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This book provides an overview of approaches to language and culture, and it outlines the broad interdisciplinary field of anthropological linguistics and linguistic anthropology. It identifies current and future directions of research, including language socialization, language reclamation, speech styles and genres, language ideology, verbal taboo, social indexicality, emotion, time, and many more. Furthermore, it offers areal perspectives on the study of language in cultural contexts (namely Africa, the Americas, Australia and Oceania, Mainland Southeast Asia, and Europe), and it lays the foundation for future developments within the field. In this way, the book bridges the disciplines of cultural anthropology and linguistics and paves the way for the new book series Anthropological Linguistics.
Once the grain basket for South Africa, much of Lesotho has become a scarred and treeless wasteland. The nation's spectacular gullying has concerned environmentalists and conservationists for more than half a century, In Imperial Gullies: Soil Erosion and Conservation in Lesotho, Kate B. Showers documents the truth behind this devastation. Showers reconstructs the history of the landscape, beginning with a history of the soil. She concludes that Lesotho's distinctive erosion chasms, called dongas, often cited as an example of destructive land-use practices by African farmers, actually were caused by colonial and postcolonial practices. The residents of Lesotho emerge as victims of a failed technology. Their efforts to mitigate or resist implementation of destructive soil conservation engineering works were thwarted, and they were blamed for the consequences of policies promoted by international soil conservationists since the 1930s. Imperial Gullies calls for an observational, experimental and, most importantly, a fully consultative and participatory approach to address Lesotho's serious contemporary problems of soil erosion. The first book to bring to center stage the historical practice of colonial soil science and a cautionary tale of western science in unfamiliar terrain it will interest a broad, interdisciplinary audience in African and environmental studies, social sciences, and history. "Showers shows how local people understood that colonial contour conservation methods and road building actually stimulated gully erosion, something colonial scientists failed to realize. Overall it is undoubtedly one of the most important books written to date on any part of the environmental history of Africa. Moreover it stands out in the discipline of environmental history in general as an unusually sophisticated work of great insight and explanatory power."---Richard H. Grove, author of Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens and the Origins of Environmentalism, 1600-1860 Kate B. Showers is a visiting research fellow and senior research associate at the Centre for World Environmental History, University of Sussex, England. She has lived in rural Lesotho and has served as head of research, Institute of Southern African Studies, National University of Lesotho.
Chaka is a genuine masterpiece that represents one of the earliest major contributions of black Africa to the corpus of modern world literature. Mofolos fictionalized life-story account of Chaka (Shaka), translated from Sesotho by D. P. Kunene, begins with the future Zulu kings birth followed by the unwarranted taunts and abuse he receives during childhood and adolescence. The author manipulates events leading to Chakas status of great Zulu warrior, conqueror, and king to emphasize classic tragedys psychological themes of ambition and power, cruelty, and ultimate ruin. Mofolos clever nods to the supernatural add symbolic value. Kunenes fine translation renders the dramatic and tragic tensions in Mofolos tale palpable as the richness of the authors own culture is revealed. A substantial introduction by the translator provides valuable context for modern readers.
During its first six years (1986-1991), the journal Cultural Anthropology provided a unique forum for registering the lively traffic between anthropology and the emergent arena of cultural studies. The nineteen essays collected in Rereading Cultural Anthropology, all of which originally appeared in the journal, capture the range of approaches, internal critiques, and new questions that have characterized the study of anthropology in the 1980s, and which set the agenda for the present. Drawing together work by both younger and well-established scholars, this volume reveals various influences in the remaking of traditions of ethnographic work in anthropology; feminist studies, poststructuralism, cultural critiques, and disciplinary challenges to established boundaries between the social sciences and humanities. Moving from critiques of anthropological representation and practices to modes of political awareness and experiments in writing, this collection offers systematic access to what is now understood to be a fundamental shift (still ongoing) in anthropology toward engagement with the broader interdisciplinary stream of cultural studies. Contributors. Arjun Appadurai, Keith H. Basso, David B. Coplan, Vincent Crapanzano, Faye Ginsburg, George E. Marcus, Enrique Mayer, Fred Meyers, Alcida R. Ramos, John Russell, Orin Starn, Kathleen Stewart, Melford E. Spiro, Ted Swedenburg, Michael Taussig, Julie Taylor, Robert Thornton, Stephen A. Tyler, Geoffrey M. White
This book provides an in-depth and comprehensive state-of-the-art study of 'African languages' and 'language in Africa' since its beginnings as a 'colonial science' at the turn of the twentieth century in Europe. Compiled by 56 internationally renowned scholars, this ground breaking study looks at past and current research on 'African languages' and 'language in Africa' under the impact of paradigmatic changes from 'colonial' to 'postcolonial' perspectives. It addresses current trends in the study of the role and functions of language, African and other, in pre- and postcolonial African societies. Highlighting the central role that the 'language factor' plays in postcolonial transformation processes of sociocultural modernization and economic development, it also addresses more recent, particularly urban, patterns of communication, and outlines applied dimensions of digitalization and human language technology.
The workers who migrate from Lesotho to the mines and cities of neighboring South Africa have developed a rich genre of sung oral poetry—word music—that focuses on the experiences of migrant life. This music provides a culturally reflexive and consciously artistic account of what it is to be a migrant or part of a migrant's life. It reveals the relationship between these Basotho workers and the local and South African powers that be, the "cannibals" who live off of the workers' labor. David Coplan presents a moving collection of material that for the first time reveals the expressive genius of these tenacious but disenfranchised people. Coplan discusses every aspect of the Basotho musical literature, taking into account historical conditions, political dynamics, and social forces as well as the styles, artistry, and occasions of performance. He engages the postmodern challenge to decolonize our representation of the ethnographic subject and demonstrates how performance formulates local knowledge and communicates its shared understandings. Complete with transcriptions of full male and female performances, this book develops a theoretical and methodological framework crucial to anyone seeking to understand the relationship between orality and literacy in the context of performance. This work is an important contribution to South African studies, to ethnomusicology and anthropology, and to performance studies in general.
This volume explores and compares linguistic practices among young people in linguistically and culturally diverse urban spaces.