African Anthropologies

'This is a timely and extremely valuable contribution to the ongoing debate about the crisis of identity in anthropology, offering fresh and unique insights into the fundamental challenges facing African anthropology. The book focuses on the theoretical, epistemological and practical problems resulting from Africa's encounter with Euro-colonialism and addresses the difficulties, limitations, achievements and potential African anthropology - the "mother" of Africa studies - from the perspective of "insiders".' Maxwell Owusu, University of Michigan 'This is a fresh and important new overview of the place of anthropological research and practice in Africa, past and present'. Wendy James, University of Oxford 'This book uses the "expansive moment" of African anthropology under late colonialism to re-explore the relationship between government and the discipline, pulling together three strands to the arguments: the historical identification of what specific anthropological endeavours actually did under colonial conditions; the complex relationships between anthropology and nationalism in Africa; and the exploration of what "practice" within national contexts in the present'. Jane Guyer, John Hopkins University 'Here is a book teachers of African anthropology have been hoping for - an intervention that lays to rest the notion of anthropology as colonial science. Released from the "Africanist" confines, anthropology assumes its rightful place in the reflexive and engaged production of knowledge on and for Africa'. Harri Englund, University of Cambridge