although the mighty empire is long gone, many of the traditions and customs have survived. The Zulu – An A–Z of Culture and Traditions is packed with information about this heritage, covering more than 50 topics that include beadwork, pottery, carvings and basket weaving; ceremonial dances and stick fighting; rituals of courtship and marriage; Zulu dress; traditional homesteads and cattle kraals; ancestor worship; the role of sangomas and inyangas; and a variety of celebrations and ceremonial practices. This book is the perfect memento for anyone fascinated by the history and culture of South Africa’s largest ethnic society. Uli von Kapff moved to South Africa in 1989, initially settling in KwaZulu-Natal. His knowledge of the Zulu shines through in this book, giving the reader a rich insight into the culture and traditions of the country’s largest indigenous group. He lives in Cape Town, where he works in the IT support industry and undertakes expeditions in southern Africa.
Download or read book Culture Shock written by Dee Rissik and published by Graphic Arts Books. This book was released on 1994 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduces the geography, history, religious beliefs, government, and people of South Africa.
Download or read book Culture and Customs of Kenya written by Neal W. Sobania and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2003-06-30 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kenya, a land of safaris, wild animals, and Maasai warriors, perfectly represents Africa for many Westerners. This peerless single-source book presents the contemporary reality of life in Kenya, an important East-African nation that has served as a crossroads for peoples and cultures from Africa, the Middle East, and East Asia for centuries. As such, it is a land rich in cultural and ethnic diversity, where unique and dynamic traditions blend with modern influences. Students and general readers will be engrossed in narrative overviews highlighting Kenyan history, as well as the beliefs, vibrant cultural expressions, and various lifestyles and roles of the Kenyan population. A chronology, glossary, and numerous photos enhance the narrative. Kenya today struggles with nation building. Its society comprises the haves and the have-nots and faces the challenges of the trend toward urbanization, with its attendant disruption of traditional social structures. For Kenyans, the preserving of traditional cultures is as important as making the statement that Kenya is a modern nation. Chapters on the land, people, and history; religion and worldview; literature, film, and media; art and architecture; cuisine and traditional dress; gender roles, marriage, and family; and social customs and lifestyle are up to date and written by a country expert. A chronology, glossary, and numerous photos enhance the narrative.
