L'article argumente que les grandes transformations économiques qui sont apparues dans la société Kipsigis, et plus spécifiquement depuis le début de ce siècle, ont fondamentalement changé les liens que les femmes créent entre elles au niveau local, en dehors de la famille la plus proche et le ménage. La façon dont les femmes vivent et travaillent ensemble, en tant qu'épouses et mères, a changé dans un sens qui mine sérieusement les sanctions collectives de solidarité féminine à travers les ménages. Dans ce procés de changement les manieres indigènes de s'associer des femmes se sont développés vers d'autres formes, et de nouvelles organisations féminines ont vu le jour avec le soutien ‘de l'exterieur’. L'article regarde surtout les changements dans les efforts de coöpération, traditionellement entrepris par les femmes Kipsigis. L'article se concentre principalement sur les groupes de travail des femmes au niveau des quartiers, mais examine également d'autres et plus récents groupes et organisations au niveau local, qui s'occupent de divers aspects de la vie des femmes.

This short sketch of Wolof (or Jolof) is based upon an examination of the speech of John C. Faye and Elliman Bah, both of Bathurst, Gambia, and on work with four or five Wolof speakers from French territories at the Paris Exhibition in 1937. A comparison of the two types from a phonetic point of view is interesting.

The Northern Gurage subgroup of Ethiopian Semitic consists of three languages, Soddo (also known as Aymälläl), Gogot (or Dobbi), and Muxǝr. Grouping these languages together is contrary to the general classification of Gurage hitherto adopted, which puts Soddo as the unique representative of Northern Gurage, and Masqan, Gogot and Muxǝr as a special branch of Western Gurage. We disagree with this classification, propose a new one with three Northern Gurage languages, and dissociate Mäsqan from Gogot by putting it as the easternmost representative of Western Gurage, the only one of its type. It is considered that the phenomenon to be dealt with—a common feature of Soddo, Gogot, and Muxǝr, and of these three only—is enough to justify this new classification, though there is other evidence.

There are great and striking differences between the art products of Benin and those of the Yoruba towns through which one passes on the way across country to that city. Efforts to find woodcarvers or brass-founders at, for instance, Ibadan were in vain, in spite of the co-operation of the Resident, Mr. Ward-Price, to whom I am also indebted for general assistance on my journey. The native arts and crafts of Benin, in comparison with those of the Yoruba towns, are still in a highly nourishing condition; the wood-carvers in particular were fully occupied. Again and again I came across altars for ancestor worship, images, carved doors, &c., which have been made during the last few score years. They show a wealth of pagan artistic skill of a high order which is most impressive, especially in contrast with the stagnation at such places as Ibadan and Ife, and is even more astonishing, as Benin was overwhelmed by a catastrophe from which one might have expected that it would never recover. A British punitive expedition conquered the city and dethroned the king in 1897 and an extensive fire burnt down the whole place. At this time most of the Benin bronze work came to Europe. Of the older products only a few were left in their original home. Consequently the art of new Benin has been built up again on a tabula rasa. But the work of these forty years is plentiful enough. One has the impression that Benin is determined to make good the colossal damage that was done to it.

This essay argues that courtship procedures, of which the giving of bridewealth forms a part, may under certain conditions help to socialize younger men into their mature economic roles. Further, in so far as bridewealth performs these functions, it contributes to the reproduction of labour in these economies.

The Tiv, a semi-Bantu people numbering some 800,000 who live in the middle Benue Valley of Northern Nigeria, have not, according to their tradition, always lived in their present location. They account for their entrance into the territory they now occupy and the disposition of the lineages into which they are organized by means of stories which depict events of their migrations.

Tiv from every part of Tivland know bits and pieces of myth, relevant to their own lineages and those nearby, which they consider to be parts of the story of their descent (msen) from the hills. The stories vary from area to area, from individual to individual, and from situation to situation. In spite of the fact that the size of the population and its wide dispersal militate against anyone's knowing all these stories, it is an article of Tiv faith that it would be possible to correlate them all into a narrative.

The movement of school teachers to primary and secondary schools around South Africa and its Bantustans in the early and mid-1970s was an intentional part of the project of propagating Black Consciousness to school learners during this period. The movement of these educators played a key role in their ability to spread Black Consciousness philosophy, and in the political forms and methods they chose in teaching it. These were shaped by their own political conscientization and training in ethnically segregated colleges, but also in large part by the social realities of the areas to which they moved. Their efforts not only laid the foundation for Black Consciousness organization in communities across South Africa, they also influenced student and youth mechanisms for political action beyond the scope of Black Consciousness politics. This article explores three case studies of teachers who studied at the University of the North (Turfloop) and their trajectories after leaving university. All of these teachers moved to Turfloop as students, and then away from it thereafter. The article argues that this pattern of movement, which was a direct result of apartheid restrictions on where black South Africans could live, study and work, shaped the knowledge they transmitted in their classrooms, and thus influenced the political consciousness of a new generation.

Translated from the Portuguese expression arquivo morto, the dead archive is a site where files that have lost their procedural validity are stored for a determined number of years before they are destroyed or are sent to permanent archives. In Mozambique, where awareness and institutional capacity for proper archival procedures are still being developed, a common feature of the dead archive is the way in which files are untidily piled up with old typewriters, furniture, spare parts and other material debris of bureaucratic work and administration. In these archives, more than forty years of institutional and public memory lie ignored in leaky, damp basements across the country and in serious danger of irreparable damage. Drawing from various stints of historical and anthropological field research conducted between 2009 and 2016 in Maputo, Niassa and Inhambane provinces, this article examines the dead archive in order to explore the relationship between institutional memory and governance during the long period of austerity in Mozambique. Based on our investigation of the multiple layers of the dead archive, we argue that the Mozambican post-socialist government has sought to control institutional memory as a way to keep the ruling party in power in the context of multiparty politics. While the public sector has experienced conditions of austerity since independence, we show how, during the socialist period (1975–90) of single-party rule, the state's relationship with institutional memory was more progressive, with transparent and communicative archival practices. In contrast, despite the combination of public sector reforms and progressive legislation regarding the right to information, the multiparty democratic period (1990 to the present) has seen an exacerbation of administrative secrecy leading to less transparent and communicative archival practices.

In 1964, the newly established Hong Kong-based Cha Group partnered with the Northern Nigerian Regional Development Corporation to open the United Nigerian Textiles Limited (UNTL) mill in Kaduna – the largest textile mill in Northern Nigeria. The Cha Group later expanded, building textile mills in other parts of the country. Both Chinese and Nigerian managers and workers were involved in UNTL mills, which by 1980 provided printed cotton textiles for the Nigerian market and for other markets in West Africa. Yet this Chinese–Nigeria collaboration could not overcome factors external to the textile-manufacturing industry. Declining infrastructure, erratic electricity, frequent changes in political leadership at the federal level, and the smuggling of less-costly imported textiles (often from China) undermined local textile manufacturing, while inflationary pressures associated with the national oil industry undermined agricultural production, exacerbating the difficulties of obtaining raw Nigerian cotton. In 2007, the UNTL mill in Kaduna closed, although it resumed production in December 2010, assisted by the 100 billion naira Cotton, Textile and Garment Development Fund. Cha Group officials also used their knowledge of the Nigerian textile market as the basis for the marketing of branded, high-quality manufactured textiles, known as Da Viva®, at company-franchised shops in major Nigerian cities. The Cha Group took advantage of digital innovation, both in the printing of these popular textiles and also by advertising them on an attractive website. This article considers the ways in which the United Nigerian Textiles Plc company has maintained production of grey cloth and printed textiles at its mills in Kaduna and Ikorodu-Lagos, along with the marketing of Da Viva® cotton prints, which suggests the continuing, if contradictory, possibilities for this Nigerian–Chinese textile-manufacturing collaboration.

Recent studies on Chinese investment in Africa have particularly focused on the hardware of development – infrastructure – and its impact. China's vision to forge a new global order was made explicit when Xi declared his ‘One Belt, One Road’ policy in 2013. Underlying the grand infrastructural schemes and political posturing are hidden financial manoeuvres, the soft side of power, unspoken sociality and value contestations. This article focuses on the variegated landscape of China–Africa trade/finance infrastructure centring on Hong Kong. It highlights top-down state orchestration but also explores historical contingencies that have shaped the strategies of those whose footprints unexpectedly straddle continental divides.

African women are frequently portrayed as a subaltern group in need of external support, used as property in forging social relations, producing wealth in people and doing most of the agricultural work to feed household members in societies where ‘modernization’ does not always seem to change their unfortunate predicament. This article destabilizes such narratives by showing the complexities of marriage practices and the difficult dialectics between freedom and subjugation in one West African agrarian society – the Brasa-speaking people of Guinea-Bissau. Among this patrilineal and virilocal group, marriage was usually arranged at birth or when girls were still small children. However, after marriage, women enjoyed great freedom of movement to have distant sexual partners and to pursue private profit-making activities. Paradoxically, while at present most young women are allowed to marry a young husband of their choice, having lost the support of their descent groups they are becoming more subjected to their husbands’ power and control.

The Fulani people extend across Africa, from Senegal to Dafur, but their origin, like the origin of the universe, is unknown. I have drawn attention to the probable origin of the name Fulani. I propose in this article to review some of the suggested origins of the Fulani language and to put forward a suggestion of my own.

The introduction of Christian missionary activity and the British colonial administration of Nigeria in the middle of the nineteenth century led to some of the most significant musical changes in the country. Perhaps the most far reaching was the emergence of modern Nigerian art music, a genre which is conceptually similar to European classical music. This study focuses on Ayo Bankole, one of the pioneer composers of Nigerian art music.

As an introductory study of Ayo Bankole, the article briefly discusses the musico-historical factors responsible for the growth of Nigerian art music as well as the nature of Bankole's musical training and experience. This provides an appropriate context for understanding and appreciating the stylistic features of Bankole's works. Drawing on examples from his works, the article establishes the eclectic nature of Bankole's style, in which European and African musical elements interact.

The town of Ningi is located on the western edge of the North East State of Nigeria, about 25 km from the south-eastern corner of Kano State. Old Ningi town (about 50 km from the town's present site) was founded by a Kano Qur'anic teacher-scholar, Malam Hamza, and his followers in the middle of the nineteenth century. Malam Hamza is said to have fled Kano because of political and religious disputes with the Emir of Kano which resulted in a purge of the Malam class. Moving away from the centre of Kano power to the comparative safety of the Kabara hills and the non-Hausa people who lived in them, Malam Hamza was able to establish the separatism he and his followers desired. During this period the Kabara hills were the scene of slave-raiding and warfare, constantly threatened by the Hausa-Fulani emirates which surrounded them. Fighting from the hills, the people of Old Ningi, loosely allied with their neighbours, the Butawa, Warjawa, and others, were able to maintain their independence from Bauchi, Zaria, and Kano.

This article, based on fieldwork, explores the main economic categories of the Nzema, matrilineal farmers of South West Ghana, with the aim of reconstructing a local economic theory. The starting point is that any economic theory is logically founded in its own principles and that the internal coherence of a theory depends on its ability to represent the interests of the society to which it is applied. The work of ancestors appears as a founding idea in relation to other ideas like that of profit engendered by the work of the living.

The author, however, analyses these categories, particularly emphasising the use of terminology in various contexts of daily life and in the economic lexicon as a whole, in order to trace an unitary space in which the logic of a system of thought could be considered. In order to verify the coherence of this system the author conducts a comparative analysis between the Nzema categories and the corresponding western categories organised as different theories such as neo-classical marginalism, Marx's value of work and, finally, Chayanov's theory founded on an utility concept.

The central core of the Nzema's theory concerning work and profit is that the work of ancestors, first conceived as the ideological and juridical basis for the rights of their descendants over cultivable land, turns as well into a profit producer to the advantage of the living under the condition that it should be materialised as a means of production like, for example, the coconut trees, which were planted by the ancestors, and now produce a profit for their descendants.