Major Questions:

What is the general argument that E-P is making about the nature of time and space in this selection?

Why should Nuer concepts of time and space matter to us?

Minor Questions:

1. What are the two types of time that E-P mentions?

2. What is oecological time?

 a. What are the units of oecological time?
 b. What determines oecological time?
 c. How do the Nuer speak of and measure the passage of time through the day?
 d. What types of activities determine the seasons?
 e. Why does EP say that oecological time is cyclical?

3. What is structural time?

 a. In what way is structural time progressive?
 b. How do the Nuer refer to events that occured years in the past?  How do they refer to historical time?
 c. Do all groups have the same reference points for time?
 d. What is an age-set system?
 e. In what way is the age-set system used to measure time?
 f. What is a lineage? What is agnatic descent?
 g. In what way is the lineage order used to measure time?
 h. Why does EP claim that the movement of structural time is an illusion?
 i. What do the Nuer use their method of reckoning time to do?
 j. What determines Nuer concepts of time?

4. What is the Nuer understanding of space?

 a. What is oecological distance?
 b. What is structural distance?
 c. What does the Nuer term cieng mean?
 d. What determines Nuer concepts of space?

5. Is the Nuer understanding of space and time the same as our understanding of space and time? In what way are they similar? In what way are they different?
 
 

Tribes and Ethnic Groups

Major Questions:

Why did African ethnography provoke reflection on the nature of tribes and ethnic groups?

What did this rethinking of tribes and ethnic groups mean for how ethnographers understand and write about Africa?

Minor Questions:

Southall:
 

 a. What does Southall think is the difference between tribes and ethnic groups?   Do you agree?
 b. What are some of the cultural and social features that scholars have used to distinguish between different tribal groups?
 c. What is ‘Tribalism' and why does Southall think this term is inappropriate?
 d. Does Southall believe that Africans have lived in insulated tribal societies?  Why or Why not?
 e. Who are the Kvirondo? What does Southall use this tribe to illustrate?
 f. Is the term ‘tribal' used in the same way to describe the Yoruba, the peoples of Madagascar and the Somali?
 g. If not, in what way are the uses of ‘ethnicity' different in these cases?
 h. What are the three problems identified by Southall with the concept of ‘tribe'?
 i. What solution does he propose to these problems?

Comaroff:
 

 j. What is a primordialism, what is instrumentalism?
 k. What is a totem? What is totemism? What is the relationship between totemism and ethnicity?
 l. What are Comaroff's five axiom's about ethnicity?
 m. Why does Comaroff say that ethnicity is ‘Janus faced'?
 n. What is ‘otherness'?  Why is it important for ethnicity?
 o. What is the relationship between totemism and inequality?
 p. What is the relationship between ethnicity and inequality?
 q. Why does Comaroff link ethnicity, class and political struggle?
 r. How does he link these three phenomena?  What does this mean for the study of Africa?
 
 

Major Questions:

 In what way does the existence African systems of thought challenge our scientific understanding of the natural world?

 Are all different systems of thought commensurable and equal?

 Are some ways of thinking about the world better than others?

Minor Questions:

Livingstone, David
 

 a. What did Livingstone try to do for the Bakwains?
 b. What came of his efforts?
 c. What did the Bakwains ask him to do?  What did Livingstone think of their demand?
 d. How did the Bakwains explain the logic of the rainmaker?
 e. What opinion do the rainmakers have of Western medicine?
 f. Do you find the rainmaker's logic compelling? Why or why not?
 g. Do you think that you could convince the Bakwains that their system of rainmaking practices is wrong?
 h. Do you think you could make an argument in support of Livingstone's effort to change Bakwains beliefs?

Evans-Pritchard:
 

 i. What parts of life does witchcraft affect?
 j. Is witchcraft the same as sorcery?  How do you think they might be different?
 k. Who can be a witch?
 l. Do the Azande consider witchcraft unusual?
 m. What events is witchcraft used to explain?
 n. What was the incident involving the granary?  What does this incident tell us about Azande ideas about causation?
 o. Does a belief in death by witchcraft contradict a belief in death by natural causes? Why?
 p. What social situations require common sense explanations?
 q. What is the author's attitude toward witchcraft?
 r. How do you think Evans-Pritchard reconciles his belief that witches do not exist with his belief that Azande witchcraft is perfectly logical?
 s. What does Azande witchcraft say about the way that we distinguish between the natural and supernatural world?