Custom and Politics in Urban Africa: A Study of Hausa Migrants in Yoruba Towns

by Abner Cohen

Overview

Based on Cohen's fieldwork in the 1960s among the Hausa migrants, a people of the Yoruba area (then the western region of the Federation of Nigeria), Custom and Politics in Urban Africa looks at how ethnic groups use elements of tradition in jostling for power and privilege in new urban situations. This is a landmark work in urban anthropology and provides a comparative framework for studying political processes in African societies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415320092
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	11/20/2003
Series:	Routledge Classic Ethnographies
Edition description:	REV
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Abner Cohen was formerly Professor of Anthropology at the University of London, and carried out intensive fieldwork in Africa and the Near East. Custom and Politics in Urban Africa earned him the prestigious Amaury Talbot Prize in 1969.

Table of Contents

Introduction; Chapter 1 The Migratory Process; Chapter 2 The Migratory Process; Chapter 3 Landlords of the Trade; Chapter 4 The Politics of Long-Distance Trade (1906–1950); Chapter 5 From a Tribal Polity to a Religious Brotherhood (1951–63); Chapter 6 Chapter Six: The Ritualization of Political Authority; Conclusions: Political Ethnicity in Contemporary African Towns;