A Companion to the Anthropology of Africa.

Intro -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Notes on Contributors -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Part I Enduring Themes -- Chapter 1 The Economic Anthropology of Africa -- Introduction -- Guideposts to the Continuing Importance of Economic Anthropology -- References -- Chapter 2 Revisiting the Social Bedrock of Kinship and Descent in the Anthropology of Africa -- Introduction and Background to Kinship Studies -- Definitions -- Commentaries and Theories on Kinship and Descent -- Countering the Invisibility of Kinship and Descent in Africa Today -- Rural Households and Gendered Allocation of Assets -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 3 Witchcraft in Africa -- A Brief Historical Orientation -- Definitions: What's in a name? -- Differences: Witchcraft Concepts as a Force for Good or Evil? -- Decisions: Are Witches Real? -- Dreams: The Socially Standardized Nightmare -- Directions: Witches and Temporality -- References -- Chapter 4 Law, Dispute Resolution, and Justice -- Classic Debates -- Strategizing and/or Historicizing -- Legal Pluralism: Ongoing Debates -- Discourse and the Languages of Law -- The Reappearance of "Justice" -- Note -- References -- Chapter 5 Illness and Healing: Africanist Anthropology -- Introduction -- Colonial Medicine and Anthropology: Constituting a "Pathological Africa" in "Need of Saving" -- From Inventorying Superstition to Investigating Cultural Logics -- Points of Entry into the Contemporary Anthropology of Illness and Healing -- Conclusions -- References -- Chapter 6 Power, Meaning, and Materiality in the Anthropology of African Religions South of the Sahara: A Dialogue with Religious Studies -- African Religions in the Anthropology of Africa: An Introduction -- A Brief Genealogy of the Study of African Religions -- What Is Religion? -- Conceptualizing African Religions.

Politicizing Religion: Ritual Rhetoric, Partisan Agendas, and State Power -- Persons in the Cosmos: Rites of Passage, Gender, Spirit Possession, and Health -- The Political Economy of Extraordinary Relations: Ancestors, Ritual, Magic, and Exchange -- Islam, Africa, and Religious Taxonomy -- African Christianities: From Neo‐Colonialism to Decolonization -- World Religions beyond Islam, Christianity, and the Category Itself -- African Religions in Global Modernity: Models for Knowledge and Action -- References -- Part II Critical and Decolonizing Themes -- Chapter 7 Who Are the New Natives? Ethnicity and Emerging Idioms of Belonging in Africa -- Attachment and Alterity: A Matter of Theory -- Encounters with Ethnicity and Belonging: Notes on Fieldwork -- Incest and Incorporation: Belonging as a Dialectic of Sociality and Power -- Plastic Panics: Spectral Boundaries and the Materialities of Belonging -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 8 Culture by Other Means: An Africanist Anthropology of Political Violence and War -- Violence and the Social Order -- Hot and Cold Wars in Post‐colonial Africa -- The New Barbarism -- A World Gone Mad -- The Comparative Sociology of the Child Soldier -- War and Identity -- The Afterlives of African Wars -- Conclusion: For Whom Does One Write the Story of African Conflicts? -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 9 The Anthropology of Forced Migration in Africa -- Forced Mobility in Anthropology's Africa: Historically Central but Theoretically Invisible -- Populations: From Refugees to Displacement in Place -- Problematics: Social Differentiation and Transformation -- Conclusion: Displacement as a Strategic Research Site for Africanist Anthropology -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 10 Sex and Sexuality in Africa -- Colonialism And Its Continuities -- Contested Tradition -- Policing Female Bodies.

Globalizing Influences -- Conclusion -- References -- Part III Post‐colonial and Emerging Themes -- Chapter 11 Social Trauma and Recovery: Emergent Themes -- Introduction -- Changes Over Time In Social Recovery -- Note -- References -- Chapter 12 Questioning Humanitarian Exceptions -- Introduction -- Who Gets To Be a Humanitarian? -- Medical Humanitarianism -- Displacement and War -- "Natural Disasters": Famine and Epidemics -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 13 Rights, Inequality, and Social Justice -- Discussion -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 14 Anthropology and the Politics of Childhood in Africa -- A Brief History of Childhood in African Ethnographies -- The Rise of a Children's Rights Regime -- Enter Children's Studies -- Mainstreaming Child‐centered Anthropology -- Making the Anthropology of African Childhoods Matter -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 15 Africa Has Moved!: New African Diasporas and the Anthropology of Transnationalizing Africa -- Introduction: African Diasporas‐Historical and "New" -- The Anthropology of New African Diasporas: Notable Gaps and Future Direction -- In Conclusion - Placing African Studies on Notice: Africa Has Moved! -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 16 Anthropological Approaches to Media in Africa -- Introduction -- Activating Political Communities -- Producing Religious Selves -- Mediating Intimate Lives -- Media and Mobility -- Further Reflections -- References -- Chapter 17 Environmental Anthropology in Africa: From Cattle Complex to Environmentality -- Introduction: Environmental Anthropology in Africa -- A Brief History of Environmental Anthropology -- Cattle Ontology -- Hunter‐gatherers, Pastoralists and Other Categories -- From Colonialism to Environmentalism: The Persistence of Some Anxieties -- Environmentality and Environmentalism as Objects of Anthropological Inquiry.

The "Anthropocene" and Ontological Un‐turns in Africa -- Notes -- References -- Part IV Reflexivity -- Chapter 18 Anthropology and Africanist Political Science -- Political Order, State Formation, and Political Development -- Identity Politics -- Democracy, Elections, and Governance -- The Role of International Actors and International Intervention -- Conclusion -- Note -- References -- Chapter 19 African Anthropological Practice in the "Era of Aid": Towards a Critique of Disciplinary Canons -- Introduction -- The End of an Era… -- Disciplinary Revival in the Neoliberal "era of aid" -- Knowledge Through Social Immersion -- Written from/in/for Africa - Relationships and the Ethics of Audience -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 20 African Participation in, and Perspectives on, the Politics of Knowledge Production in Africanist Anthropology -- Introduction -- Anthropology and Its Association with the Colonial Project -- Where Are the Africans in African Anthropology? -- Anthropology's Influences -- Anthropology and Its Future in Africa -- Notes -- References -- Index -- EULA.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.