In November 1927 bands of professing Christians were found going about the Itu Division of Calabar Province, in the extreme south-east of Nigeria. Members of these bands declared that they were spirits. It was clear that although they professed Christianity, what had become uppermost in their super-excited minds were pagan ideas: of Ekpo, a disembodied spirit which takes many forms according to the belief of the Ibibio, and has many characters most of which are injurious, so much so that in the past in Calabar town a ceremony used to take place every second year to drive all the Ekpo out of the town and into the river; and of Mmeo, who are the spirits of good or evil to whom sacrifice in the form of chickens, yams, eggs, &c. is offered by the Igbo at the appropriate shrine when trouble threatens a person or place. After considerable disorder, lasting about a fortnight, order was restored by the aid of a detachment of police. Those who were arrested were put on to making a road, and this manual labour caused an almost immediate return to sanity.

A recent special issue of Africa on ‘Popular Economies in South Africa’ drew attention to local economies and to the livelihoods that link these popular, informal economies and the lives of the poor to the formal and global economies. This approach offers a promising avenue for questioning academic and policy discourses about unemployment and poverty in South Africa that are curiously reminiscent of the dualist modernization theories of the 1950s and 1960s. Both the idea of a South African ‘underclass’, as discussed by Jeremy Seekings and Nicoli Nattrass, and the discourse of a first and a second economy, notably promoted by former President Thabo Mbeki, assume a fundamental divide in South Africa's economy based on socio-economic exclusion. These assumptions, however, fail to capture the many ways in which people cross these divides in making a living and have problematic policy implications. Highlighting these many and complex connections, as the recent special issue did, as well as historicizing the informal economy can help us to conceptualize the South African economy as a whole rather than as existing in two separate worlds.

This article examines the shifting experience of national belonging and state patronage at a crucial juncture in Mali's post-colonial history, the ten-year period that marked the end of the country's First Republic (1960–8) and the beginning of its Second Republic (1968–91). My focus is on the contested politics of culture that characterized this period, elucidated through the experiences and expressions of two popular dance bands, Las Maravillas de Mali and Les Ambassadeurs du Motel. By following the post-colonial careers of Las Maravillas and Les Ambassadeurs I explore social and musical encounters with national community and state authority from which broader questions of political sovereignty and accountability emerge.

This article is a preliminary discussion of the circulation of textual material in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Zanzibar. Three main contentions are made in the article. First, that this corpus of texts constituted a public sphere that was intimately connected with the western Indian Ocean, primarily Arabia, but with branches to Egypt where much of the material was printed. Second, that the transition from manuscript mode of transmission to printed texts upheld the same principles for circulation. Finally, the article also points to how the use of this scriptural material as a basis for Islamic learning was expanded into new types of reading, reference, interpretation and copying. The article examines cases from Zanzibar, both manuscripts and printed books, from the point of view of the lifespan of the texts.

The Kwando Basin of north-eastern Namibia is firmly embedded in current national and international conservation agendas. It is a key part of the world's largest transboundary conservation area, the Kavango–Zambezi (KAZA) Transfrontier Conservation Area, and the home of seven community-based conservation areas (conservancies) and three smaller national parks (Mudumu, Nkasa Rupara and Bwabwata). While conservation agendas often start from the assumption that an authentic part of African nature is conserved as an assemblage of biota that has not been gravely impacted by subsistence agriculture, colonialism and global value chains, we show that environmental infrastructure along the Namibian side of the Kwando Valley has been shaped by the impact of administrative measures and the gradual decoupling of humans and wildlife in a vast wetland. The way towards today's conservation landscape was marked and marred by the enforced reordering of human–environment relations; clearing the riverine core wetlands of human habitation and concentrating communities in narrowly defined settlement zones; the suppression of specific, wetland-adapted subsistence practices; and the elimination of unwanted microbes with the help of insecticides. The interventions in the ecosystem and the construction of an environmental infrastructure have created a unique conservation landscape in the Namibian Zambezi region, which provides the foundation for its popularity and success.

Cet article relate une crise politique récente qui a mené au morcellement, essentiellement ethnique, du modeste royaume ghanéen d'Akuapem. La situation est complexe, bien que certains puissent choisir de la formuler trop simplement en termes d'hégémonie des Akan sur les Guan, voire même de double hégémonie en ce sens que les arguments avancés par les deux parties font appel à des notions “modernes”, aux tribunaux, à la constitution et à la “liberté”, ainsi quʼaux journaux pour promouvoir une position par la propaganda, plutôt que de faire appel à l'autorité arbitrale “traditionnelle”, au détronement, aux tombeaux ancestraux et aux dieux. Ethnicité et identité sont des notions qui revêtent des significations nombreuses et mal définies qui se fragmentent lorsquʼelles sont dissociées des situations spécifiques dans lesquelles elles étaient utilisées ou fondées. Pour examiner l'ethnicité, il convient d'étudier les liens étroits qui existent entre ces ethnicités; il est aussi nécessaire de disposer d'une perspective historique car, quelle que soit l'individualité qui prévalait aux XVIIIème et XIXème siècles, la situation est évidemment différente aujourdʼhui. Les nombreuses précisions historiques et ethnographiques contenues dans l'article sont essentielles pour faire ressortir la structure de l'ordre social et révéler dans toute leur complexité les facteurs qui se cachent derrière les luttes récentes et la tension permanente qui affectent le royaume.

In this article I discuss the incorporation of the people of two Bamileke chiefdoms into wider economic and political systems. In doing this I will concentrate on the interactions and strategies of individuals. A number of issues will concern us: the types of relations of dependency within the chiefdoms and the possibilities for manipulating them to further individual economic, political and social mobility; the effects of the commercialisation of agriculture during both colonial and post-colonial periods; the opening up of areas outside the chiefdoms for trade and migration; the erosion of the chiefdom structure and its consequences for interpersonal relations and the possibilities for furthering individual and family interests. I will approach these problems mainly from the point of view of the changing patterns of authority and power relations.

Dans les années 1970 des travaux d'irrigation à grande échelle au Nigeria n'ont pas réussi à produire l'équivalent de blé nécessaire à remplacer la quantité importée, ce qui était en grande partie la raison d'être du projet. La détermination Nigerienne à atteindre son autosurfisance en blé s'est poursuivie par la voie des procédés ADP, depuis peu en expansion. Après avoir souligné la conjonction des faits qui ont conduit à la formation du premier ‘piège du blé’ envisagé par Andrae et Beckman (1985), cet article montre par la suite comment le système ADP établi dans l'Etat de Kano a apporté des changements considérables dans les habitudes agricoles et les modèles de production, à l'intérieur même de l'état. Il est argumenté que, à long terme, les conséquences socio-économiques, agronomiques, écologiques et pédologiques des politiques de substituts de blé importé actuellement menées par le gouvernement fédéral, pourraient être désastreuses pour la production alimentaire du Nigeria du Nord.

In this paper I shall attempt to set out the ideas of morality and of the structure of society in so far as they can be found reflected in Swahili Islamic literature. This literature is of two kinds. Firstly the didactic literature, mainly in prose, in which rules of conduct are given by Islamic teachers; secondly the narrative, legendary literature, mainly in verse, in which many social and moral concepts may be found, either expressed in a straightforward didactic form, as versified proverbs, or as it were by implication, in which case the underlying ideas can be made explicit by extrapolation.

This article puts forward a resolution to a curious circumstance, namely, why the left, and not the right, appears to be pre-eminent among the Himba. Himba arrange gendered, domestic and ritual space, their own bodies in ritual contexts and, to an extent, time strongly in favour of the left. The fact that in their language ‘left’ connotes weakness while ‘right’ connotes strength adds to the puzzle. It is argued that, to understand this apparent contradiction of the near-universal classificatory ascendancy of right over left, one must assess the Himba dual symbolic system while drawing upon the principle of symbolic parallax which allows a single referent, in this case the sacred ancestral fire, to be viewed from differing spatial perspectives. By following this procedure the puzzle is resolved, as the human direction from which the primary referent is viewed is merely the mirror image of a transcendant view.

This article examines the history of two Indian newspapers, Tanganyika Opinion and Tanganyika Herald, to demonstrate how business considerations provided both the opportunity for East African Indians to make public arguments and the central limitation on the arguments that could be made. Founded on the inspiration of mass nationalist action through a territorial hartal, the Tanganyika Opinion and later the Herald blazed the trails that articulated ‘Greater India’ among the Anglo-Gujarati reading public in Tanganyika. But growing conservative sentiments within this vulnerable minority, along with rising sectarian division, reduced both the patronage and audience for a singular ‘anti-colonial’ politics by the 1930s and 1940s. Moreover, as a marginal print node along the Indian Ocean littoral, the Opinion and Herald came to rely on an opportunistic mixture of wire services and consular propaganda to keep abreast of regional and international news developments. Ultimately, the shrinking market for Anglo-Gujarati newspapers and rising opportunities in Swahili-language journals had sealed the doom of these and similar Indian newspapers by the time ‘African’ political independence arrived in the early 1960s.

Concern with new modes of accountability has foregrounded the politics of belonging, giving prominence to the concepts of autochthony and allogeny. In Cameroon, this has provoked a shift in policy-making from an earlier distinction between the disciplined citizen and the subject. Despite this distinction, all Cameroonians were considered rights-bearing citizens in the early post- Independence era and as such could settle anywhere in the country and not be discriminated against. This has been rolled back as a result of overcoding and the assigning of a code to a people and a people to a territory is now in vogue. This has far-reaching policy implications. It problematizes the question of identity and has engendered the argument that this can be resolved only at death – identity should be determined by where one is buried. The centrality of overcoding, especially its extension into the mortuary realm, has enabled confusion, both legal and symbolic, which is instrumentalized and manipulated by the state, traditional authorities and relatives of the dead to serve varying and varied interests. Death, though a private affair, has now been thrust into the public space. Focusing on the burial of four ‘big men’, this paper shows how these interests are negotiated and fought over. Since space, power and tradition impact on this process, outcomes cannot be determined a priori. It is this impossibility that has given renewed relevance to the question: ‘Whose corpse it anyway?’

This article examines the genealogies of the Ìlàjẹ and the narrative of belonging that reinforces claims to ownership of land and natural resources such as oil. The article maps how oil flow stations, pipelines and platforms have come to represent an ancestral promise of wealth to many members of Ìlàjẹ communities. This claim making is embedded in a mythic origin that continuously reinforces a distinct identity that projects an imagined community connected to the Yorùbá of south-west Nigeria as well as the oil-rich Niger Delta region. While many scholars have studied the myth of origin of the Yorùbá, in most cases focusing on rituals and political imagination that intersect with linguistic evidence in determining Yorùbá identity, these scholars have often neglected the centrality of these myths to oil resources. Thus, I investigate how the Ìlàjẹ narrative of belonging creates its own specificity of ‘ownership’ of natural resources through ritual performances connected to migration and dispersal of subject populations. I examine how such narratives create spaces of opportunity for the organization of protests against multinational oil corporations and the Nigerian state.

Studies of slavery in Africa have noted the persistence of those relations in different forms, such as pawning, that allow social changes in power, status and wealth to be weathered more gradually. As pawning itself became less frequent, did other kinds of relationship take its place? Some scholars have argued that pawning was folded into marriage and fatherhood; others that there are continuities with fosterage and domestic servant arrangements today. This article examines the question of pawning's transformations in Akuapem, a region in south-eastern Ghana involved in forms of commercial agriculture that were heavily dependent on slave labour and the capital raised by pawning. Ultimately, it argues that debt became key to fatherhood and fosterage relations between children and adults, changing from a short-term exchange to more lifelong reciprocal relations of care.

Tandis que la politique en Afrique du Sud est souvent considérée comme étant essentiellement fissionnée par nature, cet article met l'accent sur les processus de fusion qui sont également importants. En examinant la grandeur des royaumes du Nord-Ouest, l'accumulation de matériaux et capitaux symboliques dans les centres royaux est aussi soulignée. Une attention toute particulière est prêtée à la manière dont les souverains ont exploité ces capitaux dans un effort pour amalgamer les structures du pouvoir environnant leurs fonctions. L'accumulation du capital royal se rapporte à l'interaction des royaumes avec le monde extérieur, et il est soutenu ici que la grandeur des royaumes du Nord-Ouest de Tswana, situés au bord du Kalahari, pourrait être profitablement percue en tant que ‘points culminants localisés de precédés régionaux’, propulsés par des forces régionales et globales. L'approche historique ici-présente contribue ainsi à démontrer comment ces royaumes ont gagné des forces en trans-formant des types de constrainte extérieure toujours nouveaux en des reprises en sous-oeuvre constructives par une autorité centrale: la conquëte et l'incorporation initiate des groupes locaux ont donné à ces systèmes politiques une force démographique.

En vertue des pâturages vierges, la production de cuivre et les ressources naturelles au centre du Kalahari se sont accrues en richesses et en forces, attirant des groupes étrangers et les incorporant politiquement à travers une ‘clientisation’. Ces processus économiques et écologiques ont étayé l'accroissement de la richesse pastorale royale et ont diversifié la composition de la population, permettant au roi d'utiliser certaines institutions culturelles pour renforcer son contrôle intérieur et sa capacité militaire. En particulier, à travers plusiers décennies de succés militaire à partir de la fin du dix-huitième siécle, l'autorité du roi a été institutionalisée à travers un systeme de tutelle politico-administratif.

II est débattu que la force progressive de ces systèmes a évoluée en deux sortes de transformation dialectique: premièrement, une dialectique socio-politique à l'oeuvre dans l'intéraction entre les relations intèrieures et les forces extérieures, à travers lesquelles le roi a transféré une autorité politique au bétail et au peuple, et deuxiémement, la reproduction et le renforcement du capital symbolique appartenant au lignage royal, sur lequel la légitimité du roi a été fondée, a été affectée par la transformation de n'importe quel souverain victorieux de son état d'être roi en celui d'ancêtre royal. Bien que les opérations transformatives des souverains sont ainsi soulignées, leurs entremises ayant réussi à transférer les forces extérieures au capital royal ne sont pas en premier lieu attribuées à leurs abilités personnelles, mais aux conditions structurales avantageuses sous lesquelles elles ont opérées tandis que le context historique évoluait.

This paper is an attempt to introduce the subject of morality for scientific discussion after a new manner. It is inspired throughout by that part of Professor Malinowski's work which relates to Primitive Law, and which he has developed in Crime and Custom in Savage Society, in his introduction to Dr. Ian Hogbin's Law and Order in Polynesia, and in his oral teaching at the London School of Economics in recent years. In his analysis of law Professor Malinowski finds himself driven to the study of the whole body of sanctioned custom, and of all the various attractions and compulsions that lead men to conform to a social tradition of right behaviour. A certain portion of that field is here delimited for separate description, namely morality, which is that part of right custom that is sanctioned by religion.

Public masquerades constitute extremely important symbolic forms among the Mende of Sierra Leone. Masquerades are a means of mediating between the secret Societies which dominate Mende social life and the general community. Through masking performances the public is kept informed of important events which occur in the secret domain and is allowed carefully limited participation in the experience of Society members. The masquerades make visible the powerful ‘medicines’ (haleisia) of the secret Societies without revealing their essential mystery. Maskers personify and dramatize the powers of the ‘medicines’ and exact respect and tribute from the spectators. At the same time, participants and audience are drawn into a common experience, which is aesthetically heightened by techniques of theatre, dance, music, and the plastic arts. The resultant feeling of unity and harmony helps to overcome the threat of disunity implicit in the division of the community into separate secret factions.

In recent decades a scripturalist, anti-Sufi interpretation of Islam has made steady gains in several parts of sub-Saharan Africa. For non-reformers who are confronted with this phenomenon it is easy to consider all active reformers as emerging from the same mould, as turning for inspiration and guidance to the same religious sources, differing only in the intensity of their fervour or commitment. The task of a more scholarly approach to ‘puritan’ Islamic reform, however, is to consider how it is integrated into different social contexts, how it can be used to change or reinforce the social arrangements and institutions of particular groups. This is the general aim of the present article, which considers the social background of factionalism in the emergence of a reform movement among the Songhay of Gao.

The G/wi Bushmen referred to in this article live in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in the Bechuanaland Protectorate. Although the census of the Reserve is not yet complete, its permanent Bushman population is estimated as being 3,000, plus another 2,000 summer migrants. The Reserve is 20,115 square miles in extent and its Bushman inhabitants enjoy exclusive hunting rights, unrestricted except for a prohibition on the use of firearms and certain types of steel traps. The puberty ceremony described here was performed in the central portion of the Reserve. Although I have not had the fortune of a field-trip coinciding with another ceremony I had previously been told by members of three bands what would happen. This agreed in detail with what I saw. Later descriptions from all five bands of the vicinity do not differ, so this version is presumably representative of the ‘wild’ G/wi of the region. These Bushmen have had almost no contact with Europeans other than the personnel of the Bechuanaland Government Bushman Survey.

This article restudies assumptions about the nature of nationalism in Africa on the basis of the brief moment when African nationalism emerged in the mountain area of Uluguru, in eastern Tanzania. It suggests that our understanding of the emergence of the concept of nationality was far too narrowly focused on the idea of the state and of the unity of the public existing within that state. By exploring a multiplicity of coexisting colonial and indigenous political discourses in terms of ‘creolisation’, and setting this multiplicity of public discourses against the background of the secret politics that determined their interaction, the article suggests directions for the rethinking of African politics in modernity.