The volume is meant as a tribute to Georg Klute (University of Bayreuth, Germany) and his work. It focusses on five thematic fields which have been central for Georg Klute’s research: “politics and beside and beyond the state”, “legal pluralism”, “anthropology of violence and war”, “anthropology of work”, and “participant observation”. The book intends to trigger debate, discussion, and thus, further evolvement of Georg Klute’s scholarly œuvre.
About the editors:
Thomas Hüsken is an ethnologist who focusses on politics beside the state in North Africa and the Middle East.
Alexander Solyga is an ethnologist, economist and development practitioner, currently working as Country Director for the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ) in Khartoum, Sudan.
Dida Badi has worked since many years on the changes of socio-political structures of Tuareg populations of the Sahara and the Sahel (Algeria, Libya, Mali), adopting perspectives of cultural and historical anthropology.
CONTENTS
Preface: Mentor, Companion, and Friend – A Few Words about this Volume
Georg Klute’s Professional Career
I. Beside the State: African Politics and Beyond
Erdmute Alber: Heterogeneity and Heterarchy – Middle-Class Households in Benin
Dida Badi: Les modalités d'appropriation et de transmission des biens et du pouvoir chez les Touaregs sédentaires du Tassili n Ajjer
Birgit Embaló: Violent Extremism, Islam and Youth in Guinea-Bissau
Mario Krämer: The Current Debate on Neotraditional Authority in South Africa – Notes on the Legitimacy and Rise of Intermediaries
Judith Scheele: Heterarchy, Locality, Connectivity, Tribes – can (and should) we speak of a Shared Political Culture across the Sahara?
Petr Skalník: War as a Decisive Factor in State Formation – War and Peace in Africa. Local Conflict and the Weak State
Magnus Treiber: Projecting Modernity – A Leitmotif in Eritrea's Struggle for Independence
II. Legal Pluralism and Conflict
Dereje Feyissa: Conflicting rights? Cultural and Women’s Rights in the Context of Ethiopia’s Legal Pluralism
Lamine Doumbia: De la périphérie au centre-ville – Un terrain d'anthropologie juridique et politique
Meron Zeleke: The Ambiguous Relationship Between State and Non-State Actors in Dispute Settlement in Contemporary Ethiopia
Dieter Neubert: Decentralised Conflicts, Heterarchy and the Limits of Conflict Regulation
Amal S.M. Obeidi: Local Reconciliation in Libya since 2011 – Actors, Processes, and Mechanisms
III. The Anthropology of Work
Isaie Dougnon: Coping with Age and Work – The Young Graduates’ Movement for Public Service in Mali (1987-2002)
Anja Fischer: Expert Women in Nomadism – A Case Study about the Expertise of Work among Kel Ahnet Nomads in the Algerian Sahara Desert
Georg Materna: The “Touristic Laobé” of Senegal – The Commodification of Culture in African Arts, Inc.
IV. The Merits of Participant Observation
Baz Lecocq: On Detailed Fieldwork Observations and Primordial Histories of Pastoral Animal Husbandry – The Cattle Line from the Neolithic to Present
Tilman Musch / Mahama Abaliyi Sedike: Un mariage par rapt chez les Toubou Teda – Transgresser pour conserver la paix sociale
Hanna Lena Reich: Exploring the Night – Fieldwork Experiences from Nairobi
V. Discourses
Kurt Beck: On Claiming Non-Creativity, or: ‘The One who has no Guide, his Guide is the Devil’
Michael Hauhs: Temporalities of Conservation – Human-Environment Relationships in an African National Park
Gerd Spittler: De quelles choses l’homme a-t-il besoin ? La culture matérielle des Touaregs Kel Ewey
Following the links below you will find further publications in our programme authored or (co)edited by Georg Klute, as well as the complete text of the review by Alice Bellagamba:
The genre of “Festschrift” is contentious and sensitive: There is a tendency towards the focusing merely on celebrating achievements and renown and calibrating the research topics and also the networks established over a lifetime is a challenge for the editors. It may be said at the outset that this is definitely one of the more worthwhile “Festschrifts”. This attractively bound volume reflects well Georg Klute’s work and his important contributions, above all to the anthropology of work and political anthropology, as well as to West African ethnography, in particular concerning Touareg groups.
In five large sections, the topics of ‘heterarchy’, as Klute has termed it, of legal pluralism, work, participant observation and ‘discourses’ are explored. Inevitably in most such ventures, the 22 contributions form as it were a colourful bunch of flowers, each of which speaks both to scholarly concerns and a longer or shorter working relationship. Even more than is usually the case with collective volumes, it is the privilege of the reviewer to pick a few of these blossoms for some closer inspection. Such an undertaking is made both easier and riskier by the fact that the editors have not provided any guidance about their intentions in the form of an introduction. [...]
In these and other ways, this volume makes worthwhile and at times fascinating reading.
Reinhart Kößler in Sociologus, 2020/2, 188-190
In any case, the volume is valuable reading for specialists of African studies as much as for those who, curious of what unfolds on the continent, are open to comparison with the dynamics of other parts of the world. For the editors, the contributors, and the present writer, Klute has been, in various moments, a source of inspiration as much as a supportive and loyal friend: in addition to its scientific relevance, “The Multiplicity of Orders and Practices” is also a token of affection.
Alice Bellagamba in Modern Africa, 9/2021, 149-154
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