Routledge is delighted to be re-issuing 79 volumes originally published between 1931 and 1988 in association with the International African Institute. Unavailable outside a few key libraries, many of these republished volumes were at the cutting edge of a fieldwork and ethnographic revolution in African anthropology in the decades after 1930. It involved the production of a wide body of fieldwork-based ethnographic documentation about the cultures of the different societies in Africa. Secondly, it saw a methodological turn to intense, localized investigations of cultural tradition and social change in a rapidly modernizing context. These investigations involved a more sustained and systematic, more professional and ‘scientific’ form of immersion and participant observation, than anything that had gone before. The sites of engagement were urban as well as rural; the pioneering researchers were female as well as male. No longer was the journal essay the repository of the latest research in the discipline, but rich ethnographies running into hundreds of pages.
The volumes are supplemented with maps, which will be available to view on https://www.routledge.com/ or available as pdfs from the publishers.
By M. G. Smith
April 28, 2020
Originally published in 1960, this is a details study of the successive forms of government in the Hausa chiefdom of Zaria in Northern Nigeria. It presents a comparative analysis of the political organization and development of Zaria under successive Habe, Fulani and British suzerains. The book ...
Edited
By Max Gluckman
April 28, 2020
The 18 papers in this volume, originally published in 1969 in English and French, with summaries in the other language, define and analyze in their wider social contexts the fundamental ideas and procedures to be found in African traditional systems of law. They assess the needs and problems of ...
By Paul Bohannan
April 28, 2020
Since publication in 1957 the importance of Bohannan's study of judicial institutions and procedures among the Tiv has been widely recognized. It has contributed widely to the continuing discussion concerning the objectives and methods to be followed in the anthropological study of law and the ...
By H. E. Lambert
April 28, 2020
Originally published in 1956, the main emphasis of the book is on the complex age-set organization which constitutes the framework within which the life of every Kikuyu is regulated from infancy to old age. The book shows how the political and territorial organization, the judicial system and the ...
Edited
By Daryll Forde
April 28, 2020
Originally published in 1951 this book analyses the social values and institutions involved in the establishment and maintenance of marital relationships. Most of the data is derived from Umor, the largest of the five Yakö villages. As well as considering the conventions through which mariatal ...
Edited
By Samir Amin
April 28, 2020
Originally published in 1974, this volume deals with studies of migration from census and other data, variations in scale, distance and duration of various types of migration, social relations of migrant populations with their home areas and their host communities, and expectations and valuation of...
By S. F. Nadel
April 28, 2020
Originally published in 1954, this book is a pentrating study of Nupe religion and the increasing influence that Islam has had on indigenous forms of worship. The practise of witchcraft, forms of ritual, Gods and faith in medicine are all examined as an integral part of Nupe religion and culture....
Edited
By Théodore Monod
April 28, 2020
Originally published in 1975, the papers collected in this volume review African pastoralism in both West and East Africa, in relation to economy, ecology, social and community organisation, kinship, inter-group relations, modern administrative attitudes and policies and problems of development. ...
By B. A. Pauw
April 28, 2020
Originally published in 1960, this book is a study of religion among the Tlhaping, a rural Bantu society who were the first among the Tswana tribes to come into contact with Europeans. The religious organization of the Tlhaping has been viewed within the framework of the people’s social structure ...
By Monica Wilson
April 28, 2020
Originally published in 1957, analyses the rituals celebrated by groups of kinsmen on the occasion of births, marriages and deaths within the age villages of the Nyakyusa. the connection between the form of the rituals and the kinship structure is examined. The symbolism of the rituals throws great...
By R. L. Wishlade
April 28, 2020
Originally published in 1965, this is a study of Christian secessionist sects in the southern Province of Nyasaland (Malawi). It discusses the nature and context of sectarianism in Africa and analyses the developemnt of the sects, their ritual and worship and the roles of their officials in the ...
Edited
By Aidan Southall
April 28, 2020
Originally published in 1961, this book analyses economic changes in Africa and the restructuring of social relations to which this hs led. there are also detailed studies of the character of social changes in individual communities. There is a particular focus on changing kinship status and ...