University of Oxford

Research Projects

The Politics of Youth in Nigeria

This project has explored inter-generational tensions and the mobilization of youth as a political category in southern Nigeria. Its focus has been to document the livelihoods and modes of sociality among young men in order for us better to understand the reported ‘crisis of youth’ on the African continent. In the course of the research new perspectives have been examined in relation to vigilantism, cults and masquerade. The findings of the research point to the way in which marginalized young men express their identity and cope with insecurity through a rich interplay of ideas about power and identity along with often violent strategies to seek accountability from patrons.

Perhaps the most significant aspect of this research has been to provide an historically grounded understanding of the making of youth as a political category. The process by which ‘youth’ has been configured is a complex one, and in recent years has been heavily influenced by discourse and violence in the Niger Delta region proper. Another important feature of this research has been to understand why young men in this highly Christianized region should invest so much of their time and energy engaging in forms of African traditional religion. The research has begun to ask important questions about the current salience of forms of protection (especially for vigilantes) and modes of sociality (in new cult groups like agaba). Indeed, these practices begin to make sense when they are linked into understandings of local epistemologies of power and masculinity and into young men’s stories of the radical insecurity they experience (especially when working in cities like Port Harcourt).

Publications:

Pratten, D.
2007. The 'rugged life': Youth and violence in Southern Nigeria. In Violence and Non-Violence in Africa, edited by P. Ahluwalia, L. Bethleham and R. Ginio. London: Routledge, 84-104.
 2008. 'The thief eats his shame': Practice and power in Nigerian vigilantism. Africa 78 (1):64-83.
2008. Introduction - The politics of protection: Perspectives on vigilantism in Nigeria. Africa 78 (1):1-15.

British Academy Small Grant: SB 46904

Masking and Modernity

Masks and masquerades are a long-term research interest of Dr Pratten’s. He has examined the relationship between mask societies and the colonial state in his monograph, ‘The Man-Leopard Murders: History and Society in Colonial Nigeria’. He is building on these findings by tracing the historical trajectory of Annang and Ibibio masking traditions in Nigeria and examining how these performative traditions are inflected and appropriated in a post-colonial setting. Dr Pratten’s current focus is twofold. First to research the collectors of Annang and Ibibio art, such as MDW Jeffreys whose donations form an important part of the Pitt Rivers Museum collection. And second to relate the contested histories of masked performance to contemporary practices of carving, display and performance.

Publications:

Pratten, D. 2008. Masking Youth: Transformation and Transgression in Annang Performance. African Arts 41 (4):44-60.

Dance in Senegal

Dr Neveu Kringelbach’s doctoral research focused on dance, social mobility and ethnicity in Dakar, Senegal. She is now working on a monograph building up from her thesis, soon to be published by Berghahn Books. The research looks at neo-traditional and contemporary dance troupes in Dakar. It traces the historical transformations of both genres and explores the social, political and economic reasons for the popularity of dance and musical performance in the city. In exploring the social significance of theatrical performance, the study brings together such regional dimensions as the embodiment of gender differences and the Senegambian praise-oratory tradition, and such wider ranging dimensions as transnational migration, the insertion of Senegalese performers into global artistic circuits and the impact of French foreign policy. Popular dances performed during family ceremonies and peer associations of various kinds are examined as part of the social and ‘movement’ environment in which choreography emerges. The study also looks at the ways in which people appropriate the nationalistic genre codified in the 1950s and 60s to re-shape local identities.

In addition, Dr Neveu Kringelbach is working on a volume on the Anthropology of Dance, co-edited with Dr Jonathan Skinner and to be published by Berghahn Books. She has developed a more recent interest in Senegalese migration, and is developing a new research project on bi-national families involving a Senegalese partner.

Publications:

Neveu Kringelbach, Hélène (2008) Book review: F. Castaldi, ‘Choreographies of African Identities’ in African Arts, 41(2).

Neveu Kringelbach, Hélène (2007) ‘Cool play: emotionality in dance as a resource in Senegalese urban women’s associations’ in H. Wulff, ed. The Emotions: A Cultural Reader. Oxford: Berg.

Neveu Kringelbach, Hélène (2007) ‘Le poids du succès : construction du corps, danse et carrière à Dakar’ in Politique Africaine, 107.

Africa at the Pitt Rivers Museum

Recovering the Material and Visual Cultures of the Southern Sudan: A Museological Resource

This website provides access to a detailed catalogue of the collections from Southern Sudan held at the Pitt Rivers Museum. The Museum's holdings from Southern Sudan comprise more than 1300 artefacts and 4000 photographs. Taken together, the artefacts and photographs provide a major resource for studying the cultural and visual history of the region.

Luo Visual History

Explore around 350 historical Luo photographs from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum taken between 1902 and 1936. This website is the result of a collaborative project between the Pitt Rivers Museum and members of the Luo community of Nyanza Province, western Kenya, with the assistance and co-operation of National Museums of Kenya, and also gives information about the series of local exhibitions of historical photographs that took place in Nyanza in 2007.

Congo Journey: Photographs and Documents from Robert Hottot's Expedition to Central Africa, 1908-9

This website makes available photographs and documents from the Pitt Rivers Museum's Hottot Collection, providing an online catalogue to the objects displayed in an exhibition of the same name held at the Pitt Rivers Museum in 2004. Get your 3D glasses ready!

The Field Photography of E.E. Evans-Pritchard

In 2005 Dr Chris Morton took up a HEFCE-funded Career Development Fellowship in Anthropology to undertake collections-based research on the field photography of E. E. Evans-Pritchard in Southern Sudan. Evans-Pritchard is one of the major figures in the history of British social anthropology, whose books such as Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande (OUP 1937) and The Nuer (OUP 1940), have been widely influential. Yet neither the role of his prolific object collecting nor his photographic activity has been adequately understood in the context of his overall research. His photograph collection, donated to the Pitt Rivers Museum in 1966, totals some 5000 photographic objects, and relates to his well-known ethnographic fieldwork in Southern Sudan during 1926-1936 among the Azande, Nuer, Anuak, Ingessana and other groups. The research will seek to understand more about the historical contexts in which the fieldwork was carried out, as well as the communities and individuals with whom he worked. Further information: http://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/fellowship.html

Publications:

(in press) The initiation of Kamanga: visuality and textuality in Evans-Pritchard’s Zande ethnography, in C. Morton and E. Edwards (eds), Rethinking Photography and Anthropology. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing.

(in press) Fieldwork and the Participant-Photographer: E. E. Evans-Pritchard and the Nuer rite of gorot, Visual Anthropology.

2007  Evans-Pritchard and Malinowski: the roots of a complex relationship. History of Anthropology Newsletter, 34 (20), 10-16.

2005  The Anthropologist as Photographer: Reading the Monograph and Reading the Archive, Visual Anthropology, Vol. 18(4), 389-405.