The Peopling of Africa

The Peopling of Africa PDF Author: James L. Newman
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300072808
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Discovering the African past takes one on a journey back to the origins of humanity over four million years ago, which is where James L. Newman begins his account of the continent's peoples. He ends it at the onset of the colonial era in the late nineteenth century, noting that "Africa and Africans deserve to be known on their own terms, and to achieve this goal we need to improve our understanding of what took place before colonialism rewrote many of life's rules." African identities constitute one of Newman's main themes, and thus he discusses the roles played by genetic background, language, occupation, and religion. Population distribution is the other main theme running through the book. As a geographer, the author uses regions, spaces, and places as his filters for viewing how Africans have responded through time to differing natural and human environmental circumstances. Drawing on the fields of biology, archaeology, linguistics, history, anthropology, and demography, as well as geography, Newman describes the richness and diversity of Africa's inhabitants, the technological changes that transformed their lives, how they formed polities from small groups of kin to states and empires, and how they were influenced by external forces, particularly the slave trade. Maps are an important part of the book, conveying information and helping readers interrelate local, regional, continental, and global contexts.

The Peopling of Africa

The Peopling of Africa PDF Author: James L. Newman
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300072808
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260

Get Book Here

Book Description
Discovering the African past takes one on a journey back to the origins of humanity over four million years ago, which is where James L. Newman begins his account of the continent's peoples. He ends it at the onset of the colonial era in the late nineteenth century, noting that "Africa and Africans deserve to be known on their own terms, and to achieve this goal we need to improve our understanding of what took place before colonialism rewrote many of life's rules." African identities constitute one of Newman's main themes, and thus he discusses the roles played by genetic background, language, occupation, and religion. Population distribution is the other main theme running through the book. As a geographer, the author uses regions, spaces, and places as his filters for viewing how Africans have responded through time to differing natural and human environmental circumstances. Drawing on the fields of biology, archaeology, linguistics, history, anthropology, and demography, as well as geography, Newman describes the richness and diversity of Africa's inhabitants, the technological changes that transformed their lives, how they formed polities from small groups of kin to states and empires, and how they were influenced by external forces, particularly the slave trade. Maps are an important part of the book, conveying information and helping readers interrelate local, regional, continental, and global contexts.

Africa in the World

Africa in the World PDF Author: Frederick Cooper
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674369319
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 181

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Book Description
At the Second World War’s end, it was clear that business as usual in colonized Africa would not resume. W. E. B. Du Bois’s The World and Africa, published in 1946, recognized the depth of the crisis that the war had brought to Europe, and hence to Europe’s domination over much of the globe. Du Bois believed that Africa’s past provided lessons for its future, for international statecraft, and for humanity’s mastery of social relations and commerce. Frederick Cooper revisits a history in which Africans were both empire-builders and the objects of colonization, and participants in the events that gave rise to global capitalism. Of the many pathways out of empire that African leaders envisioned in the 1940s and 1950s, Cooper asks why they ultimately followed the one that led to the nation-state, a political form whose limitations and dangers were recognized by influential Africans at the time. Cooper takes account of the central fact of Africa’s situation—extreme inequality between Africa and the western world, and extreme inequality within African societies—and considers the implications of this past trajectory for the future. Reflecting on the vast body of research on Africa since Du Bois’s time, Cooper corrects outdated perceptions of a continent often relegated to the margins of world history and integrates its experience into the mainstream of global affairs.

Africana Studies

Africana Studies PDF Author: Mario Joaquim Azevedo
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 606

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Book Description
The third edition of Africana Studies: A Survey of Africa and the African Diaspora is an update of the second edition (1998) and incorporates new chapters that include expanded coverage of issues on women, health, terrorism, the African Union, and many others, as well as the most recent theories and methods in Africana studies. To date, Africana Studies remains the most comprehensive and most suitable text for both teachers and students interested in Africa and the Diaspora in the US, the Caribbean, Afro-Latin-America, and elsewhere. The book is divided into five parts: the state of the art of Africana studies; the evolution of the history of black people; analysis of the contributions of the black world; the present and future status of these peoples; and the societies and values of black people. The book also includes a chronology of significant events in the history of peoples of African descent and a number of maps. "[This book] attempts in one volume to present more accurately the experiences and contributions of the African world. It introduces readers to the most comprehensive account of black interdisciplinary subjects to date and summarizes the research of specialists in a variety of fields... The number of contributors, variety, and depth of coverage show that the work was carefully thought out." -- Insights, on an earlier edition

Critical Terms for the Study of Africa

Critical Terms for the Study of Africa PDF Author: Gaurav Desai
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022654902X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
For far too long, the Western world viewed Africa as unmappable terrain—a repository for outsiders’ wildest imaginings. This problematic notion has had lingering effects not only on popular impressions of the region but also on the development of the academic study of Africa. Critical Terms for the Study of Africa considers the legacies that have shaped our understanding of the continent and its place within the conceptual grammar of contemporary world affairs. Written by a distinguished group of scholars, the essays compiled in this volume take stock of African studies today and look toward a future beyond its fraught intellectual and political past. Each essay discusses one of our most critical terms for talking about Africa, exploring the trajectory of its development while pushing its boundaries. Editors Gaurav Desai and Adeline Masquelier balance the choice of twenty-five terms between the expected and the unexpected, calling for nothing short of a new mapping of the scholarly field. The result is an essential reference that will challenge assumptions, stimulate lively debate, and make the past, present, and future of African Studies accessible to students and teachers alike.

Contemporary Cinema of Africa and the Diaspora

Contemporary Cinema of Africa and the Diaspora PDF Author: Anjali Prabhu
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1405193034
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Analyzing art house films from the African continent and the African diaspora, this book showcases a new generation of auteurs with African origins from political, aesthetic, and spectatorship perspectives. Focuses on art house cinema and discusses commercial African cinema Enlarges our understanding of African film to include thematic and aesthetic influence Highlights aesthetic and political aspects including racial identity, women’s issues, and diaspora Heavily illustrated with over 90 film stills Features selected stills integral to the filmic analysis in full color Moves beyond Western-oriented analytical paradigms

Cooking Data

Cooking Data PDF Author: Cal (Crystal) Biruk
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822371820
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
In Cooking Data Crystal Biruk offers an ethnographic account of research into the demographics of HIV and AIDS in Malawi to rethink the production of quantitative health data. While research practices are often understood within a clean/dirty binary, Biruk shows that data are never clean; rather, they are always “cooked” during their production and inevitably entangled with the lives of those who produce them. Examining how the relationships among fieldworkers, supervisors, respondents, and foreign demographers shape data, Biruk examines the ways in which units of information—such as survey questions and numbers written onto questionnaires by fieldworkers—acquire value as statistics that go on to shape national AIDS policy. Her approach illustrates how on-the-ground dynamics and research cultures mediate the production of global health statistics in ways that impact local economies and formulations of power and expertise.

Manufacturing African Studies and Crises

Manufacturing African Studies and Crises PDF Author: Tiyambe Zeleza
Publisher: Codesria
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 640

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Book Description
Awarded 'Special Commendation' in the Noma Award for Publishing in Africa 1998. The intellectual liberation of the study of Africa is the battle cry of this forceful book. The author is one of Africa's younger scholars, in the forefront of research and thinking about the role of African scholars, and the ownership and state of African Studies; and winner of The Noma Award for Publishing in Africa 1994. He describes this book as an interrogation of African Studies, its formulations and fetishes, theories and trends, possibilities and pitfalls. He argues that, as a discursiveformation, African Studies is immersed in the contexts and configurations of the western epistemological order; and the crisis in African Studies in North America and Britain reflects changing cultural policies as a result of the shifting ethnic and gender composition o fclassrooms, tansformations in the global positions of these countries, and the crisis of liberal values. The study has been highly recommended by such distinguished African scholars as Professors Mahmood Mamdani, Ali Mazrui, V.Y. Mudimbeand Adebayo Olikosh.

The Sex Lives of African Women

The Sex Lives of African Women PDF Author: Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
Publisher: Astra Publishing House
ISBN: 1662650825
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
"Dazzling... the tone is hopeful, resilient and accepting. Marked by the diversity of experiences shared, the wealth of intimate details, and the total lack of sensationalism, this is an astonishing report on the quest for sexual liberation." —Publishers Weekly, Starred Review "Touching, joyful, defiant -- and honest." —The Economist, a best book of the year Celebrate African women’s unique journeys toward sexual pleasure and liberation in this empowering, subversive collection of intimate stories. In these confessional pages, women control their own bodies and desires, work toward healing their painful pasts, and learn to assert their sexual power. Weaving a rich tapestry of experiences with a sex positive outlook, The Sex Lives of African Women is an empowering, subversive book that celebrates the liberation, individuality, and joy of African women's multifaceted sexuality. From a queer community in Egypt, to polyamorous life in Senegal, and a reflection on the intersection of religion and pleasure in Cameroon, feminist author Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah explores the many layers of love and desire, its expression, and how it defines who we are. Sekyiamah has spent decades talking openly and intimately to African women around the world about sex for her blog, “Adventures from the Bedrooms of African Women.” For this book she spoke to over 30 African women across the globe while chronicling her own journey toward sexual freedom.

The Bukavu Series

The Bukavu Series PDF Author: Aymar Nyenyezi
Publisher: Presses universitaires de Louvain
ISBN: 2390610048
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 146

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Book Description
They are qualified, experienced, motivated, academically accomplished. They work tirelessly, collecting invaluable data in the field under conditions that are always challenging, and at times dangerous. And yet, their voices are unheard, and their names go unacknowledged in published research. Such is the lot of far too many research assistants from the Global South – people upon whose work an entire industry of knowledge production has been built. They are shut out of discussions on project design and left in the dark about the modalities of research funding. Later, the results of their research are published in journals to which they often have no access. Much of this is due to a certain omertà surrounding power imbalances, as well as research assistants' working conditions, financial difficulties, psychological traumas, and vulnerabilities. It also stems from the persistence of colonial mentalities in the research world – within universities, governments, foundations, aid institutions, and NGO’s. The Bukavu Series is a vibrant blog series about the experiences of research assistants in the Global South. Driven primarily by these silent voices, the series yields a mosaic depiction of fieldwork that mixes humor, realism, and incisive critique. This book offers a unique entry point into a critical debate, leading us toward concrete reforms, and setting us on the course toward a decolonisation of research.

Hip Hop Africa

Hip Hop Africa PDF Author: Eric Charry
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253005825
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 405

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Book Description
Hip Hop Africa explores a new generation of Africans who are not only consumers of global musical currents, but also active and creative participants. Eric Charry and an international group of contributors look carefully at youth culture and the explosion of hip hop in Africa, the embrace of other contemporary genres, including reggae, ragga, and gospel music, and the continued vitality of drumming. Covering Senegal, Mali, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, and South Africa, this volume offers unique perspectives on the presence and development of hip hop and other music in Africa and their place in global music culture.