Death, Belief and Politics in Central African History PDF Download

Author: Kalusa, Walima T.
Publisher: The Lembani Trust
ISBN: 9982680013
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 418

View

Book Description
In this set of essays Walima T. Kalusa and Megan Vaughan explore themes in the history of death in Zambia and Malawi from the late nineteenth century to the present day. Drawing on extensive archival and oral historical research they examine the impact of Christianity on spiritual beliefs, the racialised politics of death on the colonial Copperbelt, the transformation of burial practices, the histories of suicide and of maternal mortality, and the political life of the corpse.

Author: Michael Jindra
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 0857452061
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 244

View

Book Description
Across Africa, funerals and events remembering the dead have become larger and even more numerous over the years. Whereas in the West death is normally a private and family affair, in Africa funerals are often the central life cycle event, unparalleled in cost and importance, for which families harness vast amounts of resources to host lavish events for multitudes of people with ramifications well beyond the event. Though officials may try to regulate them, the popularity of these events often makes such efforts fruitless, and the elites themselves spend tremendously on funerals. This volume brings together scholars who have conducted research on funerary events across sub-Saharan Africa. The contributions offer an in-depth understanding of the broad changes and underlying causes in African societies over the years, such as changes in religious beliefs, social structure, urbanization, and technological changes and health.

Author: Peter N. Stearns
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429639848
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 567

View

Book Description
The Routledge History of Death Since 1800 looks at how death has been treated and dealt with in modern history – the history of the past 250 years – in a global context, through a mix of definite, often quantifiable changes and a complex, qualitative assessment of the subject. The book is divided into three parts, with the first considering major trends in death history and identifying widespread patterns of change and continuity in the material and cultural features of death since 1800. The second part turns to specifically regional experiences, and the third offers more specialized chapters on key topics in the modern history of death. Historical findings and debates feed directly into a current and prospective assessment of death, as many societies transition into patterns of ageing that will further alter the death experience and challenge modern reactions. Thus, a final chapter probes this topic, by way of introducing the links between historical experience and current trajectories, ensuring that the book gives the reader a framework for assessing the ongoing process, as well as an understanding of the past. Global in focus and linking death to a variety of major developments in modern global history, the volume is ideal for all those interested in the multifaceted history of how death is dealt with in different societies over time and who want access to the rich and growing historiography on the subject. Chapter 1 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Author: Mark A. Lamport
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442271574
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 1119

View

Book Description
Christianity has transformed many times in its 2,000-year history, from its roots in the Middle East to its presence around the world today. From the mid-twentieth century onward the presence of Christianity has increased dramatically in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and the majority of the world’s Christians are now nonwhite and non-Western. The Encyclopedia of Christianity in the Global South traces both the historical evolution and contemporary themes in Christianity in more than 150 countries and regions. The volumes include maps, images, and a detailed timeline of key events. The phrases “Global Christianity” and “World Christianity” are inadequate to convey the complexity of the countries and regions involved—this encyclopedia, with its more than 500 entries, aims to offer rich perspectives on the varieties of Christianity where it is growing, how the spread of Christianity shapes the faith in various regions, and how the faith is changing worldwide.

Author: Crystal Nicole Eddins
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108843727
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 377

View

Book Description
A new analysis of the origins of the Haitian Revolution, revealing the consciousness, solidarity, and resistance that helped it succeed.

Author: Munyaradzi Nyakudya
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030972003
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 277

View

Book Description
This book delves into a critical and comprehensive analysis of Mtukudzi’s legacy, as an outstanding musician who anchored his music on cultural identity specifically through the artistic manipulation of language. As a cultural worker, his remit extended beyond performance. This raised his stature to the levels of such African music icons as Fela Kuti of Nigeria, Salif Keita of Mali and Miriam Makeba/Hugh Masekela of South Africa, all towering giants in African musical performance. This volume examines how Mtukudzi artistically manipulated language to convey a timeless message of cultural identity, fighting for the respect of rights for women, children and all. It unpacks how Mtukudzi subtly uses language to put across political views that speak truth to power, harnessing Zimbabwean language to articulate and promote the nation’s cultural heritage and to advocate for societal development and the promotion of rights of vulnerable groups. The chapters in this volume are a mix of interdisciplinary Zimbabwean scholars of linguistics, performance studies, religion, history, communication and media studies, unravelling Mtukudzi as a fighter for human rights and justice who subtly critiqued political systems and practices. It concludes that Mtukudzi strove to be a cultural worker who used the power of language through music to contribute towards the rehabilitation of a battered African identity. ​

Author: Claire L. Wendland
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226816885
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 365

View

Book Description
"Partial Stories takes readers to Malawi, where roughly one in twenty women can expect to die of a pregnancy or childbirth complication, despite decades of safe-motherhood programs. The stories of these mothers are told in hospitals and villages, by chiefs and doctors, herbalists and nurses, epidemiologists and healers, and competing explanations proliferate. The mothers' stories are used by elders for technical education and moral instruction at a coming-of-age-ritual, a district hospital's mortality review, and in the reflected glow of a computer screen at an international conference. After orienting readers to urban Malawi's context of therapeutic pluralism and material scarcity, Claire Wendland discusses the ways various experts account for maternal death, showing how their diverse explanations reflect competing visions of the past and shared concerns about social change. She looks to a series of pregnancy-related deaths in order to consider bodies as biosocial phenomena, shaped from before birth by history and social inequality. Wendland reveals an uneven therapeutic landscape that pushes experts to improvise, clinically and ethically. Their creative, essential, and sometimes deadly improvisations ask us to reconsider the "best practice" dogmas of global health and transnational research, as well as the nature of medical authority and expertise. Wendland demonstrates how strategies of legitimation render care more dangerous and knowledge more partial than it might otherwise be"--

Author: Iva Peša
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004408967
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 443

View

Book Description
Roads through Mwinilunga provides a historical appraisal of social change in Northwest Zambia from 1750 until the present. Focussing on agricultural production, mobility, consumption, and settlement patterns, Iva Peša reassesses existing explanations of social change in Central Africa.

Author: Derek Peterson
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472122134
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 461

View

Book Description
The essays collected in African Print Cultures claim African newspapers as subjects of historical and literary study. Newspapers were not only vehicles for anticolonial nationalism. They were also incubators of literary experimentation and networks by which new solidarities came into being. By focusing on the creative work that African editors and contributors did, this volume brings an infrastructure of African public culture into view. The first of four thematic sections, “African Newspaper Networks,” considers the work that newspaper editors did to relate events within their locality to happenings in far-off places. This work of correlation and juxtaposition made it possible for distant people to see themselves as fellow travellers. “Experiments with Genre” explores how newspapers nurtured the development of new literary genres, such as poetry, realist fiction, photoplays, and travel writing in African languages and in English. “Newspapers and Their Publics” looks at the ways in which African newspapers fostered the creation of new kinds of communities and served as networks for public interaction, political and otherwise. The final section, “Afterlives, ” is about the longue durée of history that newspapers helped to structure, and how, throughout the twentieth century, print allowed contributors to view their writing as material meant for posterity.

Author: Antonius C. G. M. Robben
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 111922229X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 541

View

Book Description
A thought-provoking examination of death, dying, and the afterlife Prominent scholars present their most recent work about mortuary rituals, grief and mourning, genocide, cyclical processes of life and death, biomedical developments, and the materiality of human corpses in this unique and illuminating book. Interrogating our most common practices surrounding death, the authors ask such questions as: How does the state wrest away control over the dead from bereaved relatives? Why do many mourners refuse to cut their emotional ties to the dead and nurture lasting bonds? Is death a final condition or can human remains acquire agency? The book is a refreshing reassessment of these issues and practices, a source of theoretical inspiration in the study of death. With contributions written by an international team of experts in their fields, A Companion to the Anthropology of Death is presented in six parts and covers such subjects as: Governing the Dead in Guatemala; After Death Communications (ADCs) in North America; Cryonic Suspension in the Secular Age; Blood and Organ Donation in China; The Fragility of Biomedicine; and more. A Companion to the Anthropology of Death is a comprehensive and accessible volume and an ideal resource for senior undergraduate and graduate students in courses such as Anthropology of Death, Medical Anthropology, Anthropology of Violence, Anthropology of the Body, and Political Anthropology. Written by leading international scholars in their fields A comprehensive survey of the most recent empirical research in the anthropology of death A fundamental critique of the early 20th century founding fathers of the anthropology of death Cross-cultural texts from tribal and industrial societies The collection is of interest to anyone concerned with the consequences of the state and massive violence on life and death