Civil society and the political imagination in Africa : critical perspectives / edited by John L. and Jean Comaroff.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Comaroff, John L., 1945-

Comaroff, Jean.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Civil society--Africa.

Civil society.

Africa.

Physical Description:

xi, 318 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1999.

Summary:

The essays in this new collection explore the diverse, unexpected, and controversial ways in which the idea of civil society has recently entered into populist politics and public debate throughout Africa. In a substantial introduction. John L. and Jean Comaroff offer a critical theoretical analysis of the nature and deployment of the concept and the current debates surrounding it. Building on this framework, the contributors investigate the "problem" of civil society across their regions of expertise. Drawing creatively on one another's work, they examine the impact of colonial ideology, postcoloniality, and development practice on discourses of civility, the workings of everyday politics, the construction of new modes of selfhood, and the pursuit of moral community. This book shows how struggles over civil society in Africa reveal much about larger historical forces in the post-Cold War era and makes a strong case for the contribution of historical anthropology to contemporary discourses on the rise of a "new world order."

Contents:

2. Practicing Citizenship in Imperial Paris / Gary Wilder 44

3. Developing Bushmen: Building Civil(ized) Society in the Kalahari and Beyond / Elizabeth Garland 72

4. Civil Society and Its Presuppositions: Lessons from Uganda / Mikael Karlstrom 104

5. Colonial Constructions: Historicizing Debates on Civil Society in Africa / William Cunningham Bissell 124

6. Staging Politisi: The Dialogics of Publicity and Secrecy in Sierra Leone / Mariane Ferme 160

7. Civil Lives: Leadership and Accomplishment in Botswana / Deborah Durham 192

8. Debating Muslims, Disputed Practices: Struggles for the Realization of an Alternative Moral Order in Niger / Adeline Masquelier 219

9. Curl Up and Dye: Civil Society and the Fashion-Minded Citizen / Amy Stambach 251

10. IBB = 419: Nigerian Democracy and the Politics of Illusion / Andrew Apter 267.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0226114139

0226114147

OCLC:

41173554