Download or read book Religion and the Political Imagination in a Changing South Africa written by Eve Mullen, Gordon Mitchell and published by Waxmann Verlag. This book was released on 2002 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Themes in Religion and Human Security in Africa written by Joram Tarusarira and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-08-30 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book reflects on major themes present at the interface between religion and human security in Africa. It probes the extent to which religion is both a threat to and a resource for human security in Africa by examining specific issues occurring across the continent. A team of contributors from across Africa provide valuable reflections on the conceptualisation and applicability of the concept of human security in the context of religion in Africa. Chapters highlight how themes such as knowledge systems, youth, education, race, development, sacred texts, the media, sexual diversity, health and others have implications for individual and group security. In order to bring these themes into perspective, chapters in the first section reflect on the conceptual, historical and contextual factors at play. The chapters that follow demonstrate the theories put forward by means of case studies from countries such as Zimbabwe, Kenya, Botswana and Ghana that look at African religion, Islam and Christianity. This is a detailed and informative volume that provides new insights into the discourse on religion and human security. As such, it will be of significant use to any scholar of Religion and Violence, Religion in Africa and Religious Studies, as well as African and Security Studies more generally.
Download or read book Spirit Possession Modernity Power in Africa written by Heike Behrend and published by Univ of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Africa as well as in Europe, many spirits and their mediums are part of local as well as global cultures. Christian spirits named Hitler, Mussolini, or King Bruce (Bruce Lee) flourish in a pantheon of new holy spirits in Uganda waging war against the government. Spirits of airplanes, engines, guitars, and angels are found in Central Africa; and thunder, snakes, and rain as well as playboys and prostitutes inhabit the spirit world in West Africa. Spirit possession cults have continued to proliferate, even in the secular West, and continue to be a subject of intense interest. Despite the continuous expansion of the field, some problems are only now beginning to be explored. The experts in this volume focus on questions of power, the history and inner dynamics of cults, the role of gender and images of the other, based on research conducted during the last fifteen years in Africa. The contributors document changes taking place across the continent as possession beliefs and practices respond to new circumstances and address the shifting local implications of an increasingly global socio-economy. Gender, ethnicity, and class are examined as intersecting forces and features of spirit phenomena. The case studies presented are richly contextualized: history, social organization and upheaval, alternative religious options--all are considered relevant to an understanding of possession forms. Contributors: Leslie Sharp, Heike Behrend, Adeline Masquelier, Mathias Krings, Jean-Paul Colleyn, Alexandra O. de Sousa, Susan Kenyon, Tobias Wendl, Ute Luig, and Linda Giles Co-published with James Currey Publishers, U.K. The Wisconsin edition is not for sale in the United Kingdon, the traditional British Commonwealth (excepting Canada), nor in Europe.
Download or read book Charlatans Spirits and Rebels in Africa written by Tim Kelsall and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022-09-01 with total page 784 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Stephen Ellis died in July 2015, African Studies lost one of its most prolific, provocative and celebrated scholars. Given the scale and uniqueness of his contribution, it is perhaps surprising that a collection of his writings did not appear during his lifetime. It is now possible to bring such a volume to the public. With an introduction by Tim Kelsall and an afterword by Jean-François Bayart, this collection aims to provide scholars and students with an introduction to the main themes in Ellis' work. These revolved around the roles of religion, criminality and violence in African society and politics--preoccupations that also informed his interpretation of African rebellions and resistance movements. The volume spans more than three decades of scholarship; case studies from six countries; highly-cited and lesser-known articles; and a sampling of works intended for public engagement as well as an academic audience. It will serve as a reader for African Politics and History, and as an invitation to students to delve deeper into Stephen Ellis' oeuvre.
Download or read book Islam and Muslim Politics in Africa written by B. Soares and published by Springer. This book was released on 2007-10-01 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Political liberalization and economic reform, the weakening of the state, and increased global interconnections have all had profound effects on Muslim societies and the practice of Islam in Africa. The contributors to this volume investigate and illuminate the changes that have occurred in Africa, through detailed case studies.
Download or read book Power and Politics in Africa A Boundary Generator written by Takuo Iwata and published by Vernon Press. This book was released on 2025-01-07 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Africa’s potential and challenges in the 21st century make it a focal point for global attention. The continent’s political landscape is now more diverse, with a mix of democracy, authoritarianism, peace, and conflict. Understanding the dynamics of African politics is crucial. This comprehensive book delves into African Politics and International Relations, exploring power through the lenses of politics, geography, sociology, and anthropology. It is based on the author’s three decades of fieldwork and research across Africa, Asia, and the West. Ideal for academic scholars, students, diplomats, government officials, journalists, and NGO staff seeking to deepen their understanding of African politics and international relations.
Download or read book Political Spiritualities written by Ruth Marshall and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-08-01 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After an explosion of conversions to Pentecostalism over the past three decades, tens of millions of Nigerians now claim that “Jesus is the answer.” But if Jesus is the answer, what is the question? What led to the movement’s dramatic rise and how can we make sense of its social and political significance? In this ambitiously interdisciplinary study, Ruth Marshall draws on years of fieldwork and grapples with a host of important thinkers—including Foucault, Agamben, Arendt, and Benjamin—to answer these questions. To account for the movement’s success, Marshall explores how Pentecostalism presents the experience of being born again as a chance for Nigerians to realize the promises of political and religious salvation made during the colonial and postcolonial eras. Her astute analysis of this religious trend sheds light on Nigeria’s contemporary politics, postcolonial statecraft, and the everyday struggles of ordinary citizens coping with poverty, corruption, and inequality. Pentecostalism’s rise is truly global, and Political Spiritualities persuasively argues that Nigeria is a key case in this phenomenon while calling for new ways of thinking about the place of religion in contemporary politics.
Download or read book Identification and Citizenship in Africa written by Séverine Awenengo Dalberto and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-05-10 with total page 389 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.
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 Remembering Absence written by Nicolas Argenti and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-21 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on research conducted on Chios during the sovereign debt crisis that struck Greece in 2010, Nicolas Argenti follows the lives of individuals who symbolize the transformations affecting this Aegean island. As witnesses to the crisis speak of their lives, however, their current anxieties and frustrations are expressed in terms of past crises that have shaped the dramatic history of Chios, including the German occupation in World War II and the ensuing famine, the exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey of 1922–23, and the Massacres of 1822 that decimated the island at the outset of the Greek War of Independence. The complex temporality that emerges in these accounts is ensconced in a cultural context of commemorative ritual, ecstatic visions, an annual rocket war, and other embodied practices that contribute to forms of memory production that question the assumptions of the trauma discourse, revealing the islanders of Chios to be active in forging their place in time in a manner that blurs the boundaries between historiography, memory, religion, and myth. A member of the Chiot diaspora, Argenti makes use of unpublished correspondence from survivors of the Massacres of 1822 and their descendants and reflects on oral family histories and silences in which the island represents an enigmatic but palpable absence. As he explores the ways in which a body of memory and a cultural experience of temporality came to be dislocated and shared between two populations, his return to Chios marks an encounter in which the traditional roles of ethnographer and participant come to be dispersed and intertwined.
Download or read book Symbolic Confrontations written by NA NA and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-05-24 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Donal Cruise O'Brien is a leading authority on Islam in Africa. This is a collection of his writing over the last 30 years, some significantly rewritten to render this a coherent book to use for teaching about the interplay between politics and Islam in Africa. The author's main argument is that much of politics in Africa is negotiated through use of symbols, and can not be separated from the religious origins and the systems of belief from which they originate. The book focuses on Senegal, a fascinating example of the spread of Muslim brotherhoods and their overarching influence on the construction and decision-making processes of the state.
Download or read book Understanding Contemporary Ethiopia written by Gérard Prunier and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-09-15 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When we think of Ethiopia we tend to think in cliches: Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, the Falasha Jews, the epic reign of Emperor Haile Selassie, the Communist Revolution, famine and civil war. Among the countries of Africa it has a high profile yet is poorly known. How- ever all cliches contain within them a kernel of truth, and occlude much more. Today's Ethiopia (and its painfully liberated sister state of Eritrea) are largely obscured by these mythical views and a secondary literature that is partial or propagandist. Moreover there have been few attempts to offer readers a comprehensive overview of the country's recent history, politics and culture that goes beyond the usual guidebook fare. Understanding Contemporary Ethiopia seeks to do just that, presenting a measured, detailed and systematic analysis of the main features of this unique country, now building on the foundations of a magical and tumultuous past as it struggles to emerge in the modern world on its own terms.
Download or read book Sensuous Scholarship written by Paul Stoller and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2010-11-24 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Among the Songhay of Mali and Niger, who consider the stomach the seat of personality, learning is understood not in terms of mental activity but in bodily terms. Songhay bards study history by "eating the words of the ancestors," and sorcerers learn their art by ingesting particular substances, by testing their flesh with knives, by mastering pain and illness. In Sensuous Scholarship Paul Stoller challenges contemporary social theorists and cultural critics who—using the notion of embodiment to critique Eurocentric and phallocentric predispositions in scholarly thought—consider the body primarily as a text that can be read and analyzed. Stoller argues that this attitude is in itself Eurocentric and is particularly inappropriate for anthropologists, who often work in societies in which the notion of text, and textual interpretation, is foreign. Throughout Sensuous Scholarship Stoller argues for the importance of understanding the "sensuous epistemologies" of many non-Western societies so that we can better understand the societies themselves and what their epistemologies have to teach us about human experience in general.
Download or read book Hard Work Hard Times written by Anne-Maria Makhulu and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2010-11 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction / Anne-Maria Makhulu, Beth A. Buggenhagen, Stephen Jackson. - The search for economic sovereignty / Anne-Maria Makhulu. - "It seems to be going:" the genius of survival in wartime DR Congo / Stephen Jackson. - This is play : popular culture and politics in Côte d'Ivoire / Mike McGovern. - Self-sovereignty and creativity in Ghanian public culture / Jesse Weaver Shipley. - "May God let me share paradise with my fellow believers" : Islam's "female face" and the politics of religious devotion in Mali / Dorothea E. Schulz. - "Killer bargains" : global networks of Senegalese Muslims and the policing of unofficial economies in the war on terror / Beth A. Buggenhagen. - Border practices / Charles Piot.
Download or read book Development Studies written by Jeffrey Haynes and published by Polity. This book was released on 2008-05-05 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Clear, accessible and concise, this is an ideal primer for students unfamiliar with the central themes and theoretical perspectives in the study of development.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Global Religion written by Mark Juergensmeyer and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2012 with total page 1529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents entries A to L of a two-volume encyclopedia discussing religion around the globe, including biographies, concepts and theories, places, social issues, movements, texts, and traditions.
