Sir Edward Evans-Pritchard's classic writings on the Nuer of southern Sudan have made them one of the most famous peoples in ethnographic literature. When the writings were first published half a century ago, they created a new agenda for social anthropology. Kinship and Marriage among the Nuer is the second of his trilogy on the society and culture of this pastoral people. It vividly portrays the experience of growing up in a Nuer community, describing daily life, marriage, sex, death, and birth. It also makes clear the essential difference between the discourse of political association and that of kinship, and shows the part played by the kinship system in Nuer society as a whole. Now published for the first time in paperback, this edition has a substantial introduction by Wendy James in which she assesses the importance of Evans-Pritchard's work and places it in the context of recent developments in social anthropology.

First published in 1950 and this edition in 1987, this book is one of the most wide-ranging and respected surveys on kinship and marriage in African social life. In his introduction, Radcliff-Brown provides a masterly analysis of the main features of African kinship systems and the theoretical problems arising from the study of them. The contributions range from examinations of kinship systems among the Swazi, the Tswana, the Zulu, the Nuer, and the Ashanti, to double descent among the Yakö and dual descent in the Nuba groups of the Sudan. The contributors themselves are still viewed as giants in their field: Evans-Pritchard, Meyer Fortes, Max Gluckman, Hilda Kuper, Naderl, A. I. Richards, Schapera and Monica Wilson.

The genealogical model has a long-standing history in Western thought. The contributors to this volume consider the ways in which assumptions about the genealogical model--in particular, ideas concerning sequence, essence, and transmission--structure other modes of practice and knowledge-making in domains well beyond what is normally labeled "kinship." The detailed ethnographic work and analysis included in this text explores how these assumptions have been built into our understandings of race, personhood, ethnicity, property relations, and the relationship between human beings and non-human species. The authors explore the influences of the genealogical model of kinship in wider social theory and examine anthropology's ability to provide a unique framework capable of bridging the "social" and "natural" sciences. In doing so, this volume brings fresh new perspectives to bear on contemporary theories concerning biotechnology and its effect upon social life.

An essential collection of scholarly essays on the anthropology of Africa, offering a thorough introduction to the most important topics in this evolving and diverse field of study The study of the cultures of Africa has been central to the methodological and theoretical development of anthropology as a discipline since the late 19th-century. As the anthropology of Africa has emerged as a distinct field of study, anthropologists working in this tradition have strived to build a disciplinary conversation that recognizes the diversity and complexity of modern and ancient African cultures while acknowledging the effects of historical anthropology on the present and future of the field of study. A Companion to the Anthropology of Africa is a collection of insightful essays covering the key questions and subjects in the contemporary anthropology of Africa with a key focus on addressing the topics that define the contemporary discipline. Written and edited by a team of leading cultural anthropologists, it is an ideal introduction to the most important topics in the field, both those that have consistently been a part of the critical dialogue and those that have emerged as the central questions of the discipline’s future. Beginning with essays on the enduring topics in the study of African cultures, A Companion to the Anthropology of Africa provides a foundation in the contemporary critical approach to subjects of longstanding interest. With these subjects as a groundwork, later essays address decolonization, the postcolonial experience, and questions of modern identity and definition, providing representation of the diverse thinking and scholarship in the modern anthropology of Africa.

Dr Nukunya is one of the few Africans who have worked as trained anthropologists among their own people. His book is a study of the Anlo, the most numerous of the Ewe peoples who are divided between Ghana and Togo. Their descent is remarkable in that a patrilineal ideology is balanced by unusually strong matrilineal ties, and descent is traced from genitor whether or not he is the mother's legal husband. Dr Nukunya describes the complex system of landholdings that the high densisty of population make necessary. Adjustments are made by the exercise of claims through maternal kin; his conclusion contradicts the argument that patrilineal claims are asserted more strongly where there is pressure on land. He also discusses the changes in household structure that result from the absence of parents on trading or fishing expeditions or in wage employment.