Chiefs, Priests, and Praise-singers

Chiefs, Priests, and Praise-singers PDF Author: Wyatt MacGaffey
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813933862
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
Colonial anthropology and historical reconstruction -- Drum chant and the political uses of tradition -- Tindanas and chiefs : ethnography -- Chiefs and tindanas : making 'nam' -- Tamale : the Dakpema, the Gulkpe'Na, the Bugulana, and the law of the land -- Chiefs in the national arena.

Chiefs, Priests, and Praise-singers

Chiefs, Priests, and Praise-singers PDF Author: Wyatt MacGaffey
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813933862
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
Colonial anthropology and historical reconstruction -- Drum chant and the political uses of tradition -- Tindanas and chiefs : ethnography -- Chiefs and tindanas : making 'nam' -- Tamale : the Dakpema, the Gulkpe'Na, the Bugulana, and the law of the land -- Chiefs in the national arena.

Islam, Power, and Dependency in the Gambia River Basin

Islam, Power, and Dependency in the Gambia River Basin PDF Author: Assan Sarr
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1580465692
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
An original, rigorously researched volume that questions long-accepted paradigms concerning land ownership and its use in Africa.

The Gods are not Jealous

The Gods are not Jealous PDF Author: Rahman Yakubu
Publisher: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt
ISBN: 3374071996
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
Rahman Yakubu critiques the notion that Islam and Christianity in Africa have been benevolent to African Traditional Religion (ATR) in their interreligious encounter. Rather, he argues that ATR plays an active and central role in creating a peaceful interreligious space in Africa. Using an ethnographic study of rituals in the rites of passage among Dagomba Muslims, Christians and adherents of ATR of Ghana, the author concludes that Dagomba religio-culture has influenced not only the identity of adherents of the two faiths, but also the relations between them. This book proposes that, for a constructive negotiating of religious identity and peaceful interreligious existence, Traditional Religions should be considered an equal partner in interreligious dialogue.

A New African Elite

A New African Elite PDF Author: Deborah Pellow
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1800733798
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
Focusing on a sub-set of the Dagomba of northern Ghana, this book looks at the first generation to go through secondary school in the north. After university and post-graduate education, they relocate to Accra, the capital, hundreds of miles south. They crossed social and physical space and have become cosmopolitan while holding on to tradition and attachment to their home town. This bridge generation are patrons to those living up north. This book charts their path into elite status and argues that they use the tools gained through education and social connections to influence politics back home.

Islamic Thought in Africa

Islamic Thought in Africa PDF Author: Afa Ajura
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300207115
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
The first book length-work on Afa Ajura and translation of his complete poems This is the first English translation of and commentary on the collected poems of Alhaj Yūsuf Ṣāliḥ Ajura (1910-2004), a northern Ghanaian orthodox Islamic scholar, poet, and polemicist known as Afa Ajura, or "scholar from Ejura." The poems, all handwritten in Arabic script, mainly in the Ghanaian language of Dagbani and also Arabic, explore the author's socio-religious beliefs. In the accompanying introduction, the translator examines the diverse themes of the poems and how they challenge Tijāniyyah Sufi clerics and traditional practices such as idol worship.

The Scarce State

The Scarce State PDF Author: Noah L. Nathan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 100926110X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 375

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Book Description
States are often minimally present in the rural periphery. Yet a limited presence does not mean a limited impact. Isolated state actions in regions where the state is otherwise scarce can have outsize, long-lasting effects on society. The Scarce State reframes our understanding of the political economy of hinterlands through a multi-method study of Northern Ghana alongside shadow cases from other world regions. Drawing on a historical natural experiment, the book shows how the contemporary economic and political elite emerged in Ghana's hinterland, linking interventions by an ostensibly weak state to new socio-economic inequality and grassroots efforts to reimagine traditional institutions. The book demonstrates how these state-generated societal changes reshaped access to political power, producing dynastic politics, clientelism, and violence. The Scarce State challenges common claims about state-building and state weakness, provides new evidence on the historical origins of inequality, and reconsiders the mechanisms linking historical institutions to contemporary politics.

Undesirable Practices

Undesirable Practices PDF Author: Jessica Cammaert
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0803286961
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Undesirable Practices examines both the intended and the unintended consequences of “imperial feminism” and British colonial interventions in “undesirable” cultural practices in northern Ghana. Jessica Cammaert addresses the state management of social practices such as female circumcision, nudity, prostitution, and “illicit” adoption as well as the hesitation to impose severe punishments for the slave dealing of females, particularly female children. She examines the gendered power relations and colonial attitudes that targeted women and children spanning pre- and postcolonial periods, the early postindependence years, and post-Nkrumah policies. In particular, Cammaert examines the limits of the male colonial gaze and argues that the power lay not in the gaze itself but in the act of “looking away,” a calculated aversion of attention intended to maintain the tribal community and retain control over the movement, sexuality, and labor of women and children. With its examination of broader time periods and topics and its complex analytical arguments, Undesirable Practices makes a valuable contribution to literature in African studies, contemporary advocacy discourse, women and gender studies, and critical postcolonial studies.

The Kongo Kingdom

The Kongo Kingdom PDF Author: Koen Bostoen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108474187
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
A unique and forward-thinking book that sheds new light on the origins, dynamics, and cosmopolitan culture of the Kongo Kingdom from a cross-disciplinary perspective.

Evil in Africa

Evil in Africa PDF Author: William C. Olsen
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253017505
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 405

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Book Description
William C. Olsen, Walter E. A. van Beek, and the contributors to this volume seek to understand how Africans have confronted evil around them. Grouped around notions of evil as a cognitive or experiential problem, evil as malevolent process, and evil as an inversion of justice, these essays investigate what can be accepted and what must be condemned in order to evaluate being and morality in African cultural and social contexts. These studies of evil entanglements take local and national histories and identities into account, including state politics and civil war, religious practices, Islam, gender, and modernity.

Ifá Divination, Knowledge, Power, and Performance

Ifá Divination, Knowledge, Power, and Performance PDF Author: Jacob K. Olupona
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 025301896X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 390

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Book Description
This landmark volume compiled by Jacob K. Olupona and Rowland O. Abiodun brings readers into the diverse world of Ifá—its discourse, ways of thinking, and artistic expression as manifested throughout the Afro-Atlantic. Firmly rooting Ifá within African religious traditions, the essays consider Ifá and Ifá divination from the perspectives of philosophy, performance studies, and cultural studies. They also examine the sacred context, verbal art, and the interpretation of Ifá texts and philosophy. With essays from the most respected scholars in the field, the book makes a substantial contribution toward understanding Ifá and its role in contemporary Yoruba and diaspora cultures.