Contested Terrains And Constructed Categories: Contemporary Africa In Focus

Contested Terrains and Constructed Categoriesbrings together intellectuals from a variety of fields, backgrounds, generations, and continents to deepen and reinvigorate the theoretical and intellectual integrity of African studies. Building on recent debate within African studies that has revolved about the role of Africanists in the United States as "gatekeepers" of knowledge about Africa and Africans, this volume of interdisciplinary essays focuses on the contested character of the production of knowledge itself. In every chapter, case studies and ethnographic materials, drawn from West, Central, East and Southern Africa, demonstrate the application of theory to concrete situations.

George C. Bond is professor of anthropology and education at Teachers College and the director of the Institute of African Studies, Columbia University. John Kreniske is associate professor of anthropology at Hofstra University and research associate of the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies. Ida Susser is professor of anthropology at Hunter College, City University of New York. Joan Vincent is professor of anthropology at Barnard College, Columbia University, and a member of the International Advisory Committee of the HIV Center. George Clement Bondis professor of anthropology and education at Teachers College Columbia University and is a member of the Council of the International African Institute (London). He was previously director of the Institute of African Studies at Columbia University. He is a co-editor of several books, including AIDS in African and the Caribbean (Westview).Nigel C. Gibsonis an assistant professor at the Institute of Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies, Emerson College, and a research associate in the Afro-American Studies program at both Brown and at Harvard University. He was formerly assistant director of the Institute of African Studies at Columbia University and is the editor of Rethinking Fanon: The Continuing Dialogue (1999).