Wild religion Chidester, David
2012., 20120324, 2012, 2012-04-23, 20120101
eBook
Wild Religion is a wild ride through recent South African history from the advent of democracy in 1994 to the euphoria of the football World Cup in 2010. In the context of South Africa's political ...journey and religious diversity, David Chidester explores African indigenous religious heritage with a difference. As the spiritual dimension of an African Renaissance, indigenous religion has been recovered in South Africa as a national resource. Wild Religion analyzes indigenous rituals of purification on Robben Island, rituals of healing and reconciliation at the new national shrine, Freedom Park, and rituals of animal sacrifice at the World Cup. Not always in the national interest, indigenous religion also appears in the wild religious creativity of prison gangs, the global spirituality of neo-shamans, the ceremonial display of Zulu virgins, the ancient Egyptian theosophy in South Africa's Parliament, and the new traditionalism of South Africa's President Jacob Zuma. Arguing that the sacred is produced through the religious work of intensive interpretation, formal ritualization, and intense contestation, Chidester develops innovative insights for understanding the meaning and power of religion in a changing society. For anyone interested in religion, Wild Religion uncovers surprising dynamics of sacred space, violence, fundamentalism, heritage, media, sex, sovereignty, and the political economy of the sacred.
Robben Island prison in South Africa held thousands of black political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela, who opposed apartheid. This book reconstructs the inmates' resistance strategies to show ...how these men created a political and social order behind bars. Survival was their first goal; challenging apartheid was their true aim. So although Robben Island was designed to repress, it was continually transformed by its political inmates into a site of resistance. The book theorizes that, where material conditions permit, the most far-reaching and effective forms of resistance involve constructive political action which seeks to remake existing power relationships. This theory is demonstrated in three focuses of the book: the activism of Robben Islanders, the effects of political prisoner resistance on the apartheid state machinery, and in comparative cases which illustrate various international instances of political prisoners shaping both prisons and political orders.
Hip Hop Africa Charry, Eric; Polak, Rainer; Shipley, Jesse Weaver ...
10/2012
eBook
Hip Hop Africa explores a new generation of Africans who are not only consumers of global musical currents, but also active and creative participants. Eric Charry and an international group of ...contributors look carefully at youth culture and the explosion of hip hop in Africa, the embrace of other contemporary genres, including reggae, ragga, and gospel music, and the continued vitality of drumming. Covering Senegal, Mali, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, and South Africa, this volume offers unique perspectives on the presence and development of hip hop and other music in Africa and their place in global music culture.
The two decades that followed World War II witnessed the end of the great European empires in Asia and Africa. Robert Tignor's new study of the decolonization experiences of Egypt, Nigeria, and Kenya ...elucidates the major factors that led to the transfer of power from British to African hands in these three territories. Employing a comparative method in order to explain the different decolonizing narratives in each territory, he argues that the different state policies toward the private business sector and foreign capital were the result of nationalist policies and attitudes and the influence of Cold War pressures on local events.
Using business records as well as official government sources, the work highlights the economic aspects of decolonization and weighs the influence of nationalist movements, changes in metropolitan attitudes toward the empire, and shifts in the international balance of power in bringing about the transfer of authority. The author concludes that the business communities did not play decisive roles, adhering instead to their time-honored role of leaving political issues to colonial officials and their nationalist critics. Tignor also finds that the nationalist movements, far from being ineffective, largely realized the primary goals of nationalist leaders that had been articulated for many decades.
Originally published in 1997.
ThePrinceton Legacy Libraryuses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Africa's Informal Workers is a vigorous examination of the informalization and casualization of work, which is changing livelihoods in Africa and beyond. Gathering cases from nine countries and ...cities across sub-Saharan Africa, and from a range of sectors, this volume goes beyond the usual focus on household ‘coping strategies’ and individual agency, addressing the growing number of collective organizations through which informal workers make themselves visible and articulate their demands and interests. The emerging picture is that of a highly diverse landscape of organized actors, providing grounds for tension but also opportunities for alliance. The collection examines attempts at organizing across the formal-informal work spheres, and explores the novel trend of transnational organizing by informal workers. Part of the ground-breaking Africa Now series, Africa’s Informal Workers is a timely exploration of deep, ongoing economic, political and social transformations.
This book engages in the debate on growth versus economic transformation and the importance of industrial policy, presenting a comprehensive framework for explaining the politics of industrial ...policy. Using comparative research to theorize about the politics of industrial policy in countries in the early stages of capitalist transformation that also experience the pressures of elections due to democratization, this book provides four in-depth African country studies that illustrate the challenges to economic transformation and the politics of implementing industrial policies.
Over recent decades, the responsibility for the past actions of the European colonial powers in relation to their former colonies has been subject to a lively debate. In this book, the question of ...the responsibility under international law of former colonial States is addressed. Such a legal responsibility would presuppose the violation of the international law that was applicable at the time of colonization. In the ‘Scramble for Africa’ during the Age of New Imperialism (1870-1914), European States and non-State actors mainly used cession and protectorate treaties to acquire territorial sovereignty (imperium) and property rights over land (dominium). The question is raised whether Europeans did or did not on a systematic scale breach these treaties in the context of the acquisition of territory and the expansion of empire, mainly through extending sovereignty rights and, subsequently, intervening in the internal affairs of African political entities.
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