With this first comprehensive history of the Ndau of eastern Zimbabwe and central Mozambique, Elizabeth MacGonagle moves beyond national borders to show how cultural identities are woven from historical memories that predate the arrival of missionaries and colonial officials on the African continent. Drawing on archival records and oral histories from throughout the Ndau region, her study analyses the complex relationships between social identity and political power from 1500 to 1900. She argues that Ndauness has been created and recreated within communities through marriages and social structures, cultural practices that mark the body, and rituals that help to sustain shared beliefs. A sense of being Ndau continues to exist into the present, despite different colonial histories, postcolonial trajectories, and official languages in Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Index, bib, notes, maps, 192pp, USA. UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER PRESS.

This full-colour book accompanied an exhibition of the same name at the Johannesburg Art Gallery. It tracks the history of these cultural groups through essays and a wealth of images of material culture and art. Originating largely in Mozambique, and consolidating themselves in response to the mining industry and to the homeland policy of the apartheid government, Tsonga and Shangaan people mobilised in difficult political, economic and social circumstances to form a distinct identity and artistic style. Tsonga and Shangaan headrests, staffs, figures, puppets, medicine gourds, healers' attire and snuff containers form the material record of a complex and dynamic period in South Africa's past. 232pp, SOUTH AFRICA. WITWATERSRAND UNIVERSITY PRESS.

Ethnographic and historical look at the politics of eco-development in the Zimbabwe-Mozambique border zone and argues that European colonization in southern Africa has profoundly reshaped rural politics and culture and continues to do so, as neo-liberal developers commodify the lands of African peasants in the name of conservation and economic progress. In Zimbabwe, chiefdoms that had historically focused on controlling people began to follow the English example of consolidating political power by dividing and controlling land. In Mozambique, Portugal perpetuated traditional practices of recruiting and distributing forced labour as the primary means of securing power. A sharp disjuncture in the politics of land, leadership, labour, and resource use marked the border zone. In the late 1990s, white South Africans began to establish timber plantations in Mozambique, and that difference began to be effaced. 288pp, USA. UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON PRESS.

First published in 1932, this ethnography is one of the earliest and most influential anthropological accounts of food and diet, looking at how food and its consumption satisfies an entire system of needs through institutional and social processes. Index, bib, xxvi, notes, 238p, UK. ROUTLEDGE.

Memoir by a pioneering maker of film documentaries in Zimbabwe and Zambia, telling the story of the Central African Film Unit from its inception in the 1940s to its demise with the end of the Federation of the Rhodesias and Nyasaland. B/w illus, index, 219pp, ZIMBABWE . HARPER COLLINS ZIMBABWE

1998 1779040059 Paperback

Raises a number of issues on the contested nature of intellectual property rights (IPR) and Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) in the context of Southern Africa, including the protection of folklore, IKS in a digital era, the valuation and safeguard of heritage sites, the need for appropriate IKS legislation, community based control of natural resources and the role played by traditional music in the maintenance of community. 140pp, SENEGAL. CODESRIA.

Intended for use with the Cultural Studies course taught in schools in Botswana. Culture is defined in the broadest sense as the sum of a society's achievements, material, intellectual, and social. Text is divided into three sections: Culture and Society (covering material culture, knowledge and understanding, beliefs, differing cultures and cultural production); The Culture of Southern Africa: A Case Study (from earliest times to the Twentieth Century); Producing Cultural Work. B/w illus, gloss, 162pp, BOTSWANA. FOUNDATION FOR EDUCATION WITH PRODUCTION.

Photographic narrative of a journey undertaken over many years to document religions, rituals, and faiths in post-apartheid South Africa. It explores the question of spirituality in a country once divided and now free. The book includes a written narrative that draws on the author's experiences, observations and research. B/w photos, 128pp, SOUTH AFRICA. DOUBLE STOREY BOOKS.

The contributions to this publication are grouped into six parts: Part 1: Legal pluralism, traditional governance and the challenge of the democratic constitutional order; Part 2: Traditional administration of justice revisited; Part 3: Ascertaining customary law: prerequisite of good governance in traditional authority; Part 4: Legal philosophy, African philosophy and African jurisprudence; Part 5: Research, training and teaching of customary law; and Part 6: After-thoughts. 512pp, GERMANY. LIT VERLAG.

Specialists on the Tonga-speaking people from such disciplines as anthropology, history, political science, and economics, among them American anthropologist Colson herself, present 15 essays. Index, 390pp, USA. UNIVERSITY PRESS OF AMERICA.