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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:'A Palimpsest of Contradictions': Ethnicity, Class, and Politics in Africa
Author:Berman, Bruce J.ISNI
Year:2004
Periodical:International Journal of African Historical Studies
Volume:37
Issue:1
Pages:13-31
Language:English
Geographic terms:Kenya
Africa
Subjects:culture contact
Western culture
African culture
Kikuyu
political systems
History and Exploration
Politics and Government
Ethnic and Race Relations
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/4129070
Abstract:Bronislaw Malinowski, the teacher and mentor of Jomo Kenyatta, turned in the late 1930s to an increasingly critical view of the effects of colonialism in Africa. His central assertion was that the encounter of African and European cultures would not transform the former into the latter, but would produce instead distinctive patterns of change incorporating elements of both, although completely reproducing neither, in 'a third way'. In developing an approach to the method and theory of studying the political economy, State and culture in Africa, both historical and contemporary, John Lonsdale and the present author have analysed one example of such a third way produced by the Kikuyu of Kenya. In their work they focused on three areas of concern: the relationship between the State and society in colonial and postcolonial States; the cultural response of African societies to capitalist modernity as it was imposed upon and experienced by them; and the relationship between African political cultures and the modern development of ethnicity and class. The present essay reviews Lonsdale's and Berman's work over the past dozen years. Notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract]
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