The Culture of Power in Southern Africa

This collection of essays significantly refines the way we think about state and society in the British Southern Africa of the 19th and 20th centuries, from the conquest of the Transkei and Natal to contemporary Botswana and Zimbabwe. The essays embody a range of disciplinary perspectives, including anthropology, history, and historical sociology. Yet they share a set of theoretical and empirical concerns united by an interesting understanding the culture of power - and the power of culture - at Africa's southern tip. Contributing scholars are especially concerned with understanding the hidden and complex histories of state formation and popular culture, and the relationship among rule, experience, and meaning. By focusing on state formation, and not on who rules but on how rule is accomplished, the essays in this exemplary collection present a reinvigorated social history of state formation without reducing African historical actors to mere respondents to the intrusions of others. They argue that precisely because colonial conquest and rule were cross-cultural encounters requiring the exercise of both force and dialogue, state formation and the culture and consciousness of African subjects were intertwined historical developments.