Friends for Life, Friends for Death: Cohorts and Consciousness Among the Lunda-Ndembu

Front Cover
University of Virginia Press, 2007 - Family & Relationships - 266 pages

Breaking away from traditional ethnographic accounts often limited by theoretical frameworks and rhetorical styles, Friends for Life, Friends for Death offers an insider's view into the day-to-day lives of a self-selected group of male friends within the Lunda-Ndembu society in northwestern Zambia. During his two decades of fieldwork in this region, James Pritchett followed a group of Lunda-Ndembu males, here called Amabwambu (the friends), revealing the importance of the clique both as a principal agent for receiving and interpreting information from and about the world and as a place where strategies could be hatched, tested, and applied. Viewing friendship, versus kinship, as a critical rather than peripheral element of the Lunda-Ndembu and other groups, the author offers new insights into the ways social structures are able to stay viable even in the face of radical change.

 

Contents

Muzungu Missions and Border
17
Insects and Inanimate
59
Coming of Age at St Kizito
97
Harry Franklins Saucepan Special
115
Lunda in the Congo Crisis
145
The Emergence of a New NationState
158
Living on the Edge of the IMF Leash
188
Conclusion
233
Glossary
251
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Friends for Life, Friends for Death: Cohorts and Consciousness Among the ...
James A. Pritchett
No preview available - 2009

Common terms and phrases

activities Amabwambu American Angola associated authority became become beliefs border British Brother Catholic Central African chiefs Christian collective colonial Company Congo construction continued district early economic election emerged European example experience fear Federation Fisher forces friends friendship hand individuals initially Kanongesha known labor land leaders less lives Lunda Lusaka Lwawu males managed Matonchi mines mission move Mushala Mwinilunga never Northern Rhodesia noted offered organization particular party perhaps period plateau Plymouth Brethren political possible Post present production radio reach refugees relations relationship remained REPORTER response ritual rule senior shared simply social societies South Southern status stories success territory things throughout tion town trade traditional United urban village women young Zambia

About the author (2007)

James A. Pritchett, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Director of the African Studies Center at Boston University, is the author of Lunda-Ndembu: Style, Change, and Social Transformation in South Central Africa.

Bibliographic information

TitleFriends for Life, Friends for Death: Cohorts and Consciousness Among the Lunda-Ndembu
AuthorJames Anthony Pritchett
Editionillustrated, annotated
PublisherUniversity of Virginia Press, 2007
ISBN0813926246, 9780813926247
Length266 pages
Subjects ›  ›  › 

Family & Relationships / Friendship
History / Africa / General
History / Africa / South / Republic of South Africa
Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural & Social
Social Science / Anthropology / Physical
Social Science / Ethnic Studies / African Studies
  
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