Abstract: Nothing in Soviet-style communism was as shrouded in mystery as its secret police. Its paid employees were known to few and their actual numbers remain uncertain. Its informers and collaborators operated clandestinely under pseudonyms and met their officers in secret locations. Its files were inaccessible, even to most party members. The people the secret police recruited or interrogated were threatened so effectively that some never told even their spouses, and many have held their tongues to this day, long after the regimes fell. With the end of communism, many of the newly established governments - among them Romania's - opened their secret police archives. From those files, especially her own voluminous one, as well as her personal memories and interviews with acquaintances that turned out be informers, the author has carried out historical ethnography of the Romanian Securitate. Secrets and Truths is not only of historical interest but has implications for understanding the rapidly developing "security state" of the neoliberal present.

Abstract: Researchers studying gender politics in Arab societies have been puzzled by a phenomenon common in many Arab states - while women are granted suffrage rights, they are often discriminated against by the state in their private lives. This book addresses this phenomenon, maintaining that the Arab state functions according to a certain 'logic' and 'patterns' which have direct consequences on its gender policies, in both the public and private spheres. Using the features of the Arab Authoritarian state as a basis for a theoretical framework of analysis, the author draws on detailed fieldwork and first-hand interviews to study women's rights in three countries - Yemen, Syria, and Kuwait. She argues that the puzzle may be resolved once we focus on the features of the Arab state, and its stage of development. Offering a new approach to the study of gender and politics in Arab states, this book will be of great interest to scholars and students of gender studies, international politics and Middle East studies.

Abstract: Colonial Contexts and Postcolonial Theology focuses on what postcolonial theologies look like in colonial contexts, particularly in dialogue with the First Nations Peoples in Australia and the Asia-Pacific. The contributors have roots in the Asia-Pacific, but the struggles, theologies and concerns they address are shared across the seas.

Abstract: In 2004, one of the world's last bands of voluntarily isolated nomads left behind their ancestral life in the dwindling thorn forests of northern Paraguay, fleeing ranchers' bulldozers. Behold the Black Caiman is Lucas Bessire's intimate chronicle of the journey of this small group of Ayoreo people, the terrifying new world they now face, and the precarious lives they are piecing together against the backdrop of soul - collecting missionaries, humanitarian NGOs, late liberal economic policies, and the highest deforestation rate in the world. Drawing on ten years of fieldwork, Bessire highlights the stark disconnect between the desperate conditions of Ayoreo life for those out of the forest and the well-funded global efforts to preserve those Ayoreo still living in it. By showing how this disconnect reverberates within Ayoreo bodies and minds, his reflexive account takes aim at the devastating consequences of our society's continued obsession with the primitive and raises important questions about anthropology's potent capacity to further or impede indigenous struggles for sovereignty. The result is a timely update to the classic literary ethnographies of South America, a sustained critique of the so-called ontological turn - one of anthropology's hottest trends - and, above all, an urgent call for scholars and activists alike to rethink their notions of difference.

Abstract: In the second half of the 1960s and the early 1970s, the Ethiopian student movement emerged from rather innocuous beginnings to become the major opposition force against the imperial regime in Ethiopia, contributing perhaps more than any other factor to the eruption of the 1974 revolution, a revolution that brought about not only the end of the long reign of Emperor Haile Sellassie, but also a dynasty of exceptional longevity. The student movement would be of fundamental importance in the shaping of the future Ethiopia, instrumental in both its political and social development. Bahru Zewde, himself one of the students involved in the uprising, draws on interviews with former student leaders and activists, as well as documentary sources, to describe the steady radicalisation of the movement, characterised particularly after 1965 by annual demonstrations against the regime and culminating in the ascendancy of Marxism-Leninism by the early 1970s. Almost in tandem with the global student movement, the year 1969 marked the climax of student opposition to the imperial regime, both at home and abroad. It was also in that year that students broached what came to be famously known as the 'national question', ultimately resulting in the adoption in 1971of the Leninist/Stalinist principle of self-determination up to and including secession. On the eve of the revolution, the student movement abroad split into two rival factions; a split that was ultimately to lead to the liquidation of both and the consolidation of military dictatorship as well as the emergence of the ethno-nationalist agenda as the only viable alternative to the military regime. Bahru Zewde is Emeritus Professor of History at Addis Ababa University and Vice President of the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences. He has authored many books and articles, notably A History of Modern Ethiopia, 1855-1974 and Pioneers of Change in Ethiopia: The Reformist Intellectuals of the Early Twentieth Century. Ethiopia: Addis Ababa University Press (paperback)

Abstract: The book summarizes the results of the Paria Archaeological Project. Its main goal was to gain a better understanding of the settlement patterns in the Paria Basin from the Formative to the Colonial Period. One of the priorities was to learn more about the role of Paria, the Inka provincial center, in the region's life and its connection with the Cochabamba Valley as well as about the other similar provincial centers and their role in the administration and economy of the Inka Empire. The systematic survey and mapping of Paria showed that it covered a total of 110 hectares and had a population between 5,000 and 8,000 living in hundreds of structures. The settlement was located at the junction of the imperial road running from Cuzco to the south and a side-road leading eastward to the subtropical regions, and it was enclosed by over 1,500 storehouses with a storage capacity of roughly 10,000 m3. On the basis of its excavated structures and the analyzed macrobotanical and faunal remains as well as the ceramic finds, Paria was the most important production, storage, logistic, and redistribution center of the Inka Empire on the Bolivian altiplano, which maintained dynamic ethnic, economic, and administrative relations with the altiplano, the Andean Mountain, and the mesothermic valleys lying to the east.

Abstract: Diese Arbeit zeigt, wie Richterinnen und Staatsanwältinnen in der Republik Benin den Spagat zwischen Berufsidealen und den praktischen Anforderungen des Alltags bewältigen und wie sie ihre Arbeit und Beziehungen zu den Akteuren am Gericht gestalten. Sie haben hohe Erwartungen an sich selbst, die sich beispielsweise in ihren Vorstellungen von einem "guten" Richter zeigen. "Il faut être un modèle", beschreiben die Richterinnen und Staatsanwältinnen ihre Vorbildfunktion und ihre Rolle als Elite in Benin. Dieses Berufsideal erzeugt hohen Druck und dringt bis in ihr Privatleben ein. Gleichzeitig beeinflussen, intervenieren und instruieren Rechtssuchende, Politiker und Vorgesetzte ihre Arbeit - und behindern die Umsetzung des Idealbildes. Rich-terinnen und Staatsanwältinnen haben vielfältige Strategien entwickelt, um sich an die unzureichenden Arbeitsbedingungen in materieller und personeller Hinsicht sowie an die Instruktionen "von oben" anzupassen. Trotz Doppelbelastung ist es für Frauen selbstverständlich, Kinder und Karriere zu vereinen. Durch die detaillierte Beschreibung und Analyse des Alltags der Frauen entsteht ein Porträt ihres Berufsstandes, das nicht nur zu einem besseren Verständnis ihrer Handlungsweisen sondern auch der Beniner Justiz im Allge-meinen beiträgt.

Abstract: Hank Nelson was an academic, film-maker, teacher, graduate supervisor and university administrator. His career at The Australian National University (ANU) spanned almost 40 years of notable accomplishment in expanding and deepening our understanding of the history and politics of Papua New Guinea, the experience of Australian soldiers at war, bush schools and much else. This book is a highly readable tribute to him, written by those who knew him well, including his students, and also contains wide-ranging works by Hank himself. -Professor Stewart Firth, ANU.

Abstract: The term cosmopolitan is increasingly used within different social, cultural and political settings, including academia, popular media and national politics. However those who invoke the cosmopolitan project rarely ask whose experience, understanding, or vision of cosmopolitanism is being described and for whose purposes? In response, this volume assembles contributors from different disciplines and theoretical backgrounds to examine cosmopolitanism's possibilities, aspirations and applications - as well as its tensions, contradictions, and discontents - so as to offer a critical commentary on the vital but often neglected question: whose cosmopolitanism? The book investigates when, where, and how cosmopolitanism emerges as a contemporary social process, global aspiration or emancipatory political project and asks whether it can serve as a political or methodological framework for action in a world of conflict and difference.

Abstract: Ethiopia is best understood as a country with multiple internal divides, but also endless interconnections which are constantly renegotiated. Contributing to the growing literature on the country's cultural diversity, this book gives special emphasis to contemporary dynamics of intra- and intergroup boundary formation and alteration. It also adds to the more general literature on identity change, boundary transgression of individuals and groups, and cultural contact and change. In ten chapters experienced Ethiopian and international scholars provide perspectives on territorial, ethnic, class, caste and gender and age related boundaries in different parts of the country. (Umschlagtext)

Abstract: Die archäologische Sammlung Walter Lehmann stammt von einer Studienreise, die den deutschen Kulturwissenschaftler und Altphilologen zwischen 1907 und 1909 nach Zentralamerika und Mexiko geführt hat. Sein Forschungsaufenthalt zählt zu den ersten wissenschaftlichen Arbeitsprojekten, die konkrete Problemstellungen und Zielvorgaben verfolgten. Bei seinen Studien sammelte Lehmann in der südlichen Peripherie Mesoamerikas zahlreiche Archäologica, Ethnographica und Folkloristica, die er im Auftrag des Königlichen Museums für Völkerkunde Berlin, des Königlich Bayrischen Ethnographischen Museums München und des Hamburgischen Museums für Völkerkunde erwarb. Der Großteil der systematisch angelegten Sammlungen ist dabei an das Königliche Museum für Völkerkunde Berlin gelangt. Die zusammen getragenen Konvolute haben zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts eine der umfangreichsten archäologischen Sammlungen entstehen lassen, die aus Zentralamerika stammen.Der vorliegende Katalog stellt ausgewählte Archäologica vor, die zur Berliner Sammlung zählen. Sie sollen sowohl einen Einblick in das Wirken des damals 30-jährigen Wissenschaftlers als auch in die präkolumbischen Kulturen der von ihm bereisten Regionen geben. Die abgebildeten Objekte sind auf der Grundlage moderner archäologischer Kriterien nach Material, Region, Zeitstellung, Typ und Variante gruppiert worden. Die meisten Archäologica kommen aus Costa Rica und Nicaragua. Viele Objekte sind dabei an Orten gefunden worden, die inzwischen weitgehend gestört oder überbaut sind. Andere stehen heute auf der Roten Liste des International Council of Museums (ICOM), welche seltene und von Plünderung bedrohte Objektklassen mit großem kunsthistorischen Wert nennt (URL: http://archives.icom.museum/redlist/LatinAmerica/english/red_list.html).

Abstract: The Politics of Chieftaincy examines debates over authority and property in Accra, Ghana, during the peak decades of British colonial rule. Between 1920 and 1950, imperial policies marginalized educated elites, local authorities, and landowners in favor of Ga chiefs, whom the British authorities viewed as more loyal to the empire. Conflicts erupted throughout the city over chieftaincy, succession, and land, producing new political movements and local institutions. Drawing on a broad range of archival records of chieftaincy and litigation cases from this era, Naaborko Sackeyfio-Lenoch demonstrates how these disputes opened new arenas for Accra's residents to engage in dialogue about the efficacy of chieftaincy and the meaning of political authority and property. Despite the prominence of chieftaincy in the lives of the people of Accra, Sackeyfio-Lenoch shows that they were able to critique their political traditions and adapt their institutions to new local, national, and global pressures. The volume offers then a vital case study of Africans' responses to colonialism, modernity, and globalization, and provides an important lens for understanding urban and political processes in Africa during the first half of the twentieth century. Naaborko Sackeyfio-Lenoch is associate professor of African history at Dartmouth College.Review: "In The Politics of Chieftaincy, Naaborko Sackeyfio-Lenoch presents a richly detailed account of the dynamic, often inconclusive struggles over land, wealth, and office that drove chieftaincy politics among the Ga population of Accra as they faced rising immigration, intensified commercialization, and shifting strategies of state control during the heyday of colonial rule. Through disputes over landed property, Sackeyfio-Lenoch argues, Ga youth, elders, chiefs, priests, and lineages reworked the meaning of authority, probing the changing contours of their own power as a shrinking minority in the growing colonial capital." --Sara Berry, author of Chiefs Know Their Boundaries: Essays on Property, Power, and the Past in Asante, 1896-1996

Abstract: Die Zahl der Diabetesgruppen in Buenos Aires, der Hauptstadt Argentiniens, ist in den letzten Jahren stetig gewachsen. Menschen mit Diabetes formen auf Basis ihres Krankseins neue soziale Gruppen, tauschen darin Erfahrungen und Wissen aus und werden in Bezug auf ihre Gesundheitsförderung aktiv. Auf Basis empirischer Feldforschung untersucht diese Arbeit am Beispiel der Diabetessportgruppe Team D Aspekte, die auf die Formung ihrer stark ausgeprägten kollektiven Identität einwirken. Sie zeigt auf, dass diese sich nicht allein aus dem gemeinsamen Merkmal Diabetes speist, sondern auch aus dem Lebenskontext der Teilnehmer. Sie ist mit dem individuellen Krankheitserleben der einzelnen Mitglieder eng verbunden und wird von diesen individuell sehr unterschiedlich gedeutet und genutzt.

Abstract: Provides an approach to the study of media genres - including reality programs, game shows, situation comedies, soap operas, film noir, and more. This book addresses such questions as: Have there been shifts in the formula of particular genres over time? What do these shifts reveal about changes in culture? How and why do new genres appear?

Abstract: The Day of the Dead is the most important annual celebration in Oaxaca, Mexico. Skillfully combining textual information and photographic imagery, this book begins with a discussion of the people of Oaxaca, their way of life, and their way of looking at the world. It then takes the reader through the celebration from the preparations that can begin months in advance through to the private gatherings in homes and finally to the cemetery where the villagers celebrate together -- both the living and the dead. The voices in the book are of those people who have participated in the Day of the Dead for as long as they can remember. There are no ghosts here. Only the souls of loved ones who have gone to the Village of the Dead and who are allowed to return once a year to be with their family. Very readable and beautifully illustrated, this book provides an extensive discussion of the people of Oaxaca, their way of life and their beliefs, which make the Day of the Dead logical and easily comprehensible.

Abstract: One of worst crimes committed by Italian fascism during the Italian occupation of Ethiopia was the massacre of the monks of Debre Libanos, on 20 May 1937. Graziani, the fascist Viceroy, then telegraphed from Addis Ababa to Rome, in a secret telegram, that 297 monks had been shot, yet in truth many, many more died. The author, Ian Campbell, is a Development Consultant specialising in East Africa, has been studying Ethiopia's cultural history since he arrived in Addis Ababa in 1988. In this publication he looks at the history of the monastery of Debre Libanos, and in particular the backround and history of the massacre and pillaging of the monastery by fascist Italian forces, which killed over a thousand monks. It also includes information on the rounding up of citizens thought to have some association with the monastery and who sere sent to Danane concentration camp, many not surviving (Verlagsangaben

Abstract: The askari, African soldiers recruited in the 1890s to fill the ranks of the German East African colonial army, occupy a unique space at the intersection of East African history, German colonial history, and military history. Violent Intermediaries recovers and reconsiders the origin and role of these men, and of colonial soldiers more generally. Lauded by Germans for their loyalty during the East Africa campaign of World War I, but reviled by Tanzanians for the violence they committed during the making of the colonial state between 1890 and 1918, the askari have been poorly understood as historical agents. Violent Intermediaries situates them in their everyday household, community, military, and constabulary contexts, as men who helped make colonialism in German East Africa. By linking microhistories with wider nineteenth-century African historical processes, Michelle Moyd shows that the construction of the German East African colonial army resulted from convergences and collisions among differing conceptions of masculinity, radical reconfigurations of socioeconomic, political, and military structures, and European imperial incursions. As soldiers and colonial intermediaries, the askari built the colonial state while simultaneously carving out paths to respectability, becoming men of influence within their local contexts. Yet their positions as clients of German officer-patrons also exposed their dependency on a particular political order, which in the case of German East Africa proved ephemeral. Through its focus on the making of empire from the ground up, Violent Intermediaries offers a fresh perspective on African colonial troops as state-making agents and critiques the mythologies surrounding the askari by focusing on the nature of colonial violence.

Abstract: How can we gain new understandings about sex, gender, and sexuality? What are the relationships between culture and gender diversity? How has the diffusion of Euro-American culture affected the sex/gender ideologies of non-European cultures? This eye-opening account of the differences in how sex/gender diversity is experienced in seven cultures raises our consciousness and challenges our intellectual understandings and attitudes about what we consider natural, normal, and morally right. Nanda s examples, which reveal the complexity of social responses toward sex/gender diversity, are ethnographically well documented and represent various geographical areas and sex/gender ideologies. In classic anthropological fashion, Nanda s text enables us to cross the barriers of cultural difference to a recognition of a greater shared humanity.

Abstract: In Idi Amin's Shadow is a rich social history examining Ugandan women's complex and sometimes paradoxical relationship to Amin's military state. Based on more than one hundred interviews with women who survived the regime, as well as a wide range of primary sources, this book reveals how the violence of Amin's militarism resulted in both opportunities and challenges for women. Some assumed positions of political power or became successful entrepreneurs, while others endured sexual assault or experienced the trauma of watching their brothers, husbands, or sons "disappeared" by the state's security forces. In Idi Amin's Shadow considers the crucial ways that gender informed and was informed by the ideology and practice of militarism in this period. By exploring this relationship, Alicia C. Decker offers a nuanced interpretation of Amin's Uganda and the lives of the women who experienced and survived its violence. Each chapter begins with the story of one woman whose experience illuminates some larger theme of the book. In this way, it becomes clear that the politics of military rule were highly relevant to women and gender relations, just as the politics of gender were central to militarism. By drawing upon critical security studies, feminist studies, and violence studies, Decker demonstrates that Amin's dictatorship was far more complex and his rule much more strategic than most observers have ever imagined.

Abstract: "The First Nations of British Columbia" provides an up-to-date, concise, and accessible overview of First Nations' peoples, cultures, and issues in British Columbia. Robert Muckle surveys the history, diversity, and complexity of First Nations from an anthropological perspective, incorporating archaeological, ethnographic, historic, and legal-political issues. Muckle begins by describing today's First Nations, including information on populations, settlements, territories, bands, and other affiliations. The following sections focus on prehistory, traditional lifeways and cultural change over the past few hundred years, as well as the impact of the fur trade, gold rushes, European and American settlement and government, missionaries, and residential schools. Current issues regarding aboriginal rights and the treaty negotiation process are also discussed. This new edition contains current information on plant management, wage labour, the Nisga'a Agreement, and the discovery of Kwaday Dan Sinchi - the 600-year-old remains of a man found frozen in northwestern BC. The appendices, readings, and all names, data, and spellings have been updated. "The First Nations of British Columbia" is an indispensable resource for teachers and students, and an excellent introduction for anyone interested in BC's First Nations.

Abstract: Nationalfeiertage und insbesondere "runde" Jubiläen, wie sie siebzehn afrikanische Staaten nach fünfzig Jahren Unabhängigkeit im Jahr 2010 gefeiert haben, sind in erster Linie Staatsinszenierungen, aber auch Bausteine für die Konstruktion nationaler Zugehörigkeit. Sie sollen der Bevölkerung nationale Geschichte und zentrale nationale Werte und Symbole ins Gedächtnis rufen und sie gleichzeitig für die Umsetzung von Zukunftsvisionen mobilisieren. Zugleich demonstrieren Nationalfeiertage die Fähigkeit des Staatsapparats, eine große Feier ästhetisch anspruchsvoll und protokollarisch korrekt zu inszenieren und durchzuführen.Jede Aufführung nationaler Zeremonien birgt aber auch Risiken des Scheiterns oder zumindest partiellen Misslingens und bietet eine Arena für Debatten über nationale Werte und die aktuelle (sowie vergangene) Politik. Genau diese Aspekte des Konflikts und des Scheiterns untersucht dieses Arbeitspapier am Beispiel der Feiern anlässlich des fünfzigsten Jahrestags der Unabhängigkeit Benins.Die Arbeit basiert auf einem zweimonatigen Praktikum, das der Autor im Rahmen einer Lehrforschung des Instituts für Ethnologie und Afrikastudien der Universität Mainz bei der Behörde in Cotonou durchführen konnte, die mit der Organisation nationaler Feiern beauftragt ist. Zudem hat der Autor Experten-Interviews und umfangreiche Beobachtungen bei verschiedenen Festaktivitäten durchgeführt und zahlreiche Zeitungen und Fernsehsendungen ausgewertet. Die Arbeit ist Teil eines vergleichenden Forschungsprojekts am Institut für Ethnologie und Afrikastudien Mainz zu Erinnerungspolitik und Nationalfeiern.

Abstract: Now available as an updated second edition covering the brutal end of Sri Lanka's civil war and creeping state authoritarianism that has grown in its wake, Sri Lanka in the Modern Age recounts the island's modern history in an accessible yet unconventional manner. While most histories of the country published in the last twenty years have tended to focus on the state's failure to accommodate the needs and demands of minority communities, this book places their claims alongside the political, social and economic demands of other communities, parties, associations and groups, tracing their lineages to the colonial period. Drawing from recent works as well as from her own research in the field, Nira Wickramasinghe has written above all a history of the people of Sri Lanka, rather than a history of the nation-state.

Abstract: This study is devoted to the city of Herat and its changing fortune within the eastern Iranian provice oof Khurasan in early modern and modern times. Based on Persian primary sources, it gauges the role of political developments and cultural memory in the shaping of spatial concepts and regional structures. As the capital of the Timurid Empire, Herat's pivotal position reflected the political and spiritual centrality of an urban space embedden in a florescent agricultural and economic setting. Suffering a gradual decline in the subsequent centuries, the city receded to the sidelines of the historical narrative, a fact mirrored by a shift in focus in the sources from the local setting to larger strategic and ecological considerations pertaining to the province as a whole. With the delineation of fixed borders and the division of the region between Iran, Afghanistan and Transcaspia in the late 19th century, elastic concepts of sovereignty were replaced with hierarchical and centralistic notions of the state. Offering a long-term analysis of changing perceptions of power and space, this book provide the groundwork for a new understanding of the history of the region and its transition to modernity. [back cover of the book]

Abstract: " 'If you want to know who you are and where you come from, follow the maiz.' That was the advice given to author Roberto Cintli Rodriguez when he was investigating the origins and migrations of Mexican peoples in the Four Corners region of the United States. Follow it he did, and his book Our Sacred Mai?z Is Our Mother changes the way we look at Mexican Americans. Not so much peoples created as a result of war or invasion, they are people of the corn, connected through a seven-thousand-year old mai?z culture to other Indigenous inhabitants of the continent. Using corn as the framework for discussing broader issues of knowledge production and history of belonging, the author looks at how corn was included in codices and Mayan texts, how it was discussed by elders, and how it is represented in theater and stories as a way of illustrating that Mexicans and Mexican Americans share a common culture. Rodriguez brings together scholarly and traditional (elder) knowledge about the long history of mai?z/corn cultivation and culture, its roots in Mesoamerica, and its living relationship to Indigenous peoples throughout the continent, including Mexicans and Central Americans now living in the United States. The author argues that, given the restrictive immigration policies and popular resentment toward migrants, a continued connection to mai?z culture challenges the social exclusion and discrimination that frames migrants as outsiders and gives them a sense of belonging not encapsulated in the idea of citizenship. The "hidden transcripts" of corn in everyday culture--art, song, stories, dance, and cuisine (mai?z-based foods like the tortilla)--have nurtured, even across centuries of colonialism, the living mai?z culture of ancient knowledge. "-- "If you want to know who you are and where you come from, follow the maiz." That was the advice given to author Roberto Cintli Rodriguez when he was investigating the origins and migrations of Mexican peoples in the Four Corners region of the United States. Follow it he did, and his book Our Sacred Maiz Is Our Mother changes the way we look at Mexican Americans. Not so much peoples created as a result of war or invasion, they are people of the corn, connected through a seven-thousand-year old maiz culture to other Indigenous inhabitants of the continent. Using corn as the framework for discussing broader issues of knowledge production and history of belonging, the author looks at how corn was included in codices and Mayan texts, how it was discussed by elders, and how it is represented in theater and stories as a way of illustrating that Mexicans and Mexican Americans share a common culture. Rodriguez brings together scholarly and traditional (elder) knowledge about the long history of maiz/corn cultivation and culture, its roots in Mesoamerica, and its living relationship to Indigenous peoples throughout the continent, including Mexicans and Central Americans now living in the United States. The author argues that, given the restrictive immigration policies and popular resentment toward migrants, a continued connection to maiz culture challenges the social exclusion and discrimination that frames migrants as outsiders and gives them a sense of belonging not encapsulated in the idea of citizenship. The "hidden transcripts" of corn in everyday culture--art, song, stories, dance, and cuisine (maiz-based foods like the tortilla)--have nurtured, even across centuries of colonialism, the living maiz culture of ancient knowledge. Review: "It's an awesome treatise on the importance of corn in the Americas, combining history with ethnography, cultural studies and a bunch of "desmadre.""--Gustavo Arellano

Abstract: African states have become testing grounds for Western conflict-resolution experiments, particularly power-sharing agreements, supposedly intended to end deadly conflict, secure peace and build democracy in divided societies. This volume examines the legal and political efficacy of transitional political power-sharing between democratically constituted governments and the African warlords, rebels, or junta that seek to violently unseat them. What role does law indicate for itself to play in informing, shaping and regulating peace agreements? This book addresses this question and others through the prism of three West African case studies: Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea-Bissau. It applies the neo-Kadeshean model of analysis and offers a framework for a 'Law on Power-sharing'. In a field dominated by political scientists, and drawing from ancient and contemporary international law, this book represents the first substantive legal critique of the law, practice and politics of power-sharing. Review: 'Illegal Peace in Africa is a fascinating must-read for academics and practitioners struggling with the fundamental challenge of how to reconcile short-term peace, security and stability imperatives with longer-term democratic state-building goals.' Stef Vandeginste, Africa Spectrum 'Some scholars have started to examine legal issues and the role of legal principles in relation to peace agreements, but mostly in a superficial manner and without the foundation of a theoretical framework. In Illegal Peace in Africa: An Inquiry into the Legality of Power Sharing with Warlords, Rebels, and Junta, Jeremy I. Levitt attempts to fill this important gap. He rightly argues that legal approaches have been absent from peacemaking for too long and examines the legality of transitional political power sharing in an aim to challenge traditional approaches to conflict resolution.' Philipp Kastner, Canadian Yearbook of International Law

Abstract: This important new book provides a framework for complementarity between promoting and protecting human rights and combating corruption. The book makes three major points regarding the relationship between corruption and human rights law. First, corruption per se is a human rights violation, insofar as it interferes with the right of the people to dispose of their natural wealth and resources and thereby increases poverty and frustrates socio-economic development. Second, corruption leads to a multitude of human rights violations. Third, the book demonstrates that human rights mechanisms have the capacity to provide more effective remedies to victims of corruption than can other criminal and civil legal mechanisms. The book takes up one of the pervasive problems of governance--large-scale corruption--to examine its impact on human rights and the degree to which a human rights approach to confronting corruption can buttress the traditional criminal law response. It examines three major aspects of human rights in practice--the importance of governing structures in the implementation and enjoyment of human rights, the relationship between corruption, poverty and underdevelopment, and the threat that systemic poverty poses to the entire human rights edifice. The book is a very significant contribution to the literature on good governance, human rights and the rule of law in Africa. Endorsements "Kolawole Olaniyan has taken up one of the pervasive problems of governance - large-scale corruption - to examine its impact on human rights and the degree to which a human rights approach to confronting corruption can buttress the traditional criminal law response. His focus is Africa, but the valuable lessons he teaches in this comprehensive study can resonate throughout the world. The result is a comprehensive and holistic legal framework for addressing some of the root causes of human rights violations and poverty, not only in Africa, but wherever corruption exists." Dinah Shelton Manatt/Ahn Professor of International Law (emeritus) The George Washington University Law School "This book demonstrates the author's mastery of complex jurisprudential and theoretical discourses. His review of the existing literature is extensive, the doctrinal analysis rigorous and the treatment of the subject innovative. Dr. Olaniyan's willingness to introduce fresh eyes to the ways in which doctrine contributes to an understanding of seemingly mundane problems lays the foundation for fertile trajectories from which future scholars can launch exciting inquiries on the relationship between corruption and human rights. Overall, this book makes an important and valuable contribution to the growth and understanding of the corruption/human rights discourse as it is presently constructed." Ndiva Kofele-Kale, University Distinguished Professor of Law, SMU Dedman School of Law, Dallas, USA.Review: Kolawole Olaniyan has taken up one of the pervasive problems of governance, large-scale corruption, to examine its impact on human rights and the degree to which a human rights approach to confronting corruption can buttress the traditional criminal law response. His focus is Africa, but the valuable lessons he teaches in this comprehensive study can resonate throughout the world. The result is a comprehensive and holistic legal framework for addressing some of the root causes of human rights violations and poverty, not only in Africa, but wherever corruption exists. -- Dinah Shelton Manatt/Ahn Professor of Law (emeritus) The George Washington University Law School Kolawole Olaniyan, as a well known and respected human rights activist in the African human rights system, is well placed to write on this topic. The issue is contemporary and politically relevant and a book which focuses on the legal framework in the African continent is a very welcome addition to the literature and debate in this area. -- Professor Rachel Murray Director, Human Rights Implementation Centre University of Bristol This book demonstrates the author's mastery of complex jurisprudential and theoretical discourses. His review of the existing literature is extensive, the doctrinal analysis rigorous and the treatment of the subject innovative. Dr. Olaniyan's willingness to introduce fresh eyes to the ways in which doctrine contributes to an understanding of seemingly mundane problems lays the foundation for fertile trajectories from which future scholars can launch exciting inquiries on the relationship between corruption and human rights. Overall, this book makes an important and valuable contribution to the growth and understanding of the corruption/human rights discourse as it is presently constructed. -- Ndiva Kofele-Kale, University Distinguished Professor of Law, SMU Dedman School of Law, Dallas, USA Kolawole Olaniyan, a leading African rights scholar-activist, has written a deeply penetrating and pioneering book on the causes and horrendous effects of corruption in Africa. The work couldn't come at a more timely period as Africa is poised to surge due to the enormous natural resources being discovered there. But dramatic prosperity, which is expected to lift the continent from underdevelopment, simply won't happen unless leaders heed Olaniyan's bold call to curb corruption, respect basic human rights, and create democratic government. -- Makau Mutua Dean & SUNY Distinguished Professor Floyd H. & Hilda L. Hurst Faculty Scholar Dr. Kolawole Olaniyan has brought fresh thinking into an area often neglected or not emphasized particularly in developing countries. The book makes a meaningful contribution to the field and the literature on the intersection between corruption and the lack of realization of human rights, particularly socio-economic rights. I commend Dr. Olaniyan for his fine work. Academics, researchers, policy makers and activists will find the book very useful in their various work areas. -- Professor Vincent O. Nmehielle, Legal Counsel of the African Union Commission, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Mr Kolawole Olaniyan, one of the leading African human rights activists and renowned scholars, in his well written and researched book on the effects of corruption on the peoples of Africa, has gone an extra mile in bringing this social cancer to the attention of African leaders and people. Mr Olaniyan has most effectively and brilliantly demonstrated the interface between corruption and the protections that are provided by the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, a Treaty that protects and promotes human and peoples' rights in Africa. The book is a scholarly masterpiece, an instructive and timely resource which is a must read for everyone. -- H.E. Judge Sanji Monageng, 1st Vice-President Presidency International Criminal Court and former chairperson of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights Corruption is a scourge of the world today, damaging human rights and deepening poverty and inequality. Kolawole Olaniyan has powerfully portrayed corruption as a violation of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights. In this timely work, Olaniyan shows how the Charter can serve as a solid legal framework to complement the traditional but often less effective criminal law instrument against corruption. The book focuses on Africa but its legal analysis will resonate wherever corruption exists. This book is an important contribution to the corruption and human rights debate-- and hopefully should help create change. -- Salil Shetty, Amnesty International Secretary General

Abstract: "This passionate, well-researched book makes a compelling case for a paradigm shift in conservation practice. It explores new policies and practices, which offer alternatives to exclusionary, uninhabited national parks and wilderness areas and make possible new kinds of protected areas that recognize Indigenous peoples' rights and benefit from their knowledge and conservation contributions" -- A vast number of national parks and protected areas throughout the world have been established in the customary territories of Indigenous peoples. In many cases these conservation areas have displaced Indigenous peoples, undermining their cultures, livelihoods, and self-governance, while squandering opportunities to benefit from their knowledge, values, and practices. This book makes the case for a paradigm shift in conservation from exclusionary, uninhabited national parks and wilderness areas to new kinds of protected areas that recognize Indigenous peoples' conservation contributions and rights. It documents the beginnings of such a paradigm shift and issues a clarion call for transforming conservation in ways that could enhance the effectiveness of protected areas and benefit Indigenous peoples in and near tens of thousands of protected areas worldwide. Indigenous Peoples, National Parks, and Protected Areas integrates wide-ranging, multidisciplinary intellectual perspectives with detailed analyses of new kinds of protected areas in diverse parts of the world. Eleven geographers and anthropologists contribute nine substantive fieldwork-based case studies. Their contributions offer insights into experience with new conservation approaches in an array of countries, including Australia, Canada, Guatemala, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Peru, South Africa, and the United States. This book breaks new ground with its in-depth exploration of changes in conservation policies and practices--and their profound ramifications for Indigenous peoples, protected areas, and social reconciliation.

Abstract: Originally published in 1987, this book used data from Kisangani, Upper Zaire and North Kivu to demonstrate the emergence of an indigenous bourgeoisie of local capitalists without political position. These entrepreneurs invested in productive enterprise for the local market, managed and expanded their business in rational capitalist fashion, and were reproducing themselves as a class. The text discusses how the spiralling economic crisis in Zaire resulted in a severe decline in the administrative capacity of the state, but also opened up opportunities for social mobility. Reliance on anthropological methods of intensive fieldwork, personal contacts and collection of case histories created the basis for this study, forming an ethnography of local class formation and struggle.

Abstract: As the first country in Sub-Saharan Africa to gain independence from a European imperial power, Ghana has always occupied a position of primacy in the African political and historical imagination. This is due in no small part to the indelible impression left by its first president, the charismatic and self-promoting Kwame Nkrumah, who by his death had become one of the most iconic figures of the postcolonial era. Nkrumah's legacy has long been the subject of debate, with some depicting him as a pioneering nationalist and others as a dictatorial megalomaniac, and the political, social, and global-historical dimensions of his presidency have been thoroughly studied. At the same time, the symbolic, semiotic, iconographical, and ephemeral strategies he used to consolidate power and construct a coherent Ghanaian nation-state have been largely neglected by scholars. This innovative study of Nkrumah and Ghana offers a fascinating look at his propagandistic use of political iconography through 'symbols of nationhood' such as currency, postage stamps, museums, monuments, Adinkra symbols, the national anthem, emblems, and both national and party flags. As author Harcourt Fuller demonstrates here, the premiership of the self-proclaimed Founder of the State of Ghana was mainly characterized by a cult of personality wherein Nkrumah branded the national flock with his image by personalizing public symbols of nationhood.

Abstract: In the critical essays collected in Black Looks, bell hooks interrogates old narratives and argues for alternative ways to look at blackness, black subjectivity, and whiteness. Her focus is on spectatorship-in particular, the way blackness and black people are experienced in literature, music, television, and especially film-and her aim is to create a radical intervention into the way we talk about race and representation. As she describes: "the essays in Black Looks are meant to challenge and unsettle, to disrupt and subvert."In the critical essays collected in Black Looks, bell hooks interrogates old narratives and argues for alternative ways to look at blackness, black subjectivity, and whiteness. Her focus is on spectatorship-in particular, the way blackness and black people are experienced in literature, music, television, and especially film-and her aim is to create a radical intervention into the way we talk about race and representation. As she describes: "the essays in Black Looks are meant to challenge and unsettle, to disrupt and subvert." As students, scholars, activists, intellectuals, and any other readers who have engaged with the book since its original release in 1992 can attest, that's exactly what these pieces do.

Abstract: Worrorra is a highly polysynthetic language, characterised by overarching concord and a high degree of morphological fusion. Verbal semantics involve a voicing opposition and an extensive system of evidentiality-marking. Worrorra has elaborate systems of pragmatic reference, a derivational morphology that projects agreement-class concord across most lexical categories and complex predicates that incorporate one verb within another. Nouns are distributed among five genders, the intensional properties of which define dynamic oppositions between men and women on the one hand, and earth and sky on the other.

Abstract: Alone among Muslim countries, Morocco is known for its national form of Islam, "Moroccan Islam." This path-breaking study, however, reveals that Moroccan Islam was actually invented in the early twentieth century by French ethnographers and colonial officers who were influenced by British colonial practices in India. Between 1900 and 1920, these researchers compiled a social inventory of Morocco, which in turn led to the emergence of a new object of study, Moroccan Islam, and a new field, Moroccan Studies. In the process they reinvented Morocco as a modern polity and resurrected the monarchy. This book will be of interest to scholars and readers interested in questions around orientalism and empire, colonialism and modernity, and the invention of traditions.

Abstract: Between 2002 and 2013 Regula Tschumi travelled frequently to Ghana, constantly on the trail of the figurative palanquins and coffins of the Ga. Intending in particular to learn more about the figurative palanquins, which were barely known outside Ghana, she researched the culture of the Ga, their religion, their forms of artistic expression, their history and their burial rituals. Palanquins and coffins are thus exa-mined in the context of the world from which they developed and in which they continue to be used to this day. As a result of these many years of intensive research, Regula Tschumi eventually succeeded in uncovering the connection between palanquin and coffins. She shows that the figurative coffins of the Ga are by no means a new art form invented by an autonomous artist, as had been assumed. Instead they are merely substitutes for the mysterious figurative palanquins, which are rightfully the original artefacts of Ga society.

Abstract: Höchst ungewöhnliche Porträts von zehn französischen Kolonialsoldaten werfen Fragen auf: Wie sind diese Menschen aus Nord- und Westafrika in das Geschehen des Ersten Weltkriegs involviert gewesen? Warum wurden sie in speziellen Lagern von den anderen Kriegsgefangenen separiert? Welches Interesse hatten Wissenschaftler an den Gefangenen aus den Kolonien? Was beobachteten sie und wofür wurden die Ergebnisse ihrer Forschungen verwendet? Die Fotografien von beeindruckender Qualität werden erstmals der Öffentlichkeit vorgestellt. Sie zeigen, wie Krieg und Kolonialismus die Wissenschaft beeinflussten - und wie umgekehrt die Arbeit von Forschern der Kriegspropaganda diente. Das Buch versammelt Beiträge von renommierten Autoren aus Deutschland, Frankreich und dem Senegal, die diesen Fragen nachspüren. Die FotografienDen Ausgangspunkt der Ausstellung bilden 15 großformatige Nahaufnahmen, die zehn Menschen zeigen. Es sind Kriegsgefangene, die aus Nord- und Westafrika stammen und in einem Gefangenenlager fotografiert worden sind. Aber wie passen diese Fotografien zu unserem Bild vom Ersten Weltkrieg? Die Ausstellung hinterfragt genau diese Vorstellungen und erzählt die bisher wenig beachteten Geschichten und Zusammenhänge dieser Fotos.Die SoldatenEine halbe Millionen Männer aus den französischen Kolonien kämpften für Frankreich im Ersten Weltkrieg. Oft wurden sie unter Zwang rekrutiert. Dieser Einsatz gibt dem Terminus "Weltkrieg" erst seine wirklich globale Bedeutung. Auch auf britischer Seite kämpften viele Kanadier, Australier und vor allem Inder, auf russischer Seite oft muslimische Nicht-Russen aus Zentralasien und dem Kaukasus. Dabei gerieten viele in Gefangenschaft. In speziellen Lagern sammelten die Mittelmächte Deutschland und Österreich-Ungarn solche Soldaten ihrer Gegner, von denen sie hofften, sie könnten gegenüber den britischen und französischen Kolonialherren ihrer Herkunftsländer aktiv werden.Die WissenschaftDie kolonialen Kriegsgefangenen wurden in der Lagern auch zum Untersuchungsgegenstand von Forschern, die auf diese Weise ohne aufwendige Expeditionen Zugang zu Menschen verschiedenster Ethnien aus der ganzen Welt erhielten. Entsprechend den Gepflogenheiten einer in kolonialistischer Tradition stehenden Wissenschaft hat man sie mit Zirkeln vermessen, ihre Köpfe in Gips abgegossen und auf vorgebliche Rassenmerkmale untersucht; sie wurden gefilmt, etwa bei Festen in den Lagern, und ihre Musik und ihre Stimmen wurde auf Schallplatten und Wachswalzen aufgenommen. Wie sollen Museen heute mit solchen "sensiblen Sammlungen" umgehen?Die PropagandaViele deutsche Propagandaschriften, Postkarten und andere Darstellungen prangerten den Einsatz von schwarzen Soldaten, "wilden Bestien niedrigster Kulturstufe", im Kampf gegen die deutsche "Kulturnation" an. Und auch ein Ethnologe wie Leo Frobenius, der einerseits bei den Gefangenen Märchen und Mythen sammelte, veröffentlichte ein Buch (für das die gezeigten Fotografien entstanden), in dessen Einleitung er Frankreich und Großbritannien mit Dompteuren gleichsetzte.Die ErinnerungNicht nur während des Ersten Weltkrieges spielte ein rassistisch geprägtes Überlegenheitsgefühl eine Rolle. Als etwa während der Rheinlandbesetzung 1919 bis 1930 schwarze Soldaten als Besatzungstruppen eingesetzt wurden, rief dies unter der Parole "Schwarze Schmach" in der deutschen Öffentlichkeit große Empörung hervor. Heute erinnern nur wenige Friedhöfe und Gedenkstätten an die Präsenz und die Schicksale der Kolonialsoldaten. Die Ausstellung macht sich zur Aufgabe, den außereuropäischen Teilnehmern des "Großen Krieges" eine Stimme zu geben und auf einen der Ursprünge des Rassismus in unserer Gesellschaft aufmerksam zu machen.

Abstract: Im Jahre 1900 bereiste Georg Wegener alle Inselstaaten des Pazifik bzw. des Stillen Ozeans, die seinerzeit zu den deutschen Kolonien gehörten. Mit den hier niedergeschriebenen Schilderungen seiner Reise, in denen er vor allem auf die Schönheit von Flora und Fauna eingeht, möchte Wegener aufgrund einer aufkeimender Skepsis der allgemeinen Öffentlichkeit ein Plädoyer für den Fortbestand dieser Kolonien schaffen. Um seine Ausführungen zu untermauern, stellt er ihnen zahlreiche Fotografien zurseite, was dieses Buch auch heute noch zu einem höchstinteressanten Werk macht.