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Traditional culture

Zangbeto : Navigating Between the Spaces of Oral Art, Communal Security and Conflict Mediation in Badagry, Nigeria

Upphovsperson: Hunsu, Folashade
Utgivare: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Conflict, Displacement and Transformation | Uppsala : Nordiska Afrikainstitutet
År: 2011
Ämnesord: Grass roots groups, Traditional culture, Vigilantes, Human security, Peaceful coexistence, Ethnic groups, Social and cultural anthropology, Yoruba, Nigeria, Badagry, SOCIAL SCIENCES, SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP
This Discussion Paper critically examines Zangbeto, a highly revered society, among the Egun people in the town of Badagry, near the city of Lagos, in south west Nigeria, that have creatively re-invented tradition to serve multiple purposes. It shows how Zangbeto has in the context of economic crisis and challenges linked to urban growth, adapted its roles to include communal policing, conflict mediation, oral art and entertainment, and the maintenance of communal order. In more ways than one, it captures the essence and multiple identities of Zangbeto within Badagry society. The involvement of Zangbeto in local policing or ‘night watching’ provides an alternative or an exception to the dominant representation of vigilantism in Nigeria as disorderly violence, sometimes for political or criminal ends. This paper also demonstrates how Zangbeto, drawing upon local Egun culture and traditional practices is able to maintain security and local order at the community level. It is argued that rather than act in an arbitrary and violent manner, Zangbeto operates through the combination of traditional symbolic actions and oral art in mediating local conflicts and preserving social harmony and local order. An interesting point relates to how Zangbeto co-exists peacefully with formal political and security institutions, and operates without causing tensions within Badagry town, where some inhabitants share different ethnic identities and religious faiths. The study also opens up a humanist perspective to how the aesthetics of Zangbeto’s cultural tropes of oral presentation, rhetoric and representation act as a powerful force for preserving cherished communal norms and values, and facilitating communication in ways that strengthen social cohesion. In this regard this paper demonstrates the wealth of possibilities that exist within Africa’s traditional cultures and oral arts for alternative grassroots based conflict mediation and security.

The bush is sweet : identity, power and development among WoDaaBe Fulani in Niger

Upphovsperson: Loftsdóttir, Kristín
Utgivare: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet
År: 2008
Ämnesord: Ethnic groups, Pastoralists, cultural identity, Ethnicity, Traditional culture, Social change, Social and cultural anthropology, Fula, Niger, Social anthropology/ethnography, Socialantrolopologi/etnografi
In this book Kristín Loftsdóttir gives the reader a highly personal insight into the lives of the Wodaabe nomads of Niger, who are striving to make a living between the bush and the city. Spending nearly two years as a Wodaabe, within a Wodaabe extended family and alternating between the nomadic setting of the bush and the urbanised life-style of the capital, Niamey, she was in a unique position to observe the effects that increasing urbanisation and globalisation, together with the modern tourist industry’s preconceptions and demands, have had on the identity and power relations of the Wodaabe. Interwoven with the abstract scientific observations are the more personal reflections and analyses of a young white woman on living within, and sharing all aspects of, the everyday lives of the Wodaabe with the broad spectrum of reactions which this entails. These sensitively written and honest descriptions, including details of what the author at times experiences as her own shortcomings within her project, give a most interesting dimension to the work not always found in social science studies which means that this book should appeal to a wider readership than might initially be expected.

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

Development from below : a Namibian case study

Upphovspersoner: Kössler, Reinhart | Melber, Henning | Strand, Per
Utgivare: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet | Uppsala : Nordiska Afrikainstitutet
År: 2003
Ämnesord: Southern Africa, Namibia, colonialism, history, Independence, Globalization, Ethnicity, Traditional culture, Nation-building, SOCIAL SCIENCES, SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP
This Discussion Paper offers a revised lecture by Reinhart Kössler, which was originally presented to a Research Forum organised by The Nordic Africa Institute jointly with the Seminar for Development Studies of Uppsala University. It deals with aspects of rebuilding societies from below firstly in a general development studies discourse on a more theoretical level, considering aspects of the current debate on globalisation. This is followed by a concrete case study from southern Namibia. It illustrates local responses by the Witbooi-Nama in Gibeon to (re-)define identity within the context of a (nation-)state in a post-apartheid society. The paper is commented upon by two discussants (Per Strand and Henning Melber). The contributions reflect on the issue of social reconstruction in the context of (southern) Africa with reference to a particular marginalised group. They deal, among other things, with the question of social power and the "invention of tradition" in local efforts to gain from, or seek integration into, the nation building process.