Carola Lentz

Bio: Carola Lentz is an academic researcher from University of Mainz. The author has contributed to research in topics: Politics & Colonialism. The author has an hindex of 23, co-authored 80 publications receiving 1688 citations. Previous affiliations of Carola Lentz include Free University of Berlin & Goethe University Frankfurt.

The Chief, the Mine Captain and the Politician: Legitimating Power in Northern Ghana

Abstract: This article explores the strategies of acquiring and legitimating power in Ghana, taking the example of three ‘big men’ from the north, a paramount chief, a mine captain and a politician in the making. After offering some observations on the recent public debate on the (im)morality of power and ‘bigness’, it outlines the biographies of these three ‘big men’ and analyses how they skilfully combine different registers of power and legitimacy. It then analyses the strategies of legitimation and grounds of moral judgement which depend, at least to a certain degree, on the particular relationship of the ‘judge’ with the ‘big man’ in question. The article concludes by discussing the common ‘grammar’ that seems to regulate the debates on ‘bigness’, morality and interest.

'Tribalism' and ethnicity in Africa: a review of four decades of anglophone research

Abstract: Partant de l'opposition entre les theories « essentialistes » et « constructionnistes » de l'ethnicite, l'A. fait l'historique des principales recherches anglophones sur l'ethnicite et le tribalisme en Afrique subsaharienne. Dans les annees 1950-1960, les anthropologues britanniques analysent le tribalisme dans le contexte des migrations salariales et de l'urbanisation. Dans les annees 1960-1970 -en particulier chez les politologues- apparaissent des debats sur les usages politiques de l'ethnie dans le cadre de l'integration a l'Etat-nation. Depuis la fin des annees 1970, des historiens de l'Afrique mettent en avant les themes de l'« invention de la tradition » et de la « creation tribale » a l'epoque coloniale. Apres avoir analyse la genese de ces differentes theories, l'A. revient sur l'analyse de l'organisation sociale en Afrique precoloniale et du developpement de communautes et discours ethniques pendant et apres la colonisation

Land and the politics of belonging in West Africa

Abstract: Recognizing that land rights are ambiguous, negotiable and politically embedded, these case studies explore the long-term processes and recent changes in contemporary rural West Africa affecting the conversion of control over land into social and political capital and vice versa. They point to the colonial origins of what came to be viewed as 'customary' tenure and to the legal pluralism characterizing pre-colonial tenure arrangements. Furthermore, they show the spiritual and ritual importance of land that can be converted into political power and economic prerogatives, a dimension neglected by much of the recent literature. Analyses cover forest and savannah, state and segmentary societies, facilitating comparison and insights across the Anglo-Francophone divide.

Ethnicity and the making of history in northern Ghana

Abstract: List of maps and plates Preface Introduction 1. The North-West in the nineteenth century 2. The introduction of chieftaincy 3. The discursive creation of ethnicity 4. The Lawra Confederacy Native Authority 5. Labour migration, home-ties and ethnicity 6. 'Light over the Volta': the mission of the White Fathers 7. Decolonisation and local government reform 8. 'The time when politics came': party politics and local conflict 9. Ethnic movements and special-interest politics 10. The cultural work of ethnicity Epilogue List of abbreviations Glossary List of Divisional Chiefs of Lawra District References Index.

Ethnicity in Ghana : the limits of invention

Abstract: List of Tables List of Maps and Illustrations Foreword Notes on the Contributors Ethnicity in Ghana: A Comparative Perspective C.Lentz & P.Nugent In the Mix: Women and Ethnicity Among the Anlo-Ewe S.Greene 'We Stay, Others Come and Go': Identity Among the Mamprusi in Northern Ghana M.Schlottner Asante Nationhood and Colonial Administrators, 1896-1935 I.Wilks Be(com)ing Asante, Be(com)ing Akan: Thoughts on Gender, Identity and the Colonial Encounter J.Allman Imagined Martial Communities: Recruiting for the Military and Police in Colonial Ghana, 1860-1960 D.Killingray Contested Identities: The History of Ethnicity in Northwestern Ghana C.Lentz 'A Few Lesser Peoples': The Central Togo Minorities and Their Ewe Neighbours P.Nugent The 1994 Civil War in Northern Ghana: The Genesis and Escalation of a 'Tribal' Conflict A.Bogner Promotion of Ghanaian Languages and its Impact on National Unity: The Dagara Language Case S.Bemile Index

Economy and Society

Abstract: The four Visegrad states — Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia (until 1993 Czechoslovakia) and Hungary — form a compact area between Germany and Austria in the west and the states of the former USSR in the east. They are bounded by the Baltic in the north and the Danube river in the south. They are cut by the Sudeten and Carpathian mountain ranges, which divide Poland off from the other states. Poland is an extension of the North European plain and like the latter is drained by rivers that flow from south to north west — the Oder, the Vlatava and the Elbe, the Vistula and the Bug. The Danube is the great exception, flowing from its source eastward, turning through two 90-degree turns to end up in the Black Sea, forming the barrier and often the political frontier between central Europe and the Balkans. Hungary to the east of the Danube is also an open plain. The region is historically and culturally part of western Europe, but its eastern Marches now represents a vital strategic zone between Germany and the core of the European Union to the west and the Russian zone to the east.

Nations and Nationalism

Abstract: Series Editor's Preface. Introduction by John Breuilly. Acknowledgements. 1. Definitions. State and nation. The nation. 2. Culture in Agrarian Society. Power and culture in the agro-literature society. The varieties of agrarian rulers. 3. Industrial Society. The society of perpetual growth. Social genetics. The age of universal high culture. 4. The Transition to an Age of Nationalism. A note on the weakness of nationalism. Wild and garden culture. 5. What is a Nation. The course of true nationalism never did run smooth. 6. Social Entropy and Equality in Industrial Society. Obstacles to entropy. Fissures and barriers. A diversity of focus. 7. A Typology of Nationalisms. The varieties of nationalist experience. Diaspora nationalism. 8. The Future of Nationalism. Industrial culture - one or many?. 9. Nationalism and Ideology. Who is for Nuremberg?. One nation, one state. 10. Conclusion. What is not being said. Summary. Select bibliography. Bilbliography of Ernest Gellner's writing: Ian Jarvie. Index

The Anthropology of Food and Eating

Abstract: ▪ Abstract The study of food and eating has a long history in anthropology, beginning in the nineteenth century with Garrick Mallery and William Robertson Smith. This review notes landmark studies prior to the 1980s, sketching the history of the subfield. We concentrate primarily, however, on works published after 1984. We contend that the study of food and eating is important both for its own sake since food is utterly essential to human existence (and often insufficiently available) and because the subfield has proved valuable for debating and advancing anthropological theory and research methods. Food studies have illuminated broad societal processes such as political-economic value-creation, symbolic value-creation, and the social construction of memory. Such studies have also proved an important arena for debating the relative merits of cultural and historical materialism vs. structuralist or symbolic explanations for human behavior, and for refining our understanding of variation in informants' resp...