Anthropology of Sub-Saharan Africa

AN 3400.01, SPRING 2012 ANTHROPOLOGY OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA DR. KATHERINE C. DONAHUE

Office: Rounds 317, tel. 535-2424 Email: [email protected] Office Hours: MWF 10:00-11:00 am T 2-3 pm, or by appointment

An anthropological survey of several sub-Saharan societies (this year, including Kenya and Tanzania in East Africa, Senegal and Mali in West Africa). Topics include: Social, economic, and political structures of selected African cultures before European intervention, consequences of that European intervention on present-day African societies, kinship, marriage, trade, markets, and religion.

TEXTS:

Cronk, Lee. 2004. From Mukogodo To Maasai: Ethnicity And Cultural Change In Kenya. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. ISBN-10: 0813340942 | ISBN-13: 978- 0813340944.

Grinker, Roy, et al. 2010. 2nd. Ed. Perspectives on Africa: A Reader in Culture, History and Representation Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell. ISBN-10: 1405190604 | ISBN-13: 978-1405190602 Articles in Moodle 2 or online:

Comaroff, Jean and John Comaroff. 1999. Occult economies and the violence of abstraction: notes from the South African postcolony. American Anthropologist. Volume 26. Issue 2. May 1999 (Pages 279 - 303)

D’Amico, Leonardo. 2007. People and sounds: Filming African music between visual anthropology and television documentary. Trans 11. Revista Transcultural de Musica. Available here: http://www.sibetrans.com/trans/a123/people-and-sounds- filming-african-music-between-visual-anthropology-and-television-documentary

Little, Peter. 1998. Maasai Identity on the Periphery. American Anthropologist. 100(2):444-457.

Roberts, Bill. Learning to Put Ethnography to Good Use: The Gambia, West Africa Field Study Program. NAPA Bulletin 22, pp. 87-105.

Scheld, Suzanne. 2003. The City in a Shoe: Refining Urban Africa through Sebago Footwear Consumption. City & Society. XV(1|) 109-130.

Stoller, Paul. 1996. Spaces, Places, and Fields: The Politics of West African Trading in New York City's Informal Economy. American Anthropologist, 98: 776–788. doi: 10.1525/aa.1996.98.4.02a00080

PAPERS, EXAMS, RESEARCH, etc.

Students will be asked to select a sub-Saharan country or culture and report weekly or every two weeks on a topic having to do with that country or culture. You will be asked to read the current print media (New York Times, London Times, Le Monde, Newsweek, Time) and/or find the appropriate on-line news media (for instance, Kenya’s national newspaper, The Daily Nation, is easily available on-line through www.onlinenewspapers.com. See suggestions below for other ways to access the news. Other web sites are possibilities, but you will need to use your good judgment in determining their accuracy and biases. Ethnographies, journal articles (Lamson has several relevant journals), and the World Bank also are sources for information. You will want to learn some basic facts about the country by using an encyclopedia and material made available through the U.S. State Department and the CIA etc. I will work with you on finding an appropriate ethnography or novel for you to read and discuss in class (see list below).

You will be asked to keep your bi-weekly reports, revise them, and complete a final summary report due at the end of the semester. To that end, students will be asked to submit 5 papers of 2 to 3 pages in length on topics assigned in class. You may be asked to report on the paper during the class, for this course will be run as a seminar, in which students are expected to read, report, and discuss their findings with each other and with the instructor. Class notes and readings may be used in these papers. There will also be free writes in class, some of which may be considered starting points for working on the bi-weekly papers.

Finally, you will be asked to come to class in the next to last week of the course with that summary report, which can be on a final topic to be decided upon between us. This report will be approximately ten pages in length.

All written work is to be your own. Proper citation must be used for material, quotes drawn from others, including anything derived from the internet. Check the Lamson Library Style Guides for advice (available at the Lamson Library home page). In the discipline of anthropology, the APA style is usually preferred. For any paper, a list of references cited must be included.

There will be two exams: One will be a mid-term, the other a final exam. .

ATTENDANCE: It is expected, and required. Your presence is important to the class. Two unexcused absences are okay. After that I will remove up to ten points from your grade.

GRADES: 5 short papers: each worth 5 points: 5 x 5 = 25 1 summary report or paper 25 2 exams, each worth 20 points 40 Participation: Up to 10 points 10 TOTAL 100

Please Note: Plymouth State University is committed to providing students with documented disabilities equal access to all university programs and facilities. If you think you have a disability requiring accommodations, you should immediately contact the PASS Office in Lamson Library (535-2270) to determine whether you are eligible for such accommodations. Academic accommodations will only be considered for students who have registered with the PASS Office. If you have a Letter of Accommodation for this course from the PASS Office, please provide the instructor with that information privately so that you and the instructor can review those accommodations.

WEEK TOPIC READING

1:1/31 Introduction to African Studies Anthropology and Geography of Africa; Perceptions of Africa

DVD selections: “Africa”, “The Serengeti” Discussion: Why is there a drought in parts of East Africa right now? Map quiz

2:2/7 How is Africa Represented? Perspectives Grinker, Introduction, from Africa and away pp. 19-60 Report # 1 due Roberts, in Moodle 2 DVD selections: “Darwin’s Nightmare” “The Gods Must Be Crazy”

3:2/14 Social Organization:Family, Kinship, Tribe Grinker, pp. 61- 94 Discussion: is there such a thing as Cronk, 1-56 tribal identity? Little in Moodle 2 Report # 1 due

4:2/21 African Arts D’Amico in Moodle 2 Music, Sculpture, Verbal Art, Dance Grinker, 335-347; 354-371 http://www.africanhiphop.com/ www.afropop.org Video: Ali Farka Touré Discussion: What is the role of African music and dance? For the musicians? For the audience?

5:2/28 Occult Economies to High-Rise Traders Comaroff in Moodle 2 What is the function of witchcraft Grinker, 109- 150 Report # 2 due Choose an article from Grinker Part V

6:3/6 African Religions Grinker, pp. 285-314 Ogoun, Orishas, Allah, Christ, and Engai

MID-TERM EXAM

7:3/13 Social Change and Economic Change Cronk, 57-110

Religious Reforms, Migrations DVD: Milking the Rhino Report # 3 due

8:3/20 No Classes: Spring Break

9:3/27 Gender: What Roles do People Play? Grinker, pp. 389-422 DVD selections: Today the Hawk Takes One Chick Cronk, 111-144 Taking Root

10:4/3 Europe in Africa: What was “The Race for Africa”? Grinker, pp. 423-470 The role of the Dutch, Belgians, Germans, British, French, Portuguese Report # 4 due

11: 4/10 Independence Movements Grinker, pp. 498-513

From the Mau Mau to Chimurenga 531-542

Lumumba to Mugabe

Videos: Something of Value, Lumumba

12:4/17 Globalization and Neo-Colonialism Grinker, pp. 543-544; 629-644 DVD: Scheld, in Moodle 2 Report # 5 due

13:4/24 Africa Today Grinker, pp. 660-670; Stoller, in Moodle 2

Summary report due.

14:5/1 Student presentations

15:5/8 Student presentations

FINAL EXAM: Thursday, May 17, 2:30-5pm

Some DVDs you might like:

Tsotsi (South Africa) When the Mountain Meets its Shadow (Capetown, South Africa) Darwin’s Nightmare (Tanazania, Lake Victoria, Nile Perch) Today the Hawk Takes One Chick (grandmothers raising children in Swaziland) The Wood and the Calabash (Balafon makers, Côte d’Ivoire) Masai (Kenya, Tanzania) Somalis Yellen (Mali) Some readings you might like:

Eyre, Banning. 2000. In Griot Time: An American Guitarist in Mali. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Fratkin, Elliot. 1997. Ariaal Pastoralists of Kenya: Surviving Drought and Development in Kenya’s Arid Lands. NY/Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Gearon, Eamonn. 2011. The Sahara: A Cultural History. NY: Oxford University Press.

Hodgson, Dorothy. 2000. Rethinking Pastoralism in Africa: Gender, Culture and the Myth of the Patriarchal Pastoralist. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press.

______. 2001. Once Intrepid Warriors: Gender, Ethnicity, and the Cultural Politics of Maasai Development. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Igoe, Jim. 2004. Conservation and Globalization: A Study of National Parks and Indigenous Communities from East Africa to South Dakota. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning. (Community-based conservation in Tanzania, US, elsewhere)

Piot, Charles. 1999. Remotely Global: Village Modernity in West Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Sommers, Marc. 2001. Fear in Bongoland: Burundi Refugees in Urban Tanzania. NY: Berghahn Books.

Spear, Thomas and R. Waller, eds., Being Maasai. London: James Curry.

Weiss, Brad. 2003. Sacred Trees, Bitter Harvests: Globalizing Coffee in Northwest Tanzania. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Coffee, wealth, markets among the Haya.

White, Luise, Stephan F. Miescher, and David William Cohen. 2001. African Words, African Voices: Critical Practices in Oral History. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Further Reading (novels): Achebe, Chinua. 1994 or any edition. Things Fall Apart. NY: Doubleday. The impact of colonialism. A classic.

Bâ, Mariama. 1996. So Long a Letter. Reed Publishing. West African woman writes of her feelings about multiple marriages.

Fuller, Alexandra. 2003. Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight. NY: Random House. British expatriates in Rhodesia and Malawi.

Gourevitch, Philip. 1999. We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families. Picador Press. Rwanda’s genocidal war.

Hochshild, Adam. 1999. King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. Chronicles the rapacity of King Leopold of Belgium, and its consequences for the Congolese.

Maraire, J. Nozipo. 1997. Zenzele. NY: Delta. Letters written from a Zimbabwean mother to a daughter headed to Harvard University.

Nzenza, Sekai. Songs to an African Sunset: A Zimbabwean Story. Lonely Planet.

Oyono, Ferdinand. 1990. Houseboy. Heinemann. Houseboy in Cameroon.

Sembene, Ousmane. 1996. God’s Bits of Wood. Dakar-Niger railroad workers strike in 1940s.

Thiongo, Ngugi wa. Any one of his novels (e.g. Petals of Blood The River Between, Wizard of the Crow, Dreams in a Time of War). Kenyan author who writes in Gikuyu; his English translations are widely available.

For followup on Charles Piot, if you are interested in his work on the Kabre: http://www2.ucsc.edu/cgirs/publications/cpapers/piot.pdf

(paper on Placing the Local at the Millennium: Thoughts on an African Postcolony, given at UC Santa Cruz, October 28, 2000)

Websites:

News sources: http://www.world-newspapers.com/africa.html http://library.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/africa/current2.html http://allafrica.com/

The CIA World Factbook https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/ Good for basic information on a country of your choice.

Human Rights Watch http://www.hrw.org/ Africa has some presence on their website.

African Studies Association www.africanstudies.org (annual conferences)

African Studies: Books on Africa published by Ohio University Press http://www.ohiou.edu/oupress/bapafricanstudies.htm (go to the African series webpage: interesting-looking book on African soccerscapes: how Africa changed soccer)

African Studies Center, University of Pennsylvania http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/

for UPenn’s African Studies Center’s African images: sculpture, masks, arts) http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/Home_Page/GIF_Images.html

Tourism information, Eastern Africa: Egypt to Zimbabwe and Botswana www.africanet.com (British travel company)

Personal webpage on Kenya, including interactive map, language, history: http://www.blissites.com/kenya/ (interesting, but active only until 2004)

Swahili on-line dictionary http://www.yale.edu/swahili/

News on Africa http://www.africaonline.com/site/

Interesting Maasai website, run by Maasai http://www.maasai-infoline.org/

African map quiz online, Harper College http://www.harpercollege.edu/mhealy/mapquiz/ssa/ssamenu.htm

African Music Encyclopedia http://www.africanmusic.org/

Africa-America Institute

Africa Society of the National Summit on Africa Africa South of the Sahara: Selected Internet Resources African Studies Internet Resources African Studies WWW Country Files International African Students Association

World Bank; www.worldbank.org