Focusing on Irish speakers in Catholic West Belfast, this ethnography on Irish language and identity explores the complexities of changing, and contradictory, senses of Irishness and shifting practices of 'Irish culture' in the domains of language, music, dance and sports. The author's theoretical approach to ethnicity and ethnic revivals presents an expanded explanatory framework for the social (re)production of ethnicity, theorizing the mutual interrelations between representations and cultural practices regarding their combined capacity to engender ethnic revivals. Relevant not only to readers with an interest in the intricacies of the Northern Irish situation, this book also appeals to a broader readership in anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, history and political science concerned with the mechanisms behind ethnonational conflict and the politics of culture and identity in general.

Focusing on Irish speakers in Catholic West Belfast, this ethnography on Irish language and identity explores the complexities of changing, and contradictory, senses of Irishness and shifting practices of 'Irish culture' in the domains of language, music, dance and sports. The author's theoretical approach to ethnicity and ethnic revivals presents an expanded explanatory framework for the social (re)production of ethnicity, theorizing the mutual interrelations between representations and cultural practices regarding their combined capacity to engender ethnic revivals. Relevant not only to readers with an interest in the intricacies of the Northern Irish situation, this book also appeals to a broader readership in anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, history and political science concerned with the mechanisms behind ethnonational conflict and the politics of culture and identity in general.

Two decades after the publication of Clifford and Marcus' volume 'Writing Culture', this collection provides a fresh and diverse reassessment of the debates that this pioneering volume unleashed. At the same time, 'Beyond Writing Culture' moves the debate on by embracing the more fundamental challenge as to how to conceptualise the intricate relationship between epistemology and representational practices rather than maintaining the original narrow focus on textual analysis. It thus offers a thought-provoking tapestry of new ideas relevant for scholars not only concerned with 'the ethnographic Other', but with representation in general.

"This is a book that will attract a great deal of attention among anthropologists and social scientists in general. It is a great advance on earlier critiques of Writing Culture (1986) that have emerged at intervals, a large number of them cited by the contributors. Its strength lies particularly in its transdisciplinary perspectives and the clarity of both critique and new representations. The prologue is a tour de force." . Joan Vincent, Professor Emerita, Barnard College/Columbia University

Two decades after the publication of Clifford and Marcus' volume Writing Culture, this collection provides a fresh and diverse reassessment of the debates that this pioneering volume unleashed. At the same time, Beyond Writing Culture moves the debate on by embracing the more fundamental challenge as to how to conceptualise the intricate relationship between epistemology and representational practices rather than maintaining the original narrow focus on textual analysis. It thus offers a thought-provoking tapestry of new ideas relevant for scholars not only concerned with 'the ethnographic Other', but with representation in general.

Olaf Zenker is Assistant Professor in Social Anthropology at the University of Bern, Switzerland. He did his Ph.D. at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle on the Irish language and identity in Catholic West Belfast. His publications focus on conflict and identity formations, including a study on communicative constructions of group membership among homeless people: Techniken zur kommunikativen Herstellung von Gruppenzugehorigkeit (Berlin, 2004).

Karsten Kumoll is Programme Manager at the German Council of Science and Humanities (Wissenschaftsrat), advising the Federal and State (Lander) governments on the system of higher education and research. He obtained his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Freiburg. Its subject was Marshall Sahlins' complete works and it was subsequently published as: Kultur, Geschichte und die Indigenisierung der Moderne: Eine Analyse des Gesamtwerks von Marshall Sahlins (Bielefeld, 2007)."

Customary law and traditional authorities continue to play highly complex and contested roles in contemporary African states. Reversing the common preoccupation with studying the impact of the post/colonial state on customary regimes, this volume analyses how the interactions between state and non-state normative orders have shaped the everyday practices of the state. It argues that, in their daily work, local officials are confronted with a paradox of customary law: operating under politico-legal pluralism and limited state capacity, bureaucrats must often, paradoxically, deal with custom - even though the form and logic of customary rule is not easily compatible and frequently incommensurable with the form and logic of the state - in order to do their work as a state. Given the self-contradictory nature of this endeavour, officials end up processing, rather than solving, this paradox in multiple, inconsistent and piecemeal ways. Assembling inventive case studies on state-driven land reforms in South Africa and Tanzania, the police in Mozambique, witchcraft in southern Sudan, constitutional reform in South Sudan, Guinea's long duree of changing state engagements with custom, and hybrid political orders in Somaliland, this volume offers important insights into the divergent strategies used by African officials in handling this paradox of customary law and, somehow, getting their work done.

Customary law and traditional authorities continue to play highly complex and contested roles in contemporary African states. Reversing the common preoccupation with studying the impact of the post/colonial state on customary regimes, this volume analyses how the interactions between state and non-state normative orders have shaped the everyday practices of the state. It argues that, in their daily work, local officials are confronted with a paradox of customary law: operating under politico-legal pluralism and limited state capacity, bureaucrats must often, paradoxically, deal with custom - even though the form and logic of customary rule is not easily compatible and frequently incommensurable with the form and logic of the state - in order to do their work as a state. Given the self-contradictory nature of this endeavour, officials end up processing, rather than solving, this paradox in multiple, inconsistent and piecemeal ways. Assembling inventive case studies on state-driven land reforms in South Africa and Tanzania, the police in Mozambique, witchcraft in southern Sudan, constitutional reform in South Sudan, Guinea's long duree of changing state engagements with custom, and hybrid political orders in Somaliland, this volume offers important insights into the divergent strategies used by African officials in handling this paradox of customary law and, somehow, getting their work done.

The Oxford Handbook of Law and Anthropology is a ground-breaking collection of essays that provides an original and internationally framed conception of the historical, theoretical, and ethnographic interconnections of law and anthropology. Each of the chapters in the Handbook provides a survey of the current state of scholarly debate and an argument about the future direction of research in this dynamic and interdisciplinary field. The structure of the Handbook is animated by an overarching collective narrative about how law and anthropology have and should relate to each other as intersecting domains of inquiry that address such fundamental questions as dispute resolution, normative ordering, social organization, and legal, political, and social identity. The need for such a comprehensive project has become even more pressing as lawyers and anthropologists work together in an ever-increasing number of areas, including immigration and asylum processes, international justice forums, cultural heritage certification and monitoring, and the writing of new national constitutions, among many others. The Handbook takes critical stock of these various points of intersection in order to identify and conceptualize the most promising areas of innovation and sociolegal relevance, as well as to acknowledge the points of tension, open questions, and areas for future development.

This book explores what happened to the homelands – in many ways the ultimate apartheid disgrace – after the fall of apartheid. This research contributes to understanding the multiple configurations that currently exist in areas formerly declared "homelands" or "Bantustans". Using the concept of frontier zones, the homelands emerge as areas in which the future of the South African postcolony is being renegotiated, contested and remade with hyper-real intensity. This is so because the many fault lines left over from apartheid (its loose ends, so to speak) – between white and black; between different ethnicities; between rich and poor; or differentiated by gender, generation and nationality; between "traditions" and "modernities" or between wilderness and human habitation – are particularly acute and condensed in these so-called "communal areas". Hence, the book argues that it is particularly in these settings that the postcolonial promise of liberation and freedom must face its test. As such, the book offers highly nuanced and richly detailed analyses that go to the heart of the diverse dilemmas of post-apartheid South Africa as a whole, but simultaneously also provides in condensed form an extended case study on the predicaments of African postcoloniality in general. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Southern African Studies.

Table of Contents

1. South African Homelands as Frontiers: Apartheid’s Loose Ends in the Postcolonial Era – An Introduction

Steffen Jensen and Olaf Zenker

2. Fragments of the Past: Homeland Politics and the South African Transition, 1990–2014

Jason Robinson

3. Material Remains: Artifice versus Artefact(s) in the Archive of Bantustan Rule

Shireen Ally

4. This House Is Not My Own …! Temporalities in a South African Homeland

Steffen Jensen

5. Custom, Normativity and Authority in South Africa

Hylton White

6. South African Land Restitution, White Claimants and the Fateful Frontier of Former KwaNdebele

Olaf Zenker

7. ‘Women Use their Strength in the House’: Savings Clubs in an Mpumalanga Village

Deborah James

8. Moralising Magic? A Brief History of Football Potions in a South African Homeland Area, 1958–2010

Isak Niehaus

9. City Slums, Rural Homesteads: Migrant Culture, Displaced Urbanism and the Citizenship of the Serviced House

Leslie Bank

10. ‘Keeping Land for Their Children’: Generation, Migration and Land in South Africa’s Transkei

Derick A. Fay

11. Epilogue

Joost Fontein

This book explores what happened to the homelands – in many ways the ultimate apartheid disgrace – after the fall of apartheid. This research contributes to understanding the multiple configurations that currently exist in areas formerly declared "homelands" or "Bantustans". Using the concept of frontier zones, the homelands emerge as areas in which the future of the South African postcolony is being renegotiated, contested and remade with hyper-real intensity. This is so because the many fault lines left over from apartheid (its loose ends, so to speak) – between white and black; between different ethnicities; between rich and poor; or differentiated by gender, generation and nationality; between "traditions" and "modernities" or between wilderness and human habitation – are particularly acute and condensed in these so-called "communal areas". Hence, the book argues that it is particularly in these settings that the postcolonial promise of liberation and freedom must face its test. As such, the book offers highly nuanced and richly detailed analyses that go to the heart of the diverse dilemmas of post-apartheid South Africa as a whole, but simultaneously also provides in condensed form an extended case study on the predicaments of African postcoloniality in general. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Southern African Studies.

Table of Contents

1. South African Homelands as Frontiers: Apartheid’s Loose Ends in the Postcolonial Era – An Introduction

Steffen Jensen and Olaf Zenker

2. Fragments of the Past: Homeland Politics and the South African Transition, 1990–2014

Jason Robinson

3. Material Remains: Artifice versus Artefact(s) in the Archive of Bantustan Rule

Shireen Ally

4. This House Is Not My Own …! Temporalities in a South African Homeland

Steffen Jensen

5. Custom, Normativity and Authority in South Africa

Hylton White

6. South African Land Restitution, White Claimants and the Fateful Frontier of Former KwaNdebele

Olaf Zenker

7. ‘Women Use their Strength in the House’: Savings Clubs in an Mpumalanga Village

Deborah James

8. Moralising Magic? A Brief History of Football Potions in a South African Homeland Area, 1958–2010

Isak Niehaus

9. City Slums, Rural Homesteads: Migrant Culture, Displaced Urbanism and the Citizenship of the Serviced House

Leslie Bank

10. ‘Keeping Land for Their Children’: Generation, Migration and Land in South Africa’s Transkei

Derick A. Fay

11. Epilogue

Joost Fontein

Forschungsarbeit aus dem Jahr 2001 im Fachbereich Ethnologie / Volkskunde, Note: 1,0, Universitat Hamburg, 55 Quellen im Literaturverzeichnis, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: Die vorliegende Arbeit berichtet uber ein im Hauptfachstudium der Ethnologie an der Universitat Hamburg durchgefuhrtes Feldforschungspraktikum, welches uber einen viermonatigen Zeitraum von April bis Juli 2000 studienbegleitend absolviert wurde und sich im Rahmen einer Fallstudie uber drei jugendliche Aussiedler in Hamburg exemplarisch mit dem Verhaltnis von Ethnizitat und politischem Aktivismus befasst. Die Forschungsarbeit gliedert sich in zwei Teile: Im ersten Hauptkapitel wird das Feldforschungspraktikum in den Schritten seiner Realisierung dargestellt. Dabei wird neben dem Prozess des Findens einer Lokalitat," von Informanten und schliesslich eines endgultigen Themas besonders auf die angewendeten Methoden eingegangen. Im zweiten Hauptkapitel werden die im Feldforschungspraktikum erarbeiteten Ergebnisse in Form einer Fallstudie uber die drei jugendlichen Aussiedler dargestellt. Hier geht es neben einer einfuhrenden Darstellung der allgemeinen Lebenssituation dieser Aussiedler insbesondere um deren ethnisches" Selbstverstandnis und ihre Beteiligung an politischen Aktivitaten bei der Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Russland" und bei der Jungen Union." Darauf aufbauend wird abschliessend der ubergeordneten Untersuchungsfrage nachgegangen, inwiefern die jeweils selbst zugeschriebenen Ethnizitaten der drei Aussiedler und die mit ihnen verbundenen Vorstellungen einen Einfluss auf deren individuelle Motivationen zu politischem Aktivismus hatte