W. R. Bascom and the Ife bronzes

Africa ◽  
1990 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 425-434 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert L. Tignor
Keyword(s):  
American Anthropologist ◽  
Department Of State ◽  
The Us ◽  
Eventual Return ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
The Third World ◽  
Colonial Government ◽  
The City ◽  
Small Museum

Opening ParagraphIn 1938 an African building a house in the city of Ife, the cultural capital of the Yorubas and the mythical cradle of Yoruba civilisation, came upon an extraordinary cache of ancient Nigerian bronzes. In all, at least fifteen bronzes were uncovered in 1938 in a compound only 100 yards from the palace of the Oni of Ife. These bronzes were to prove of great historical and artistic significance. Until that time only two other bronzes had been unearthed in the Yoruba area, and one of those had disappeared, leaving Nigeria only a single original and a replica. In the disposition of the priceless new finds there ensued a tale of intrigue, prevarication, outraged nationalism, and narrow-minded ethnocentricism that drew into its maelstrom the British colonial government of Nigeria, the US Consulate in Lagos, and the USA's Department of State. Although the Ife bronzes, which today reside in a handsome if small museum in the city of Ife, are not so well known as, for example, the Elgin marbles or certain other antiquities taken from the Third World, the controversy surrounding their removal from Nigeria and their eventual return was filled with the same emotion and employed the same arguments heard today over the rightful location of national cultural treasures. The Nigerian dispute is made all the more poignant in that one of the major protagonists was not a money-seeking antiquities dealer, but a young American anthropologist destined to be one of the most astute and sympathetic interpreters of Yoruba culture.

Worthy Objects of Charity

2019 ◽  
pp. 171-193
Author(s):  
Preeti Chopra
Keyword(s):  
European Community ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Western India ◽  
Native Communities ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Colonial Government ◽  
The City

The British colonial government received requests for assistance in the establishment of charitable institutions in Bombay in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This chapter underscores the role of the colonial government as protector of the European community in Bombay, in contrast with similar efforts towards native communities (ethnic and religious) in the city. In particular, it demonstrates how a study of Bombay’s charitable institutions provides a deeper understanding of what British colonials deemed as “worthy objects of charity” in western India. It is not simply the dichotomy between colonial engagements with charitable institutions for Europeans and native communities that is of interest. What is unexpected and enlightening is that the government's relationship with the charitable institutions of native religious communities---Parsi, Hindu, Muslim, and Jewish--was not always the same. Based on these varied engagements, this chapter reveals the colonial government’s complex and diverging ideas of “worth.”

The dissolution of Freetown City Council in 1926: a negative example of political apprenticeship in colonial Sierra Leone

Africa ◽  
1987 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 422-438
Author(s):  
Akintola J. G. Wyse
Keyword(s):  
Sierra Leone ◽  
City Council ◽  
Prison Sentence ◽  
Public Figure ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Colonial Government ◽  
The City ◽  
The Town

Opening ParagraphFreetown City Council, established in 1893, was the victim of a colonial government which concentrated authority in white hands and resented the survival of a municipality run by Africans. Successive governors regularly presented it as a scapegoat, along with the whole Krio community, for disturbances in Freetown, notably the 1919 anti-Syrian riots and the 1926 railway strike. In 1925 financial malpractices in the council were disclosed and some officials were prosecuted. The following year the Mayor, Cornelius May, editor of the leading newspaper, the Sierra Leone Weekly News, and a highly respected public figure, was charged with conspiracy to defraud, along with the Town Clerk and the City Treasurer, and was given a nine-month prison sentence. Then, on the recommendation of a Commission of Inquiry, the City Council was dissolved and replaced by a Municipal Board.

Public-sector Contracting for Investment Services

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon L. Clark ◽  
Ashby H. B. Monk ◽  
Gordon L. Clark ◽  
Ashby H. B. Monk
Keyword(s):  
Financial Services ◽  
Pension Fund ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Economic Significance ◽  
The Us ◽  
Public Pension Fund ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Administration And Supervision ◽  
Institutional Ecology ◽  
The City

In Chapter 7, the focus shifts to public agents and the process of contracting financial services and local pension funds in the US states. The costs of governing and managing this sector are addressed and an idealized model of the institutional design, administration, and supervision of the investment management process is introduced, laying out the forms and functions of pensions in relation to their beneficial purpose. In a brief overview of the US state and local PERS sector, its economic significance and distinctive institutional ecology are noted. The authors’ research demonstrates the extent to which the market for financial services in the US public pension-fund sector is Balkanized, implying significant transaction costs for both the buy and sell sides of the market, more often found at the city or metropolitan level than among funds within states or between funds of adjacent states.

scholarly journals Estimating Demand for a New Travel Mode in Boise, Idaho

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 1209
Author(s):  
Mandar Khanal
Keyword(s):  
Road Network ◽  
Travel Demand ◽  
Stated Preference ◽  
State University ◽  
University Campus ◽  
City Center ◽  
Road Congestion ◽  
The Us ◽  
Potential Mode ◽  
The City

The 20,000-student Boise State University campus is located about 3 km from the center of the city of Boise. There is a significant amount of travel between the campus and the city center as students and staff travel to the city to visit restaurants, shops, and entertainment centers. Currently, people make this trip by car, shuttle bus, bike, or walking modes. Cars and shuttle buses, which share the same road network, constitute about 76% of the total trips. As road congestion is expected to grow in the future, it is prudent to look for other modes that can fulfill the travel demand. One potential mode is an aerial tramway. However, an aerial tramway is not a common mode of urban travel in the US. This research describes how the stated preference method was used to estimate demand for a mode that does not currently exist. An online stated preference survey was sent out to 8681 students, faculty, and staff and 1821 valid responses were received. Only about 35% of the respondents expressed their willingness to choose an aerial tramway for various combinations of cost and convenience of the new mode. Respondents were also found to favor convenience over cost for the new mode.

scholarly journals The City-State of Boston: The Rise and Fall of an Atlantic Power, 1630–1865

2020 ◽  
Vol 94 (3) ◽  
pp. 631-636
Author(s):  
Noam Maggor
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
British Empire ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Regional Autonomy ◽  
Atlantic Trade ◽  
History Of ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
City State ◽  
The City ◽  
American Nation

Mark Peterson's The City-State of Boston is a formidable work of history—prodigiously researched, lucidly written, immense in scope, and yet scrupulously detailed. A meticulous history of New England over more than two centuries, the book argues that Boston and its hinterland emerged as a city-state, a “self-governing republic” that was committed first and foremost to its own regional autonomy (p. 6). Rather than as a British colonial outpost or the birthplace of the American Revolution—the site of a nationalist struggle for independence—the book recovers Boston's long-lost tradition as a “polity in its own right,” a fervently independent hub of Atlantic trade whose true identity placed it in tension with the overtures of both the British Empire and, later, the American nation-state (p. 631).

Warfare, oracles and iron: a case study of production among the pre-colonial Klowe, in the light of some recent Marxist analyses

Africa ◽  
1984 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Brown
Keyword(s):  
Third World ◽  
Theoretical Work ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Marxist Theory ◽  
The Third ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
The Third World

Opening ParagraphIt is perhaps surprising that the recent resurgence of interest in the application of Marxist theory to the study of the historically non-capitalist societies of the Third World should have focused, at least in part, upon the stateless societies of Africa. To some extent, this interest in some of the least differentiated and least class-stratified of societies can be related to the fundamental problematic of Marxist sociology: the characterization of the stage of advanced communism, which remains so obscure in Marx's own theoretical work. An understanding of the dynamics of ‘primitive’ communism might be seen, therefore, as an essential precursor to this underlying concern. Certainly, the often highly tendentious views of Marxist writers on such issues as the definition of the state and the extent of exploitation in the primitive communist mode can be related to this need. However, the rise of Marxist anthropology has not only been presented as a problem of general evolutionary theory. Other influences have been offered to account for the new concern, the most widely cited being the supposed crisis of functionalism, and the resulting necessity for a complete reorientation of the whole discipline of anthropology. Stateless societies, having long occupied a central place in the field of anthropological enquiry, and yet outwardly presenting such simplicity of form, offer a particular challenge to the radical, and in several recent works have been interpreted in what is claimed to be a novel and distinctive way.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document