The Politics of Custom

Chiefship, Capital, and the State in Contemporary Africa

John L. Comaroff, Jean Comaroff, John L. Comaroff, Jean Comaroff

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780226510934, 9780226510767
• eBook ISBN: 9780226511092
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: African History
• Index: Social Sciences

How are we to explain the resurgence of customary chiefs in contemporary Africa? Rather than disappearing with the tide of modernity, as many expected, indigenous sovereigns are instead a rising force, often wielding substantial power and legitimacy despite major changes in the workings of the global political economy in the post–Cold War era—changes in which they are themselves deeply implicated.
 
This pathbreaking volume, edited by anthropologists John L. Comaroff and Jean Comaroff, explores the reasons behind the increasingly assertive politics of custom in many corners of Africa. Chiefs come in countless guises—from university professors through cosmopolitan businessmen to subsistence farmers–but, whatever else they do, they are a critical key to understanding the tenacious hold that "traditional" authority enjoys in the late modern world. Together the contributors explore this counterintuitive chapter in Africa's history and, in so doing, place it within the broader world-making processes of the twenty-first century.

Index

Page references in italics refer to illustrations

AbaThembu, 2

acephalous societies (tribes without rulers), European appointments of chiefs for, 10–12

Adrover, Lauren, 31. See also chapter 9, this volume

African empires, 9, 41n16

Africanist archaeology, and study of precolonial states, 41n17

African National Congress (ANC), 228n8; focus of mobilization on urban areas, 113–14; lack of legislation on role of chiefs in postapartheid state, 115; land reform program, 97; perception of future of Inkatha Freedom Party, 125; shift to view of customary authorities as “voter banks,” 21, 62, 80, 87, 114; writing of customary leadership into new constitution, 87, 129n5

African political systems, historicity of, 9–13

African Political Systems (Fortes and Evans-Pritchard), 2, 8–9

Afrobarometer, 206n93

agribusiness, 179nn8–9; and chiefly authority over land, 14, 16, 19, 94; and conflicts in rural chiefdoms, 169–71

Ahidjo, Ahmadou, 70

Akan: Adae festivals, 265, 269n16, 269n20; Akan goldweights, 267n8; beads and kente linked to chiefship of, 244n13; and Fetu Afahye, 31–32, 231; importance of gold in cosmology of, 250–52; influence of Akan chiefs, 232–33; languages and regional dialects and attributes, 244n3; migration of, 101n25

Akwapim Twi dialect, 244n3

Akyeampong, Emmanuel, 265

Alexander, Jocelyn: on chiefly authority both alternative to and adjunct of state, 21; on durability of chiefship, 9; on flexibility of chiefship, 2; on provenance of chiefly legitimacy, 26; on “return” of chiefly authority, 24–25. See also chapter 5, this volume

Alvord, E. D., 136

amaMpondo: last of Xhosa-speaking groups to be brought under colonial rule, 217; remittances from migrant laborers as most important source of household income, 217; respect of workers for king, 213, 221, 225, 227; slain workers at Marikana platinum mine, 30, 211

amaXhosa king, coronation of in 2015, 20–21, 22–23, 215

“American chiefs,” 2, 26

“Analysis of a Social Structure in Modern Zululand” (Gluckman), 29

Anglo American (South African conglomerate), 87

AngloGold Ashanti (AGA): blame for low land valuations on state and chiefs, 268n15; brutal labor practices and social irresponsibility, 33–34; jurisdiction over five traditional stool territories, 255; performance with chiefs of rites to pacify local deities and the gold spirit, 258; “Public Eye Award” as “most socially and environmentally irresponsible company in the world,” 249; result of merging of AGC with AngloGold, 254; traditional councils in area of concession, 268n13; transnational mining giant, 247

Anglo Platinum, 2004 strike of rock drill operators, 216

antitemporality, 264

apartheid: as culmination of colonialism, 4, 13, 40n5; customary authority under, 3, 12, 306; as template for continent, 82

Arhin, Kwame, 91

artisanal miners. See galamseys; geologues

Asantehene, 8, 86, 90–91, 92, 100n23, 251, 255

Asante kingdom, Ghana: British colonization of, 249; incorporation of, 253; pinnacle throne as G...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Editorial Note
• one / Chiefs, Capital, and the State in Contemporary Africa: An Introduction
• two / African Chiefs and the Post–Cold War Moment: Millennial Capitalism and the Struggle over Moral Authority
• three / Chieftaincy, Land, and the State in Ghana and South Africa
• four / The Salience of Chiefs in Postapartheid South Africa: Reflections on the Nhlapo Commission
• five / The Politics of States and Chiefs in Zimbabwe
• six / Paramount Chiefs, Land, and Local-National Politics in Sierra Leone
• seven / Republic of Kings: Neotraditionalism, Aristocratic Ethos, and Authoritarianism in Burkina Faso
• eight / Corporate Kings and South Africa’s Traditional-Industrial Complex
• nine / The Currency of Chieftaincy: Corporate Branding and the Commodification of Political Authority in Ghana
• ten / Fallen Chiefs and Sacrificial Mining in Ghana
• eleven / Colonizing Banro: Kingship, Temporality, and Mining of Futures in the Goldfields of South Kivu, DRC
• twelve / Third Contact: Invisibility and Recognition of the Customary in Northern Mozambique
• Acknowledgments
• Contributors
• Index