Postcolonial identities in Africa

Author(s)

• Werbner, Richard P.
• Ranger, T. O. (Terence O.)

Bibliographic Information

Postcolonial identities in Africa

edited by Richard Werbner and Terence Ranger

（Postcolonial encounters）

Zed Books, 1996

• : cased
• : pbk

Note

Includes bibliographical references and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

In this book, distinguished anthropologists, political scientists and social historians from Africa, Europe and America make a radical break with much conventional wisdom in postcolonial discourse to explore contemporary African identities in transition. They look at the colonial legacy and how colonial identities are being reconstructed in the face of deepening social inequality across the continent. They ask how the postcolonial imagination as a highly specific, locally created and historical force reconfigures personal knowledge and how that reconfiguration shapes the moral and religious realities around the uses and abuses of postcolonial power. Using case-studies, the book explores why postcolonial studies has to enunciate and interpret the distinctive languages of identity politics in all the cultural richness of their specific metaphors. It asks whether the very idea of the postcolonial conceals the continued dependence of African countries? Is the postcolonial thus merely a neo-colonial mystification, a Eurocentric product of Western scholarship in collusion with Western imperialism?

Table of Contents

Introduction - Richard Werbner Part 1: Power, Crisis and Contested Identities 1. The African Crisis: Context and Interpretation - Patrick Chabal 2. Postcolonialism, Power and Identity: Local and Global Perspectives from Zaire - Filip De Boeck 3. Between God and Kamuzu: The Transition to Multi-Party Politics in Central Malawi - Harri Englund 4. The Potential Boundaries: Steps Toward a Theory of the Social Edge - Robert Thornton Part 2: Gender and Generation in Conflict 5. A Lost Generation? Youth Identity and State Decay in West Africa - Donal Cruise O'Brien 6. AIDS, Biomedicine, and the Re-invention of Witchfinding: Death and Cosmic Defence in a Zambian Village - Bawa Yamba 7. "Producing" Respect: The 'Proper Women' in Postcolonial Kampala - Jessica Ogden Part 3: Religion, Dominance and Deconstruction 8. Contested Authorities and Politics of Perception: Deconstructing the Study of Religion in Africa - Rijk van Dijk and Peter Pels 9. Witchcraft, Violence and Identity: Different Trajectories in Postcolonial Cameroon - Cyprian Fisiy and Peter Geschiere 10. Identity, Alterity and Ambiguity in a Nigerian Community: Competing Definitions of "True" Islam - Adeline Masquelier Conclusion - Terence Ranger

by "Nielsen BookData"

Details

• NCID: BA28755219
• ISBN:
  • 1856494152
  • 1856494160
• Country Code: uk
• Title Language Code: eng
• Text Language Code: eng
• Place of Publication: London
• Pages/Volumes: xi, 292 p.
• Size: 22 cm
• Classification:
  • LCC : JQ1879.A15
  • DC20 : 320.967
  • NDC8 : 302.4
• Subject Headings:
  • LCSH : Africa, Sub-Saharan -- Politics and government -- 1960-
  • LCSH : Political stability -- Africa, Sub-Saharan
  • LCSH : Africa, Sub-Saharan -- Economic conditions -- 1960-
  • LCSH : Africa, Sub-Saharan -- Social conditions -- 1960-
  • LCSH : Africa, Sub-Saharan -- Colonial influence
• Parent Bibliography ID:
  • BA28755489