Contested Terrains And Constructed Categories: Contemporary Africa In Focus [Paperback]

George Bond (Author), Nigel Gibson (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0813336783 | ISBN-13: 978-0813336787 | Publication Date: January 23, 2002

Contested Terrains and Constructed Categories brings together intellectuals from a variety of fields, backgrounds, generations, and continents to deepen and reinvigorate the theoretical and intellectual integrity of African studies. Building on recent debate within African studies that has revolved about the role of Africanists in the United States as "gatekeepers" of knowledge about Africa and Africans, this volume of interdisciplinary essays focuses on the contested character of the production of knowledge itself. In every chapter, case studies and ethnographic materials, drawn from West, Central, East and Southern Africa, demonstrate the application of theory to concrete situations.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

George C. Bond is professor of anthropology and education at Teachers College and the director of the Institute of African Studies, Columbia University. John Kreniske is associate professor of anthropology at Hofstra University and research associate of the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies. Ida Susser is professor of anthropology at Hunter College, City University of New York. Joan Vincent is professor of anthropology at Barnard College, Columbia University, and a member of the International Advisory Committee of the HIV Center. George Clement Bondis professor of anthropology and education at Teachers College Columbia University and is a member of the Council of the International African Institute (London). He was previously director of the Institute of African Studies at Columbia University. He is a co-editor of several books, including AIDS in African and the Caribbean (Westview).Nigel C. Gibsonis an assistant professor at the Institute of Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies, Emerson College, and a research associate in the Afro-American Studies program at both Brown and at Harvard University. He was formerly assistant director of the Institute of African Studies at Columbia University and is the editor of Rethinking Fanon: The Continuing Dialogue (1999).

Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Westview Press (January 23, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813336783
• ISBN-13: 978-0813336787
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,182,941 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #91 in Books > History > Africa > African Studies

More About the Author

The following biography is an excerpt from Wikipedia:

Nigel Gibson is an activist and scholar. He was born in London and was an active in the 1984 -1985 Miners' Strike. While in London he also met South African exiles from the Black Consciousness Movement and, in conversation with the exiles, developed some influential academic work on the movement. He later moved to the United States where he worked with Raya Dunayevskaya in the Marxist Humanism movement, studied with Edward Said and became an important theorist of Frantz Fanon on whom he has written extensively. He has also edited a major collection of work on Theodor Adorno and is a co-editor of a new collection of work on Steve Biko that includes work by scholars of the calibre of Lewis Gordon and Mabogo More. Gibson's work has been widely influential in South Africa where it is often cited by academics and activists. In recent years he has often written and spoken on the South African shack dwellers' movement Abahlali baseMjondolo. He is a member of the Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa and has addressed the United Nations.

He was previously the Assistant Director of African Studies at Columbia University and a Research Associate in African-American Studies at Harvard University. He is currently Director of the Honors Program at Emerson College.


In 2009 he was awarded the Fanon prize by the Caribbean Philosophy Association. According to the association "Gibson has set a high standard in Fanon studies and historically-informed political thought on Africa and the Caribbean."