AN 3400.01, SPRING 2012
ANTHROPOLOGY OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
DR. KATHERINE C. DONAHUE
Office: Rounds 317, tel. 535-2424
Email: kdonahue@mail.plymouth.edu
Office Hours: MWF 10:00-11:00 am
T 2-3 pm, or by appointment
An anthropological survey of several sub-Saharan societies (this year, including Kenya
and Tanzania in East Africa, Senegal and Mali in West Africa). Topics include: Social,
economic, and political structures of selected African cultures before European
intervention, consequences of that European intervention on present-day African
societies, kinship, marriage, trade, markets, and religion.
TEXTS:
Cronk, Lee. 2004. From Mukogodo To Maasai: Ethnicity And Cultural Change In Kenya.
Boulder, CO: Westview Press. ISBN-10: 0813340942 | ISBN-13: 9780813340944.
Grinker, Roy, et al. 2010. 2nd. Ed. Perspectives on Africa: A Reader in Culture, History
and Representation Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell.
ISBN-10: 1405190604 | ISBN-13: 978-1405190602
Articles in Moodle 2 or online:
Comaroff, Jean and John Comaroff. 1999. Occult economies and the violence of
abstraction: notes from the South African postcolony. American Anthropologist.
Volume 26. Issue 2. May 1999 (Pages 279 - 303)
D’Amico, Leonardo. 2007. People and sounds: Filming African music between visual
anthropology and television documentary. Trans 11. Revista Transcultural de
Musica. Available here: http://www.sibetrans.com/trans/a123/people-and-soundsfilming-african-music-between-visual-anthropology-and-television-documentary
Little, Peter. 1998. Maasai Identity on the Periphery. American Anthropologist.
100(2):444-457.
Roberts, Bill. Learning to Put Ethnography to Good Use: The Gambia, West Africa Field
Study Program. NAPA Bulletin 22, pp. 87-105.
Scheld, Suzanne. 2003. The City in a Shoe: Refining Urban Africa through Sebago
Footwear Consumption. City & Society. XV(1|) 109-130.
Stoller, Paul. 1996. Spaces, Places, and Fields: The Politics of West African Trading in
New York City's Informal Economy. American Anthropologist, 98: 776–788. doi:
10.1525/aa.1996.98.4.02a00080
PAPERS, EXAMS, RESEARCH, etc.
Students will be asked to select a sub-Saharan country or culture and report weekly or
every two weeks on a topic having to do with that country or culture. You will be asked
to read the current print media (New York Times, London Times, Le Monde, Newsweek,
Time) and/or find the appropriate on-line news media (for instance, Kenya’s national
newspaper, The Daily Nation, is easily available on-line through
www.onlinenewspapers.com. See suggestions below for other ways to access the news.
Other web sites are possibilities, but you will need to use your good judgment in
determining their accuracy and biases. Ethnographies, journal articles (Lamson has
several relevant journals), and the World Bank also are sources for information. You will
want to learn some basic facts about the country by using an encyclopedia and material
made available through the U.S. State Department and the CIA etc. I will work with you
on finding an appropriate ethnography or novel for you to read and discuss in class (see
list below).
You will be asked to keep your bi-weekly reports, revise them, and complete a final
summary report due at the end of the semester.
To that end, students will be asked to submit 5 papers of 2 to 3 pages in length on topics
assigned in class. You may be asked to report on the paper during the class, for this
course will be run as a seminar, in which students are expected to read, report, and
discuss their findings with each other and with the instructor. Class notes and readings
may be used in these papers. There will also be free writes in class, some of which may
be considered starting points for working on the bi-weekly papers.
Finally, you will be asked to come to class in the next to last week of the course with that
summary report, which can be on a final topic to be decided upon between us. This
report will be approximately ten pages in length.
All written work is to be your own. Proper citation must be used for material, quotes
drawn from others, including anything derived from the internet. Check the Lamson
Library Style Guides for advice (available at the Lamson Library home page). In the
discipline of anthropology, the APA style is usually preferred. For any paper, a list of
references cited must be included.
There will be two exams: One will be a mid-term, the other a final exam.
.
ATTENDANCE: It is expected, and required. Your presence is important to the class.
Two unexcused absences are okay. After that I will remove up to ten points from your
grade.
GRADES: 5 short papers: each worth 5 points: 5 x 5 = 25
1 summary report or paper
25
2 exams, each worth 20 points
40
Participation: Up to 10 points
10
TOTAL
100
Please Note:
Plymouth State University is committed to providing students with documented
disabilities equal access to all university programs and facilities. If you think you have a
disability requiring accommodations, you should immediately contact the PASS Office in
Lamson Library (535-2270) to determine whether you are eligible for such
accommodations. Academic accommodations will only be considered for students who
have registered with the PASS Office. If you have a Letter of Accommodation for this
course from the PASS Office, please provide the instructor with that information
privately so that you and the instructor can review those accommodations.
WEEK
1:1/31
TOPIC
Introduction to African Studies
Anthropology and Geography of
READING
Africa; Perceptions of Africa
DVD selections: “Africa”, “The Serengeti”
Discussion: Why is there a drought in parts of East Africa right
now?
Map quiz
2:2/7
How is Africa Represented? Perspectives Grinker, Introduction,
from Africa and away
pp. 19-60
Report # 1 due
Roberts, in Moodle 2
DVD selections: “Darwin’s Nightmare”
“The Gods Must Be Crazy”
3:2/14
Social Organization:Family, Kinship,
Tribe
Discussion: is there such a thing as
tribal identity?
Report # 1 due
4:2/21
African Arts
Music, Sculpture, Verbal Art, Dance
Grinker, pp. 61-94
Cronk, 1-56
Little in Moodle 2
D’Amico in Moodle 2
Grinker, 335-347; 354-371
http://www.africanhiphop.com/
www.afropop.org
Video: Ali Farka Touré
Discussion: What is the role of African music and dance?
For the musicians? For the audience?
5:2/28
Occult Economies to High-Rise Traders
What is the function of witchcraft
Report # 2 due
6:3/6
African Religions
Ogoun, Orishas, Allah, Christ, and
Engai
Comaroff in Moodle 2
Grinker, 109-150
Choose an article
from Grinker Part V
Grinker, pp. 285-314
MID-TERM EXAM
7:3/13
Social Change and Economic Change
Religious Reforms, Migrations
DVD: Milking the Rhino
Report # 3 due
Cronk, 57-110
8:3/20
No Classes: Spring Break
9:3/27
Gender: What Roles do People Play?
Grinker, pp. 389-422
DVD selections: Today the Hawk Takes One Chick Cronk, 111-144
Taking Root
10:4/3
Europe in Africa: What was “The Race for Africa”? Grinker, pp. 423-470
The role of the Dutch, Belgians, Germans,
British, French, Portuguese
Report # 4 due
11: 4/10
Independence Movements
From the Mau Mau to Chimurenga
Grinker, pp. 498-513
531-542
Lumumba to Mugabe
Videos: Something of Value, Lumumba
12:4/17
Globalization and Neo-Colonialism
DVD:
Report # 5 due
13:4/24
Africa Today
Grinker, pp. 543-544;
629-644
Scheld, in Moodle 2
Grinker, pp. 660-670;
Stoller, in Moodle 2
Summary report due.
14:5/1
Student presentations
15:5/8
Student presentations
FINAL EXAM:
Thursday, May 17, 2:30-5pm
Some DVDs you might like:
Tsotsi (South Africa)
When the Mountain Meets its Shadow (Capetown, South Africa)
Darwin’s Nightmare (Tanazania, Lake Victoria, Nile Perch)
Today the Hawk Takes One Chick (grandmothers raising children in Swaziland)
The Wood and the Calabash (Balafon makers, Côte d’Ivoire)
Masai (Kenya, Tanzania)
Somalis
Yellen (Mali)
Some readings you might like:
Eyre, Banning. 2000. In Griot Time: An American Guitarist in Mali. Philadelphia:
Temple University Press.
Fratkin, Elliot. 1997. Ariaal Pastoralists of Kenya: Surviving Drought and
Development in Kenya’s Arid Lands. NY/Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Gearon, Eamonn. 2011. The Sahara: A Cultural History. NY: Oxford University Press.
Hodgson, Dorothy. 2000. Rethinking Pastoralism in Africa: Gender, Culture and the
Myth of the Patriarchal Pastoralist. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press.
__________. 2001. Once Intrepid Warriors: Gender, Ethnicity, and the Cultural
Politics of Maasai Development. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Igoe, Jim. 2004. Conservation and Globalization: A Study of National Parks and
Indigenous Communities from East Africa to South Dakota. Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth/Thomson Learning. (Community-based conservation in Tanzania,
US, elsewhere)
Piot, Charles. 1999. Remotely Global: Village Modernity in West Africa. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Sommers, Marc. 2001. Fear in Bongoland: Burundi Refugees in Urban Tanzania. NY:
Berghahn Books.
Spear, Thomas and R. Waller, eds., Being Maasai. London: James Curry.
Weiss, Brad. 2003. Sacred Trees, Bitter Harvests: Globalizing Coffee in Northwest
Tanzania. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Coffee, wealth, markets among the
Haya.
White, Luise, Stephan F. Miescher, and David William Cohen. 2001. African Words,
African Voices: Critical Practices in Oral History. Bloomington, IN: Indiana
University Press.
Further Reading (novels):
Achebe, Chinua. 1994 or any edition. Things Fall Apart. NY: Doubleday.
The impact of colonialism. A classic.
Bâ, Mariama. 1996. So Long a Letter. Reed Publishing.
West African woman writes of her feelings about multiple marriages.
Fuller, Alexandra. 2003. Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight. NY: Random House.
British expatriates in Rhodesia and Malawi.
Gourevitch, Philip. 1999. We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed
With Our Families. Picador Press. Rwanda’s genocidal war.
Hochshild, Adam. 1999. King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism
in Colonial Africa. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. Chronicles the rapacity of
King Leopold of Belgium, and its consequences for the Congolese.
Maraire, J. Nozipo. 1997. Zenzele. NY: Delta. Letters written from a Zimbabwean
mother to a daughter headed to Harvard University.
Nzenza, Sekai. Songs to an African Sunset: A Zimbabwean Story. Lonely Planet.
Oyono, Ferdinand. 1990. Houseboy. Heinemann. Houseboy in Cameroon.
Sembene, Ousmane. 1996. God’s Bits of Wood. Dakar-Niger railroad workers strike in
1940s.
Thiongo, Ngugi wa. Any one of his novels (e.g. Petals of Blood The River Between,
Wizard of the Crow, Dreams in a Time of War). Kenyan author who writes in Gikuyu; his
English translations are widely available.
For followup on Charles Piot, if you are interested in his work on the Kabre:
http://www2.ucsc.edu/cgirs/publications/cpapers/piot.pdf
(paper on Placing the Local at the Millennium: Thoughts on an African Postcolony,
given at UC Santa Cruz, October 28, 2000)
Websites:
News sources:
http://www.world-newspapers.com/africa.html
http://library.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/africa/current2.html
http://allafrica.com/
The CIA World Factbook
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/
Good for basic information on a country of your choice.
Human Rights Watch
http://www.hrw.org/ Africa has some presence on their website.
African Studies Association
www.africanstudies.org (annual conferences)
African Studies: Books on Africa published by Ohio University Press
http://www.ohiou.edu/oupress/bapafricanstudies.htm (go to the African series webpage:
interesting-looking book on African soccerscapes: how Africa changed soccer)
African Studies Center, University of Pennsylvania
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/
for UPenn’s African Studies Center’s African images: sculpture, masks, arts)
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/Home_Page/GIF_Images.html
Tourism information, Eastern Africa: Egypt to Zimbabwe and Botswana
www.africanet.com (British travel company)
Personal webpage on Kenya, including interactive map, language, history:
http://www.blissites.com/kenya/ (interesting, but active only until 2004)
Swahili on-line dictionary
http://www.yale.edu/swahili/
News on Africa
http://www.africaonline.com/site/
Interesting Maasai website, run by Maasai
http://www.maasai-infoline.org/
African map quiz online, Harper College
http://www.harpercollege.edu/mhealy/mapquiz/ssa/ssamenu.htm
African Music Encyclopedia
http://www.africanmusic.org/
Africa-America Institute
Africa Society of the National Summit on Africa
Africa South of the Sahara: Selected Internet Resources
African Studies Internet Resources
African Studies WWW
Country Files
International African Students Association
World Bank;
www.worldbank.org