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The paper describes changed elderhood in Sukuma-speaking villages in Tanzania through a combined situational and cultural analysis, starting with the traditional role of (re)generation and medicine in practices of greeting. Elderhood, I argue, has changed obliquely because of its interrelationship with medicine, whose union of recipe and rite was severed under globalizing pressures for ‘simplication’. By this we understand a process that simplifies a cultural practice, renders it predictable, through complicated substitution. Ethnographic synthesis demonstrates that the kul strand of natural growth and the kum strand of healing/regeneration are sources of production. Elders derive authority from the first source and augment it with the second. The latter’s medicinal claim to power antagonized the colonial administration in the 1930s and, for different reasons, also irritated the postcolonial state (with the exception of Magufuli’s presidency). The ‘simplication’ of medicine in the name of development has been aided by the demise of chieftaincy as well as by a national cultural divide and by dismissive attitudes to the institution of healing. Elderhood has indirectly paid the price. This research report has been reviewed by the editors of the special issue but has not been externally peer-reviewed.

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By employing a historical ethnographic method in approaching Sukuma chiefdoms as spaces of medicinal rule, this article argues that the basis of the functioning and the prevalent well-being of these very chiefdoms lied in the duality and interconnectedness of ntemi (male) and ngole (female) as interdependent figures. Contrary to this observation that will be made, within works on Sukuma – and additionally more broadly across ethnic groups in sub-Saharan Africa – there has been a male-biased assumption that the singular figurehead who was foundational to exercising medicinal rule within the chiefdoms studied, is the male chief. This assumption was based on decades of colonialism and (mis)understanding of chieftaincy power systems. The article counters this male-biased assumption by placing the gendered nature of medicinal rule in the chiefdom centre-stage and by radically questioning the lack of writing present on female figureheads. A case study of the Busiya chiefdom in Shinyanga region of Northern Tanzania will illustrate the intrinsic connection between the ntemi (chief) and the ngole (queen) in facilitating the continuing functioning of the chiefdom throughout ever-changing circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Succession to monarchical thrones has often generated violent conflicts among royal families in Ghanaian communities. Numerous conflict resolution approaches are often employed by different conflict resolution agencies. Many studies have examined the appropriateness and effectiveness of some of these approaches adopted to resolve chieftaincy conflicts in Ghana. However, to the best of the researchers' knowledge, the extent to which conflict resolution institutions or agencies collaborate in the resolution of chieftaincy succession conflicts in the specific region of the Bole Traditional Area is less studied. By integrating an inductive thematic analytical approach into collaborative leadership theory, we unpacked a deeper level of disharmonised efforts of multiple conflict resolution agencies in the peace processes in the Bole Traditional Area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Contemporary Journal of African Studies is the property of Institute of African Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Studies on migration have largely neglected the emergence of migrant chiefs in Africa’s urban centers. Chieftaincy analysis has also not been adequately extended to those who are migrants and how they are selected and installed as chiefs in the cities. Through deliberately-provoked conversations with Dagomba migrant chiefs and their elders, the paper undoubtedly extends the frontiers of both chieftaincy and migration studies bringing to the fore dynamics of Dagomba migrant chiefs and their changing roles in Ghana’s city of Accra. Reworking Blundo’s administrative brokers, this paper reveals how migrant chiefs in urban settings liaise with state institutions to help solve certain problems migrants encounter in the city. The paper concludes that other actors in the urban space, such as youth leaders around Members of Parliament coming from migrants’ home regions, could gradually take up the brokerage role in the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The chieftaincy institution is a revered institution and as such attempts have been made to maintain its sanctity. However, over the years, the institution has been fraught with disputes thereby bringing its image into disrepute. The chieftaincy Act, 759 (2008) was enacted by the parliament of Ghana to regulate the institution. The Act has made provisions for the resolution of disputes that have attended the institution. This article is an attempt to assess the effectiveness of the Act on the dispute resolution mechanisms of the judicial committees of the Houses of Chiefs. Using interview and textual analysis as its main instruments, the article looks at the role of the Judicial Committees of the Houses of Chiefs in dealing with the numerous succession disputes that has bedeviled the institution. The article will assess the methods the Committee uses in handling cases that come before it and how parties to the succession disputes collaborate with the Committee to dispense with the case. The article argues that if the Judicial Committee is well resourced, it will be in a position to help deal with chieftaincy succession disputes expeditiously. This would reduce the incidents of open conflicts resulting in deaths and destructions of properties thereby threatening national security

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This paper contributes to our understanding of the social life of used computers in West Africa through analysis of the sending, distribution, recognition, and reception of recycled equipment. Based on multi-sited and longitudinal fieldwork in Denmark and Ghana, it employs George Marcus' suggestion of following things as a methodological selection device for ethnography. Theoretically, it engages the concept of affective circuits to address how transnational recycling, belonging, hometown development, and family relations are interlinked. I present a three-fold argument: first, that the actions of sending, distributing, recognizing, and receiving used equipment enable different actors to demonstrate and perform hometown belonging, development, and leadership; second, that these capacities reflect differentiated mobilities and connectivity of the people involved; and third, that the recycled furniture and information technology (IT) gear become upcycled to objects of value, being mobilized and transformed through long-term processes and negotiations of reciprocity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the transformation of mineral matter into mineral property from the vantage point of Ga-Mphahlele, a section of northern South Africa's platinum belt in which minerals are particularly complex to access. Building on Thomas Sikor and Christian Lund's work, I show that the demands of mining capital played a key role in facilitating a co-constitutive relationship between political authority and mineral property. Because of the geological difficulties accessing Ga-Mphahlele's platinum, mining companies have only shown an intermittent interest in the area's minerals, resulting in a volatile relationship between mineral property and political authority. In turn, this has meant that minerals have often been a relatively unstable property form. By adding the role of capital to Lund and Sikor's analytic lens for studying property and authority, this article tracks the relationship between chiefly authority, African land purchasing, platinum companies, and the emergence of mineral rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indigenous traditional chieftaincy institutions in Ghana continue to gain recognition whilst wielding influence across socio-political divides. In this viewpoint essay, against the backdrop of the fight against the global COVID-19 pandemic, the author explores the potential roles of these institutions in fighting the pandemic. Particularly cognisant of their roles in Ghana's transition from pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial, through independence to a democracy and its consolidation, this article argues that the existence of the chieftaincy institutions as change agents presents a wealth of opportunity to be harnessed for pandemic control, management, and containment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Conflict can be resolved when there is an adequate understanding of its causes. The objective of this study is to contribute to the understanding of the contributory factors of the Bawku chieftaincy conflict as a case study and explore the lasting solutions to the conflict which contributes to the political, cultural, and socio-economic development. The study surveyed 200 householders using systematic and snow-balling in five spatial locations in the Bawku Traditional Area. Subsequently, face-to-face interviews were conducted with the Traditional Authorities, the Police, and the Belim-Wusa Development Agency to verify the claims made in the survey and to obtain further insights into the conflict. The responses obtained from the interviews were analyzed for patterns and themes and used as narratives in the work. The geographical location and socio-economic activities such as population growth, farming, and poverty have made the Bawku Traditional Area more prone to persistent conflicts. Again, other contributory factors included; political interference, freedom from fear, a proliferation of small arms, and inadequate access to social services. The empirical findings support the proposition that political interventions sowed the seed of the Bawku conflict. The study recommended that the National Peace Council should organize a workshop to educate the political parties on the need to stay away from chieftaincy matters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies on chiefs and the chieftaincy institution in Africa/Cameroon since the colonial period have introduced many deformations and mal-characterizations in the descriptive content and meaning of the indigenous cultural foundations. Quite understandably the prism through which many writers articulated their works reflected the scientific and cultural backgrounds from where they had been brought up. This paper explores the way language related to chiefs and the chieftaincy institution has been used in studies of the Grassfields in Cameroon. Methodologically this study adopts a qualitative approach which consisted of a content analyzing existing primary and secondary literature on chieftaincy institution in Cameroon. The study finds that the cultural mindset of colonial administrators was a major influence in the roles that chiefs were assigned and the duties they were called upon to perform thereby bringing about alterations in the role, status, function, content, and symbolism of the chieftaincy institution. A proper understanding of these changes could be useful for a more appropriate appreciation in the revalorization of any framework in which chiefs might be used especially given the penchant for the avowed preservation and sustenance of the cultural heritage and civilization of the Grassfields, in particular, and of Cameroon, in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue on the role of traditional authorities in African cities highlights critical debates about governance and urban development on a fast-urbanising continent. The six articles in this issue focus on the following: (1) the roles of traditional authorities as custodians of the values of society; (2) the roles of traditional leaders as moral authorities; (3) the modern chieftaincy as an invention of the colonial state; (4) the 'unrelenting co-optation and appropriation' of traditional governance structures by the state; and (5) the stretching of pre-colonial narratives to justify the legitimacy of traditional leadership and its control of community resources. The special issue features contributions from Burkina Faso, Senegal, Ghana, South Africa, Botswana and Eswatini, providing a rare comparison between cases from Southern and West Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have tended to overemphasise the influence of the colonisers. This precludes an analysis of the ability of indigenous populations to resist, reimagine and remake colonial visions of urban life. However, Tom Goodfellow and Stefan Lindemann (2013) have observed a widespread 'resurgence' of traditional authorities in Africa since the 1990s – meaning indigenous political structures have recently experienced a revival (Englebert 2002; Foucher & Smith 2011; Ubink 2008a). Chimhowu (2019, 898) writes, 'Typical reform countries like Ghana, South Africa, Kenya, South Sudan, Tanzania, Burkina Faso, Uganda and Zambia have built this into their reforms'. This article explores the institution and influences of chiefs in both South Africa and Eswatini. It looks at the historical relationship between chieftaincy and the urban, and explores factors that have implications for the future of urban governance in the two countries. The article examines the ways in which chieftaincy influences over urban life have both subverted and been subverted by the colonial project in the two countries. The authors argue that while many of the categories and divisions of (settler) colonial rule are still visible in the two countries, the traditional authorities have engaged in local practices that reimagine and remake urban life, centred on the role of chieftaincy. These practices are made visible mostly on the urban peripheries, which have absorbed a large proportion of the poor since the end of the colonial era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Hileya: Scientific Bulletin / Gileya is the property of GILEYA Publishing and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article discusses the supporting roles of Traditional Authorities (TAs) towards state-led formal education in Ghana through the Otumfuo Education Fund (OEF) from 2000 to 2012. The OEF is an educational fund initiated by the current Ashanti king, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, in the early 2000s to address falling educational standards not only within his kingdom but also other parts of Ghana in line with the state's educational vision. As one of the foremost educational partnership by a traditional leader in support of state-driven formal education at a massive scale in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), we examine how such state-chieftaincy hybrid governance approaches can promote educational delivery. Through in-depth interviews with 15 multiple stakeholders including officials at the OEF secretariat, traditional leaders, headteachers, government officials and project consultants involved with the OEF, we investigated the effectiveness and limitations of the OEF's partnership with state educational agencies in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. By using Helmke and Levitsky's typology of formal-informal interactions, we find that hybrid arrangements between traditional leaders (through the OEF) and the Ghanaian state aligns to an 'accommodating-complementary' type of partnership. Under this, the OEF supported the state in four main areas namely providing scholarships (to brilliant but needy students), expanding and renovating educational infrastructure in deprived areas, providing educational materials and organising career development workshops for students. We conclude that greater attention should be given to partnerships between state educational agencies and TAs, particularly in deprived areas where access to education remains a challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses how African letter-writers in the missionary-edited Setswana newspaper Mahoko a Becwana (1883–96) sought to make sense of expanding European power during the 'scramble for Africa' and its accompanying social and political changes. The newspaper wrestled with readers' opinions on a wide range of contentious topics, including ethnic identity, literacy, chieftaincy, colonial government, alcohol, adolescent initiation, marriage, religion and rational thought in general. The article questions the prevalent emphasis on European hegemony and highlights ways in which Africans managed to develop and maintain a separate discourse beyond European control or description as they critiqued and selectively adopted various elements of European culture. During the late 19th century, most Setswana-speaking people still regarded their populous chiefly capitals as the centres of society and relatively new European towns as peripheral, and they expected to maintain their autonomy while adapting to new circumstances. Those expectations would soon be severely challenged by rinderpest, war, industrialisation and the entrenchment of European power, but, building on their previous strategies, they initially pursued ways to accommodate European colonisation that preserved their existing communal strength. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of colonialism in Africa is often portrayed as a confrontation between black Africans and white Europeans, but African adoption of black solidarity as a feature of their liberation movements was a gradual process. Scholars have sometimes traced the beginning of that process in southern Africa to the 'Ethiopian' church movements of 1880–1910, particularly in the ways that they were encouraged by African-American resistance to racism in the United States. Cases of Christian independency in Tswana chiefdoms during that time, however, were shaped more by local forces than by the Pan Africanism that was arising in European-controlled towns, and they are better understood as products of nineteenth-century Tswana politics than as early examples of twentieth-century African nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior to colonial rule, governance in Africa rested on chiefs. However, colonialism and other currents of social change reduced the powers and functions of chiefs. Critics tagged the chieftaincy institution as anachronistic and even predicted its demise during the struggle for independence. However, chieftaincy has persisted after several years of Ghana's independence. The paper specifically seeks to answer two fundamental questions: Is chieftaincy anachronistic? And, how relevant is chieftaincy in Ghana's democratic dispensation. The paper is a desk review examining the instrumentality of the chieftaincy institution in the midst of a web of reputational challenges in contemporary Ghana. The study unearthed that the anachronistic label is pivoted on the undemocratic nature of chieftaincy institution and, chieftaincy and land disputes. Despite the above label, it was also found that chiefs are instrumental in conflict resolution, governance and administration, promotion of education and economic empowerment and performance of representational and diplomatic roles. Though people continue to perceive the chieftaincy institution as undemocratic, the institution has critical roles to play in contemporary Ghana. This paper recommends that studies should be conducted on how chiefs can be integrated into modern governance structures for them to contribute to national development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As African states emerged from colonial rule and adopted the trappings of western parliamentary government, many nationalist politicians regarded chieftaincy as an archaic institution, either to be abandoned or reduced to ceremonial. Nevertheless, it has become clear that chiefs endure and not merely as cultural ornaments; indeed, in Malawi and elsewhere, they are still the main conduits for communication between the central state and the grassroots, and they continue to play an important role in development initiatives, local dispute resolution and, since the 1990s, as players in the 'new democracy', locally and at the national level. This article contributes to investigations into the nature of chieftaincy from precolonial times to the present, using a Malawian example, to ask how far the tenacity of this institution can be attributed to its reinvention, re-emergence or resilience. It examines chieftaincy in one area of Kasungu district in central Malawi from its establishment in the 18th century through the colonial and post-colonial periods up to the present to explore its nature over time. It concludes that the institution endures through a combination of reinvention, resilience and re-emergence. Chieftaincy survives through invoking tradition and adapting to specific historical circumstances but also by virtue of the personal qualities of officeholders. This case study illustrates the dynamism of chiefly governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By means of two case studies, this paper demonstrates how customary chiefs in Northeast Congo crafted their power position under colonial indirect rule. The first case discusses chiefs' role in anioto or leopard-men killings to secure their authority over people, land and resources whilst circumventing colonial control. The second case concerns nebeli, a collective therapy characterised by the distribution of a medicine or charm used to protect, heal and harm in Northeast Congo and South Sudan. These case studies show that indirect rule designed customary chieftaincy too one-sidedly, based on patrilineal succession and land rights. It tried to cut chiefs off from spiritual and coercive power bases such as anioto and nebeli, which were part of local political culture. While colonial authorities framed institutions such as anioto and nebeli as subversive, and expected government-appointed chiefs to renounce them, they were clandestinely used by chiefs to retain their grip on local society whilst fulfilling their state-imposed duties. However, these institutions were not simply used to resist or by-pass colonial control, but also to support it. These historical cases help to gain insight in contemporary chiefs and militia leaders' continued use of similar coercive, spiritual and remedial means to boast their power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the active participation of some Bono chiefs in partisan politics in Ghana in the 1950s. Using interviews, archival data and books as the main sources of information and a qualitative approach, the research reveals that Asante’s administrative strategies thwarted Bono chiefs’ efforts to assert their autonomy from Asante rule in the pre-1950 era. The original aim of the Bono Kyempim Federation, formed in 1949, was to unite the chiefs’ ranks to rebuild the Bono Manso kingdom, destroyed by Asante in the eighteenth century. However, the chiefs eventually associated themselves with politicians and by 1959, a Bono-Ahafo Region had been created by the Convention Peoples Party (CPP), the political party that the chiefs supported. How far-reaching, was the chiefs’ relations with politicians? This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

In many parts of the world, traditional authorities influence the pre-construction stakeholder management process on infrastructure projects. In this conceptual article, we sought to explore the dimensions of traditional authority that influence stakeholder management at the pre-construction stage, using the case of Ghana. Twenty-nine different issues related to traditional authority were identified through a systematic literature review. Then, through a narrative focus group discussion, the issues were validated, revised and condensed into 21 items. Through thematic analysis, the issues were clustered into four dimensions of traditional authority influences: power and role of traditional leadership; expectations of traditional leadership; project impacts on community resources; and impact of religious and cultural values. Through a further abstraction of the results, we identified six patterns of influence that emerge from the interaction between traditional authorities and other stakeholders, viz.: compromise; uncertainty; instability; power and role suppression; acculturation; and polarization. The findings provide a starting point for theorizing the influence of traditional authority on pre-construction stakeholder management. The findings also provide project managers with information for the development of practical strategies for managing the influence of traditional authorities to ensure an effective stakeholder management process at the pre-construction stage of infrastructure projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The control of rural land in West Africa deviates strongly from the common notions of private and common property. Most rural peoples are formally borrowers of the land they farm. Results of a detailed study of the property rights attached to all fields within three proximate village territories in the Fakara region of southwestern Niger are presented. This work reveals that property landscapes vary significantly across villages as shaped by the history of settlement and ongoing struggles to redefine property rights. In particular, the politics within village chieftaincies over the definition of common land managed by the chief in contrast to private land held by chieftaincy members has important implications for the use rights held by all villagers. Observations point to an ongoing process of privatization supported by local interpretations of customary law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While forms of authority that descend from social or cultural tradition are commonly understood as archaic, traditional authorities often survive and occasionally even thrive during the formation of modern states. Chieftaincies do not only endure in the Ghanaian countryside but also proliferate in new neighbourhoods on the peripheries of Ghana's fast-growing cities. We develop an explanation for the endurance of traditional authorities, based on extensive fieldwork in one recently developed neighbourhood in a previously uninhabited part of Greater Accra, where we conducted interviews and analysed documents from the archives of the chief's Divisional Council. We show that the formation of a modern state has restricted the chiefs' discretion as sovereigns but afforded them greater power as managers of the land and gatekeepers of the state bureaucracy. Traditional authority is not overwritten but rather refined, transformed and stabilized in the process of state formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seeking to foreground the role of local agency in development practice, anthropologists laud chieftaincy for its ability to reshape development projects and narratives. However, studies commonly focus on the higher ranks of hierarchical chieftaincies or present chieftaincy as a homogenous and unified institution. This has led to an overstatement of sub-chiefs' ability to influence development projects and discourses. This article explores the relationship between Malawian villagers and three NGOs, Mbwezi, Nkuvira and GreenEarth. The former two had permanent offices in a small Malawian community, their wealth and the westernization-as-development they promised, prevented village headmen (the lowest strata of Malawian chief) from credulously linking development to traditional rule. The latter's work in a village distant from its office was utilized by a headman to enhance his legitimacy. This article explores the interplay between village headmen's agency, chiefly hierarchies and international development signifiers. It argues that headmen's involvement in a development activity neither inherently confers legitimacy to a project nor represents a local co-creation of development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article surveys the views of Pashtun military-administrative elite on governance in the works of Khushḥāl Khān Khaṫak (d. 1689) and Afżal Khān Khaṫak (d. circa 1740). The texts under discussion pertain to the universal literary genre of "Mirrors for Princes" (naṣīḥat al-mulūk) and include the Khaṫak chieftains' didactical writings in prose and verse, as well as still poorly studied documents on real politics from Afżal Khān's historiographical compilation "The Ornamented History" (Tārīkh-i muraṣṣaʿ). Rooted in the medieval Persian classics, early modern Pashto "mirrors" are distinguished by local ethnocultural peculiarities which manifest in shifting the very subject from statesmanship to chieftaincy and declaring regulations of the Pashtun unwritten Code of Honour. The study proves that the outlook and behavioural patterns of Pashtun tribal rulers stemmed from a combination, partly eclectic and contradictory, of Islamic precepts, feudal ideologies of the Mughal administrative system, and norms of the Pashtun customary law (Pashtunwali). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cahiers d'Études Africaines is the property of Editions EHESS and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Kundum is the main annual festival of the Akan Nzema and Ahanta in the Western Region of Ghana. Across Ghana, festivals mobilize different modes of ritual speech. These include liturgical pronouncements, invocations, mythological narratives, singing, fundraising speeches, satirical comments, interfaith sermons, and political speeches at festival durbars. This contribution to the Journal of Ritual Studies discusses the Kundum festival song performance (avudwsne); it expands actor-network theory (ANT) by tracing associations and agents in the avudwene ritual. The article describes the actors and the structured division of artistic work that produces the concepts and criticisms expressed in avudwsne. It makes two main arguments. First, that the Kundum festival can be understood as a ritual network of humans and other-than-human agents. Second, that the Kundum festival song performance is a partial critique of behavior and political leadership. An initial purpose of the festival was to influence other-than-human agents to refrain from doing evil (for example, inflicting famine or disease) and instead to work towards the good of society and the natural environment (for example, promoting the fertility of lands and rivers). Kundum was traditionally intended to resolve food shortages in communities through rituals such as libations, purification, sacrifices, invocations, and drum-dances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper interrogates the historical background to the diarchy system of rule in the Odomase traditional area in the Brong-Ahafo Region of Ghana. Relying on archival documents complemented by interviews, the research reveals that unlike chieftaincy forms in other traditional Ghanaian societies, the people of Odomase have a completely different practice in electing chiefs. The two royal houses have the endorsement of central government to elect two candidates to be installed concurrently as chiefs for the traditional area. The authors argue that the dual chieftaincy arrangement in Odomase, despite its seeming challenges, is the best solution to address the intractable conflict in the traditional polity of the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Northern Ghana has witnessed phenomenal increases in armed conflicts over the past three decades. Many of these conflicts are ‘colonial conflicts’ rooted in colonial policies, but some others have no reference to colonialism as they are occasioned by endogenous factors. The Kusasi-Mamprusi and Nawuri-Gonja conflicts are colonial conflicts whose historical roots are traceable to colonialism in Northern Ghana. This paper interrogates the British-sponsored political conferences held prior to the introduction of indirect rule in Northern Ghana, with special focus on the Mamprusi and Gonja conferences. The paper argues thatthe conferences sowed the seeds of the post-colonial Mamprusi-Kusasi and Gonja-Nawuri conflicts.

The struggle of the Ashaninka of the Amonia River for land demarcation began in the 1980s at the peak of lumber extraction in their territory, and lasted until the early 1990s. For the Ashaninka this was a transition period between the « time of bosses » and the « time of rights » which they deem a key moment in their recent history. First, this article describes this « time of bosses » and shows how, with the support of various indigenist agents, the Ashaninka organized themselves to expel the invaders and the lumber companies. We then analyze this unusual historical moment, with special emphasis on the changes that occurred in the Indians’ social organization, mostly in its political sphere.

The article is based on a research that investigated, from an applied ethnomusicological dimension, the manner in which Shangwe indigenes in Gokwe North and South districts of Zimbabwe violated the indigenous model of selecting and installing chiefs. The scramble and fighting for positions of leadership remains an unresolved challenge in this political world. There are well documented sociological studies about fighting for positions of power and possible solutions being proffered to attempt and reduce the social quandary. The ethnographic paradigm was utilised to collect qualitative data through unwritten interviews that were meant to obtain information about causes for fighting for chieftainship. Findings were as follows: There were undocumented succession plans of passing chieftainship from one household to another; fighting for chieftainship could continue even after the incumbency was endorsed by the State; and fighting for chieftaincy is a way of trying to restore the cultural legacy bestowed to households that do not belong to the genealogy of chiefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]