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.

In spite of over a half century of interventions and waves of “reforms,” higher education in Africa today consists of institutions, systems, and practices that lack distinct values and goals, or a mission and vision connecting them to the major challenges of their local and global contexts. What is needed in African higher education is true transformation, which will involve practical and epistemological ruptures with previous ways of doing things and a reconstruction of structures, relations, cultures, and institutions. Of particular importance are initiatives that will ensure gender equity, changes in the organization and process of knowledge production, and a reenvisioning of universities' funding sources and mechanisms.

The African presence in the Indian Ocean world represents one of the most neglected aspects of the global diaspora of African peoples. Yet very significant numbers of people of African descent today inhabit virtually all the countries of the western Indian Ocean littoral. It is evident, however, that African voices have been actively silenced in this diaspora both by the cultural contexts of their host societies and by the way in which the scholarly production of knowledge has reflected such cultural domination. Consequently, to get at the experiences of Africans in the Indian Ocean world and assess their sense of being of or belonging to Africa, we must look to popular culture. In this paper I examine some of the evidence for recollecting Africa in the Indian Ocean world, citing examples of music, song, dance, religion and healing, language, and folkways from both first generation diaspora Africans and their descendants. I conclude by cautioning us not to impose paradigms developed from the experience of Africans in the diaspora of the Atlantic world, with its particular forms of Euro-American racism and concomitant black responses.

Since the dawn of history, mankind has developed a variety of practices which are intricately related to complex social orders and to traditional codes of behavior. Over the years many of these, especially those with harmful effects, were gradually abandoned while others remained. One of those which still survives is the practice of female circumcision with its long past and its serious health complications (Taba, 1980: 21).

There is no conclusive evidence to indicate where female circumcision first originated and how it was initially performed. Circumcized females have been discovered among the mummies of ancient Egyptians. Herodotus, the Greek historian, found the Egyptians practicing male and female circumcision when he visited their country around the middle of the fifth century B.C. A Greek papyrus in the British Museum, dated 163 B. C., refers to operations performed on girls in Memphis at the age when they received their dowries. Strabo, the Greek geographer, also reported circumcision of girls as a custom he found when visiting Egypt in 25 B. C. (Hosken, 1982). More recently, the German traveller Niebuhr, the sole survivor of a European scientific expedition to Arabia, Egypt, and Syria in the late 1700s, reported that this operation was fairly prevalent (Taba, 1980: 21). Such noted explorers as Sir Richard Burton and Sir Samuel White Baker described female circumcision in their writings from the 1800s (Hosken, 1982).

This article develops a conceptual analysis of the dynamics of violence during the transition from war to peace and democracy in the Democratic Republic of Congo between 2003 and 2006. I locate the sources, at the local, national, and regional levels, of continued local violence during this transition. Through an analysis of the situation in the Kivus, I illustrate how local dynamics interacted with the national and regional dimensions of the conflict. I demonstrate that, after a national and regional settlement was reached, some local conflicts over land and political power increasingly became self-sustaining and autonomous from the national and regional tracks.

The preoccupation with “autochthony” and the exclusion of “strangers” in many parts of present-day Africa, a paradoxical outcome of political liberalization, has given new importance to funerals as an ultimate test of “belonging.” However, the link between funerals and belonging is certainly not new. This article compares three different versions of this link from southern Cameroon. In the 1970s, Maka funerals in southeast Cameroon emphasized belonging in terms of local kinship and affinity. In the 1980s, Ewondo funerals in Central Province reaffirmed the belonging of urban elites to their village of origin. In the 1990s, funerals in the Southwest Province revealed the increased political significance of the funeral in the context of a growing preoccupation with autochthony and belonging under democratization. These three examples illustrate the continuing stretching of kinship as it bridges new inequalities and distances. They also raise quesdons as to its breaking point.

This article is extracted from a larger essay which grew as a consequence (or, more exactly, as an accident) of an invitation to establish a survey on African philosophy. Strictly speaking, the notion of African philosophy refers to contributions of Africans practicing philosophy within the definite framework of the discipline and its historical tradition (Horton, 1976; Hountondji, 1977; Mudimbe, 1983b). It is only metaphorically or, at best, from a historicist perspective, that one would extend the notion to African traditional systems of thought, considering them as dynamic processes of integrating concrete experiences into the order of concepts and discourses (Ladrière, 1979: 14-15). Thus, I have preferred to title this text “African Gnosis.” J. Fabian used the notion of gnosis (1969) in his analysis of a charismatic African movement. In this contribution, the wider frame of this notion seems better to encompass the range of problems addressed, all of which are based on a preliminary question: to what extent can one speak of an “African knowledge,” and in which sense? Etymologicaly, gnosis is related to gnosko, which in ancient Greek means “to know.” It refers to a structured, common, and conventional knowledge, but strictly under the control of specific procedures for its use as well as transmission. Gnosis is, consequently, different from doxa, or opinion, and, on the other hand, cannot be confused with episteme, or general intellectual configuration.

Over the last decade, the bottom-of-the-pyramid (BoP) approach has gained prominence as a tool of “inclusive” capitalism in sub-Saharan Africa. This approach reframes development as a seamless outcome of core business activities, one that can ameliorate poverty by bringing much-needed products and services to the poor and generating employment opportunities for informal and subsistence workers as “micro-entrepreneurs.” Yet while transnational capital has set its sights on Africa’s “underserved” yet potentially buoyant markets, BoP initiatives do more than seize upon the entrepreneurial talent and aspirations of Africa’s informal economies. This article argues, rather, that these initiatives create BoP economies through a set of market technologies, practices, and discourses that render the spaces and actors at the bottom of the pyramid knowable, calculable, and predictable to global business. The article describes how these technologies extend new forms of market governance over the informal poor, reconfiguring their habits, social practices, and economic strategies under the banner of poverty reduction.

Based on two relatively well-reported cases of homophobia in Malawi and South Africa, this article aims to show some of the ways in which hegemonic African men and masculinities are unsettled by, but also find ideological use for, the existence of homosexuality and nonheteronormative sexualities. Deploying the notion of psychopolitics, the article traces the interpenetrating psychosocial and sociopolitical aspects of homophobia. The argument is that analyses of issues of lesbian, gay, and “othered” sexualities are vital for a fuller understanding of the production of hegemonic forms of gender and masculinity in Africa. The article suggests that the threat posed by homosexuality is used as a distraction for some of the socioeconomic development-related failures of Africa’s ruling men but also, more significantly, for the impossibility of hegemonic African masculinity itself.

Current classification systems create typologies of authoritarian regimes that may overlook the importance of national policies. Rwanda and Ethiopia in particular are perplexing case studies of post-1990s governance. Both nations are characterized by high growth economies with significant state involvement and the formal institutions of democracy, but deeply troubling patterns of domestic governance. This article proposes a new category of authoritarianism called “developmental authoritarianism,” which refers to nominally democratic governments that provide significant public works and services while exerting control over nearly every facet of society. The article then reflects upon the durability and implications of this form of governance.

Contrary to expectations of modern democratic development, the establishment of liberal-democratic institutions in Ghana has not led to the demise of political clientelism. Instead, the underlying informal institutions of leadership—friendship, capitalist entrepreneurship, family, and religion—contribute to the persistence of personal rule in urban Ghana. Leaders amass political power by accumulating followers in daily life. The article provides empirical evidence to substantiate these theoretical claims in the form of two ethnographic case studies—a politician’s primary campaign and the screening of a football match in an urban slum. It proposes an alternative model for the study of democracy and political accountability that extends beyond the formal institutional realm to include informal mechanisms that shape political clientelism in a democratic environment.

Through an examination of the Tanzanian experience, this article takes up a challenge forcefully posed by Mahmood Mamdani's Citizen and Subject to examine connections between late colonial and postindependence state power on the African continent. The discussion is critical of Mamdani's argument that postindependence authoritarianism in Africa can be understood as an institutional legacy of late colonialism. However, connections to colonial times did exist in the frames of legitimation that underpinned the frequently authoritarian actions of the postindependence Tanzanian state. One such connection was the persistent paternalism vis-à-vis their “subjects” that characterized the political imagination of state elites; another was the fact that “the colonial past” served as an important reference point in the construction of a deeply Manichean discourse and practice of politics after independence.

This article traces the history of how and why certain African groups became involved in the transnational indigenous rights movement; how the concept of the indigenous has been imagined, understood, and employed by African activists, donors, advocates, and states; and the opportunities and obstacles it has posed for the ongoing struggles for recognition, resources, and the rights of historically marginalized people like Maasai.

In the ongoing context of political liberalization, many African leaders have adopted the rhetoric of democracy while at the same time devising ways to limit political competition. This article focuses on one such strategy: the effort to disqualify or discredit political opponents based on challenges to their citizenship. In recent years, several African leaders have initiated court cases and produced evidence to question the right of opposition candidates and other critics to participate in the political process. By examining specific examples in Côte d'Ivoire, Zambia, and elsewhere, the article explores the implications of this strategy. While citizenship rights are clearly important in any democracy, their explicit manipulation for the ruling party's political purposes is a risky approach that threatens to slow or even reverse the process of democratization. In the end, a tactic initially designed to exclude specific individuals from the political process has the potential of fueling broader xenophobic sentiments and legitimizing exclusionary nation-building strategies. At best, the resulting widening of social cleavages reduces the likelihood of democratic consolidation. At worst, it plants the seeds for future political conflict and possibly even war.

Following the successful coup d'état of Laurent Kabila's forces in May 1997, the Zairian dictator Mobutu Sese Seko was forced into exile in Morocco, where he died. This article looks at a lively transnational debate about what should be done with the former president's remains, and through this debate reflects on attempts by people in the Congo to determine what version of history should be told and how to understand the impact of Mobutu's political legacy.

This article reviews major changes in policies and practices of land allocation and use in sub-Saharan Africa since ca 1990, using two comparative case studies to illustrate their implications for relations between local and national authority. One case contrasts Ghana, where intense local conflicts over land and authority did not translate into political conflict at the national level, with Côte d’Ivoire, where they did. The other compares political strategies and the influence of traditional chiefs in Ghana and South Africa.

Opening with an account of an incident in July 1998 when warnings were circulated in a shack settlement outside Soweto that a giant snake known as Inkosi ya Manzi [King of the Waters] was angry and threatening to destroy the settlement, this paper seeks to examine questions of spiritual insecurity in a context of widespread poverty, hardship, and violence. It seeks to examine those aspects of insecurity that are not reducible simply to objective conditions of danger by examining questions of epistemology relating to modes of understanding the action of invisible forces and beings upon the fortunes and misfortunes of everyday life. Five sources of epistemic anxiety are identified, along with three distinct frames of interpretive authority. The paper suggests that the relative intensity of spiritual insecurity in contemporary Soweto derives in large part from the fact that no one framework of interpretation enjoys dominance.

Following the collapse of the Communist bloc, it has virtually become conventional for developing countries to embark on the simultaneous pursuit of structural adjustment and democratization. Some countries such as Ghana started with adjustment for almost a decade before democratization. However, the joint pursuit of adjustment and democratization has engendered intense debate among academics and policy-makers. Given the “mechanisms” adopted by governments with the support of the World Bank and the IMF to impose adjustment policies on many developing countries prior to political liberalization, and given the underpinnings of democracy, some argue that the two processes are antithetical. The seemingly embedded determinism of the incompatibility thesis is challenged by the Ghanaian case study. The Ghanaian case demonstrates diat domestic sociopolitical dynamics may facilitate the pursuit of adjustment and democratization pari passu. These dynamics revolve around the general receptivity to adjustment by critical societal groups, the strength of associational groups, the absence of viable alternatives, and the continued support by the international donor community for adjustment.

In this article we draw on three years of ethnographic observation of postconflict humanitarian intervention in Liberia to consider the process whereby global efforts in the areas of gender-based violence (GBV) and human rights are interacting with local debates over kinship, entitlement, personal rights, and social responsibility. This article draws upon Liberian narratives, complaints, and efforts to regulate, in a national context, social norms and behavior in regard to gender-based violence issues in postconflict life while also engaging with an ongoing international human rights discourse on the subject of GBV. Our ethnography takes a multiscalar approach to give a sense of the process, multiple discourses, and dialectics of power involved in this issue, and to demonstrate how the definition of “the GBV problem” in Liberia, the target of complex GBV interventions, is different from the conception held by agencies, governmental ministries, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that are responsible for implementing global mandates.