{"product_id":"9781856499552","title":"Postcolonial Subjectivities in Africa","description":"\u003ch3\u003ePostcolonial Encounters\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003ch1\u003ePostcolonial Subjectivities in Africa\u003c\/h1\u003e\u003ch3\u003eRichard Werbner | Pnina Werbner | Richard Werbner\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cb\u003eSocial Science \/ General\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp\u003eThese essays on postcolonial subjectivities cross the frontiers of critical theory by illuminating the contradictory predicaments Africans confront in strikingly  different parts of the continent at the start of the 21st century.  The focus is on  the making of subjectivities as a process which is political, a matter of  subjugation to state authority; moral, reflected in the conscience and agency  of subjects who bear rights, duties and obligations; and realised existentially,  in the subjects' consciousness of their personal or intimate relations.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe notion of agency is interrogated, without lapsing into the new  Afro-pessimism. The essays recognise postcolonies troubled by state decline  and increasing exploitation, dispossession and marginalisation, but avoid Afro-pessimism's reduction of subjects to mere victims.  Even more against the  grain of conventional postcolonial studies is the radical questioning of the  force of 'modern subjectivism' in struggles for control of identity, autonomy  and explicit consciousness, and through artistic self-fashioning in globally driven consumption.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith substantial cases based on autobiography, personal experience and long-term scholarly fieldwork in countries as diverse as Madagascar,  Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, Botswana and Cameroon, the book opens out a fresh  field for comparative research and theory on postcolonial transformations  in intersubjectivity. This is to take seriously the people's perception, so  widespread in postcolonial Africa, that to live life to the full is to live it in  interdependence, in conviviality, if possible; that care and respect for others - indeed, civility - is a precious, and indeed, precarious condition of survival and  as such is the object of recognised strategies for its conscious defence; and that because significant others are opaque - never being totally knowable - uncertainty, ambivalence and contingency are inescapable conditions of  human existence.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003eRichard Werbner is professor of African Anthropology and Director of the International Centre for Contemporary Cultural Research (ICCR) at the University of Manchester. Among his books are Ritual Passage, Sacred Journey (1989), and Tears of the Dead (1991), for which he received the Amaury Talbot Prize of the Royal Anthropological Institute. He is coeditor-in-chief of Social Analysis and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Southern African Studies, Cultural Dynamics, Journal of Legal Pluralism, and Journal of Religion in Africa. He is also series editor of Postcolonial Encounters, a Zed Books series in association with the ICCR, Universities of Manchester and Keele. His distinguished career has included visiting appointments at a number of universities in Africa and North America.\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ctable\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePublication Date: \u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e01 January 2002\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePublisher: \u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBloomsbury Academic\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eImprint: \u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eZed Books\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eISBN-13: \u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e9781856499552\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFormat: \u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePaperback softback\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePage Count: \u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e256\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWeight (oz): \u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e11.68\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e","brand":"Bloomsbury Academic","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51369153724556,"sku":"9781856499552","price":38.66,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0710\/9545\/1788\/files\/getimage_ee889c81-3762-4647-8053-791d44278604.jpg?v=1783878125","url":"https:\/\/lateknightbooks.com\/products\/9781856499552","provider":"Late Knight Books and Services, LLC","version":"1.0","type":"link"}