ANTH326 Peoples and Cultures of Sub-Saharan Africa

Meeting 4, October 1, 2007

Assignments

• Deadlines• Marks• Grades

Past Factoids Stage

• Culture(s)• Mainstream cultural anthropology– Expose to approach– From field research

• Will get more critical/analytical

Discussion

• Limited lecturing• Exchange ideas– Reassessing Africa– Get on same page– Shared understanding

• Debates ok– Thoughtful disagreement– Better discuss them online

Unpacking issues

• Not rehash/summarise• Try to understand content– Explain (in own words)– Implications

• Picking themes

Active Reading(Discussion Prompts)

• What struck you?• Critical perspective– Author’s approach– Arguments

• Links with other texts

McCall

• African distinctiveness generalization vs. diversity

• Community (larger than kinship)– Imagined Communities (Benedict Anderson)

• Individual/group– Acribed/achieved status

• Group land ownership

Defining Cultural Groups

• “Ethnic groups” («Ethnies»)• “Ethnology” of bounded entities?– “Cultural traits”– Internal logic– Holism

• Fluid identity

Social Structure in General

• Sub-groups– Subcultures?

• May be primary identity• Internal structure– Hierarchy (dominance)– Stratification (social classes)– Egalitarianism

Egalitarianism

• Non-State Societies• Small groups• Nomadic groups– Pastoralists (herders)– Foragers (hunter-gatherers)

• Part of broader groups

Status

• Prestige• Authority• Power– Political– Social– Supernatural

• Wealth

Occupation

• Recognisable (like blue/white collar)• Specialisation• Hierarchy• Identity

Craftspeople

• Occupational– Griots– Blacksmiths– Leatherworkers

• Ambiguous status• Power• Endogamy (marry within)

McCall 2

• Intro, ethnography, place• Civic projects• Assimilation vs. flexibility (cultural change,

acculturation, adaptation)• Efficiency/appropriateness

McCall 3

• Kinship/household/subsistence• Wealth/prestige• Gender and ownership• Matrilineality (sibblings…)• Importance of age– Coming of age

Gender

• More next week• Roles• Status• Identity• Power• Matrilineality• Polygyny

Age

• Gerontocracy• Ancestors• Age sets and age grades– Initiation societies– Rites of passage– “Oldboy”– Separate genders

Secret societies

• Initiation societies• Muslim brotherhoods (sufism)– Tijaniyya

• Freemasons

Voluntary Associations

• Social networks• Urban life• Local• "Ethnic“• Cosmopolitan networks• Political parties

Westernization

• Cultural Contacts• Cultural change– Coerced or voluntary

• Western-like but typically African– Networks– Manage change

• Other partners

Education

• School types (Koranic, Missionary, National)– Networks

• Formal education• “Western-style”• Obsession with literacy– Power of orality

• Gender• Generation gap

“Afrosphere”

• African-American bloggers– Could apply same concept to Africa?

• Online representation• Separate realities– Segregation?– Worldviews