Description
Book SynopsisThis book explores the notion of agency in a range of empirical situations in Africa. Agency directs our quest for an understanding of the dynamics and social transformations of African situations to the domains of creativity, inventiveness and reflexivity. It emphasizes the possibilities individuals and social groups perceive when faced with the constraints that tend to mark African social life. The case studies provide an alternative view of people and society in Africa by looking at the ways social strength is created in the hope of overcoming many of the structural limitations encountered in daily life. 'Strength beyond Structure' challenges the optimism that is engrained in the development rhetoric about Africa by making agency the subject of empirical scrutiny.
Table of ContentsSocial and Historical Trajectories of Agency in Africa: An Introduction Rijk van Dijk, Mirjam de Bruijn & Jan-Bart Gewald Manchester as the Birth Place of Modern Agency Research: The Manchester School Explained from the Perspective of Evans-Pritchard’s Book The Nuer Wim van Binsbergen Dreams and Agency during Angola’s War of Independence Inge Brinkman Chief Hosea Kutako: A Herero Royal and Namibian Nationalist’s Life against Confinement 1870–1970 Jan-Bart Gewald Agency in Kapsiki Religion: A Comparative Approach Wouter van Beek Les Enveloppes pour Papa Daniel: La Transformation des Relations Domestiques dans les Ménages des Congolais de la Diaspora Julie Ndaya From Individual Act to Social Agency in San Trance Rituals Thomas Widlok The Dynamics of Families, their Work and Provisioning Strategies in the Changing Economies in the Urban Townships of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe Otrude N. Moyo Images of Africa: Agency and Nature Conservation in South Africa Malcolm Draper, Marja Spierenburg & Harry Wels Solitary Births in Téra, Niger: A Local Quest for Safety Gertie Janssen Agency in and from the Margins: Street Children and Youth in N’djaména, Chad Mirjam de Bruijn Negotiating the Memory of Fulbe Hierarchy among Mobile Elite Women Lotte Pelckmans The Safe and Suffering Body in Transnational Ghanaian Pentecostalism; Towards an Anthropology of Vulnerable Agency Rijk van Dijk
