Through the ‘procreative paradigm’, sexuality and its relationships to other social practices have recently regained importance in the study of sub-Saharan Africa. Despite its apparent novelty, I argue that this paradigm invokes an anthropological approach that harks back to the discipline's beginnings. In an attempt at a fresh departure, I use Ludwig Wittgenstein's late philosophy to investigate the meaning of sexual prohibitions among the Chagga-speaking people of Rombo District, Kilimanjaro Region, Tanzania. Starting from local linguistic usage, I describe the multiple ‘language-games’ of the vernacular notion of ‘power’, horu. In this manner, I demonstrate how production, reproduction and consumption are conceptually, practically and materially intertwined through the ‘family resemblances’ of this local concept. Horu is expended through productive practices; in multiple ways it is converted, transferred and exchanged between adults and children in reproduction; and it is replenished through the consumption of specific ‘powerful’ foods. By means of different objects, the activities of work, sex and feeding enable ‘power’ to flow between persons. The multiple vernacular usages of the notion of horu, and its practical and material concomitants, interrelate diverse spheres of social life in such a manner that they constitute an overlapping network that extends laterally. Human capability and well-being are constituted through participation in these activities, and engagement in the mutual flows, conversions and exchanges of ‘power’ that encompass humans, livestock and vegetable matter. The sexual prohibitions of Rombo regulate and channel these flows and conversions, in order to ensure their beneficial effects for the parties concerned. I therefore argue that the sexual prohibitions are not ex post facto interpretations or justifications that explain or control preceding experiences, but rather that they are constitutive of the local mode of life. An appreciation of lateral relationships between concepts, practices and objects enables an evasion of some of the problems that arise from the procreative paradigm.

This article deals with metida avoidance practices as they emerge in daily and ritual practice among the agro-pastoral Datoga-speaking peoples of Tanzania. The elaboration of the avoidance practices varies starkly between and within Datoga segments, but these practices are commonly particularly elaborate in connection with death or death-like events, and with birth or birth-like events. In the study area women may spend years of their lives with severe restrictions on their conduct in terms of movement and socialization. We argue that in making sense of such avoidance phenomena the strong influence of Mary Douglas's ‘dirt’ and ‘pollution’ concepts has hindered an understanding of the fact that the metida seclusion does not only isolate substances perceived to be dangerously contaminating, but in similar ways secludes fertile and vulnerable elements in order to protect them. A Strathern-inspired transition to a focus on bodies as open and dynamic systems that mingle with other bodies in intimate flows or exchanges of bodily fluids may be fruitful in this context. We indicate, however, that incautious substitution of a ‘pollution’ concept with the concept of ‘flows’ may lead to challenges not entirely dissimilar to those that attended the employment of Douglas's concepts.

This article discusses sexual licences and prohibitions among the Maasai of Kenya and Tanzania with particular reference to the institutionalized yet controversial sexual relations between young pre-menarche girls and adolescent unmarried men. These relations are referred to as children's ‘play’ in the local vernacular, and as such fall within a larger moral order of age and gender hierarchies that privilege male seniority. The article uses the metaphor of ‘serious games’ adopted from Sherry Ortner as an analytical device in order to capture the dynamic and ambiguous character of Maasai sexual licences and prohibitions. Being at once serious and playful, ‘games’ lend themselves particularly to players' creativity, initiative and agency. The article aims to demonstrate how the structures of the games open up and create space for women and other ‘juniors’ to act intentionally and with purpose in their sexual lives.

Environmental degradation in Africa is often linked to management failure and political decline. One example of this is the dominant understanding of the unfolding of Taungya farming in Southern Nigeria in recent decades. An agro-forestry method of afforestation introduced by the colonial Forest Department in the 1920s and widespread by the 1960s, it is now perceived as a means of destroying the forest. Indeed, whilst reserve land continues to be allocated for Taungya farming, today, due to the Forest Department's political and economic difficulties, no more trees are planted. But this does not necessarily constitute a political and environmental crisis. Through an ethnographic and historical study of Taungya farming in the Okomu Reserve in Edo State, this article shows not only that there were always problems with Taungya as a method of afforestation, but also that its recent transformation may be seen as quite successful, both socially and environmentally. In this way, the article challenges both the ‘crisis’ perception of Taungya farming today and conventional ideas about what constitutes proper management and mismanagement.

During the three decades following the end of the Nigerian civil war little attention has been given to the children who lived through the hostilities. This article on the recollections of present-day adults who experienced the crisis in their childhood, gathered by means of a qualitative research methodology, tells the story of the Nigerian civil war as the narrators perceived it in their childhoods. It probes their feelings and responses to the conflict, their lives under hostilities and some of the effects of the war on child survivors.

The article describes a new mortuary in Cameroon, which has been constructed in a government hospital by the Bali-Nyonga Development and Cultural Association (BANDECA). The history and character of this hometown association is analysed and the article then argues that the mortuary has changed the temporality of death celebrations, and that this change is largely driven by the needs of national and international migrants. It claims that the association and the traditional authorities are attempting to steer recent changes within a longer historical process of ‘modernizing’ burial. The construction of the mortuary reveals some of the tensions within the community and the challenges these present to the association's leadership. In particular it illustrates the potential conflicts of interest between the hometown association and the national government that result from this form of self-help development project. Finally, the article shows that, despite the increased mobility of the Bali-Nyonga population, it is becoming more important, not less, to be buried at ‘home’, and that the mortuary and remittances are contributing to this process. Since the mortuary enables burials to take place at home, BANDECA is unwittingly reinscribing ethnic territoriality and thereby contributing to a political process of deepening the sense of ethnic belonging in Cameroon.