69 research outputs found
Biological variables in forager fertility performance: a critique of Bongaarts' model
African Studies Center Working Paper No. 60During the period of the 1960s and 1970s, a considerable amount of scholarly energy was
devoted to studying the process of "modernization." Scholars, particularly political scientists
and anthropologists, theorized extensively over exactly what modernization was and debated
how it could best be quantified and measured.1 By the 1980s, however, the very notion of the
"modern," along with its antithesis, the "traditional" was falling out of favor. Indeed, by
declaring the new era "post-modern," the academic avant-guard signaled that the concept of
modernity had effectively been relegated to the past. The past, however, is the turf of
historians, so perhaps now that the concept of modernity has become old-fashioned it is time
for historians to take their turn at examining its meaning.
This paper will approach the concept of the "modern" by examining the role of
advertising in creating notions of modernity in independence-era Ghana. Ghana, at the time
of independence in 1957, was a country of supreme optimism about the future. Not only did
Ghanaians see themselves as being on the cutting edge politically (as the first sub-Saharan
colony to achieve independence), but they also believed that independence would bring a
new era of economic development and wealth. Ghana, as a country, was "going places." The
new nation's optimism found many manifestations, but this paper will focus on only one
aspect of this exuberance—representations of transportation as modernity in the
advertisements and articles of Ghana's premier newspaper, the Daily Graphic. As stated
before, early scholarship on modernization was concerned primarily with developing a way
of measuring the demise of the traditional and the rise of the modern. Such studies focused
on examining populations of "traditional" or "transitional" peoples to attempt to discern just
how "modern" they had or had not become. What the previous studies did not consider, and
what this paper seeks to examine, is exactly how modernity was presented to and by such
populations. No single factor seems to represent modernity more than motion itself—be it
actual movement across space or be it social and economic change. Indeed, Daniel Lerner,
the prominent scholar of modernity, defined the key aspect of being modern as having... [TRUNCATED
Exchange, interaction and settlement in northwestern Botswana: past and present perspective
African Studies Center Working Paper No. 3
Auxilary instruments of labor: The homogenization of diversity in the discourse of ethnicity
African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented 3 May 1993In the creation of an image of national unity successful
political states employ their power of cultural hegemony to
facilitate the continual renewal of forms of involuntary
ascription, such as ethnicity, that can coexist with a
national consciousness without apparent contradiction
precisely because they are cultural, that is ascribed, and
therefore appear both natural and national from the
perspective of individuals. Continued tacit acceptance of
imposed ethnic terms for current political discourse (e.g., in
Eastern Europe, Islamic Asia, southern Africa, USA minorities)
reaffirms the established status of these terms as the most
readily available avenue for collective self-identification
and action. "So long as social practice continues to be
pursued as if ethnicity did hold the key to the structures of
inequality, the protectionism of the dominant and the
responses of the dominated alike serve to reproduce an
ethnically ordered world" (Comaroff 1987:xxx). It is
particularly important to stress this at a time' when a
philosophy of primordial ethnicity is being widely reasserted
as a form of neo-racism to justify new or continued
suppression of dispossessed ethnic groups. In this paper, I
will analyze processes of ethnicization, identity
construction, and class formation in Botswana. In ethnicity and tribalism are conflated (e.g., Vail 1989). But
tribes, as Vail's authors make abundently clear, are a product
of colonial engagement; they are essentially administrative
constructs. On the other hand, ethnicity as a central logic
emerged out of conflicts engendered in competition for favored
positions among these tribal constructs. The emergent
ethnicities were formulated out of an amalgam of preexisting
indigenous and inserted colonial partitive ideologies. A
dominant class - in colonial Africa, this was often an
ascendent 'tribal' aristocracy - defined and determined the
terms of subordinate class competition which is the seedbed of
ethnicizing processes
Recommended from our members
God\u27s Heart is a Hexagon or Some Reasons for Regularity in Settled Regions
Prehistoric, and historic antecedents of a contemporary Ngamiland community
African Studies Center Working Paper No. 12INTRODUCTION:
An archaeological survey was incorporated as part of a
long-term project which I began in 1973. Fieldwork has been
carried out during two periods: July, 1973 - January, 1974
and February, 1975 - May, 1976. The work is centered at
/ai/ai (Nxai Nxai) in northwestern Ngamiland. Malan (1950)
and Yellen (1975) made small collections at this waterhole.
My investigations are designed to increase our understanding
of the social ecology of the zu/oasi and Ovaherero peoples
who live in this region. Periodic animal and plant censuses
are recorded so that reasonably precise estimates of productivity
of both wild and domesticated food resources may be
calculated. Inventories of animals killed are kept on a daily
basis and vegetable foods acquired are recorded on a randomly
established schedule. A logbook is maintained in which are
kept data pertaining to the social behavior of all residents
at and visitors to zu/oasi. A number of indicators of nutritional status of both zu/oasi and Ovaherero individuals are monitored periodically. Short reports on the project have appeared (Wilmsen 1976a, 1976b, van der Walt et al., 1977).
This report is confined to the current status of the archaeological
program and its implications
Remote area dwellers in Botswana: an assessment of their current status
African Studies Center Working Paper No. 6
Those who have each other: land tenure of Kalahari foragers
African Studies Center Working Paper No. 9
A town community for the Navajo tribe
Thesis (M. Arch)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1959.Accompanying drawings held by MIT Museum.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 94-97).Edwin N. Wilmsen.M.Arc
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