Publications

This book explores local cultural discourses and practices relating to manifestations and experiences of the demonic, the spectral and the uncanny, probing into their effects on people’s domestic and intimate spheres of life. The chapters examine the uncanny in a cross-...

North Korea is an overlooked actor in studies of Afro-Asian solidarity or the Cold War, even though it developed an independent foreign policy and managed to forge connections to African liberation movements. This chapter explores North Korea’s cultural diplomacy during...

This contribution aims to approach the theme of a traveling Islam by starting from moving people and considering how their religious “luggage”—in terms of beliefs, ideas, and practices—travels with them and what this means for the circulation of...

Inaugural Address Delivered on the appointment to the Endowed Chair of The Anthropology of Islam in Africa and its Diaspora at the University of Amsterdam on 5 October 2022 by Mayke Kaag.

In contemporary Mozambique, avenging spirits may be appeased by marrying them to young women. For instance, when the spirit of a man who was a homicide victim keeps haunting the murderer’s family, ritually making it a spirit spouse turns it into an official family...

Ambiguities, this chapter argues, are present in the execution of wedding arrangements in Botswana, which, in some locations in the country, revolve around particular ritual practices that are crucial to how people are prepared for marriage. A point concerning knowing...

Namibia was one of the final African states to gain independence, a political transformation which was the outcome of a decades-long liberation struggle. The global dimension of the struggle has been duly recognised by generations of historians. As a result, archival...

In the Dogon funeral proceedings, a major song cycle called baja ni is performed in a session of at least seven hours. The texts of the chants are attributed to a legendary figure called Abire, who as a blind singer in the nineteenth century roamed the heartland of the Dogon...