Conference proceedings from a round table discussion convened in Grand Bassam in Novem-ber 2005 to understand the dynamics of the Ivorian conflict. IN FRENCH with abridged English version. 57pp, SOUTH AFRICA. INSTITUTE FOR GLOBAL DIALOGUE.

Ge is a masquerade performance forming part of the social fabric of the Dan of Cote d'Ivoire. The author attempts of to discover what lies at the core of a performance which forms part of the religious system, is a form of entertainment, an industry, a political tool and a form of resistance. Index, refs, notes, gloss, maps, xix, 212pp, USA. INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS, 0253216125

Seeks to explain the events that have been taking place in Côte d’Ivoire since 1999 and which are commonly referred to as la crise ivoirienne. Argues that existing accounts of events do not provide a satisfactory explanation of the deep faultlines and that it is necessary to reconsider the essentialist theoretical categories which have been deployed to date and which have been made cumbersome by ethnocentric prejudices. Contributors depart from a central question: how does the weight of modern Ivorian social formation intervene in the modalities of the actions of individuals and current collectivities? They argue that the brutal and violent fracture that has run right through Ivorian society is part of a process of incomplete nation-state formation in post-colonial African societies. IN FRENCH. 217pp, SENEGAL. CODESRIA.

In the 1990s a nationwide crime wave overtook Cote d'Ivoire. The Ivoirian police failed to control the situation, so a group of poor, politically marginalized, and mostly Muslim men took on the role of the people's protectors as part of a movement they called Benkadi. These men were dozos - hunters skilled in ritual sacrifice - and they applied their hunting and occult expertise, along with the ethical principles implicit in both forms of knowledge, to the tracking and capturing of thieves. Meanwhile, as Benkadi emerged, so too did the ethnic, regional, and religious divisions that would culminate in Cote d'Ivoire's 2002-07 rebellion. This book reveals how dozos worked beyond these divisions to derive their new roles as enforcers of security from their ritual hunting ethos. Much as they used sorcery to shapeshift and outwit game, they now transformed into unofficial police, and their ritual networks became police bureaucracies. Though these Muslim and northern-descended men would later resist the state, Joseph Hellweg demonstrates how they briefly succeeded at making a place for themselves within it. 312pp, USA. CHICAGO U P.

Does the conflict in Cote d'Ivoire derive from 'real' problems such as inter-ethnic competition within a shrinking economy, or is it in some way a series of man-made disasters, a kind of grotesque misunderstanding created out of hate-filled rhetoric? The answer proposed throughout is that since the 1990s politicians in Cote d'Ivoire have concentrated on perfecting the art of instrumentalising realities, or manipulating and amplifying existing tensions and resentments, and turning them into political capital. Index, bib, 238pp, UK. HURST.

The development of the cotton economy in west Africa was brought about by small-scale farmers. This book places the rural African actors centre stage and brings out the complex and manifold ways in which they shaped farming systems and influenced government policies. BNS, UK. CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 0521783135

The three articles in this Discussion Paper explore different perspectives to the complex causes of the civil war that broke out in Côte d’Ivoire in September 2002. They are written against the background of the signing of yet another peace agreement between the Ivorian government and the former rebel New Forces (NF) in March 2007. 65pp, SWEDEN. NORDIC AFRICA INSTITUTE.

A study analysing the nature of the socio political crisis in Cote D'Ivoire, following the politico military conflict of 2002. The author also looks at the escalation of violence in this crisis and the issue of 'ivoirite'. Bib, 46pp, SWEDEN. NORDIC AFRICA INSTITUTE.

2004 9171065318 Paperback