Search results for ""Author David Uru Iyam""
University of Wisconsin Press Shaping Tradition: Women's Roles in Ceremonial Rituals of the Agwagune
Agwagune women in southeastern Nigeria contribute to the cultural construction of their societies in deep and systematic ways. This reality is often concealed, misrepresented, or unexamined in studies that do not consciously set out to address female agency and authority. Most recently women have reshaped traditional male-centered village practices behind the scenes, such as when they updated the premarital ritual of fattening prospective brides, and when they ended female circumcision. Women use their status to direct and influence male leadership on matters of war, finance, education, and political stability.Using this community as a case study, David Uru Iyam asserts that these women are not stereotypically submissive, oppressed, or passive. Agwagune women participate in male ceremonies by pretending to be unaware of them, concealing their authority under a veneer of secrecy. Instead of focusing on obvious male political power, Iyam highlights the overlooked domestic and public contributions of women that uphold—and change—entire social systems.
£80.75
The University of Chicago Press The Broken Hoe: Cultural Reconfiguration in Biase Southeast Nigeria
In this study of the Biase, a small ethnic group living in Nigeria's Cross River State, the author attempts to resolve a long-standing controversy among development theorists: must Third World peoples adopt Western attitudes, practices and technologies to improve their standard of living or are indigenous beliefs, technologies and strategies better suited to local conditions? The Biase today face social and economic pressures that seriously strain their ability to cope with the realities of modern Nigeria. Iyam, an anthropologist and a Biase, examines the relationship between culture and development as played out in projects in local communities. Iyam suggests that Western technologies and beliefs alone cannot ensure economic growth and modernization and should not necessarily be imposed on poor rural groups who may not be prepared to incorporate them; neither, however, is it possible to recover indigenous coping strategies given the complexities of the post-colonial world. A successful development strategy, Iyam argues, needs to strengthen local managerial capacity and offers suggestions as to how this can be done in a range of cultural and social settings.
£32.41
