Ecué's Atlantic: An Essay in Methodology

2007 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 275-315 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephan Palmié
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Social History ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Secret Societies ◽  
Cross River ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Methodological Problems ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
River Type

AbstractArguing from an exposition of the principal epistemological and methodological problems that have plagued African-Americanist research since its inception as a properly disciplined anthropological pursuit, this essay focuses on an ostensibly 'clear' case of 'transatlantic continuities' to question linear construction of historical relations between 'African' and 'African-American' cultural forms. Detailing the social history of an African male initiatory sodality and its supposed Cuban equivalent within their wider political economic contexts, I argue that the apparent dispersion of Cross-River-type secret societies ought not to be seen as a pattern of diffusion from a (temporally prior) point of inception to (temporally later) sites of recreation, but as a total pattern of simultaneous 'Atlantic' eventuation and cultural production.

Framing The Fosters: jokes, racism and Black and Asian voices in British comedy television

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gavin Schaffer
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Racial Politics ◽  
Black British ◽  
Stand Up Comedy ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Post War ◽  
Cultural Leaders ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter interrogates the relationship between television comedy, power and racial politics in post-war Britain. In a period where Black and Asian Britons were forced to negotiate racism as a day-to-day reality, the essay questions the role played by television comedy in reflecting and shaping British multicultural society. Specifically, this chapter probes Black and Asian agency in comedy production, questioning who the joke makers were and what impact this had on the development of comedy and its reception. The work of scholars of Black and Asian comedy television such as Sarita Malik, and of Black stand-up comedy such as Stephen Small, has helped us to understand that Black- and Asian-led British comedy emerged belatedly in the 1980s and 1990s, hindered by the historical underrepresentation of these communities in British cultural production and the disinclination of British cultural leaders to address this problem. This chapter uses these scholarly frames of reference, alongside research that addresses the social and political functions of comedy, to re-open the social history of Black British communities in post-war Britain through the story of sitcom.

The Oral History of Royal Slavery in the Sokoto Caliphate: An Interview with Sallama Dako

2001 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 273-291
Author(s):  
Sean Stilwell ◽  
Ibrahim Hamza ◽  
Paul E. Lovejoy
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social History ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Sokoto Caliphate ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Royal Slavery ◽  
Official Sources

A powerful community of royal slaves emerged in Kano Emirate in the wake of Usman dan Fodio's jihad (1804-08), which established the Sokoto Caliphate. These elite slaves held administrative and military positions of great power, and over the course of the nineteenth century played an increasing prominent role in the political, economic, and social life of Kano. However, the individuals who occupied slave offices have largely been rendered silent by the extant historical record. They seldom appear in written sources from the period, and then usually only in passing. Likewise, certain officials and offices are mentioned in official sources from the colonial period, but only in the context of broader colonial concerns and policies, usually related to issues about taxation and the proper structure of indirect rule.As the following interview demonstrates, the collection and interpretation of oral sources can help to fill these silences. By listening to the words and histories of the descendents of royal slaves, as well as current royal slave titleholders, we can begin to reconstruct the social history of nineteenth-century royal slave society, including the nature of slave labor and work, the organization the vast plantation system that surrounded Kano, and the ideology and culture of royal slaves themselves.The interview is but one example of a series of interviews conducted with current and past members of this royal slave hierarchy by Yusufu Yunusa. As discussed below, Sallama Dako belonged to the royal slave palace community in Kano. By royal slave, we mean highly privileged and powerful slaves who were owned by the emir, known in Hausa as bayin sarki (slaves of the emir or king).

scholarly journals Forging the trowel, hammering the Dacians: Marxism and Late Iron Age Archaeology in Romania (1948–1989)

2020 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
pp. 23-62
Author(s):  
Alin Henț ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Critical Evaluation ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Key Events

The aim of this paper is to make a critical evaluation of the Romanian historiography from 1948–1989 which had as a subject of study the social history of the northern Balkan communities in the Late Iron Age period. The two years that I have chosen have both a symbolical and a chronological value. The year 1948 marks the beginning of an extensive and radical process of political, economic, social, and cultural changes, while the year 1989 symbolizes the fall of the Romanian “communist” regime. I propose a contextual analysis, which takes into account the evolution of the “communist” regime, as well as some key events that shaped the discourse. Through this evaluation, I want to intervene in the symbolic struggles that had as a final stake the Late Iron Age archaeology from Romania. Without claiming an objective analysis, I want to offer an alternative to the distorted portrayals which had existed so far. Although labelled as a “Communist” or “Marxist” historiography, it never strayed too far from the nationalist ideology, creating massive distortions along its way. In almost 50 years, the Romanian Late Iron Age historiography has gone from a formal and superficial application of Marxist theories, to a relative liberalization, and finally returned to an almost right‑wing discourse over the Dacian past. Moreover, I will show, in contrast to the classical post‑Communist view that the Late Iron Age archaeology in Romania was in touch, at least at some point, to the contemporary historiographical debates.

Cultivating Community: Black Agrarianism in Cleveland, Ohio

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 18-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet Fiskio ◽  
Md Rumi Shammin ◽  
Vel Scott
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Community Organizing ◽  
Central Values ◽  
The Social ◽  
Black Bodies ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Great Migration ◽  
African American Communities ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Cleveland Ohio

In this article, we present the voices of African American urban gardeners in Cleveland, Ohio, a city in the Rust Belt. We draw attention to the history of a rich neighborhood life following the Great Migration that was grounded in political activism and mutual support. We focus on the gardener's visions of thriving, self-reliant African American communities and the desire to rebuild soil, neighborhoods, and economies. The central values articulated include hospitality, empowerment, and giving back, values that are grounded in the history and current practice of community organizing. We critique the mainstream tendency to label black bodies and African American communities as pathological, and instead argue for recognizing the skills and abilities of African American gardeners to cultivate community—that is, to build and strengthen the social, political, economic, and cultural fabric of neighborhoods.

From Calabar to Carter's Grove: The History of a Virginia Slave Community. By Lorena S. Walsh. Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia, 2001. Pp. xxii, 335. $18.95, paper.

2001 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 1140-1141
Author(s):  
Peter A. Coclanis
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Social History ◽  
American History ◽  
Demographic History ◽  
African American History ◽  
Agricultural History ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

Over the past quarter century, no scholar has done more to document the social history of the colonial Chesapeake than Lorena Walsh. In so doing, she has made important scholarly contributions in a variety of areas, most notably, in agricultural history, demographic history, African American history, and women's history. Along with such scholars as Lois Green Carr, Allan Kulikoff, Darrett and Anita Rutman, and Russell Menard among others in the so-called Chesapeake School, Walsh has helped to create a powerful framework for understanding the evolution of Virginia and Maryland and for interpreting the behavior of the populations residing therein. Two of the hallmarks of the work of scholars associated with the “School” are innovative methodologies and meticulous, painstaking research, both of which characteristics are readily apparent in the volume under review.

scholarly journals Undivided object: language, ethnography and sources

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 510-535
Author(s):  
Heloisa Pontes
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Intellectual Life ◽  
Object Language ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Basic Argument ◽  
The Relationship

This article argues that anthropology should not avoid studying the world of art and the specialized fields of cultural production. To do this it is necessary to examine the relationship between ethnography, language and social processes, as well as the way in which we make use o four sources (written, oral and visual) in our research. While this is the basic argument of the text, it also moves into a discussion of the sources that are available for the social history of the theater and Brazilian intellectual life from 1940 to 1960: photographs, interviews, reminiscences, biographies, autobiographies as well as books and theater repertories.

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