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| Semester | fall semester 2019 |
| Course frequency | Every 2nd fall sem. |
| Lecturers | Till Förster (till.foerster@unibas.ch, Assessor) |
| Content | West Africa is a region that fascinated many ethnographers because of its extremely high variety in natural, societal and cultural forms. It covers thinly inhabited deserts but also wetlands, intensively cultivated, as well as rapidly growing urban centres like Dakar, Abidjan and Lagos. Since the middle ages, West Africa has been the heartland of mighty kingdoms while other societies resisted any centralized rule. Today, the continuity of old types of social organisation and culture merges with modern and post-colonial life, thus creating new societal fields. This course - part lecture and part seminar, part conceptual and part ethnographic - provides an introduction to the societies of West Africa and situates them in relation to the natural environment and historical and contemporary developments in economics, politics and culture. It later focuses on two or three societies in each major region, emphasising particular societal and cultural forms and addresses specific questions of research. The course will also survey principal changes in institutions and ideologies which have taken place in rural and in urban communities up to the present. Ethnographic descriptions will also draw on the modern African nations and post-colonial societies: Senegal, Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Mali. |
| Comments | Communication in the course will be in English if necessary |
| Admission requirements | No particular requirements |
| Language of instruction | German |
| Use of digital media | No specific media used |
| Course auditors welcome |
| Interval | Weekday | Time | Room |
|---|
No dates available. Please contact the lecturer.
| Modules |
Modul: Basics: Social Anthropology (Master's degree program: African Studies) Modul: Einführung in die Ethnographie einer Grossregion (Bachelor's degree subject: Anthropology) |
| Assessment format | record of achievement |
| Assessment details | Exam at the end of the semester. |
| Assessment registration/deregistration | Reg.: course registration; dereg.: not required |
| Repeat examination | one repetition, repetition counts |
| Scale | Pass / Fail |
| Repeated registration | as often as necessary |
| Responsible faculty | Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, studadmin-philhist@unibas.ch |
| Offered by | Fachbereich Ethnologie |