Showing papers on "African studies published in 1985"

In township tonight!: South Africa's Black city music and theatre

Abstract: David B. Coplan's pioneering social history of black South Africa's urban music, dance, and theater established itself as a classic soon after its publication in 1985. As the first substantial history of black performing arts in South Africa, "In Township Tonight!" was championed by a broad range of scholars and treasured by fans of South African music. Now completely revised, expanded, and updated, this new edition takes account of developments over the last thirty years while reflecting on the massive changes in South African politics and society since the end of the apartheid era.In vivid detail, Coplan comprehensively explores more than three centuries of the diverse history of South Africa's black popular culture, taking readers from indigenous musical traditions into the world of slave orchestras, pennywhistlers, clergyman-composers, the gum-boot dances of mineworkers, and touring minstrelsy and vaudeville acts. This up-to-date edition of a landmark work will be welcomed by scholars of ethnomusicology and African studies, world music fans, and anyone concerned with South Africa and its development.

African Culture: The Rhythms Of Unity

Abstract: Africa, according to the contributors to this anthology, is one cultural river with numerous tributaries articulated by their specific responses to history and the environment. They concentrate on the similarities in behavior, perceptions, and technologies of African culture that tie those tributaries together. The fourteen original essays by leading scholars of African studies are organized in four general divisions which consider the ethno-cultural motif, the artistic tradition, concepts of cultural value, and cultural continua.

The person and the life cycle in African social life and thought

Abstract: The study of the person, or self, is one of the most exciting areas of anthropological research today. Though it has recendy become a central concern of psychological anthropology and gender studies, the person has been a significant theme in African studies ever since the 1930s; reflection on this theme promises today not only to shed new light on data already collected, but also to stimulate important new research. It is not my intention to write an intellectual history here, or give an explanation of how and why people have become interested in the issues I will be discussing. If I do write now and then about the historical context of some of these ideas and approaches, it is mainly with the goal of helping the contemporary reader see the relevance for our topic of a wide variety of sources regardless of their context and rhetoric. Thus, though my presentation will be vaguely chronological, my discussion and analysis will generally examine the various works in relation to one another regardless of when they were written. The reader should bear in mind that in the United States, at least, the field I am surveying in this review essay does not yet exist as a sub-area or sub-speciality of any discipline. It is a goal of this essay to demonstrate that a convergence has been taking place, particularly in recent decades, in the thrust of African research on an apparently wide variety of topics.

Migrants and mothers: case‐studies from Botswana

Abstract: (1985). Migrants and mothers: case‐studies from Botswana. Journal of Southern African Studies: Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 258-280.

Peasant differentiation and rural party politics in colonial Zambia

Abstract: (1985). Peasant differentiation and rural party politics in colonial Zambia. Journal of Southern African Studies: Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 281-294.

Beasts to beer pots: migrant labour and ritual change in Willowvale district, Transkei

Abstract: (1985). Beasts to beer pots—migrant labour and ritual change in Willowvale district, Transkei. African Studies: Vol. 44, No. 2, pp. 121-135.

Chieftaincy and the Concept of Articulation: South Africa ca. 1900–1950

Abstract: (1985). Chieftaincy and the Concept of Articulation: South Africa ca. 1900–1950. Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des etudes africaines: Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 91-98.

World War II and Africa: Introduction

Abstract: Until the late 1970s the impact of the two world wars on Africa was a comparatively neglected area of its colonial history. In 1977 the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London drew attention to this neglect by organizing a symposium on the first of these two wars. A selection of the papers presented at that symposium was published in a special issue of this Journal in 1978. This proved to be a landmark in the study of the history of the First World War in Africa, which has since received much scholarly attention. By contrast, a survey written a few years ago of the Second World War in Africa could make relatively little use of original research. In 1983, however, the Academie Royale des Sciences d'Outre-Mer, Brussels, published a large collection of papers on the Belgian Congo in the Second World War, and in 1984 Richard Rathbone and David Killingray organized a further conference at S.O.A.S. on the impact on Africa of the Second World War. This elicited over thirty papers by scholars from Africa, Europe and North America; they not only provided extensive geographical coverage but also represented a wide variety of interests: political, economic, social and cultural. The conference organizers have since edited a selection of these papers in book form: the topics range from the impact of the war on labour in Sierra Leone to relations between the colonial government and Christian missions in southern Cameroons.

The Modes of Production Debate in African Studies in Mode of Production: The Challenge of Africa.

Abstract: Etapes du debat qui opposa africanistes, anthropologues marxistes et historiens au sujet de la definition des modes de production precapitalistes dans les annees 1970.

The first grammar of an African tongue

Abstract: (1985). The first grammar of an African tongue. African Studies: Vol. 44, No. 2, pp. 197-198.

From tribe to ethnicity in western Zambia: the unit of study as an ideological problem

Abstract: The author argues that Zambian rural anthropology is on the decline, and that this decline is related to the reliance, among anthropologists, on the tribe and ethnic group as the basic unit of study in the past; that the one way to escape from the tribal model on the analytical plane without sacrificing the subjects' own organization of their experience, is to try to explain this experience as a form of consciousness emerging out of the dialectics of political incorporation and, even more fundamentally, the penetration of capitalism, in other words, the articulation of capitalism and a non-capitalist mode of production. The chapter is based on research among the Nkoya of western Zambia, an earlier version of it was published in 'Journal of Southern African Studies', vol. 8, no. 1, (1981/82), pages 51-81.

The Modes of Production Debate in African Studies

Abstract: It may well be that the 1970s will be remembered in African studies as the decade of the .%mode of production." This Marxist idea began to be very widely applied to the study of African societies in the hopes of establishing structural formulations that could in turn help to explain the development and dynamics of those societies. Harold Wolpe's essay of 1980 suggested that a period of clarification and refinement would be followed by fruitful scholarly application: in fact recent years have seen decreasing use in systematic exploration of the mode as an historical or social structure. "The vast and complex debate on modes of production and their articulation," so ably traced and summarized by Wolpe, has hardly developed further. This paper seeks, without repeating familiar material. to reconsider the context and importance of the application of the concept "modes of production." the advantages its use poses and the limitations which have increasingly come to the fore in its further development.

Doing Research in Africa

Abstract: THIS CONFERENCE celebrates the approximate coincidence of 21 years of Independence in the African states, and the 21st birthday of our Association. For those of you who are, or have been, parents, the notion of coming-of-age probably evokes mixed feelings of delightful childhood maturing all too quickly into capricious adolescence and the nether world of the late teens. For some, the maturation of the African states evokes similar sensations, but perhaps we are more protective, more optimistic, about the growth of our own immediate progeny, African Studies in this country. I fear that much of what I have to say will evoke the attitude of the stern and disappointed parent. It would be excessively complacent and indulgent to insist that all is well in the continent and our study of it. However, I discover with that sinking feeling which goes with middle-age that it is 21 years since I began my own research in Africa. You may have some reason to suspect, therefore, that you are listening to the delinquent youth rather than the wise parent. I shall not apologize for what can only be a subjective view. I have chosen this topic largely because during the last two years I have been engaged once again on research in Africa, and have some fresh perhaps too fresh impressions. I should perhaps explain that, although I began with chunks of fieldwork in Uganda and Ghana, I spent the 1970s in the exciting but ephemeral world of Development Studies in Cambridge, and did research mainly in Southeast Asia. Redundancy provided the opportunity to undertake a bold comparative study of share-contracting in African agriculture. I was drawn to the subject by trying to concoct lectures on Ghana, and by reflecting on the challenging work of Polly Hill. I then had the chance to study sharecropping in the very different world of Malaysian rice farmers, and eventually, by way of my present ODA grant, I have pursued the phenomenon to the Sudan, Lesotho, and Senegambiafrom which I have recently returned. This itinerary in fact bears little resemblance to my original research proposal: I said I wanted to go back to Ghana, and to break new ground in Zimbabwe. The steadily-increasing impracticability of working in Ghana forced a change to The Gambia, for which I now have no regrets; bureaucratic idiocy frustrated my

Church versus state? Divorce legislation and divided South Africa

Abstract: (1985). Church versus state? Divorce legislation and divided South Africa. Journal of Southern African Studies: Vol. 12, Law and Politics in Southern Africa, pp. 116-135.

The Social and Ideological Function of African Customary Law in South Africa

Abstract: The study of the terms and mode of application of African customary law in South Africa has generally been neglected both by lawyers and African Studies scholars. In the case of lawyers, there is little interest in a law potentially relevant to seventy per cent of the population ‐ where that seventy per cent is for the most part unable to pay lawyers’ fees (Suttner, 1974a: 189). In the case of students of African studies, the segregated legal and judicial system may seem of marginal consequence, in the light of the more serious disabilities that people experience through more patently repressive laws, such as those regulating influx control, resettlement, banishment and so forth, let alone laws concerning directly political activities. It would nevertheless be wrong, I shall try to show, to dismiss this area as unimportant or innocuous. This paper seeks to demonstrate how the special court and legal system set up to deal with civil cases between Africans, contributes ideologically, economically and social...

The Salience of Ethnicity in African Politics

Abstract: This is a largely theoretical paper discussing the ethnic factor in African politics. The paper gives ethnicity a psychosocial meaning and examines the development or genesis of this phenomenon from "tribe in itself" to "tribe for itself." Several hypotheses on ethnic salience are examined in an effort to establish situations or circumstances that give rise to ethnic consciousness in politics. The paper also discusses the habitat of ethnicity-whether it is in the leaders or in the masses-and makes the argument that the tribal innocence of the masses should not be celebrated. The paper concludes with a speculation regarding the future of ethnicity in African politics in the background of the Marxist suggestion that ethnicity is epiphenomenon. The argument is advanced that a worker seeking power will manipulate ethnicity no differently than his bourgeois counterpart.

Modes of Production and Modes of Analysis: The South African Case

Abstract: (1985). Modes of Production and Modes of Analysis: The South African Case. Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des etudes africaines: Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 30-37.

Introduction : Theoretical explorations in African religion

Abstract: This collection of papers on theoretical and methodological perspectives in the study of African religion is the outcome of a conference held at the African Studies Centre, Leiden, in 1979. It reviews the major classic and contemporary theoretical approaches to African religion. The individual papers deal with a variety of specific religions and locate them in their specific cultural, social and political context. These specific topics are used as stepping stones towards a converging theoretical perspective in which the various strands of contemporary religious research can be integrated. Contributors: Renaat Devisch (sub-Saharan Africa), Wauthier de Mahieu (Zaire), Andr‚ Droogers (Africa), Johannes Fabian (sub-Saharan Africa), Matthew Schoffeleers (Malawi), Wim van Binsbergen (Tunisia), John M. Janzen (the Kongo tradition of coastal Equatorial Africa), Richard P. Werbner (Southern Africa), Terence O. Ranger (Zimbabwe), Robert Buijtenhuijs (Kenya), Christian Coulon (Senegal).

Wanasema: Conversations with African Writers

Abstract: There is a tendency to regard African literature as a homogenous product Certainly it is true that African writers have created a vibrant, modern literature Nevertheless, they come from specific societies and reflect vastly differing worlds Wanasema attempts to show some of the many faces of African literature Dramatists, poets and novelists speak in these pages They write in French, English, Portuguese, Arabic and indigenous languages Some are Christian; others are Muslim A variety of subjects are discussed, including the status of women, history, religion, politics, dress and education Taken together, the interviews in Wanasema suggest that Western students of Africa would do well to learn the languages of Africa They suggest, too, taht there is a need to investigate further the relationship between Islamic North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa, and finally, that oral literature continues to be a vast marketplace for scholars This book should interest African Studies specialists, of course, but also those whose concerns include literature, history and contemporary events in the non-Western world generally

The Pursuit of the Real: Modes of Production and History

Abstract: (1985). The Pursuit of the Real: Modes of Production and History. Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des etudes africaines: Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 58-63.