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Despite being told that we now live in a cosmopolitan world, more and more people have begun to assert their identities in ways that are deeply rooted in the local. These claims of autochthony meaning born from the soil seek to establish an irrefutable, primordial right to belong and are often employed in politically charged attempts to exclude outsiders. In "The Perils of Belonging," Peter Geschiere traces the concept of autochthony back to the classical period and incisively explores the idea in two very different contexts: Cameroon and the Netherlands.

In both countries, the...

To many Westerners, the disappearance of African traditions of witchcraft might seem inevitable wuth continued modernization. In The Modernity of Witchcraft, Peter Geschieres uses his own experiences among the Maka and in other parts of eastern and southern Cameroon, as well as other anthropological research, to argue that contemporary ideas and practices of witchcraft are more a response to modern exigencies than a lingering cultural custom. The prevalence of witchcraft, especially in African politics and entrepreneurship, demonstrates the unlikely balance it has achieved with the forces...

Questions surrounding modernity and its meanings weigh heavily on students and scholars who study Africa. Becoming modern carries a lot of different meanings and puts concepts of culture, tradition, and nation into uneasy use. Readings in Modernity in Africa brings together classic essays, old and new, to help assess the issues and problems of modernity in an African context. Questions include: How can we discuss modernity without lapsing into a Western-dominated view of history? How do we avoid losing sight of the diversity of local forms? How is it that modernity has such a powerful...

The empirically rich and analytically provocative contributions to this volume focus on Africa and on the process through which commodities come into being. Commodifcation is shown to be a powerful tool towards understanding the modern world.

Wim M. J. van Binsbergen is senior researcher at the African Studies Centre in Leiden and professor of the Foundations of Intercultural Philosophy at the Erasmus University of Rotterdam (the Netherlands). Peter L. Geschiere is professor of African anthropology at the University of Amsterdam (the Netherlands).