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Book Synopsis
How are we to explain the resurgence of customary chiefs in contemporary Africa? Rather than disappearing with the tide of modernity, as many expected, indigenous sovereigns are instead a rising force, often wielding substantial power and legitimacy despite major changes in the workings of the global political economy in the postCold War erachanges in which they are themselves deeply implicated. This pathbreaking volume, edited by anthropologists John L. Comaroff and Jean Comaroff, explores the reasons behind the increasingly assertive politics of custom in many corners of Africa. Chiefs come in countless guisesfrom university professors through cosmopolitan businessmen to subsistence farmersbut, whatever else they do, they are a critical key to understanding the tenacious hold that traditional authority enjoys in the late modern world. Together the contributors explore this counterintuitive chapter in Africa's history and, in so doing, place it within the broader world-making proc

The Politics of Custom Chiefship Capital and the

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    A Hardback by John L. Comaroff, Jean Comaroff

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      Book details

      Publisher The University of Chicago Press
      Published 8 March 2018
      ISBN-13 9780226510767
      978-0226510767
      ISBN-10 022651076X
      Also in:
      African history Regional, state and other local government

      Description

      Book Synopsis
      How are we to explain the resurgence of customary chiefs in contemporary Africa? Rather than disappearing with the tide of modernity, as many expected, indigenous sovereigns are instead a rising force, often wielding substantial power and legitimacy despite major changes in the workings of the global political economy in the postCold War erachanges in which they are themselves deeply implicated. This pathbreaking volume, edited by anthropologists John L. Comaroff and Jean Comaroff, explores the reasons behind the increasingly assertive politics of custom in many corners of Africa. Chiefs come in countless guisesfrom university professors through cosmopolitan businessmen to subsistence farmersbut, whatever else they do, they are a critical key to understanding the tenacious hold that traditional authority enjoys in the late modern world. Together the contributors explore this counterintuitive chapter in Africa's history and, in so doing, place it within the broader world-making proc

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