This book, based on field research in the West African country of The Gambia, explores how domestic gun control is shaped by international efforts and how local actors interact with international organizations or opt not to do so. The book also shows how the question of who can have what kind of gun under what circumstances is an intrinsic question to modern societies across the world, but it is seldom one that is addressed in sub-Saharan Africa except in cases of post-conflict countries. Small arms control and gun control are often treated as separate efforts, with the former the domain of international actors such as the United Nations and the latter being of concern to the domestic politics of countries such as the United States. By focusing on a country that has never seen the outbreak of a civil war, the book is able to disentangle the complex roots of gun control in Africa, its origins in colonial era legislation, its reverberations across social life, and how it shapes contemporary understandings of groups ranging for security guards to hunters.

Private Lives, Public Histories brings together diverse methods from archaeology and cultural anthropology, enabling us to glean rare information on private lives from the historical record. The chapters span geographic areas to present recent ethnohistorical research that advances our knowledge of the connections between the public and private domains and the significance of these connections for understanding the past as a lived experience, both historically and in a contemporary sense. We discuss how the use of different sources-e.g., public records, personal journals, material culture, the built environment, letters, public performances, etc.-can reveal different types of information about past cultural contexts, as well as private sentiments about official culture and society. Through an exploration of sites as varied as homes, factories, plantations, markets, and tourism attractions we address the public significance of private sentiments, the resilience of bodies, and gendered interactions in historical contexts. In doing so, this book highlights linkages between private lives and public settings that have allowed people to continue to exist within, adapt to, and/or resist dominant cultural narratives.

Private Lives, Public Histories brings together diverse methods from archaeology and cultural anthropology, enabling us to glean rare information on private lives from the historical record. The chapters span geographic areas to present recent ethnohistorical research that advances our knowledge of the connections between the public and private domains and the significance of these connections for understanding the past as a lived experience, both historically and in a contemporary sense. We discuss how the use of different sources-e.g., public records, personal journals, material culture, the built environment, letters, public performances, etc.-can reveal different types of information about past cultural contexts, as well as private sentiments about official culture and society. Through an exploration of sites as varied as homes, factories, plantations, markets, and tourism attractions we address the public significance of private sentiments, the resilience of bodies, and gendered interactions in historical contexts. In doing so, this book highlights linkages between private lives and public settings that have allowed people to continue to exist within, adapt to, and/or resist dominant cultural narratives.

This book, based on field research in the West African country of The Gambia, explores how domestic gun control is shaped by international efforts and how local actors interact with international organizations or opt not to do so. The book also shows how the question of who can have what kind of gun under what circumstances is an intrinsic question to modern societies across the world, but it is seldom one that is addressed in sub-Saharan Africa except in cases of post-conflict countries. Small arms control and gun control are often treated as separate efforts, with the former the domain of international actors such as the United Nations and the latter being of concern to the domestic politics of countries such as the United States. By focusing on a country that has never seen the outbreak of a civil war, the book is able to disentangle the complex roots of gun control in Africa, its origins in colonial era legislation, its reverberations across social life, and how it shapes contemporary understandings of groups ranging for security guards to hunters.