Readings in Modernity in Africa

by Geschiere, Peter

• ISBN13: 9780852558980
• ISBN10: 0852558988
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-11-01
• Publisher: James Currey

Summary

'This reader is a bold attempt to rescue the heuristic value of modernity in African scholarship that takes cognizance of the disjunctures between academic discourses and lived African realities. By bringing together a wide array of multidisciplinary papers -- published and unpublished -- it makes a convincing argument for a historicized approach to Africa's engagement with modernity that gives Africa agency as coeval while recognizing the inequities that have framed Africa's relationship with the West. The stimulating introduction and essays in this volume underscore why modernity remains a factious yet highly significant concept for Africans -- and thus for scholars of Africa.' - Emmanuel Akyeampong, Professor of History, Harvard University This book provides students of Africa with a guide to the bewildering variety of scholarly work on the issue of modernity in Africa, and to offer some tools for dealing with its intellectual paradoxes. Part One contains both analytical and historical examples of the genealogies of modernity in the African continent and the fragmentation over time of its unilinear meta-narrative. Part Two provides a set of rich ethnographic sketches of its current manifestations in politics, urban space, technology and the realm of the invisible. What emerges as critically important in this challenging collage of texts, are the varying ways in which modernity actually produces its other -- that is, "tradition".

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 1
Genealogies of Modernity in Africa
Introduction to Part I	p. 8
From 'Modernization' to 'Modernity'	p. 8
Introduction
Global Disconnect: Abjection & the Aftermath of Modernism	p. 8
Excerpts from Modernization: Protest & Change	p. 17
Fanti National Constitution: Administrative Questions	p. 21
The Loss of Development's Meta-Narrative	p. 27
Introduction
The World Bank's Changing Discourse on Development: From Reliance on the State & 'Modernizing Elites' to 'Bypassing the State'	p. 27
Excerpts from Anthropology & Development: Understanding Contemporary Social Change	p. 32
Excerpts from 'Buying Futures': The Upsurge of Female Entrepreneurship - Crossing the Formal/Informal Divide in Southwest Cameroon	p. 42
The Modern Production of Tradition
Introduction	p. 49
Report of the Expedition Sent by the Government of Natal to Instal Cetywayo as King of the Zulus ...	p. 49
Ujarnaa: The Basis of African Socialism	p. 53
The African Renaissance, South Africa & the World	p. 54
The Pidginization of Luguru Politics: Administrative Ethnography & the Paradoxes of Indirect Rule	p. 57
Two Texts on Chiefs in Present-day South Africa: A Renaissance of Tradition	p. 71
The Resurgence of Chiefs: Retribalisation & Modernity in Post-1994 South Africa	p. 72
Chiefs! Law, Power & Culture in Contemporary South Africa	p. 80
Identity & Personhood in Africa	p. 85
Introduction
The African Road to Socialism	p. 85
Society & Ideology	p. 86
African Identities	p. 88
Fait Missionnaire & Politics of the Belly: A Foucaultian Reading	p. 92
Rheumatic Irony: Questions of Agency & Self-Deception as Refracted through the Art of Living with Spirits	p. 98
Ethnographies of the Modern in Africa
Introduction	p. 107
Dynamics of Governmentality	p. 107
The New Africans: Between Nativism & Cosmopolitanism	p. 107
Staging Politisi: The Dialogics of Publicity & Secrecy in Sierra Leone	p. 111
The City	p. 124
Kinshasa: Tales of the 'Invisible City' & the Second World	p. 124
On the Worlding of African Cities	p. 135
Technology	p. 146
Degraded Images, Distorted Sounds: Nigerian Video & the Infrastructure of Piracy	p. 146
Kwaku's Car: The Struggles & Stones of a Ghanaian Long-distance Taxi Driver	p. 155
Modernity's Enchantment	p. 165
Witch-hunting & Political Legitimacy: Continuity & Change in Green Valley, Lebowa, 1930-91	p. 165
The Convert: Act One Scene III & Act Two Scene III	p. 177
Aura & Icon in Contemporary Senegal	p. 180
New Figures of Success: Beyond the Modern?	p. 194
Between Paris and Bacongo & Dandies in Bacongo	p. 194
Evolues & Feymen: Old & New Figures of Modernity in Cameroon	p. 205
A Successful Life in the Illegal Realm: Smugglers & Road Bandits in the Chad Basin	p. 214
Index	p. 221
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