Africa articles from March 2000

Africa archives from March 2000

THE `DISCOVERY' OF THE HIMBA: THE POLITICS OF ETHNOGRAPHIC FILM MAKING.
March 22, 2000... BEING SO TRADITIONAL Despite the vast number of ethnographic films produced over the last ten years, and the parallel increase in literature about ethnographic film-making, there has been little discussion of ethnographic film and its...

DOLLARS AND LIPSTICK: THE UNITED STATES THROUGH THE EYES OF AFRICAN WOMEN.
March 22, 2000... In October 1990 Aminata Diop, a 22 year old Malian woman, fled Mali to escape from an arranged marriage and genital mutilation. She took refuge in France and requested political asylum under the terms of the Geneva Convention. When her request...

SUNGUSUNGU: STATE-SPONSORED VILLAGE VIGILANTE GROUPS AMONG THE KURIA OF TANZANIA.
March 22, 2000... This article describes the organisation and operation of sungusungu vigilantism in its state-sponsored incarnation as it unfolded in a village of the agro-pastoral Kuria people in Tarime District, in northern Tanzania, in the mid-1990s. In...

ZULU RITUAL IMMUNISATION IN PERSPECTIVE.
March 22, 2000... Making incisions (umgcabo) and punctures (ukutshobha) in the skin for the purpose of introducing medication (umuthi, pl. imithi) into the human body is a widely used technique in traditional Zulu medicine. It may be ranked with the use of...

`CATCH THE COCKEREL BEFORE DAWN': PENTECOSTALISM AND POLITICS IN POSTCOLONIAL ZIMBABWE.
March 22, 2000... The study of the relations between religious movements and politics in sub-Saharan Africa continues to flourish.(1) In part, the growing literature has been stimulated by new levels of sophistication and debate.(2) But scholarship has also been...

INGESSANA AND THE LEGACY OF THE FUNJ SULTANATE: THE CONSEQUENCES OF TURKISH CONQUEST ON THE BLUE NILE.
March 22, 2000... Since the publication of a number of studies of political and social processes on the southern and south-western periphery of the old Funj Islamic sultanate of Sennar in the Nile valley (especially James, 1979; Triulzi, 1981; Ewald, 1990), the...

Rwanda: death, despair and defiance.(Review)
March 22, 2000... AFRICAN RIGHTS, Rwanda: death, despair and defiance. London: African Rights, 1994, 742 pp., ISBN 1 899477 00 4 paperback. The 1994 genocide of Tutsi and moderate Hutu in Rwanda has produced a literature on the factors leading up to the...

The Rwanda Crisis: history of a genocide.(Review)
March 22, 2000... GERARD PRUNIER, The Rwanda Crisis: history of a genocide. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995 (chapter 10, 1997), 424 pp., ISBN 0 231 10408 1 hard covers, ISBN 0 231 10409 X paperback. The 1994 genocide of Tutsi and moderate Hutu in...

Rwanda: les medias du genocides.(Review)
March 22, 2000... JEAN-PIERRE CHRETIEN avec REPORTERS SANS FRONTIERES, Rwanda: les medias du genocides. Paris: Karthala, 1995, 397 pp., ISBN 2 86537 621 4 paperback. The 1994 genocide of Tutsi and moderate Hutu in Rwanda has produced a literature on the...

Historical Dictionary of Rwanda.(Review)
March 22, 2000... LEATHERN DORSEY, Historical Dictionary of Rwanda. Metuchen NJ and London: Scarecrow Press, 1994, 437 pp., ISBN 0 8108 2820 0. The 1994 genocide of Tutsi and moderate Hutu in Rwanda has produced a literature on the factors leading up to the...

Purity and Exile: violence, memory, and national cosmology among Hutu refugees in Tanzania.(Review)
March 22, 2000... LIISA MALKKI, Purity and Exile: violence, memory, and national cosmology among Hutu refugees in Tanzania. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1995, 352 pp., ISBN 0 226 50271 6 hard covers, ISBN 0 226 50272 4 paperback. The...

Willing Migrants: Soninka labor diasporas, 1848-1960.(Review)
March 22, 2000... F. MANCHULLE, Willing Migrants: Soninka labor diasporas, 1848-1960. Athens OH: Ohio University Press; Oxford: James Currey, 1997, 371 pp., 14.95 [pounds sterling], ISBN 0 85255 756 6 paperback. The Soninke, whose core region comprises the...

The Migrant Cocoa-Farmers of Southern Ghana: a study in rural capitalism.(Review)
March 22, 2000... POLLY HILL, The Migrant Cocoa-Farmers of Southern Ghana: a study in rural capitalism. Published 1963, reprinted Hamburg: LIT and Oxford: James Currey, for the International African Institute, 1998, 265 pp., 40.00 [pounds sterling], ISBN 0 85255...

Slavery and Colonial Rule in French West Africa.(Review)
March 22, 2000... MARTIN KLEIN, Slavery and Colonial Rule in French West Africa. African Studies 94, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, 354 pp., 50.00 [pounds sterling], ISBN 0 521 59324 7, hard covers, 16.95 [pounds sterling], ISBN 0 521 59676 5,...

El Dorado in West Africa: the gold-mining frontier, African labor, and colonial capitalism in the Gold Coast, 1875-1900.(Review)
March 22, 2000... RAYMOND E. DUMETT, El Dorado in West Africa: the gold-mining frontier, African labor, and colonial capitalism in the Gold Coast, 1875-1900. Oxford: James Currey; Athens OH: Ohio University Press, 1999, 396 pp., 40.00 [pounds sterling], ISBN 0...

Pronouncing and Persevering: gender and the discourses of disputing in an African Islamic court.(Review)
March 22, 2000... SUSAN F. HIRSCH, Pronouncing and Persevering: gender and the discourses of disputing in an African Islamic court. Language and Legal Discourses series, Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998, 373 pp., 38.00 [pounds sterling], ISBN 0 226...

African Islam and Islam in Africa: encounters between Sufis and Islamists.(Review)
March 22, 2000... D. WESTERLUND and E. ROSANDER (eds), African Islam and Islam in Africa: encounters between Sufis and Islamists. London: Hurst, 1997, 357 pp., 40.00 [pounds sterling], ISBN 1 85065 282 1, hard covers, 15.95 [pounds sterling], ISBN 1 85065 281,...

Holymen of the Blue Nile: the making of an Arab Islamic community in the Nilotic Sudan, 1500-1850.(Review)
March 22, 2000... NEIL McHUGH, Holymen of the Blue Nile: the making of an Arab Islamic community in the Nilotic Sudan, 1500-1850. Evanston IL: Northwestern University Press, 1994, 280 pp., $54.95, ISBN 0 8101 1069 5. This book examines the decisive period...

Religious Pluralism and the Nigerian State.(Review)
March 22, 2000... SIMEON O. ILESANMI, Religious Pluralism and the Nigerian State. Monographs in International Studies, Africa series, 66, Athens OH: Ohio University Center for International Studies, 1997, 330 pp., 22.00 [pounds sterling]], ISBN 0 89680 194 2,...

Inculturation: abide by the otherness of Africa and Africans.(Review)
March 22, 2000... PETER TURKSON and FRANS WIJSEN (eds), Inculturation: abide by the otherness of Africa and Africans. Kampen: Kok, 1994, 98 pp., ISBN 90 390 0506 0. Inculturation has become something of a vogue word in Africa in Christian (or at least...

L'Heritage missionnaire en perspective: approches croisees.(Review)
March 22, 2000... JEAN-FRANCOIS BAYART, PATRICK HARRIES and KLAUSPETER BLASER, L'Heritage missionnaire en perspective: approches croisees. Le Fait missionnaire 6, Lausanne: University of Lausanne, 1998, 107 pp., 15 Swiss francs, ISBN 1 420 20181 5, paperback....

Conflict, Age and Power in North East Africa: age systems in transition.(Review)
March 22, 2000... EISEI KURIMOTO and SIMON SIMONSE (eds), Conflict, Age and Power in North East Africa: age systems in transition. Oxford: James Currey; Nairobi: East African Educational Publishing; Kampala: Fountain; Athens OH: Ohio University Press, 1998, 270...

The Pastoral Continuum: the marginalisation of tradition in East Africa.(Review)
March 22, 2000... PAUL SPENCER, The Pastoral Continuum: the marginalisation of tradition in East Africa. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998, 302 pp., 40.00 [pounds sterling], ISBN 0 19 823375 2 It is generally assumed, especially by those who have studied them...

A River of Blessings: essays in honor of Paul Baxter.(Review)
March 22, 2000... DAVID BROKENSHA (ed.), A River of Blessings: essays in honor of Paul Baxter. Foreign and Comparative Studies, African series, 44, Syracuse NY: Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, 1994, 318 pp., $29.50, 318...

Economic Crisis, Civil Society, and Democratization: the case of Zambia.(Review)
March 22, 2000... JULIUS O. IHONVBEE, Economic Crisis, Civil Society, and Democratization: the case of Zambia. Trenton NJ and Asmara: Africa World Press, 1996, 351 pp., 13.99 [pounds sterling], 0 86543 501 4. Le livre de Julius Ihonvbere est fonde sur une...

Constitution for a Nation of Nations: the Ethiopian prospect.(Review)
March 22, 2000... FASIL NAHUM, Constitution for a Nation of Nations: the Ethiopian prospect. Lawrenceville NJ: Red Sea Press, 1997, 310 pp., 13.99 [pounds sterling], 1 56902 051 5. The 1990s have seen a resurgence of constitutionalism in sub-Saharan Africa,...

Comrades, Clients and Cousins: colonialism, socialism and democratization in Sao Tome' and Principe.(Review)
March 22, 2000... GERHARD SEIBERT, Comrades, Clients and Cousins: colonialism, socialism and democratization in Sao Tome' and Principe. CNSW Publications 73, Leiden: CNSW, 1999, 465 pp., 55.00 gilders (US$28.00), ISBN 90 5789 017 8. This volume, essentially...