The Colonial State and Carnival

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 126-149
Author(s):  
Christoph Kohl

Carnival performances and their political implications underwent significant transformations in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Guinea-Bissau, West Africa. By focusing on two periods of colonization, this article examines carnival as an event that involves a multitude of meanings and forms of imitation that could imply resistance to colonialism, but were by no means limited to critique and upheaval. Colonizers, colonized, and the people mediating and situated between these overarching categories could ascribe various meanings to specific performances, thereby underlining the multi-dimensional character of carnivalesque rituals and their heterogeneous significations. In these performances, mimicking the colonizers was an active, creative, and ambiguous undertaking that repeatedly and increasingly challenged colonial representation. However, the colonial state proved to be far less controlling and totalizing than is often assumed.

1991 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. G. Adebayo

The fair-skinned people who inhabit the Sudan fringes of west Africa stretching from the Senegal valley to the shores of Lake Chad and who speak the language known as Fulfulde, are known by many names.1 They call themselves Fulbe (singular, Pullo). They are called Fulani by the Hausa of southern Nigeria, and this name has been used for them throughout Nigeria. The British call them Ful, Fulani, or Fula, while the French refer to them as Peul, Peulh, or Poulah. In Senegal the French also inadvertently call them Toucouleur or Tukulor. The Kanuri of northern Nigeria call them Fulata or Felata. In this paper we will adopt the Hausa (or Nigerian) name for the people—Fulani.Accurate censuses are not available on the Fulani in west Africa. A mid-twentieth century estimate puts the total number of Fulani at “over 4 million,” more than half of whom are said to inhabit Nigeria. Another estimate towards the end of 1989 puts the total number of Nigeria's Fulani (nomads only) at over ten million. If both estimates were correct, then the Fulani population in Nigeria alone must have grown 500 per cent in forty years. The dominant factor in this population growth is increased immigration of pastoralists into Nigeria in the wake of the 1968-73 Sahelian drought.


Author(s):  
Jeffrey Herbst

This chapter examines the politics of the currency in West Africa from the beginning of the twentieth century. A public series of debates over the nature of the currency occurred in West Africa during both the colonial and independence periods. Since 1983, West African countries have been pioneers in Africa in developing new strategies to combat overvaluation of the currency and reduce the control of government over the currency supply. The chapter charts the evolution of West African currencies as boundaries and explores their relationship to state consolidation. It shows that leaders in African capitals managed to make the units they ruled increasingly distinct from the international and regional economies, but the greater salience of the currency did not end up promoting state consolidation. Rather, winning the ability to determine the value of the currency led to a series of disastrous decisions that severely weakened the states themselves.


Author(s):  
Hugh B. Urban ◽  
Greg Johnson

The Afterword includes an interview with Bruce Lincoln, in which he is asked to reflect on the current study of religion, methods of comparison, and the political implications of academic discourse. In addition to responding to specific points in these chapters, Lincoln also fleshes out what he thinks it would mean “to do better” in the critical study of religion amid the ongoing crises of higher education today. Perhaps most importantly, he reflects upon and clarifies what he means by “irreverence” in the study of religion; an irreverent approach, he concludes, entails a rejection of the sacred status that other people attribute to various things, but not of the people themselves.


2020 ◽  
pp. 030981682098238
Author(s):  
Miloš Šumonja

The news is old – neoliberalism is dead for good, but this time, even Financial Times knows it. Obituaries claim that it had died from the coronavirus, as the state, not the markets, have had to save both the people and the economy. The argument of the article is that these academic and media interpretations of ‘emergency Keynesianism’ misidentify neoliberalism with its anti-statist rhetoric. For neoliberalism is, and has always been, about ‘the free market and the strong state’. In fact, rather than waning in the face of the coronavirus crisis, neoliberal states around the world are using the ongoing ‘war against the virus’ to strengthen their right-hand grip on the conditions of the working classes.


1989 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 363-381
Author(s):  
Arthur R. Liebscher

To the dismay of today's social progressives, the Argentine Catholic church addresses the moral situation of its people but also shies away from specific political positions or other hint of secular involvement. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the church set out to secure its place in national leadership by strengthening religious institutions and withdrawing clergy from politics. The church struggled to overcome a heritage of organizational weakness in order to promote evangelization, that is, to extend its spiritual influence within Argentina. The bishop of the central city of Córdoba, Franciscan Friar Zenón Bustos y Ferreyra (1905-1925), reinforced pastoral care, catechesis, and education. After 1912, as politics became more heated, Bustos insisted that priests abstain from partisan activities and dedicate themselves to ministry. The church casts itself in the role of national guardian, not of the government, but of the faith and morals of the people.


2002 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
M. C. M. Welten ◽  
P. A. J. Audiffred ◽  
W. F. Prud'homme van Reine

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