The author concentrates on virtuality, which he has come to regard as one of the key concepts for characterizing and understanding the forms of globalization in Africa. Chapters 1 and 2 define... Show moreThe author concentrates on virtuality, which he has come to regard as one of the key concepts for characterizing and understanding the forms of globalization in Africa. Chapters 1 and 2 define virtuality and globalization and provisionally indicate their theoretical relationship. The problematic heritage of an anthropological tradition obsessed with locality provides the analytical framework within which virtuality makes an inspiring topic, as argued in Ch. 3. Ch. 4 offers a transition from theory to empirical case studies by examining the problem of meaning in the African urban environment. Ch. 5 evokes an ethnographic situation (urban puberty rites in present-day Zambia) that illustrates particular forms of virtuality as part of the globalization process. Ch. 6 applies the emerging insights into virtuality and the virtual village to Ren‚ Devisch's notion of villagization as a major process of societal transformation in the Zairian capital, Kinshasa. Ch. 7 explores the applicability of the same concepts to recent patterns of witchcraft and healing as studied, at the national level in Cameroon and Malawi, by Peter Geschiere and Matthew Schoffeleers respectively. The author's own earlier work on the Kazanga festival as an instance of virtuality in the rural context of western central Zambia is summarized in Ch. 8, after which a conclusion rounds off the argument. Show less
Paper presented at the 34th annual meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology, section: Anthropological contributions to the study of migration, Amsterdam, 19-22 March 1975 Abridged abstract:... Show morePaper presented at the 34th annual meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology, section: Anthropological contributions to the study of migration, Amsterdam, 19-22 March 1975 Abridged abstract: Antagonism between older and younger men constitutes a striking feature of a rural community in post-independent Zambia. In the local political processes surrounding the 1973 Zambia general elections, a small group of young men organised themselves within a framework suggested by national party politics, and attempted (with unexpected support from the elders) to construct a youth-centred social order which could dissolve the intergenerational struggle while presenting a blue-print for rural reconstruction. The present paper attempts to interpret these data, in particular as the outcome of a process of social change shaped mainly by labour migration. It examines the pre-colonial career model, changes in rural leadership under colonial rule, the emergence of an urban career model, the changing status of rural youth, ideological change in the colonial era, and the post-independent situation Show less
