This volume, originally published in 1950, discusses the tribes around Lake Nyasa. The rationale for treating the tribes here as members of a single ethnographic province is that the region whose literature has been surveyed is vast, and the ethnic distinctions between its inhabitants have been confused by raids and migrations over centuries.

The post-World War II colonial reconstruction programmes for economic recovery and general political and social development in Malawi (then known as Nyasaland) necessitated increased education. But the sincerity of metropolitan development plans for the colonies could only be adequately appraised through the degree of demonstrated commitment in the implementation of the announced plans. This study seeks to examine chronologically the development and application of colonial education policies during the period 1945 to 1961 in Malawi. The parties involved included the British Colonial Office, the Nyasaland Protectorate Government and the Christian missionaries on the one hand, and the European settlers, Asian, Coloured and African communities on the other as the target groups of the policies. Devising educational policies of equitable benefit to all the racial and social groupings in Malawi posed enormous problems to the colonial administration. This study, examining the dynamics and course of policy, contends that, given the prevailing economic and political conditions, non-European education, especially that of Africans, experienced retardation in favour of European education. Sometimes apparent government ineptitude, combined with calculated needs for the Europeans, produced under-development for African education in Malawi and the country s economy. In the end, African education operated against the odds of missionary and government apathy. This book discusses the impact on education, generally, of the Nyasaland Post-War Development Programme, the Colonial Office Commissions of 1947, 1951 and 1961, and the local Committees set up to inquire into the retardation of African education in its various categories, including female and Muslim, in response to both local and international pressure. Although considered a priority, African education developed slowly, contrary to the declared goal of Post-War colonial policy of self- determination with its potential demands for trained local manpower. The argument demonstrates the tenacity of the Federal Government of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in playing down African education as a political strategy from 1953 to 1961 at the same time as it accorded a better deal to Asian and Coloured education.

While there have been a number of descriptions and interpretations of boys' initiation rituals, Audrey Richards's classic study of initiation rites among the Bemba remains one of the few studies to deal in detail with the initiation of girls into adult life. Dr Richards observed the entire chisungu or female initiation rite, an almost continuous series of complex ceremonies lasting for a month. Her detailed description of the elements of the ritual, and her analysis of it in terms of the culture of matrilineal society, have made this a classic ethnographic and theoretical text. Celebrating the attainment of sexual and social maturity, the puberty rituals reflect tribal attitudes to sex, fertility, marriage, and the rearing of children. We see how women's ceremonies portray and try to enforce the social obligations of marriage and the setting up of the kinship group, and the conflicts of interest that are involved.

For a long time, African Studies as a discipline has been spearheaded by academics and institutions in the Global North. This puts African Studies on the continent at a crossroads of making choices on whether such a discipline can be legitimately accepted as an epistemological discipline seeking objectivity and truth about Africa and the African peoples or a discipline meant to perpetuate the North’s hegemonic socio-economic, political and epistemic control over Africa. The compound question that immediately arises is: Who should produce what and which space should African Studies occupy in the academy both of the North and of the South? Confronted by such a question, one wonders whether the existence of African Studies Centres in the Global North academies open opportunities for critical thinking on Africa or it opens possibilities for the emergence of the same discipline in Africa as a fertile space for trans-disciplinary debate. While approaches critical for the development of African Studies are pervasive in African universities through fields such as cultural studies, social anthropology, history, sociology, indigenous knowledge studies and African philosophy, the discipline of African Studies though critical to Africa is rarely practiced as such in the African academy and its future on the continent remains bleak. African Studies in the Academy is a testimony that if honestly and objectively practiced, the crossroads position of African Studies as a discipline makes it a fertile ground for generating and testing new approaches critical for researching and understanding Africa. It also challenges Africa to seriously consider assuming its legitimate position to champion African Studies from within. These issues are at the heart of the present volume.