Thamyris/Intersecting is a series of edited volumes with a critical, interdisciplinary focus. This issue looks back and assesses the relations and debates between Africa, Europe and America discussing issues of othering, the roots of culture, economic and cultural entanglement, and the creation of national identities. Includes essays on Mongo Beti, Buchi Emecheta, female genital mutilation, Waris Dirie, Western philosophy and the study of aesthetics in African cultures and the Black Atlantic. The essay on Caryl Philips and Ellen Ombre is in French. Index, bib, notes, 208pp, UK. RODOPI, 9042010290

Overview of the history, application and teaching of anthropology in post-colonial Africa shows how the continent's anthropologists are redefining the historical legacy of European and American disciplinary hegemony, and developing distinctively African contributions to anthropological theory and practice. The contributors illustrate the diverse national traditions of anthropological practice that have developed in sub-Saharan Africa since decolonisation and exemplify the diversity of professional work carried out by the discipline's practitioners. Index, 274pp, UK. ZED BOOKS.

From interdisciplinary and continental perspectives, this volume explores elements of African culture and ideas, indigenous and modern, and how they have evolved through the ages. It considers areas such as education; cross-culturalism; the relationship between African, Arabic and Egyptian civilizations; traditions of philosophy; music, the performing arts and literature; language; gender; and the impact of colonialism and pan-Africanism. 452pp, NIGERIA. IBADAN CULTURAL STUDIES GROUP.

Now available in paperback, this volume addresses the debates surrounding pre-agricultural lifestyles. Using archaeological evidence gathered from East and Southern African sources, where the greatest time depth of foraging cultures can be traced, the author builds a picture of the technological and social adaptations which hunter-gatherer bands developed in response to their environment. Valuable introduction to students of African archaeology, anthropology and history. Index, refs, apps, b/w illus, tables, diags, 284pp, USA, 075910154X

The story of the anthropological fieldwork centred at the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). Focusing on collaborative processes, the author places assistants and informants in a central role. She shows how local conditions and ideas, as well as local people's previous experience of outsiders' interest, shape their responses to anthropological fieldwork and help them, in turn, to influence the construction of knowledge about their societies and lives. 23 b/w photos, notes, bib, index, 376pp, USA. DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

Anthology covering such issues as kinship, religion, conflict resolution, music, cinema, drama, and literary texts. The issues cohere around the understanding that culture is situational and political. Going beyond merely challenging popular stereotypes and representations of Africans and African related practices in various outlets, the book reveals how popular cultural practices are instruments that have been manipulated for personal and collective survival. 352pp, USA. UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER PRESS.

Drawing on fieldwork from Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Peru, Guatemala, India, Chad, Columbia and South Africa, the contributors discuss the form and reach of the modern state and how people understand and experience the agency of the state, whether on the margins or at the centre of power. Issues raised include the impact of the trade in arms, diamonds, goods and currency; the role of language as cultures try to articulate their struggles; and the problems that mercenaries pose to the state. Index, refs, notes, ix, 330pp, UK. JAMES CURREY PUBLISHERS, 0852559488

Using a wide range of sources, the author examines the formation of 'Africa' as an artifical entity molded and remolded by colonialism and now popular culture in Europe and the United States. Using fiction, fashion, film, comic books and hip hop culture amongst other media, she places Africa in American cultural history and shows how these conceptual and ideological images of the continent have functioned both in white societies as well as African-American communities. Illustrated with b/w photographs. Index, bib, notes, viii, 370pp, USA. NEW ENGLAND UNIVERSITY PRESS, 158465192X

From ethnographic shows in the nineteenth century to African markets in zoos today; from funeral celebrations in urban settings in Ghana to workshops and world music festivals in Germany; from televised Independence Day celebrations in Africa to musical scenes and the nightlife in European cities - the contexts for the performance of African music could hardly be more diverse. This ethnography explores the production of social space and the negotiation of culture and ethnicity through musical performance in the transnational field between Berlin and Accra. 208pp, GERMANY. LIT VERLAG.

Be it the vitality of African popular culture, the vitality of religious ideas or the vitality of artistic forms of expressions - invoking the notion of vitality has become a common practice in Africanist discourses. Most often, the purpose of invoking this notion is to emphasize the unexpected and astonishing power and strength of certain cultural fields in Africa. But what is really meant with the notion of local vitality beyond its metaphorical usage, beyond the underrated and unforeseen? The present volume brings together a number of essays exploring the answers to these questions from different perspectives and disciplines. Based upon an international conference on Local Vitality and the Globalization of the Local organized by the Humanities Collaborative Research Centre at the University of Bayreuth. 470pp, GERMANY. LIT VERLAG.

Argues that even within anthropology, a discipline that strives to overcome misrepresentations of peoples and cultures, colonialist depictions of the so-called Dark Continent run deep. The grand narratives, tribal tropes, distorted images, and natural histories that forged the founda-tions of discourse about Africa remain firmly entrenched. Explores how anthropology can come to terms with the colonial library and begin to develop an ethnographic practice that transcends the politics of Africa's imperial past. The way out of the colonial library, Apter argues, is by listening to critical discourses in Africa that reframe the social and political contexts in which they are embedded. Index, bib, b/w illus, 171pp, USA. CHICAGO U P.

Collection of anthropological essays generated by debate and contemporary issues in Southern Africa. Looks at the relevance of anthropology in development and policy making and offers perspectives on youth, sexuality, land and tradition. Notes, refs, figs, maps, b/w illus, xiv, 318pp, NAMIBIA. UNIVERSITY OF NAMIBIA PRESS.

Twenty years ago, Arjun Appadurai’s edited collection The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (1986) brought about a major change in perspectives on material things in circulation. A domain hitherto reserved for economics was accessed by anthropologists concentrating on commodities and wielding new conceptual tools such as tournament of value, cultural biography of things, and politics of consumption. In the present book, some of the original contributors of 1986 (Arjun Appadurai himself, and leading British archaeologist Colin Renfrew) meet with today’s prominent names in the field (Jean & John Comaroff, Paul & Jennifer Alexander, Roy Dilley, Mike Rowlands, and Herskovits award-winning Nancy Rose Hunt) and with scholars of the next generation: Brad Weiss, Rijk van Dijk, Janet Roitman, James Leach, and Irene Stengs. 400pp, GERMANY. LIT VERLAG.

The study of consumption, including such aspects as social differentiation, communication and the change of needs, has become a major field of study within material culture research. This volume unites a number of ethnographic case studies documenting a wide range of local practices with regard to consumer goods. Although based on the acquisition of globally circulating goods, consumption in Africa is appropriated and, thus, becomes part of the local material culture. The contributions of this volume are the outcome of a workshop held at the African Studies Centre at Bayreuth University. Each chapter deals with the social dynamics engendered by new modes of consumption in specific areas (Côte d'Ivoire, Zambia, Tanzania, Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Niger). 207pp, GERMANY. LIT VERLAG.

Provides students with an aid to understanding the complexities and subtleties of new theoretical inputs on geography, ranging from psychoanalysis to postcolonial studies in short essays exploring the key concepts in cultural geography. Index, 222pp, UK. I.B. TAURIS.

Examines variability within broadly defined African forager societies, such as the Basarwa, Pygmies, Hadza and others. Foragers have been seen as culturally similar in that they all pursue a subsistence strategy that emphasizes hunting and gathering. However, research suggests there may be more diversity among groups than has previously been acknowledged. It is important to understand why diversity occurs within foraging societies and how this diversity compares with various societies. Here, leading scholars in the field compare and contrast various groups within more broadly defined forager societies. 358pp, UK. CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

Based on an analysis of culture understood as a system of meanings rather than as values, this provocative book offers a methodology that grounds political analysis in the interpretation of what 'makes sense' to the people concerned. Their approach, which resists particularisms but instead proposes a different 'scientific' method, draws upon a wide range of political, sociologi-cal and anthropological sources. The authors illustrate the analytical power of this method with a comparative study of the state and political representation in France, Sweden and Nigeria. Index, bib, 395pp, UK. C. HURST & CO.

The diversity of the African continent forms its greatest resource and its greatest challenge. In this innovative collection, leaders and senior managers from business, government, academia and the voluntary sector, with extensive experience both in Africa and internationally, discuss the implications of this diversity for leadership practice. Among the topics covered are leader-ship and wealth creation, the potential and limits of western management models in Africa, the management of cultural diversity and gender assumptions in different settings and the analysis of labour market trends. 344pp, UK. PALGRAVE.

New in paperback. Why was there a bloody civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina when Croats, Serbs, and Muslims had lived peacefully side-by-side for decades? Why did nobody see and act upon the early warning signs of genocide in Rwanda? What is it that makes Kashmir potentially worth a nuclear war between India and Pakistan? The violence involved in these conflicts continues to destabilize entire regions, hamper social and economic development, and cause unimaginable human suffering. And the extensive media coverage of these conflicts all too often raises important questions that it signally fails to answer. This book aims to fill this gap. Drawing on the author's long experience of studying such conflicts around the world and his involvement in attempts to resolve them, it provides an illuminating and accessible introduction to the origins, dynamics, and management of ethnic conflict. B/w illus, 256pp, UK. OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Argues that virtual archives have the potential to shift the emphasis in ethnographic writing from the monograph to commentary. Fabian returns to the recording of a conversation he had with a ritual healer in the Congolese town of Lubumbashi more than three decades ago. Fabian's transcript and translation of the exchange have been deposited on a web site (Language and Popular Culture in Africa) and here he provides a model of writing in the presence of a virtual archive. He reconstructs his meeting with the healer Kahenga Mukonkwa Michel, in which they discussed the ritual that Kahenga performed to protect Fabian's home from burglary. He reflects on the expectations and terminology that shape his description of Kahenga's ritual and meditates on how ethnographic texts are made, considering the settings, the participants, the technologies, and the linguistic medium that influence the transcription and translation of a recording and thus fashion ethnographic knowledge. Turning more directly to Kahenga - as a practitioner, a person, and an ethnographic subject - and to the questions Fabian posed to him, the anthropologist reconsiders questions of ethnic identity, politics, and religion. Index, bib, notes, 139pp, USA. DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

Most African nations have high levels of cultural and linguistic diversity. Family structures and kinship models are thus often the result of local cultural histories. But they are also increasingly influenced by global cultural ideals disseminated through global institutions and media. Understanding how these two realities interact with each other in everyday African life can be challenging. This collection of essays is drawn from a wide range of academic fields. 314pp, USA. AFRICA WORLD PRESS.

Across Africa, funerals and events remembering the dead have become larger and even more numerous over the years. Whereas in the West death is normally a private and family affair, in Africa funerals are often the central life cycle event, unparalleled in cost and importance, for which families harness vast amounts of resources to host lavish events for multitudes of people with ramifications well beyond the event. Though officials may try to regulate them, the popular-ity of these events often makes such efforts fruitless, and the elites themselves spend tremen-dously on funerals. This volume brings together scholars who have conducted research on funerary events across sub-Saharan Africa. The contributions offer an in-depth understanding of the broad changes and underlying causes in African societies over the years, such as changes in religious beliefs, social structure, urbanization, and technological changes and health. 264pp, UK. BERGHAHN BOOKS.

Explores the intersection of 'gender' and 'modernity' as they are mediated in the lives and subjectivities of diverse individuals and groups. BNS, 288pp, UK. PALGRAVE.

Though long neglected in anthropological research, the connections and conflicts between generations are at the heart of social processes. In this book, sixteen studies examine relations between generations of kin and between historical and political generations. Topics covered range from grandmother's cooking, migrant remittances, youth unemployment, teenage pregnancy, Valentine's Day, and hip hop music, to respect, religious virtue, gerontocracy, memory, wisdom, complaint, and the meaning of tradition. Index, 416pp, GERMANY. LIT VERLAG.

Both on the continent and off, Africa is spoken of in terms of crisis: as a place of failure and seemingly insurmountable problems, as a moral challenge to the international community. What, though, is really at stake in discussions about Africa, its problems, and its place in the world? And, what should be the response of those scholars who have sought to understand not the Africa portrayed in broad strokes in journalistic accounts and policy papers but rather specific places and social realities within Africa? Ferguson moves beyond the traditional anthropological focus on local communities to explore more general questions about Africa and its place in the contemporary world and argues that Africans in a variety of different social and geographical locations increasingly seek to make claims of membership within a global community, claims that contest the marginalization that has so far been the principal fruit of globalization. 272pp, USA. DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

Concise and comprehensive history encompassing key themes, methodological frameworks and debates. Bib, index, viii, 207pp, UK. PLUTO PRESS.

Argues that there is no such thing as a 'native identity' which imposes itself on political identities through force of circumstances: there are only strategies pertaining to identities, which are rationally pursued by identifiable actors, and identity-related dreams or nightmares to which we adhere due to their power to seduce or terrify us. Contrary to the view that the world is witness-ing a clash of civilizations, Bayart demonstrates that cultures and their attendant identities are in constant flux. [Stephen Ellis] Index, notes, 303pp, UK. HURST & CO.

The revised edition of the classic text exploring how the concepts of nation and nationality have developed over time and have been used by both imperialist powers and popular movements during the 19th century and later anti imperialist resistance in Africa and Asia. Index, bib, notes, xv, 224pp, UK. VERSO, 0860915468

Addresses key concepts of modern anthropology like 'difference' and 'identity' in the light of ethnographic evidence from various local settings stretching from Morocco to Indonesia. As the antagonistic and destructive aspects of social identification are also discussed, the book is also a contribution to conflict theory. Notes, refs, ix, 280pp, GERMANY. LIT VERLAG.

New edition of the anthropological classic. A funny and unconventional book describing the author's first year in Africa living amongst the Dowayo people of Cameroon. He knew how fieldwork should be conducted, but the theory did not take into account the elusive nature of Dowayo society, which refused to conform to the rules. 320pp, UK. ELAND.

Using case studies from France, the USA and Israel, the authors examine whether there is a global culture of schooling or many national and local cultures and how these are affected by globalisation. Index, refs, notes, 263pp, UK. PALGRAVE.

In a substantive introduction and eight essays that examine a variety of countries and range in time from the 1930s to the present, the contributors collectively argue for the importance of paying attention to the many different cultural and historical strands that constitute love in Africa. Covers such diverse topics as the reception of Bollywood movies in 1950s Zanzibar, the effects of a Mexican telenovela on young people's ideas about courtship in Niger, the models of romance promoted by South African and Kenyan magazines, and the complex relationship between love and money in Madagascar and South Africa. Index, bib, 265pp, USA. CHICAGO U P.

Explores the roles played by magic in contemporary African warfare, specifically through the case of Sierra Leone, to assess its impact on behaviour in conflict. In the last fifteen years, rituals designed to imbue people with supernatural power and make them immune to enemy fire have been seen on battlefields across Africa. Wlodarczyk argues that the use of magic in warfare can be understood, not as an illustration of how Africa's reality is qualitatively different from the West's, but as appropriate and logical. Here, a conceptual framework is suggested for analysing culturally alien practices more broadly, to inform approaches to civilian and military intervention not only in Africa but in conflict theatres around the world. 208pp, UK. PALGRAVE.

In the face of much pessimism, several questions have engaged the attention of this young generation of African scholars: Where is Africa in relation to globalization? Where are the things that make Africa Africa (such as economy, politics, culture, identity, and human relations) headed? Are Africa's communi-ties helpless against global forces or empowered by new avenues of access? How do scholars and policymakers engage the problems of globalization vis-à-vis Africa's ethnic, linguistic, and other identities? What are the economic and political trajectories in various countries and localities? 294pp, USA. LEXINGTON BOOKS.

Drawing on years of ethnographic observation, Parker Shipton discusses how people in Africa's interior feel about their attachment to family, to clan land, and to ancestral graves on the land. He goes on to explain why systems of property, finance, and mortgaging imposed by outsiders threaten Africa's rural people. 352pp, USA. YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

Examines invisibility in its various forms, from social rejection and residential segregation to war memorials and the inability of some groups to represent themselves through popular culture, scholarship, or art. The pervasiveness of invisibility is not limited to symbolic actions, Carter shows, but may have dramatic and at times catastrophic consequences for people subjected to its force. The geographic span of his analysis is global, encompassing Senegalese Muslims in Italy and the United States and concluding with practical questions about the future of European societies. Carter also considers both contemporary and historical constellations of displacement, from Darfurian refugees to French West African colonial soldiers. 328pp, USA. UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA PRESS.

Rather than seeing youth as either a social or cultural entity in itself, or as a predefined life-stage, the book argues for an exploration of how youth position themselves and are positioned within generational categories. In studying young people, social scientists must conceptualise youth as both social being and social becoming, a position in movement. It is from the duality of being positioned and seeking one's own socio-generational position that this collection engages in the debate on contemporary African youth. 250pp, SWEDEN. NORDIC AFRICA INSTITUTE.

Tells the story of a travelling exhibition of the author's photographs of the Okiek. Looks at the stereotypes she sought to challenge, how commentaries by Okiek people were incorporated, and different ways that viewers in Kenya and the US understood the exhibition. Also explores the exhibition medium itself, focusing on the complexities and possibilities of cultural representation. 32 col ill, figs, notes, bib, index, 307pp, USA. CALIFORNIA U P.

African research played a major role in transforming the discipline of anthropology in the twentieth century. Ethnographic studies, in turn, had significant effects on the way imperial powers in Africa approached subject peoples. this collection provides the first comparative history of these processes. With essays exploring metropolitan research institutes, Africans as ethnographers, the trans-national features of knowledge production, and the relationship between anthropology and colonial administration, this volume both consolidates and extends a range of new research questions focusing on the politics of imperial knowledge. Specific chapters examine French West Africa, the Belgian and French Congo, the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Italian Northeast Africa, Kenya, and Equatorial Africa (Gabon) as well as developments in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland. 304pp, UK. MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY PRESS.

The author traces the European fascination with cannibalism, explaining the ideological assumptions behind the clash between European and non European cultures. Index, notes, 172pp, USA. ILLINOIS, UNIVERSITY OF PRESS.

Traces the concept of autochthony back to the classical period and incisively explores the idea in two very different contexts: Cameroon and the Netherlands. In both countries, the momentous economic and political changes following the end of the cold war fostered anxiety over migration. For Cameroonians, the question of who belongs where rises to the fore in political struggles between different tribes, while the Dutch invoke autochthony in fierce debates over the integration of immigrants. This fascinating comparative perspective allows Geschiere to examine the emotional appeal of autochthony - as well as its dubious historical basis - and to shed light on a range of important issues, such as multiculturalism, national citizenship, and migration. Index, bib, notes, 283pp, USA. CHICAGO U P.

What happens when social and political processes such as globalization shape cultural production? Drawing on a range of writers and filmmakers from Africa and elsewhere, Akin Adesokan explores the forces at work in the production and circulation of culture in a globalized world. He tackles problems such as artistic representation in the era of decolonization, the uneven development of aesthetics across the world, and the impact of location and commodity culture on genres, with a distinctive approach that exposes the global processes transforming cultural forms. 248pp, USA. INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS.

Making a break with conventional wisdom in post-colonial discourse, this book explores contemporary African identities in transition. The contributors look at the colonial legacy and how colonial identities are being reconstructed in the face of deepening social inequality across the continent. Using case-studies, the book explores the distinctive languages of identity politics and asks whether the very idea of post-colonial conceals the continued dependence of African countries. Is the post-colonial merely a neo-colonial mystification, a Eurocentric product of Western scholarship in collusion with Western imperialism? Index, 211pp, UK. ZED BOOKS.

The focus is on the making of subjectivities as a process that is political, a matter of subjugation to state authority; moral, reflected in the conscience and agency of subjects who bear rights, duties and obligations; and realised existentially, in the subjects' consciousness of their personal or intimate relations. B/w ill, maps, figs, notes, bib, index 256pp, UK. ZED BOOKS, 1856499553

New in paperback. Focuses on the modern cultures of Africa, from the consequences of the imposition of Western rule to current struggles to define national identity. 368pp, USA. UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER PRESS.

It is the anthropologist's fate to always be between things: countries, languages, cultures, even realities. But rather than lament this, anthropologist Paul Stoller here celebrates the creative power of the between, showing how it can transform us, changing our conceptions of who we are, what we know, and how we live in the world. Beginning with his early days with the Peace Corps in Africa and culminating with a recent bout with cancer, this is an evocative account of the circuitous path Stoller's life has taken, offering a fascinating depiction of how a career is shaped over decades of reading and research. 216pp, USA. CHICAGO U P.

The outflow of archaeological or artistic work from Africa, together with the ways of exhibiting African treasures outside Africa, are emerging as serious issues both in political and ethical terms. This collection discusses the question: 'How should Africa's cultural heritage be preserved?' Scholars and museum professionals from Africa, Europe, America and Japan clarify the significance of this 'Cultural Heritage' and explore how scholars and museum professionals outside Africa can support African colleagues in handing down their cultural legacy to future generations. 92 b/w illus, maps, 224pp, UK. JAMES CURREY PUBLISHERS.

The cumulative implications for Africans of the neoliberal processes (market speculation, shifts in sites of production, new modes of consumption, redefinition of the relation between states and their citizenry) cannot be reduced to single parameters. Three themes are central: the neoliberal production of personhood, the crises of youth and the moral panic in which so many of the wider reforms are registered in experience. With contributions on marriage payments, Muslim saints, popular theatre, homosexuality, ritual haunts, domestic reproduction, masculine fantasy, poetic justice, spirit possession and corruption. Afterword by Jean and John L. Comaroff. BNS, 360pp, NETHERLANDS. E J BRILL.

Argues that scholars have felt the urgency to understand modernity in present-day Africa, and have tried to make sense of these desires to move upward or to develop, to cease being backward or being held back by tradition. Yet, people often regard modernity as an abomination as much as a blessing, and yearn nostalgically for a vanished past. They form this ambivalence in widely divergent socio-cultural and historical trajectories, giving rise to a bewildering variety of often unexpected manifestations. These varied forms of modernity are the focus of this volume. Index, b/w illus, 226pp, UK. JAMES CURREY PUBLISHERS.

Using anthropological research methods and perspectives this study asks how does one explain the continuation of heritage management in the southwest IOR in the absence of cohesive heritage management institutions? And what role do women play in heritage management? In the study heritage is treated as a source and form of knowledge. Thus these two key questions are followed by deeper questions about: who controls knowledge in Zanzibar and Madagascar? What can be considered as acceptable or unacceptable heritage and what can we learn from heritage that is left behind? As the study aims to show, in the largely patriarchal southwest Indian Ocean islands of Madagascar and Zanzibar, women contribute enormously to the social, economic and political functioning of the society. 256pp, ETHIOPIA. OSSREA.

Selected contents: The present and the past of age notions within historical anthropology: the status questions/ Mario I. Aguilar; Where one sleeps matters : Fipa markers of cultural growth in Tanzania / Kathleen R. Smythe; Mobility and discipline: colonial age discourse in Tanzania/ Thomas Burgess; 'Have you heard the words of the elders?': senior Bamana women's adapta-tions to culture change in rural Mali/ Julianne E. Freeman; Gender, age and power: hierarchy and liminality among Abaluyia women of Kenya/ Maria G. Cattell. Index, 322pp, USA. AFRICA WORLD PRESS.

Ntarangwi focuses on his experiences as a Kenyan anthropology student and professional anthropologist practicing in the United States and Africa. Whereas Western anthropologists often study non-Western cultures, Ntarangwi reverses these common roles and studies the Western culture of anthropology from an outsider's viewpoint while considering larger debates about race, class, power, and the representation of the other. Tracing his own immersion into American anthropology, Ntarangwi identifies textbooks, ethnographies, coursework, professional meetings, and feedback from colleagues and mentors that were key to his development. 176pp, USA. UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS.

The concept of 'community' is ubiquitous in the way we talk and think about life in the twenty-first century. Political and economic projects from rainforest conservation to urban empower-ment zones focus on 'the community' as the appropriate vehicle and target of change. Some scholars see a decline of community and predict dire social consequences; others criticize the concept itself for its ideological baggage and lack of clear definition. Moving the debate to a deeper level, the contributors to this volume aspire to understand the various ways 'community' is deployed and the work it performs in different contexts. Includes an essay on economies of violence & governable spaces in the Niger Delta, Nigeria by Michael Watts. 350pp, UK. JAMES CURREY PUBLISHERS.

A collection of ten essays which explore the issues of identity in Africa. The problems of language, ethnicity and religion are examined in the context of the overarching themes of identity, nationality and nation building in Southern Africa, the Great Lakes region, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria and the Sudan amongst others. Index, tables, notes, refs, xiii, 180pp, SOUTH AFRICA. HUMAN SCIENCES RESEARCH COUNCIL, 0796919860

Most scholarship on sorcery and witch-craft has narrowly focused on specific times and places, particularly early modern Europe and twentieth-century Africa. And much of that research interprets sorcery as merely a remnant of pre-modern traditions. This collection takes a longer historical and broader geographical perspective, contending that sorcery is best understood as an Atlantic phenome-non that has significant connections to modernity and globalization. A distinguished group of contributors here examine sorcery in Brazil, Cuba, South Africa, Cameroon, and Angola. Their insightful essays reveal the way practices and accusations of witchcraft spread throughout the Atlantic world from the age of discovery up to the present, creating an indelible link between sorcery and the rise of global capital-ism. 304pp, USA. CHICAGO U P.

In Africa, where the birth-rate of twins is among the highest in the world, twins can be seen as a burden to their families and a threat to the social order, or they can be seen as a gift from God and beings with unique abilities who bring about social harmony. Philip M. Peek and the contributors to this illuminating, multidisciplinary volume explore this rich cultural heritage by examining topics such as twins in artistic representation, twins and divination, and twins in performance, cosmology, religion, and popular culture. 376pp, USA. INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS.

Syncretism as both process and description hinges largely on the assumption and premise that what is observed has appropriately or inappropriately mixed categories - culture, religion, language - that are intrinsically alien to each other. Such a syncretic constellation is bound to result in something that may be considered new. Any definition of syncretism, the syncretization process and the appropriation of the notion new as useful heuristic tools must indeed be located within specific local contexts, as such terms are unlikely to serve as adequate descriptions of homogenous sets of phenomena. Syncretism as a process is intertwined with processes of contextualization. Against this backdrop, this book seeks to unravel and demystify the ideology of the new on the basis of concrete case studies from various regions across Africa and beyond. 384pp, GERMANY. LIT VERLAG.

Who is an African? At face value, the answer seems obvious, but the answer becomes less obvious once other probing qualifiers are added to the question. How is the African identity constructed in the face of the mosaic of identities that people of African ancestry living within and beyond the continent bear? Do all categorised as Africans or as having an African pedigree perceive themselves as Africans? Are all who perceive themselves as Africans accepted as such? Are there levels of Africanness, and are some more African than others? How does African identity interface with other levels of identity and citizenship in Africa? And what are the implications of the contentious nature of African identity and citizenship for the projects of pan-Africanism, the making of the Africa-nation, and Africa’s development trajectories? Contributors to this volume, including Ali Mazrui, Kwesi Prah and Chinweizu. 242pp, UK. ADONIS & ABBEY.

A survey of the phenomenon of witchcraft past and present. Drawing on the latest historical and anthropological findings, Behringer sheds new light on the history of European witchcraft, while demonstrating that witch-hunts are not simply part of the European past. Although witch-hunts have long since been outlawed in Europe, other societies have struggled with the idea that witchcraft does not exist. As Behringer shows, witch-hunts continue to pose a major problem in Africa and among people in America, Asia and Australia. The author explores the idea of witchcraft as an anthropological phenomenon with a historical dimension, aiming to outline and to understand the meaning of large-scale witchcraft persecutions in early modern Europe and in present-day Africa. BNS, 320pp, UK. POLITY PRESS. 0745627188