African Political Systems Revisited
Changing Perspectives on Statehood and Power
Günther Schlee editor Aleksandar Bošković, Bošković editor
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Berghahn Books
Published:8th Apr '22
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
Reexamining a classical work of social anthropology, African Political Systems (1940), edited by Fortes and Evans-Pritchard, this book looks at the colonial and academic context from which the work arose, as well as its reception and its subject matter, and looks at how the work can help with analysis of current politics in Africa. This book critically reflects upon the history of anthropology. It also contributes to a political anthropology which is aware of its antecedents, self-reflexive as a discipline, conscious of pitfalls and biases, and able to locate itself in its academic, social and political environment.
“African Political Systems Revisited is a rich collection…that…more than succeeds in obliging us to acknowledge the ongoing empirical and theoretical value of a disciplinary monument without succumbing to either theoretical nostalgia or postcolonial posturing.”• Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
“African Political Systems Revisited is ethnographically and theoretically rich, an excellent example of how we can read, discuss with, and profit from a “classic” of anthropology, without uncritically celebrating it or haughtily dismissing its possible contributions for the present. If a similar exercise were made for other ‘classics,’ our relationships with our ancestors would be much more fruitful. The discussion of how different political systems, values and forms of legitimacy interact and are renegotiated is a necessary step toward a better understanding of what ‘freedom,’emancipation,’ ‘resistance,’ and ‘agency’ mean in different African contexts.”• Cahiers d'Études africaines
“African Political Systems Revisited (APSR) offers valuable reconsiderations of some of the key contributions of the original African Political Systems (APS) published by Meyer Fortes and Edward Evan Evans Pritchard in 1940, by way of bridging a central anthropological discussion over a span of 80 years… Altogether, APSR makes an intriguing contribution to the fields of social anthropology, political anthropology, African studies, and political theory and will be a valuable read specifically to students of political anthropology in combination with the original work.”• Anthropos
“The book is a high quality discussion by a group of established and upcoming anthropologists of the impact and value of a classical and foundational text in social anthropology … The result is a strong contribution to social anthropology with new theoretical and comparative insights.”• C.S. van der Waal, Stellenbosch University
ISBN: 9781800734722
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
278 pages