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A Companion to the Anthropology of Africa

Roy Richard Grinker editor Christopher B Steiner editor Stephen C Lubkemann editor Euclides Gonçalves editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:John Wiley and Sons Ltd

Published:18th Jan '19

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A Companion to the Anthropology of Africa cover

An essential collection of scholarly essays on the anthropology of Africa, offering a thorough introduction to the most important topics in this evolving and diverse field of study

The study of the cultures of Africa has been central to the methodological and theoretical development of anthropology as a discipline since the late 19th-century. As the anthropology of Africa has emerged as a distinct field of study, anthropologists working in this tradition have strived to build a disciplinary conversation that recognizes the diversity and complexity of modern and ancient African cultures while acknowledging the effects of historical anthropology on the present and future of the field of study.

A Companion to the Anthropology of Africa is a collection of insightful essays covering the key questions and subjects in the contemporary anthropology of Africa with a key focus on addressing the topics that define the contemporary discipline. Written and edited by a team of leading cultural anthropologists, it is an ideal introduction to the most important topics in the field, both those that have consistently been a part of the critical dialogue and those that have emerged as the central questions of the discipline’s future.

Beginning with essays on the enduring topics in the study of African cultures, A Companion to the Anthropology of Africa provides a foundation in the contemporary critical approach to subjects of longstanding interest. With these subjects as a groundwork, later essays address decolonization, the postcolonial experience, and questions of modern identity and definition, providing representation of the diverse thinking and scholarship in the modern anthropology of Africa.

 

Anyone who teaches the Anthropology of Africa, or indeed Anthropology in general, will want to add this volume to their library without replacing either of those earlier ones. Qualitatively speaking, it is a valuable addition. ... This volume offers a compelling Companion to topics in Africanist Anthropology, past and present – and a well-founded argument for the continued value of the discipline. Amidst all the heated debate about the present and future of anthropology, about who should do it and how it should be done, ... the Companion proves that there is still a great deal to be said for what critical ethnography, securely situated in its historical context and adequately theorized, can and should do.

John Comaroff, Hugh K. Foster Professor of African and African American Studies and of Anthropology, Harvard University

ISBN: 9781119251484

Dimensions: 246mm x 173mm x 28mm

Weight: 885g

488 pages