The Possessed and the Dispossessed : spirits, Identity, and Power in a Madagascar Migrant Town

Sharp, Lesley A.

Berkeley : University of California Press, 1993

"This finely drawn portrait of a complex, polycultural urban community in Madagascar emphasizes the role of spirit medium healers, a group heretofore seen as having little power. These women, Leslie Sharp argues, are far from powerless among the peasants and migrant laborers who work the land in this plantation economy."Publisher description

Ngoma : discourses of healing in Central and Southern Africa

Janzen, John M.

Berkeley : University of California Press, 1992

"Ngoma , in Bantu, means drum, song, performance, and healing cult or association. A widespread form of ritual healing in Central and Southern Africa, ngoma is fully investigated here for the first time and interpreted in a contemporary context. John Janzen's daring study incorporates drumming and spirit possession into a broader, institutional profile that emphasizes the varieties of knowledge and social forms and also the common elements of "doing ngoma ."Publisher description

La possession et ses aspects théâtraux chez les Éthiopiens de Gondar

Leiris, Michel

Paris: Librairie Plon, 1958

Chapitre I. Culte des Zâr et chamanisme
Chapitre II. Possession, divertissement et esthétique
Chapitre III. Le Zâr comme symbole d'une manière d'être et promoteur d'une action
Chapitre IV. Conscience et inconscience chez les protagonistes des scènes de possession
Chapitre V. Théâtre joué et théâtre vécu dans le culte des Zâr

Between Marriage and the Market : Intimate Politics and Survival in Cairo

Hoodfar, Homa

Berkeley : University of California Press, 1997

"Homa Hoodfar ethnography provides a rare glimpse into the daily life of Arab Muslim families. Focusing on the impact of economic liberalization policies from 1983 to 1993, she shows the crucial role of the household in survival strategies among low-income Egyptians."Publisher'description

The Fractured Community : Landscapes of Power and Gender in Rural Zambia

Crehan, Kate
Berkeley :  University of California Press, 1997

"This study examines the lives of the women and men living in two small rural communities in Zambia on the eve of the collapse of the one-party state in the 1980s. Moving beyond the limits of traditional ethnography, Kate Crehan traces the often complex ways in which local, day-to-day realities are linked to wider economic, political, imaginative structures of power beyond northwestern Zambia.Drawing on extensive fieldwork, Crehan examines economics and gender, politics and kin relations, state and local relations, and witchcraft."Publisher description

Houses in the Rainforest : Ethnicity and Inequality Among Farmers and Foragers in Central Africa

Grinker, Roy Richard
Berkeley : University of California Press, 1994

"This is the first ethnographic study of the farmers and foragers of northeastern Zaire since Colin Turnbull's classic works of the 1960s. Roy Richard Grinker lived for nearly two years among the Lese farmers and their long-term partners, the Efe (Pygmies), learned their languages, and gained unique insights into their complex social relations and ethnic identities. By showing how political organization is structured by ethnic and gender relations in the Lese house, Grinker challenges previous views of the Lese and Efe and other farmer-forager societies, as well as the conventional anthropological boundary between domestic and political contexts."Publisher description

The Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa

Vail, Leroy, editor
Berkeley : Currey University of California Press, 1989

"Despite a quarter century of "nation building," most African states are still driven by ethnic particularism - commonly known as "tribalism." The stubborn persistence of tribal ideologies despite the profound changes associated with modernization has puzzled scholars and African leaders alike. The bloody hostilities between the tribally-oriented Zulu Inkhata movement and supporters of the African National Congress are but the most recent example of tribalism's tenacity. The studies in this volume offer a new historical model for the growth and endurance of such ideologies in southern Africa."Publisher description

Beyond the Stream : Islam and Society in a West African Town

Launay, Robert
Berkeley :  University of California Press, 1992

"Robert Launay has been observing the changing religious practices of the Dyula, a Muslim community in West Africa, for more than a decade. In Beyond the Stream , he examines the ways in which this religious and ethnic minority group living on the fringes of the Muslim world maintains its ties to the universal Islamic tradition while adapting everyday religious practices to the local context."Publisher's Description

Speaking with Vampires : rumor and History in Colonial Africa

White, Luise
Berkeley:  University of California Press, 2000


"During the colonial period, Africans told each other terrifying rumors that Africans who worked for white colonists captured unwary residents and took their blood. In addition to presenting stories that Africans told to describe colonial power, the book presents an epistemological inquiry into the nature of historical truth and memory, and into their relationship to the writing of history."Publisher's Description