Books in the International African Library series

Ritual, art and secrecy in Casamance, Senegal.

This book is an account of murder and politics in Africa, and an historical ethnography of southern Annang communities during the colonial period. Its narrative leads to events between 1945 and 1948 when the imperial gaze of police, press and politicians was focused on a series of mysterious deaths in south-eastern Nigeria attributed to the 'man-leopard society'. These murder mysteries, reported as the 'biggest, strangest murder hunt in the world', were not just forensic but also related to the broad historical impact of commercial, Christian and colonial aid relations on Annang society.

Drawing on two decades of research this social and political history of North-Western Ghana traces the creation of new ethnic and territorial boundaries, categories and forms of self-understanding, and represents a major contribution to debates on ethnicity, colonialism and the 'production of history'. It explores the creation and redefinition of ethnic distinctions and commonalities by African and European actors, showing that ethnicity's power derives from a contradiction: while ethnic identities purport to be non-negotiable, creating permanent bonds, stability and security, the boundaries of the communities created and the associated traits and practices are malleable and adaptable to specific interests and contexts.

This book is an account of the circumstances that led to a Muslim religious movement on the Guinea coast and its legacies in today's Republic of Guinea. This book focuses on the political and religious changes that West Africa experienced and their impact on the continent's disrupted political and religious landscape.

In this innovative study, Ben Jones argues that scholars too often assume that the state is the most important force behind change in local political communities in Africa. Studies look to the state, and to the impact of government reforms, as ways of understanding processes of development and change. Using the example of Uganda, regarded as one of Africa's few "e;success stories"e;, Jones chronicles the insignificance of the state and the marginal impact of Western development agencies. Extensive ethnographic fieldwork in a Ugandan village reveals that it is churches, the village court, and organizations based on family and kinships obligations that represent the most significant sites of innovation and social transformation.Groundbreaking and critical in turn, Beyond the State offers a new anthropological perspective on how to think about processes of social and political change in poorer parts of the world. It should appeal to anyone interested in African development.

A study of the Chamba religion in two West African villages - one in Cameroon and one in Nigeria.

This is a remarkable chronicle of the struggles of many people - black and white - whose lives have been rooted in the Thaba Nchu (Black Mountain) district of the South African highveld over the last hundred years.

This book studies a Yoruba community in the hinterland of Ibadan over twenty years.

Exploring the institution of domestic service, this book discloses processes of postcolonial class formation both as exploitation and cultural elaboration. It also uncovers gender struggles amongst workers and those who employ them.

An account of life in the Asante village of Ade beba in West Africa.

This conmprehensive account studies a key group of the new entrepreneurs in Botswana - the ranchers.

This study, based on research spanning 25 years, focuses on the shifting patterns of social assimilation and exclusion that have characterised the inter-ethnic relations of North Cameroon for almost two centuries.

This is a comprehensive survey, in both its theory and its practice, of the Tabwa who live on the western shore of Lake Tanganyika in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The first full-length ethnography to tell villagers' stories from war to peace in Mozambique.

This study of local perceptions of population and development in a rural southwestern Nigerian town questions some of the underlying assumptions of the demographic theory of fertility transition.

This is the fascinating social history of a remote chiefdom in Zimbabwe.