Some of the most recent articles from open access anthropology journals (beta)
There is little about globalized modern magical-religious Witchcraft that isn’t borrowed. It is well established that it is a creative response to modernity rather than an ancient continuous practice. Its inventiveness also makes it ripe for charges of…
In this article, based on my doctoral research, I discuss the appropriation of religious elements from South America by Finnish ‘mystical tourists’. The plant medicine ceremonies are approached as spiritual commodities. Imagining local beliefs and prac…
Concluding remarks for the special issue of Approaching Religion, ‘Appropriation as a Perspective and Topic in the Study of Religion and Spirituality’.
This study pays attention to indigenous medicine practices and healing among the Dagaaba of North-Western Ghana. Based on Dagaaba’s theories of traditional medicine and qualitative sources of data, we confirm and further argue that the indigenous tradi…
The study examined the influence of cultural variables, namely age of entering into marriage, belief systems and sex preference on fertility behaviour among women in Nigeria. Preference theory was adopted as a framework for explaining fertility behavio…
Igbo burial songs and rites through the framework of cultural cognition is the focus of this study. The Igbo ethnic group of South-eastern Nigeria are religious people who believe in the mutual and peaceful co-existence of dichotomous categories such a…
This paper focuses on the concept of well-being as expressed in the context of local architecture and the changes that have taken place in this area among the Bulsa in northern Ghana. Anthropologists and sociologists have argued that the essence of loc…
This paper on the Covid-19 pandemic in Nigeria. Based on sociological perspectives, the main objective of the paper is to examine and measure the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on: (i) income (ii) quality of life and (iii) standard of living in Nigeri…
In South Africa, skills development is the cornerstone of the government’s developmental strategy on which economic growth rests; rising unemployment and the skills shortage has added urgency to the issue. Before 1994, vocational education and training…
This study illustrates the significance of water for the Murle people of South Sudan. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork, we analyse traditional practices and metaphorical expressions in the spontaneous speech of male members of the laŋo age-set. We s…
This article examines Ryan Coogler’s film Black Panther (2018) and the critical conversations it raises, which are problematized by its perceived failure to accurately represent Black diasporic experiences, the racist vitriol against it and its concern…
In Zimbabwe, images of the female body in fiction and the media are gradually shifting from being interpreted as merely sexualized objects of male visual consumption to those of resistance to and defiance against sexist objectification, exploitation, a…
This book review focuses on Toyin Falola’s 2022 study entitled Nigerian Literary Imagination and the Nationhood Project. The review draws attention to how Falola historicises the evolution of Nigerian literature and its representation of national reali…
InVisible Culture
Cultural Anthropology and Ethnosemiotics
Africa Spectrum, Ahead of Print. With most existing research on party switching concentrating on the drivers of defection and the electoral performance of defectors, this research sheds light on the events that occurred after MPs switched parties but b…
Africa Spectrum, Ahead of Print. In the mid-2000s, Uganda’s authoritarian National Resistance Movement (NRM) regime set out to extend state control over Karamoja, a long-neglected region in the northeast of the country. This effort has involved large-s…
by Oksana Voytyuk Abstract The Russian-Ukrainian war contributed to significant turbulence in the European energy market. The existing energy relations with Russia have been almost destroyed. The European Union found itself in a difficult situation and quickly began to look for ways to replace Russian gas. Naturally, Algeria was found on the list of countries […]
by Sule Ameh James Abstract This article presents a critical analysis of the African vernacular-rooted imagery represented in Yemi Ijisakin’s stone sculptures produced between the years 2006 and 2016. The focus on this period is to study the kinds of imagery he represents when there is a global artistic shift to installation and conceptual art. […]
by Mandira Bagwandeen Abstract As per the African Union’s 2016 prescription, most new rail projects in Africa are greenfield standard gauge railways (SGR) that cost billions of dollars, which, if successfully implemented and well run, can offer better services than road transport. However, to be viable, SGR investments must have adequate freight traffic, provide reliable […]
Published: June 2023.
These are three distinct essays that interrogate what happens when the anthropologist studying aging and care envisions their fieldwork through the lens of the video camera and its outputs. The intersection between the anthropology of care/aging…
Prologue:
This is a slightly unusual commentary since it was written in response to three oral presentations at the EASA 2020 meetings of “Illuminating Futures of the Life Course through Visual and Digital Media” should be of which only o…
In this paper we reflect upon our comparative ethnographic research on ageing, the life course and smartphones in Italy and Japan as part of a collaborative anthropological project The Anthropology of Smartphones and Smart Ageing (ASSA). Our dis…
Following a visual ethnography, this article analyzes parkour’s visual subculture as a form of subcultural capital that has developed with the rise of this alternative sport. It describes a visual habitus and a set of media practices to understa…