Books > History > African history
|
Buy Now
Family Identity and the State in the Bamako Kafu, c. 1800-c. 1900 (Paperback, New Ed)
Loot Price: R1,428
Discovery Miles 14 280
|
|
Family Identity and the State in the Bamako Kafu, c. 1800-c. 1900 (Paperback, New Ed)
Expected to ship within 12 - 17 working days
|
Donate to Gift Of The Givers
Total price: R1,448
Discovery Miles: 14 480
|
This groundbreaking book explores the history and the cultural
context of family claims to power in the Bamako "kafu," or state
(located in contemporary Mali in West Africa), primarily during the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Perinbam argues that the
absence of precise information on the Bamako "kafu's" political
status during this period empowered families to manipulate the
myths, rituals, and ancestral legends--as well as belief
systems--so that their claims to state power appeared
incontrovertible. The French, on reaching the region, accepted
these representations of power.Although the author's historical
data focus mainly on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
mythical recountings beyond this historical grid--ranging across
approximately one thousand years and including large-scale
migrations throughout the West African Sahel--provide insights into
the processes by which many of these ethnic identities were subject
to reconfiguration and reinvention. Within this historical-mythical
matrix, Perinbam offers new insights into the reconstruction of
Mande identities, their cultures (material and otherwise),
political systems, and various social fields, as well as their
past. Instead of rigid ethnic identities--sometimes identified in
the historical and anthropological literature as "Mandingo,"
"Malinke," or "Bambara"--the author argues that variable
ethnographic identities were more often than not mediated in
accordance with a number of mythic and historical contingencies,
most notably the respective states into which the families were
drawn, as well as state formation, maintenance, and renewal, not to
mention meaning sensitive to political, generational, and
genderchallenges. With the arrival of the French in the late
nineteenth century and the Mande incorporation into the French
colonial state, familial identities once more readjusted.The
careful research and original scholarship of "Family Identity and
the State in the Bamako Kafu "make it a significant contribution to
the histories of West Africa, the African Diaspora, and the United
States.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
|
|
Email address subscribed successfully.
A activation email has been sent to you.
Please click the link in that email to activate your subscription.