anthropology

Infrastructure turned suprastructure : unpredictable materialities and visions of a Nigerian nation

Upphovspersoner:	Trovalla, Ulrika | Trovalla, Eric
Utgivare:	Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Urban Dynamics
År:	2014
Ämnesord:	African urbanity, anthropology, infrastructure, materiality, Nigeria, Jos, Urban environment, SOCIAL SCIENCES, SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP

There are signs hidden in the infrastructure. In the Nigerian city of Jos, the unpredictable availability of power, fuel, water, etc. becomes a vehicle of meaning. In many settings across the globe, infrastructure is often made invisible, and the centre stage that it takes in everyday life remains unrecognized. In Jos, however, as in many African cities, the constant need to predict its flows contradicts the prefix infra (below); rather than being hidden beneath the realm of experience it is brought to the surface as a puzzle to be figured out. These explorations in turn come to reveal matters beyond the infrastructure itself. Just as diviners infer the state of the world from the stones they have thrown, reading significance out of the seeming randomness of matter, the infrastructure turns intricate questions into tangible clues. It becomes a suprastructure - a divination tool giving clues about the past, present and future of the Nigerian nation.

Just like couscous : Gender, agency and the politics of female circumcision in Cairo

Upphovsperson:	Malmström, Maria Frederika
Utgivare:	Nordiska Afrikainstitutet | Göteborg : University of Gothenburg
År:	2009
Ämnesord:	anthropology, identity, gender, agency, embodiment, senses, body, sexuality, female circumcision, politics, Social change, performativity, practice, Political islam, Egypt, Middle East, North Africa

This dissertation explores how female gender identity is continually created and re-created in Egypt through a number of daily practices, of which female circumcision is central. In order to do so, the study inquires into the lived experiences and social meanings of female circumcision and femininity as narrated by women from lower class neighbourhoods in Cairo. The study seeks to understand how the experiences of femininity and female circumcision are shaped and challenged by the social and political changes that impinge on these women’s lives. Female circumcision has become a global political minefield with ‘Western’ interventions affecting Egyptian politics and social development, not least in the area of democracy and human rights. The global human rights discourse brings about change by portraying female circumcision as mutilation. These discourses and other political and social changes both in Egypt and elsewhere, such as modernization, the aftermath of 9/11 and regional instability have together begun to dis-embed female circumcision from its socio-cultural context. This thesis focuses upon the way in which these women understand and respond to these complex changes and it looks particularly at how different actors, in their construction of female identity, contest, resist, subvert or embrace female circumcision. The study explores how the subject is made through the interplay of global hegemonic structures of power and the most intimate sphere, which has been exposed in the international arena. The need to understand agency as the capacity to act according to the exigencies of the specific sociocultural forms the main premise of this dissertation; the Egyptian context comprises the complex interaction between the local and a variety of wider global forces.

Studying Africa : A guide to the sources

Medarbetare:	Kristina Rylander,
Utgivare:	Uppsala : Nordiska Afrikainstitutet
År:	2005
Ämnesord:	Africa, Reference materials, Bibliographies, Literature surveys, Internet sources, SOCIAL SCIENCES, history, Geography, anthropology, education, SOCIAL SCIENCES, SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP

Studying Africa is an introduction to the basic handbooks and standard works on contemporary Africa. The first part of the book is a guide to searching for literature and facts within the field of the social sciences. It deals with bibliographies, databases, reference works, yearbooks, journals, Internet resources, statistics, maps and official publications. Active links to the websites mentioned in the text can be found at the end of each chapter. In the sections entitled “African information on the Internet” and “Statistics”, additional links are given within the text itself. The second part of the book consists of introductions to the literature within the subject areas of history, politics, economics, geography, anthropology and education.

Dealing with uncertainty in contemporary African lives

Medarbetare:	Haram, Liv | Yamba, C. Bawa
Utgivare:	Uppsala : Nordiska Afrikainstitutet
År:	2009
Ämnesord:	Uncertainty, Traditional culture, anthropology, cultural change, Social change, modernization, gender relations, Sexually transmitted diseases, Economic implications, Daily life, Conference papers, Social anthropology, Socialantropologi

The articles in ‘Dealing with Uncertainty in Contemporary African Lives’ are based largely on work in Tanzania which has been spared much of the turmoil that elsewhere has uprooted populations and destroyed communities. Nevertheless they illuminate phenomena common throughout sub-Saharan Africa as modernity in its many guises undercuts old certainties, outmodes established knowledge of how to order life and deal with crises, introduces new hazards, and frustrates ambition and expectations. But as the editors, Haram and Yamba, point out, uncertainty and insecurity have a positive side, providing the basis for ‘curiosity and exploration’. The case studies demonstrate both the increasing uncertainty and insecurity of life in contemporary Africa and the ways that people respond, including warding off and reaching out. Scapegoats are sought. Witch beliefs become elaborated as explanations of failures and malaise while witchfinding becomes a lucrative profession. Pentecostal or other fundamentalist churches burgeon as they assure people that life has meaning and better times are before them if only they believe. Suicide and insanity are other possible responses. All in all, a thought-provoking volume. Elizabeth Colson, Professor Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley

The inconvenient indigenous : remote area development in Botswana, donor assistance, and the first people of the Kalahari

Upphovsperson:	Saugestad, Sidsel
Utgivare:	Nordiska Afrikainstitutet | Uppsala : Nordiska Afrikainstitutet
År:	2001
Ämnesord:	anthropology, indigenous people, Social anthropology, Socialantropologi

The book deals with the relationship between the government of Botswana and its indigenous minority, known as Bushmen, San, Basarwa, or more recently N/oakwe, and tries to understand why the San people remain a marginalised minority in a country that since Independence in 1966 has committed itself to a democratic and non-racial agenda. The use of the concept 'indigenous' is controversial in Botswana and in the rest of Africa, and the book asks thought-provoking questions about the responsibility of the state, the role of the international community and the need for representative organisations. While there have been dozens of books published on the ethnography of the San, this is the first book that places them in the comparative context of indigenous peoples' struggle for recognition. An in-depth documentation and analysis is given of a series of events in 1992 and 1993 that were crucial in establishing San indigenous organisations and identities, and the emergent San organisations are followed from the communities in Kalahari to international meetings in Geneva.