Internationally, war in Sierra Leone (1991–2002) is regarded as an instance of violent conflict driven by economic factors (attempts to control the mining of alluvial diamonds). Fieldwork (2000–01) in rural areas recovering from war suggests a very different picture. War victims and combatants from different factions stress the importance of political decay, corruption, injustice and the social exclusion of young people. Other studies confirm the picture. There is broadly based discussion in rural communities about how to address the injustices held to have been responsible for the war. It seems in line with wider debate about human rights. Are people being converted to international ideals? Applying a neo-Durkheimian perspective, the article shows that this discourse about rights is a product of local social changes brought about by the war itself. The article concludes by asking how it might be consolidated by rights-oriented reconstruction activity. Human rights in Sierra Leone are as much a local development as an imposed change. In this respect the study confirms the importance of local agency already argued by anthropologists who have studied the process of conversion to world religions.

This article investigates the relationship between chieftaincy and the state in modern Nigeria. It focuses on politics and the mythical history of kings in the city of Abeokuta and argues that, particularly during the 1990s, the royal politics of the town drew heavily on different versions of mythical history. The reasons are twofold. They concern, first, the traditional political discourse of Yoruba kingship, in which a king's legitimacy can be discussed in terms of the attributes of the royal persona he embodies. In this context, legitimacy and status are often discussed as the first king's mythical origin. However, the continued political relevance and even volatility of this discourse in the 1990s related to the nature of the Nigerian state, in which traditional status is closely associated with political power.

This article examines the moral ambiguities of materialism that emerged with the coffee trade in north-west Tanganyika. The White Fathers, who played a prominent (often unintended) role in the growth of coffee markets, and the Haya villagers who became coffee farmers and traders alike understood the threat that commercial activity posed to non-commercial forms of value. The Fathers' attitude to the trade was often at odds with what they perceived as their evangelical mission; equally interesting are the ways this quandary shaped the attitudes and practices of the Haya people in the twentieth century. The article describes the White Fathers' anxieties about ‘civilisation’, then turns to the concerns of Haya farmers and traders as they developed in subsequent decades. The aim is to address the projects through which the moral ambiguities of the forms of materialism the coffee trade ushered in were—and were not—resolved, so as to illuminate the complex entanglement of colonisers and colonised.

‘It all comes down to juok’ is the recurrent answer to enquiries about suffering and misfortune among the Nilotic Jop'Adhola of eastern Uganda. Understanding what it means to ‘believe’ in juok requires a theoretical approach that recognises culture as a battleground between conflicting voices. This article explores the multiple and often contradictory ways to talk about, practise and believe in juok and how the notion of juok intersects with Christianity and biomedicine in ever changing constellations. Juok, it is suggested, can be seen as an image of intersubjective experience that allows the anthropologist insight into ways in which people in Eastern Uganda engage with each other and with the ‘other world’. Juok is one of the things people use when trying to activate events and overcome obstacles in life. As such it reflects the resilience of people confronted with suffering.

This article presents fragments of conversation with elderly and younger people in the rural town of Kwahu Tafo. The statements of the various speakers are often contradictory. The borders between respect and hatred, admiration and envy, affection and fear prove porous. The article is an attempt to understand the changing sentiments of the young towards the old, and vice versa. Elders pronounce both blessings and curses. Their spiritual power is sometimes appreciated as wisdom, the fruit of lifelong experience. At other times that spiritual power is denounced as witchcraft. Theologically these statements sound confusing and contradictory. From a sociological point of view, however, they make sense. They express the basic ambivalence of young people towards the old. On one hand there is respect, a cultural code which is almost ‘natural’: one regards with awe and admiration what came before. On the other, old people engender resentment because of their overbearing attitude and their refusal to ‘go’. The fact that young people die while old people remain alive is a reversal of the natural order and reeks of witchcraft.

This article examines the occult powers used to obtain protection or to gain an advantage in modern competitive arenas. In Burkina Faso, these powers are widely known as wak. The discussion focuses on sporting events, an area largely neglected in the recent literature on sorcery and modernity. Unlike what is often assumed or claimed about beliefs in occult powers, it is suggested that wak acts a complement and not as the condition of an individual's talent or success.