Perspectives On Africa - A Reader In Culture, History And Representation 2E

The second edition of Perspectives on Africa: A Reader in Culture, History, and Representation is both an introduction to the cultures of Africa and a history of the interpretations of those cultures. Key essays explore the major issues and debates through a combination of classic articles and the newest research in the field.
Explores the dynamic processes by and through which scholars have described and understood African history and culture
Includes selections from anthropologists, historians, philosophers, and critics who collectively reveal the interpenetration of ideas and concepts within and across disciplines, regions, and historical periods
Offers a combined focus on ethnography and theory, giving students the means to link theory with data and perspective with practice
Newly revised and updated edition of this popular text with 14 brand new chapters and two new sections: Conflict and Violent Transformations; and Development, Governance and Globalization

Roy Richard Grinker, Ph.D. is Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs at George Washington University, Director of the GW Institute for Ethnographic Research, and Editor-in-Chief of Anthropological Quarterly. He is author of four other books, including In the Arms of Africa: The Life of Colin M. Turnbull , Houses in the Rainforest: Ethnicity and Inequality Among Farmers and Foragers in Central Africa, and Unstrange Minds: Remapping the World of Autism.
Christopher B. Steiner is the Lucy C. McDannel ’22 Professor of Art History and Director of Museum Studies at Connecticut College. He is the author of the award-winning book African Art in Transit, and co-editor (with Ruth Phillips) of Unpacking Culture: Art and Commodity in Colonial and Postcolonial Worlds.
Stephen Lubkemann is Associate Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs at George Washington University. He is author of Culture in Chaos: An Anthropology of the Social Condition in War and is associate editor for Anthropological Quarterly and a co-founder of GWU’s Diaspora Research Program.

REVIEWS OF FIRST EDITION:

"Here is an excellent anthology that illustrates magnificently processes of Africa's invention, the complexity of her cultures, the paradoxes and predicament of discourses that claim to render her being." V. Y. Mudimbe Stanford University.

"A volume for all students and teachers seriously interested in understanding the unity and diversity of African cultures, and engaging in a dialogue with African Studies literary ancestors and their creative and critical successors. Grinker and Steiner have offered a doorway for those who dare to embrace the masters of the field and join new academic worlds in the making." Sulayman S. Nyang, Professor, Howard University and Director of the African Voices Project, Smithsonian Institute.

"Perspectives on Africa is a much needed addition to African studies and literature. They attempt, quite successfully, to place each article within, not only an historical time frame, but also within a theoretical progression. Its bibliographies contain a useful starting point and reference on all the major trends and subjects." Sean Pratt, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge.

I. Representation and Discourse
1. Jean and John Comaroff. 1991. “Africa Observed: Discourses of the Imperial Imagination
2. Cheikh Anta Diop. 1974. “The Meaning of Our Work,”
3. Kwame Anthony Appiah. 1993. “Europe Upside Down: Fallacies of the New Afrocentrism
4. V.Y. Mudimbe. 1988. “Discourse of Power and Knowledge of Otherness,”
II. From Tribe to Ethnicity: Kinship and Social Organization
5. Evans-Pritchard, E.E. The Nuer: Time and Space
6. Southall, Aidan W. The Illusion of Tribe
7. Vail, Leroy. Ethnicity in Southern African History
III. Economics as a Cultural System
8. Douglas, M. Lele Economy Compared with the Bushong
9. Coquery-Vidrovitch, C. Research on an African Mode of Production
10. Hutchinson, S. The Cattle of Money and the Cattle of Girls among the Nuer, cf. Smith
IV. Hunter-Gatherers in Africa
11. Turnbull, C. M. The Lesson of the Pygmies
12. Grinker, R.R. Houses in the Rainforest
13. Wilmsen, E. Land Filled with Flies
14. Solway, J. S. and R. B. Lee. Foragers, Genuine or Spurious?
V. Witchcraft, Science and Rationality
15. Livingstone, D. Conversations on Rain-making
16. Evans-Pritchard, E.E. The Notion of Witchcraft Explains Unfortunate Events
17. Winch, P. Understanding a Primitive Society
18. Austen, Ralph A. 1993. “The Moral Economy of Witchcraft.”
VI. Ancestors, Gods, and the Philosophy of Religion
19. Griaule, M. Conversations with Ogotommeli
20. Houtondji, P. J. African Philosophy, Myth and Reality
21. Kopytoff, I. ancestors as Elders in Africa, cf. Lubkemann, West
VII. Arts, Aesthetics, and Heritage
22. Simon Ottenberg. 1972. “Humorous Masks and Serious Politics among the Afikpo Igbo,”
23. Olu Oguibe. 1999. “Art, Identity, Boundaries: Postmodernism and Contemporary African Art,”
24. Kelly M. Askew. As Plato Duly Warned: Music, Politics and Social Change in Costal East Africa
25. Bayo Hosley. “In Place of Slavery: Fashioning Coastal Identity.”
VIII.Sex and Gender Studies in Africa
26. Boserup, E. The Economics of Polygamy
27. Van Allen, J. “Sitting on a Man”
28. LeClerc, S. Virginity Testing: Managing Sexuality in a Maturing HIV/AIDS Epidemic
IX. Europe in Africa: Colonization
29. Lugard, F.D. The Dual Mandate
30.Rodney, W. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
31. Ranger, T. The Invention of Tradition in Colonial Africa
32. Ngugi, W. T. Detained: A Writer’s Prison Diary
X. Nations and Nationalism
33.Senghor, L. S. Negritude: A Humanism of the Twentieth Century
34. Fanon, F. On National Culture
35. Berman, B. Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Modernity: The Paradox of Mau Mau
36. Steiner, C.B. The Invisible Face: Masks, Ethnicity, and the State in Cote d’Ivoire
XI. Violent Transformations: Conflict and Displacement
37. Gluckman, Max. Order and Rebellion in Tribal Africa
38. Richards, P. "Fighting for the Rainforest"
39. Taylor, C. Sacrifice as Terror: The Rwandan Genocide of 1994
40. Lubkemann, S. Where to be an Ancestor
XII. Development, Governance and Globalization
41. Ferguson, J. “Expectations of Modernity”
42. Uvin, P. Development Aid and Structural Violence: The case of Rwanda
43. Daniel J. Smith. “Culture of Corruption”
44. J.Francois-Bayart. “The Politics of the Belly.”
45. West, H. “ ‘Govern Yourselves’, Democracy and Carnage in Northern Mozambique”
46. Shandy, D. “Nuer-American Passages”