The article examines relations between pentecostalism and politics in post-colonial Zimbabwe through a case study of one of Africa’s largest pentecostal movements, Zimbabwe Assemblies of God, Africa (ZAOGA). The Church’s relations with the state change considerably from the colonial to the post-colonial era. The movement began as a sectarian township-based organisation which eschewed politics but used white Rhodesian and American contacts to gain resources and modernise. In the first decade of independence the leadership embraced the dominant discourses of cultural nationalism and development but fell foul of the ruling party, ZANU/PF, because of its ‘seeming’ connections with the rebel politician Ndabiningi Sithole and the American religious right. By the 1990s ZAOGA and ZANU/PF had embraced, each drawing legitimacy from the other. However, this reciprocal assimilation of elites and the authoritarianism of ZAOGA’s leadership are in tension with the democratic egalitarian culture found in local assemblies, where the excesses of leaders are challenged. These alternative pentecostal practices are in symbiosis with radical township politics and progressive sources in civil society. Thus, while pentecostalism may renew the process of politics in Zimbabwe, it may itself be renewed by the outside forces of wider Zimbabwean society.

This article proposes an analytic framework to describe variation in forms of land-related conflict that emerge in widely varying circumstances and settings. Focusing on conflict among smallholders, the article suggests that these social processes can often be thought of as redistributive conflicts that are shaped by the land tenure regimes that govern land access and allocation. Land tenure regimes can be conceptualized schematically as constituted by rules about property, authority, jurisdiction and citizenship, and as differentiated along these dimensions. They define a locus of political authority over land rights at the local level, a territorial arena, social groups with different land rights and interests, and the distribution of political and economic powers and rights among them. These arrangements vary across space and over time, shaping the political arenas in which land rights are contested and producing different forms of land-related conflict. In many situations, these dimensions of land regimes are blurred, layered and changing, adding additional dimensions of complexity to land politics that the analysis proposed here may help to illuminate.

The aim of the essay is to highlight gaps in existing knowledge of African women and bring to light new queries. The argument being presented is that African women assert their individuality by exploring the options available within their respective societies. While it is unsafe to generalize about Africa, the dominance of men in the public, especially the political and ritual spheres, is well illustrated by ethnographies on Africa. Women are on the whole invisible or shadowy figures except in a handful of ethnographies that take a woman's perspective (for example, Leith-Ross, 1939; Kaberry, 1952; and Paulme (ed.), 1963). The ideology of male dominance is taken for granted as representative of the true state of affairs between men and women in Africa. Whereas every researcher probably knows that ideologies are not realities, somehow that knowledge becomes insignificant when dealing with African societies.

Zimbabwe has adopted the name of the Shona state, centred on the city of Great Zimbabwe, which flourished between five and eight hundred years ago, and whose ruined stone walls are one of the most remarkable monuments in Africa. Great Zimbabwe was a considerable human achievement, evidence of the acquisition and management of a huge and docile labour force, of prolonged political stability and economic prosperity.

When the British South Africa Company occupied the country in 1890 the monument became the subject of considerable settler polemic and controversy. While its origins were still uncertain Cecil Rhodes recognized the considerable propaganda value that evidence of ancient foreign settlement, preferably white and successful and with Biblical origins, would have. It would give a precedent and respectability to the conquest and a promise of similar prosperity to the settlers and investors in the new colony. Rhodes acquired many antiquities from Great Zimbabwe, and initiated excavations at the site and searches of the archives of Rome and Lisbon for documents referring to it. He himself sought parallels to its art in the museums of Cairo. He also commissioned eminent mining engineers to determine the origins and yield of the ‘ancient gold workings’ in the country. Finally, he had Richard Hall, an enthusiastic propagandist of the settler cause in newspapers, lectures and exhibitions, and a fanatical advocate of immensely old Biblical origins for Great Zimbabwe, appointed curator of the Ruins expressly to instruct important visitors in his theories.

The collective violence in rural areas of southern and central Plateau State between June 2002 and May 2004 was accompanied by widespread social mobilization and heightened ethnic and religious divisions. Vigilantes adapted to the new insecurity and were important local actors in the crisis, but became polarized along religious lines. Their emphasis shifted from vigilance against theft within villages to vigilance against the more serious threats posed by armed militias. The intersection of vigilantes and militias was situational; where there was less violence vigilantes were more prominent, but elsewhere their functions merged. Social action and the patterns of violence were shaped by power relations between identity groups and the struggle for territory. The notion of indigeneity continues to be used by all sides to make territorial claims, and historical narratives of belonging and grievance are actively put forward to bolster political legitimacy. The violence was also strongly defined by religion – the political dominance of Muslims, especially in Wase, generating particular animosity. Religious and cultural beliefs were also expressed by vigilantes and militias themselves, and, while not a direct cause of violence, supernatural beliefs did affect forms of mobilization and decision making.

The starting point of this article is what I see as the contrasting contemporary Asante and Fante views about the admirable man. The Asante say of such a man that ‘ose ohene’, lit. ‘he is like a chief’; the Fante say of him that ‘oye krache dodo’, lit. ‘he is extremely well educated’. For the Asante the ‘ohene’ remains the model of social achievement, while for the Fante it is the apparently well educated who lives and behaves like a ‘gentleman’ who is the model of social excellence.

These statements about what may be called the ‘ideal’ man among the two Akan sub-groups express the actual social position of traditional rulers and educated persons among them (Sarbah, 1897,1906; Casely-Hayfordj 1903; Manoukian, 1950: 9). The Asante respect a traditional ruler, known as nana, of any rank, more than an educated person, whatever his degree of education. For the Fante it is the reverse. An Asante, however well educated or rich, aims at some kind of chiefship as the supreme index of social achievement. The Fante aims at the acquisition of repute as a highly educated man.

Bien qu'il ait commencé l'indépendence en tant que société profondément divisée après le trauma de Mau Mau, le Kenya a maintenu un des systèmes politiques ouverts en Afrique en dépit d'avoir officiellement un seul parti. Les élections nationales ont procuré un mécanisme par lequel du sang nouveau pourrait être incorporé au régime. Plus récemment des difficultés économiques grandissantes et l'insécurité du Président Moi ont fortement intensifié les tendances autoritaires. Les élections ont été de plus en plus truquées afin de supporter le groupe minoritaire d'où Moi tire son pouvoir. Comme partout ailleurs en Afrique le régime a cédé aux demandes en faveur d'une politique à partis multiples mais les premieres élections de ce genre ont produit une scène politique extrêmement fragmentée.

Le cas décrit, un mouvement anti-sorcellerie dirigé par deux prêtres catholiques, s'est produit au sein de la tribu des Lele dans la région du Kasaï (au Zaïre à cette époque) vers la fin des années 70 et le début des années 80. Ces informations ont été recueillies lors d'une brève visite en 1987. Ce cas d'acharnement contre la sorcellerie, localisé et de faible importance, s'inscrit dans un contexte plus large. Certaines nations soutiennent des institutions dont le but précis est de détecter, de neutraliser et de punir les malfaisants occultes comme les sorciers et les démons. La théologie occidentale ne répond pas actuellement aux questions qui rongent les Africains concernant les causes du mal dans le monde ou les causes des maladies et de la mort, questions auxquelles leurs traditions païennes répondent bien trop plausiblement en termes de sorcellerie. Certaines confessions chrétiennes ont défini leur doctrine à l'égard des démons de manière à concilier les croyances locales dans la sorcellerie. Partout où le sujet est à peine mentionnable, les Chrétiens africains ne peuvent pas contribuer au développement de la philosophic morale de l'Eglise chrétienne. Au cours de leur noviciat, les membres du clergé catholique africain ne peuvent recevoir aucun conseil particulier concernant les problèmes pastoraux pour lesquels la religion païenne a des réponses toutes faites.

The debate over the indigenous versus the European roots of ‘African democracy’ has regained importance recently. Using the critical tools of cultural anthropology, the social and political thought of Julius K. Nyerere from Tanzania is examined for its African and European sources. The most recurrent themes in his writings are ‘traditional African values’ and the centrality of ‘the traditional African family’. They constitute the core element of Ujamaa. The aim of this article is to show that Nyerere’s statements on African socialism and on African democracy are not merely rhetorical devices employed by an aspiring politician. Nor are they the romantic appeal of a Westernised university graduate to a mythological or even ‘invented’ African past. Nyerere presented his own specific version of ‘traditional’ African values because he was socialised in a non-hierarchical ‘tribal’ society. He sought to synthesise these ‘traditional’ values with Western elements in order to create a Tanzanian identity that would cut across ethnic lines. In those cases when African and European value systems collided, however, Nyerere’s politics became problematic.

The Yoruba Ogboni cult has been referred to as a typical ‘secret society’ for over fifty years, yet it has never been described in any detail, or analysed in accurate general terms. Frobenius discovered its controlling importance in Yoruba religious organization in 1910 and promptly became initiated into the Ibadan Ogboni, but only to get information from the priests of other Yoruba cults. He made no attempt to study the beliefs of Ogboni members, whom he dismissed as ‘mystery-mongering greybeards’. Two anthropologists have been initiated into the cult in the course of the last twenty-five years, but have declared themselves bound by its oath of secrecy, and so have published nothing about it.

Recent publications on the rock art of Africa have again focused attention on the tremendous wealth of painted and engraved sites in that continent (Brentjes, 1969; Cooke, 1969; Lee and Woodhouse, 1970; Rudner, 1970). At the same time, however, it is made all too clear that the collection of data is largely unsystematic and subjective and, because of the incomplete nature of the evidence, valid analysis or comparison is difficult. Small wonder, then, that there is such a diversity of often conflicting views on the significance of the art (Vinnicombe, 1972).

Cet article commence par exposer la position des Maasai, leur territoire et l'organisation sociale à l'avènement de la période coloniale. Il documente l'érosion progressive du territoire et l'imposition de nouvelles frontières sur les Maasai depuis les années 1880 jusquʼau présent. Il utilise les études de l'auteur sur l'usage des terres Maasai à présent et sur le système de production sur les terres tanzaniennes des Maasai, ensemble avec des données comparatives sur les terres Maasai au Kenya, afin de montrer comment les communautés Maasai ont fait face à ces contraintes.

Des données sur la performance de l'élevage, la richesse des exploitations, la structure des fermes, et la situation diététique et alimentaire sont utilisées en tant quʼindicateurs écologiques des effets de la création des frontières. Cet article examine l'effet des réponses des communautés Maasai, soit celle qui à consisté à circonvenir les limites imposées, exploitant et dans certains cas attaquant les ressources que les frontières étaient désignées à protéger, ou celle qui a consisté à développer des stratégies afin d'incorporer et d'utiliser à bon effet les débouchés que les frontières peuvent présenter.

This story begins with Robin Horton's thoughtful and stimulating article ‘African conversion’, published in Africa in 1971. My own ‘Conversion reconsidered’ followed in 1973. This was in part a response to Horton, though concentrating upon Islamic conversion, which had been only a supporting feature in Horton's chiefly Christianity-based argument. I also explored a little the possibilities for Muslim/Christian comparison in black Africa, a fruitful and promising field which has not figured prominently in the subsequent discussion, but to which I return briefly towards the end of the present article. Horton's own rely (‘On the rationality of conversion’, in 1975) being essentially rather acid in tone, it seemed best at the time to let the matter rest, which I did.

This article primarily concerns the intersection of the changing management of death with the problems and possibilities presented by the growing mobility of the African, and specifically Xhosa-speaking, population in South Africa from the latter half of the twentieth century to the present day. I am interested in how shifts in the practices and beliefs around death are mediated by individuals, households and businesses who have an historical affinity towards movement, particularly across what has been called the ‘rural–urban nexus’. In what ways has this more mobile orientation influenced the perception of rites and responsibilities surrounding death? And how have more mobile ‘ways of dying’ in turn created new subjectivities and new ways in which to imagine relations between the living and the dead? I argue that African funeral directors based in Cape Town and the rural areas of the Eastern Cape – a steadily more numerous and prominent group of entrepreneurs – are well-placed to shape these processes, through their role as cultural mediators and technological innovators, and their particular emphasis on maintaining a flow of bodies (both dead and alive) between rural and urban areas. I focus on two aspects of contemporary South African funerals – embalming and exhumations – that are suggestive of how the migration dynamic, and the continuing demands from mobile mourners for innovations via the funeral industry, have encouraged new perceptions of and relations to the dead body.

Widespread assumptions about the extractive and self-serving nature of African elites have resulted in the relative neglect of questions concerning their personal ethics and morality. Using life-history interviews undertaken with a range of Ghanaian development workers, this article explores some of the different personal aspirations, ideologies and beliefs that such narratives express. The self-identification of many of those interviewed as ‘activists’ is examined in terms of the related concepts of ‘ideology’, ‘commitment’ and ‘sacrifice’. Much recent work within history and anthropology uses the ‘life-history’ as a way of introducing ‘agency’ that is purported to be missing in accounts focusing on larger social abstractions. Yet it is the very opposition between abstractions such as ‘history’ and ‘society’ and their own more ‘personal’ lives that such narratives themselves enact. The article thus interrogates the various ways in which development workers variously imagine their lives in relation to broader social and historical processes.

Cette étude s'efforce de trouver des variables dans la littérature économique et antropologique sur le pastoralisme qui peut être utilisé afin d'obtenir une vue d'ensemble sur les stratégies d'élevage bovin en Afrique de l'ouest et leur type d'intégration dans un marché régional plus large, dans lequel les différentiations écologiques jouent un role important. Cet article concerne surtout les implications de cette intégration économique pour l'analyse des stratégies d'élevage et il essaie d'identifier les variables que les guardiens de troupeaux bovins manipulent afin de réaliser leurs objectifs en ce qui concerne la gestion des troupeaux et une adaptation à des contraintes particulières et des débouchés sur le marché.

II met le point sur le degré auquel les structures d'élevage reflètent les pratiques de la gestion des troupeaux et l'intégration dans les marchés. Ceci est une variable importante et pas aussi abstraite quʼelle ne semble, puisque l'image originale qui décrit les pastoralistes comme étant autonome et se souciant plus du bétail en vue d'une abondance sociale que d'une efficacité économique, a été crée par les observations d'un grand nombre de taureaux en Afrique.

In post-colonial Namibia public memory of the liberation war prioritizes the armed struggle from exile. This master narrative of national liberation, having become the new nation's foundation myth, legitimizes the power of the post-colonial SWAPO elite as the sole, heroic liberators from apartheid and colonialism. It has not remained uncontested, however. The article develops the complex transfigurations of liberation war memory, culture and nationalism in post-colonial Namibia around a discussion of two memory sites. The National Heroes’ Acre near Windhoek, inaugurated in 2002, appears as the cast-in-stone nationalist master narrative, aimed at homogenizing the multi-faceted agencies during the liberation war, whereas the Heroes’ Memorial Shrine at Eenhana, constructed in 2007, expressly recognizes the heterogeneity of war-time experiences. The Eenhana site further gives visual expression to recent Namibian unity-in-diversity discourses, which have followed, and partly been running alongside, a period of ideational emphasis on nation building, based on a national culture supposedly forged through the nation's joint struggle against oppression and colonialism. I argue that the social processes of remembering and forgetting political resistance, on the one hand, and those of cultural reinvention in the new nation on the other, are entangled, and that both registers of imagining the Namibian nation have shifted since the country's independence in 1990.

The concept of belief, when applied in its strong sense, assumes an inner state that sets believers apart from non-believers. This article suggests that a concept of trust is more appropriate for the study of the religious orientation among Pentecostal Christians in Chinsapo, an impoverished township in Malawi's capital city. Trust is a critical issue because even fellow members of Pentecostal congregations can turn out to have been sent by the Devil. Pastors also have to exercise considerable forbearance in order to encourage spiritual growth among backsliders. The boundaries of Pentecostal congregations are often permeable, with little emphasis on doctrinal differences. Pentecostal Christians also have frequent contact with kin, neighbours, customers and co-workers who do not share their religious orientation. Rather than being a matter of calculating risks, trust emerges in relation to the existential dangers of misfortune, hunger and disease that affect the lives of all township dwellers. Everyday contexts of township life are as important as proselytizing in generating trust between Pentecostals and those who are yet to experience the second birth in the Holy Spirit. In contrast to views that lament Africans’ particularized trust relations as an obstacle to democracy, this article suggests that generalized trust can emerge from a particular religious orientation. The article draws attention to the actual sources of civility and trust in contemporary Africa.

This article discusses sexual licences and prohibitions among the Maasai of Kenya and Tanzania with particular reference to the institutionalized yet controversial sexual relations between young pre-menarche girls and adolescent unmarried men. These relations are referred to as children's ‘play’ in the local vernacular, and as such fall within a larger moral order of age and gender hierarchies that privilege male seniority. The article uses the metaphor of ‘serious games’ adopted from Sherry Ortner as an analytical device in order to capture the dynamic and ambiguous character of Maasai sexual licences and prohibitions. Being at once serious and playful, ‘games’ lend themselves particularly to players' creativity, initiative and agency. The article aims to demonstrate how the structures of the games open up and create space for women and other ‘juniors’ to act intentionally and with purpose in their sexual lives.