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Africa is a vast continent, home to many millions of people. Its history stretches back millennia and encompasses some of the most ancient civilizations in the world. Modern Africa boasts a rich cultural heritage, the legacy of many diverse influences from all around the world, reflecting the central role African plays in world history. Encyclopedia of African Peoples provides extensive information about Africa's cultures, history, geography, economics, and politics; it provides an invaluable overview of the whole continent, region by region, ethnic group by ethnic group, nation by nation, personality by personality. Sections include: *Africa Today * The Peoples of Africa * Culture and History * The Nations of Africa * Biographies Past to Present * Glossary * Index.
Okot p'Bitek's epic poem, Song of Lawino, debates Acholi customs around the time that Uganda became independent. This book presents seminal anthropological works from that period by p'Bitek himself and by Frank Girling, who was researching among the Acholi when p'Bitek was a teenager. They were both introduced to anthropology in Oxford by Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard, and they both faced difficulties writing up their fieldwork. Girling, a veteran of the Spanish Civil War, was a suspected communist activist, and was expelled from Uganda in 1950. Against the odds, he managed to complete his doctorate, but the Colonial Office demanded cuts to the published version. Okot p'Bitek is a famous African creative writer, but his engaging anthropological studies have been unjustly neglected. He found academic ideas about Africans taught at Oxford misconceived and offensive. He rejected established analytical approaches and, consequently, the university failed his doctorate in 1970."
In The Roots of Ethnicity, Ronald R. Atkinson argues that although colonial rule and its aftermath have played a major role in shaping the particular manifestations of ethnicity in Africa, many sociohistorical developments crucial to current expressions of ethnicity can be traced to a past long before the colonial period. Atkinson develops his argument through an exhaustive examination of the origins of the collective identity of the Acholi of present-day northern Uganda. His study makes clear that by the time of European conquest the essential foundations and the crucial parameters for the evolution of Acholi society and ethnic consciousness had long been established. In presenting his argu...
Analyses African insurgencies and their relationship to the societies in which they are set and to the outside world.
Ethnicity and Nationalism in Africa features a series of 'constructivist' contributions by leading scholars in the field of ethnicity and nationalism, and explores the differences among those who have come to be known as 'constructivists'. The contributors reflect upon ongoing methodological debates in ethnography, historiography, and political theory. They demonstrate the diversity of concepts and methods within constructivism, and assess the political implications of the concepts themselves. The debate between them is inter-disciplinary, critical and innovative, and should be of value to anyone interested in the study of ethnicity and nationalism.
Collects almost five hundred entries that cover the African response to spirituality, taboos, ethics, sacred space, and objects.
Social conflict is routinely attributed to ethnic differentiation because divinding lines between rival groups often follow ethnic contours; and cultural symbolism has often proved a potent ideological weapon. The purpose of this book is to examine the nature of the bond linking ethnicity to conflict in a variety of circumstances. The ten case studies from the Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya are based on primary research by anthropologists and historians who have long experience of the region. North America: Ohio U Press; Uganda: Fountain Publishers; Kenya: EAEP
Since 1986, the Acholi people of northern Uganda have lived in the crossfire of a violent civil war, with the Lord’s Resistance Army and other groups fighting the Ugandan government. Acholi have been murdered, maimed, and driven into displacement. Thousands of children have been abducted and forced to fight. Many observers have perceived Acholiland and northern Uganda to be an exception in contemporary Uganda, which has been celebrated by the international community for its increased political stability and particularly for its fight against AIDS. These observers tend to portray the Acholi as war-prone, whether because of religious fanaticism or intractable ethnic hatreds. In Living with B...