On its fortieth anniversary, the African Studies Association faces the task of forging mutuality between itself and others in the study of Africa and in relationships with Africa. This task involves three distinct challenges. The first is to overcome the historical hierarchies based on race and nationality that attended the creation and early history of the ASA. These hierarchies pushed many Africanists of color to the margins of our organization. The second challenge is to address the need for mutuality in internal policy relationships regarding Africa, particularly at a time when many American international affairs experts have said diat there are no U.S. national interests that link us to Africa and that any such assertions are divisive. However, the third and perhaps most time-sensitive challenge is that of creating mutuality in intra-ASA relationships. We must grow comfortable with the increasing diversity of ASA members. We cannot cede African studies to either black or white Africanists, but we must insist that our association, our newly trained professionals, and our ASA leadership mirror the cultural and ethnic diversity that is America.

This paper deals with fashion (la Sape) and its use among Congolese youth as a vehicle to borrow new identities. La Sape is an ambiguous adventure, a sort of Baudelairian voyage, that leads Congolese youth (Sapeurs), not only from a third world city to Paris and Brussels, but also from social dereliction to psychological redemption. It authenticates and validates their quest for a new social identity which the African city has failed to provide its overwhelming population of youth. It is, above all, a study of the interactions between clothing and social (and cultural) identities and the transfer of meaning from one to the other, and vice versa. La Sape allows the Sapeur to define the boundaries that separate him from the Other, but also serves as a defined social territory which distinguishes the Sapeurs from the rest of society. Ultimately, la Sape is redolent with political meanings. It is a political statement which, I argue in this paper, is directed toward the West, the former colonizer, as well as toward the authoritative structures of the African state. I also demonstrate that this political discourse is inseparable from the egotistical and hedonistic dimensions of la Sape.

Architecture functions as a powerful tool in the construction of political power. So, too, can it play an important role in resistance to such power. The following essay explores uses of the built environment, of topography, building methodology, and approaches to the landscape by different sectors of the Bamileke community over a period of ninety years (1906–1996). Its principal focus is architecture and architectural practices associated with an institution imposed by the German and French colonial regimes: the Christian church. How, it asks, and why, primarily through the medium of architecture, did different factions within the Bamileke community (chiefs and their allies, priests and pastors, untided men, youths, women) make use of Christian institutions to further their goals and enhance their position within the social order?

Three films serve to explore the metamorphosis involved in translating written fiction onto the screen. Text and screen have different requirements, but there is often also a change in intended audience between written fiction and film—as demonstrated here in the cases of Xala and Kongi's Harvest. Neither such change in intended audience nor the level of funding bears a relationship to the striking difference in the quality and the success of the three films examined in this essay. The comparison among these films instead raises issues that affect all film making: the director's training and experience, and the relationship between the director and the producers. The comparison furthermore suggests two issues that are specific to the transformation of a novel or play to the screen. There is first of all the relative ease or difficulty of transforming very different texts. And there is the risk that the text may come to dominate the picture because of its stature or because of the relationship between author and director.

Regime transition programs have played contradictory roles in Nigerian politics, from the end of the colonial era to the present. The latest transition program is scheduled to culminate in the installation of a civilian regime in mid-1999. An analysis of this process, through reviewing recent academic writing on this subject, reveals that transition programs play a contradictory role in Nigerian politics. Some observers see the possibility of designing a political system that will force Nigeria's rulers to heed popular interests and lessen politicians' use of public office for personal gain. Others regard transition programs as elaborate ploys to entrench private privilege under new institutional guise. The analysis in this essay finds more support for the latter view. The essay identifies elements of the latest transition program that point to continuity with previous politics. This development now results in the appearance of factional conflicts and political violence common to other countries such as Congo, Sierra Leone, and Liberia that have suffered “state collapse.”