This article utilizes the Actor‒Network Theory (ANT) to guide thinking about the relationship between nature and society and how this relationship is severed by conservation-induced displacement. ANT’s view of interconnectivity between networks is used to argue that a network is only stable as long as actors remain faithful to it. In the case of the displaced Baka people of the Dja Reserve area in East Cameroon, resistance to conservation through adaptive practices following displacement can reverse or disrupt the socially predetermined order of a network, which in this case would be marginalization of the displaced. However, the marginal scale of their adaptation to change raises doubts over the sustainability of adaptation to post-displacement livelihoods.

The African landscape is littered with the remnants of failed agricultural schemes. Yet, international agencies and national governments, both purportedly interested in development, continue to experiment with schemes that are little better planned than some of their more spectacularly misbegotten predecessors. This government persistence in the face of repeated failures is not interpreted as a defect of planning but as proof of government commitment to modernity in the face of cruel odds. Failures are explained by the intransigence or primitiveness of peasants.

Such explanations begin to break down upon closer examination of actual experiences. Agricultural schemes are commonly over-capitalized, under-planned, and poorly managed (Palmer, 1974). It is worth considering the hypothesis that governments persist in these costly and unremunerative experiments neither because of a commitment either to modernity or productivity or because of simple ineptitude but because of their quest for control. Control over the peasantry is crucial since peasants are the majority of the population in all tropical African countries and earn the bulk of the governments' foreign exchange in all but Nigeria, Zambia, Angola, Botswana and Liberia. Because of this political and economic dependence on peasants, governments want a productive peasantry, but one that remains under secure control. Governments do not want peasants using their productivity to wrest either political or economic concessions.

Ethiopia has often been portrayed as a unique case of peaceful inter-religious relations. The country has, however, seen an increase in violence between religious communities over the last decades, something which has been interpreted within the prism of extremism. Analyzing inter-religious dynamics in Ethiopia, Østebø argues that the notion of extremism is an inadequate analytical tool, and proposes instead an alternative approach that explores how mutually constitutive developments within each of the main religious communities in Ethiopia together have contributed to exacerbate inter-religious tensions. In particular, Østebø suggests a typology consisting of the intersected processes of expansion, protection, and reclaiming of space.

The paper postulates that the potential conflict and divergence between the Nigerian government in its formal structure and its beneficiaries, the Nigerian people, are crucial factors in the development of the country's present crisis. Its discourse adopts the historical approach, starting from the precolonial to the colonial and independent periods of Nigerian existence. It shows that, while governance in the precolonial period ensured largely the participation and the accommodation of the interest of all, including the women and the youth, the later periods witnessed the alienation of the ruled from the rulers; an elite group, the British and their Nigerian successors, made the interest of the majority subservient to their own. The long period of military rule only increased this alienation. Other potential factors of conflict such as ethnicism and religion intensified the subsequent crisis, which was further aggravated by the oil boom and the corruption it encouraged. The paper concludes by acknowledging civil society's valiant efforts to challenge government's increasing arbitrariness in spite of its constraints, and asserts that only democratic governance and a sovereign national conference to establish the basis of accommodation can provide a lasting solution to Nigeria's present predicament.

Sometime during the increasingly tense European summer of 1938, the Anglo-Polish anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski sat down to write an introduction to a new book by one of his students, Jomo Kenyatta—a book based on the graduate thesis the latter had written under his supervision at the London School of Economics. A scientific rationalist and atheist, as well as an antiracist, antifascist, and anticommunist, Malinowski was most of all in that fraught time a deeply frightened liberal watching Europe slide into war. During the 1930s he had shifted his focus from the South Pacific to Africa. Over the course of that decade he had become increasingly critical of European colonialism, particularly of what he regarded as its deeply destructive impact on indigenous societies. In his brief introductory essay, Malinowski reflected on Kenyatta's work and, no doubt, on their many long conversations during the three years Kenyatta had studied with him. He commented on the dilemma of the educated African who had “suffered the injury of higher education” and noted that “an African who looks at things from the tribal point of view and at the same time from that of Western civilization experiences the tragedy of the modern world in an especially acute manner” (1938:ix).

The economic development and relative political stability of the Ivory Coast over the last three decades has attracted sharply contrasting views. The interpretations range from enthusiastic endorsements of the Ivory Coast as a model for other developing African countries to sharp criticisms of the liberal economic policies which the state has pursued. In the view of the World Bank, the economic accomplishments of the Ivory Coast illustrate how the correct incentives to rural producers and a liberal investment code can result in sustained economic growth. Between 1960 and 1975 the economy grew at an annual rate of seven percent. Although the Ivory Coast is beginning to regain some momentum after five years of economic recession, its economy has still fared better than many other African economies. Critics, however, contend that the economic crisis is a manifestation of the structural limits of the liberal economic model adopted by the Ivorian political elite. While there is no consensus on whether the liberal approach adopted by the government benefitted the majority of Ivorians or has made the country extremely dependent on France and other Western nations for capital and technology, the Ivorian state is at the center of the various interpretations. The state takes on a different role depending on the form of analysis applied to its activities; nevertheless, the fact that the state played a pivotal role in the country over the last three decades is not a matter of argument. What is contested is whose interest the Ivorian state serves: the Ivorian peasant, a small planter bourgeoisie, or the bureaucratic elite itself?

The issues of ethnicity and democratization and the prospects for development in postcolonial Africa have long preoccupied scholars. When most African countries gained independence from the colonialists in the 1960s, the ruling elites who inherited state power insisted that Africa could not afford the luxury of democracy because of its potential for exacerbating ethnic pluralism and political conflict, which would be detrimental to the more pertinent projects of development and integration/nation building. The ideology of development and national integration in postcolonial Africa thus became the justification for one-party rule, autocracy, and military dictatorship.

African beer markets are increasingly being commercialized. Select brewers are going to extraordinary lengths to attract new customers on the continent. Economic and business “life cycle” models usually indicate that this can only go on for a finite period, that industries, companies, and products, just like organisms, must move through stages of emergence and maturity to inevitable decline. Such expectations may be too rigid in the African context. Such are the continent’s dynamic economic and social realities that commercial brewers, and especially a handful of multinational corporations, look capable of staving off decline—an intoxicating prospect for them indeed.

Fertility rates in Malawi continue to be among the highest in the world, while mortality rates have declined significantly from 35 deaths per 1,000 population in 1965 to a low of 20 deaths per 1,000 people in 1995. This study will use crude birth rates and total fertility rates in examining the spatial context of fertility in Malawi. These are the most widely used measures for current fertility. The total fertility rate (TFR) stands for the average number of children in a family and is easy to calculate from age-specific birth rates. The TFR is a synthetic rate in that it does not measure the fertility of any real group of women but rather the fertility of an imaginary group of women who pass through their fictitious reproductive lives subject to the rates of child bearing experienced by real women in a given year. The crude birth rate, on the other hand, is calculated from the number of babies born in a given year (or any other time period) divided by the mid-year population, and is expressed as the number of births per 1000 population (Haupt and Kane 1991; McFalls 1991). The TFR for Malawi was estimated to be 7.6 in 1987 and the crude birth rate was 41 during the same year (National Statistical Office 1987a). Recent data from the Demographic and Health Survey indicate that the total fertility rate has declined slightly to a current level of 6.73 (National Statistical Office 1992).

This paper examines some strategies employed by a power elite in dealing with the disjunction between official commitments and everyday practises. Data were gathered on women's protest in Kenya. It attacked the normative-existential discrepancy demanding that the political elites bring the institutional system and their private behaviour more into keeping with the beliefs they had professed in fighting colonialism and which are now enshrined in documents that lay the foundation for a democratic-egalitarian state. The male-dominated power elite, socialized in a traditional system that gives males prerogatives in the spheres of power, authority, and status, operating in a system of many demands and scarce resources, and not wanting to lose face with women who form a potentially powerful pressure group, are caught in a situation of cross pressures. The women, on the other hand, while also socialized in this traditional system, have been the proteges of colonial women and Western institutions and have internalized Western values about women's roles. Though their view of what their roles should be conforms to the power elites' ideal values, its response has been a far cry from these ideals. In addition to exploring the normative-existential discrepancy, this paper focuses on male, and in particular, female images of what the situation is and ought to be and some tactics used by each to attain their goals.

Material was collected in Kenya from 1964 to 1966. I returned in 1969 and collected more data. The data consist of interviews with women leaders, participation in women's activities, and various documents from writings of women leaders to letters-to-the-editor.

The inhabitants of slums have developed creative ways of addressing the inherent instability of their lives. Chułek analyzes two approaches to self-organizing work on the basis of data gathered in two slum areas of Nairobi, Kibera and Korogocho, arguing that the key element of slum inhabitants’ actions is the reproduction of structures which enable their survival by making their lives predictable. These structures are evident in the work of trash pickers and orodha people, who have developed a finely-tuned infrastructure that governs their actions while allowing room for as many as possible to participate. They can also be seen in the work of hustlers, whose “brain work” is dependent on their network of relationships and on their constant improvisation. These are two examples of the way that inhabitants of Nairobi’s slums manage to maintain a sense of autonomy and agency in the face of constant economic challenge.

At the heart of the development process, insofar as it involves governmental activity, is the attitude of the administrator who is supposed to carry out that policy. An administrator who is not committed to a policy can either simply ignore it, or if the policy seems threatening, actively work to sabotage it. In the final analysis, it is the administrator in the field who must act as the lightning rod in the linking of policy planning in the center to policy implementation in the rural district.

Development policy in Tanzania depends particularly upon the aptitude and the attitude of the district level administrator. Tanzanian socialism, with its emphasis on self help and cooperative effort, must be accepted by civil servants in the districts and regions who may be skeptical of much of the thrust of development policy. Heirs to an elitist administrative tradition, the Tanzanian district officer and his staff may have little financial incentive to implement a policy of egalitarianism which has at least some emphasis on the redistribution of wealth.

This study focuses on the issue of administrative attitudes in an attempt to determine to what extent the administrative and political changes which have occurred in Tanzania have been accepted at the district level. This article will first examine the attitudes of a select group of Tanzanian district level administrators and then compare these attitudes with those of their closest colleagues at the district and at the regional level.

This article shows the links between naming practices and war. The focus is on MPLA war names used during the Angolan struggle for independence. These names are framed in the wider context of the relations between language and war. In many African contexts, names are not singular and fixed, but may change with every personal transformation. Entering the life of a soldier constitutes just such a drastic change. The article shows that through war names, a kaleidoscope of issues may be addressed, including the relations between language, rank, and power, personal history and popular culture, spirit possession and resurrection, self-description and labeling, writing and legitimacy, and secrecy and identity.

Cement pillars and graves play significant roles as land markers in disputes over land in postconflict northern Uganda. Contemporary land cases from Acholi and Ikland display different histories of land use and conflict. In Acholi, cemented graves constitute concrete indices of belonging in wrangles. In Ikland, national nature authorities have brought cement pillars into the landscape. We explore how cemented graves and cement pillars are used for land claims in societies affected by conflict and displacement and how articulations of belonging are created, with the specific materiality of cement signaling modernity, permanence, and inflexibility.

The migration of highly skilled or qualified personnel in large numbers has a long history. It can be traced back to the era of the Greek philosophers and has continued up to the 21st century, with the technocrats who have transferred their skills across geographic boundaries. Economic opportunities, political change, cultural interests, and global capitalism have narrowed boundaries, bridging hitherto separate worlds. Intellectual migration around the globe has indeed become common. Trends indicate continued migration, calling for more inquiries into the phenomenon. Those interested must ask not only why migration occurs, but also how it occurs and who participates in it.

Mali’s 2012 coup d’état and subsequent rebellion created much hardship for those living in the northern and southern parts of the country. This article explores the changes that occurred during the period of uncertainty in the country, the role of the minimalist state, and the implications of these conditions for future development initiatives. The way in which Mali muddled through the 2012–2013 period has left two distinct aid landscapes: a heavily militarized northern region where aid from donors is focused on antiterrorism, and a southern zone of free-market intervention facilitated by donors.

The African Studies Association (ASA) was born in a blaze of anthropological glory with Melville Herskovits, the celebrated anthropologist and “universally recognized dean of American Africanists in the United States” (Greenberg, 1963: 3) as its Founder President in 1957. In all, six ASA presidents have been anthropologists, a number exceeded only by political science. Of the forty-eight founding Fellows, ten were anthropologists, eight were political scientists, and four were geographers, while history, economics, and sociology had three each. This numerical predominance of anthropological membership continued until 1963 when political science equalized and then drew ahead. Other possible indicators, such as membership of the Executive Board, winners of the Herskovits prize, recipients of travel awards, and numbers of Ph.D. dissertations, are in conformity with this general picture of early anthropological prominence and later eclipse. When the ASA commissioned a comprehensive survey of African research (The African World, published in 1965), the editor (Lystad) was an anthropologist and over one-third of the chapters were by anthropologists. It was the most ambitious single publication ever produced by the ASA.

Such quantitative indicators are crude, and we must ask what lies behind them. There are some problems in the fact that the disciplines are not clear cut. This paper includes public administration with political science and archaeology with anthropology. Some linguists and ethnomusicologists, especially in the early period, definitely identified themselves as anthropologists, whereas at the present time most would not. Some anthropologists have acquired the identity of sociologists for circumstantial reasons. Generally speaking, social anthropologists who have taught in African universities from the 1950s until now have had to do so in departments of sociology and frequently as heads of such departments.

An increasing number of studies highlight the important role played by Christian missionaries in the processes of change that occurred in African countries before independence. Fifteen years ago a bibliography listed no fewer than 2,859 publications on Christianity in Tropical Africa and their number has grown even more considerably in recent years (Ofori 1977). Both historians and social scientists have taken a keen interest in this issue (see Etherington 1983). But it has not always been so.

The negative environmental and social consequences of the major era of hydroelectric dam building in the 1950s and 60s generated social and political opposition to similar projects by the 1990s. In Ghana, hydroelectricity’s dependence on unpredictable rainfall also undermined the attractiveness of this source of electricity. The Bui Dam, Ghana’s third hydroelectric dam, faced considerable opposition until 2006, when the Chinese government loaned money for its construction. Gocking details how Chinese companies with similar funding, and constructing infrastructure projects in general in Africa, have contributed to a second era of major dam building in that continent, although there still remains considerable contestation.