Theory from the south -- On personhood : a perspective from Africa -- Liberalism, policulturalism, and ideology : thoughts on citizenship and difference -- Nations with/out borders : the brave neo world and the problem of belonging -- Postcolonial politics and discourses of democracy : an anthropological take on African political modernities -- History on trial : memory, evidence, and the forensic production of the past -- Alien-nation : zombies, immigrants, and millennial capitalism -- Beyond bare life : AIDS, (bio)politics, (...) and the neo world order. (shrink)

How are relations between generations shifting? As anthropologists, our take on intergenerational relations and the rationalities on which they are based—i.e., generationality—is historically situated. In many parts of the world, generation has become a major axis of social and political struggle, sometimes of bitter conflict. This, we argue, is a corollary of post-Cold War transformations in economy and society—and a radical rupture in processes of social reproduction. These transformations have conduced to the perception of a rising ‘generation war.’ How, then, (...) in these circumstances, are we to think anew of intergenerational relations—and justice? (shrink)

Michel Foucault has famously argued that, since the counter-Reformation, the modern West has been preoccupied with extracting truth from sex, above all, the truth about power and the human subject. Africa has long been waging its own battles over the politics of gender, sexuality, personhood, and power, a conflict in which religion has played a pivotal role, abetting and sometimes challenging established modes of governance. In recent times, this relationship has become ever more agonistic. In many parts of the continent, (...) religious authorities have mounted puritanical crusades against nonconforming gender and sexual practices. But faith has also been mobilized to offer refuge to the persecuted. How might these issues of identity, exile, and redemption speak to more general transformations in the nature of religious life in the current moment, in Africa and beyond? (shrink)