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This collection explores the productive potential of uncertainty for people living in Africa as well as for scholars of Africa. Eight ethnographic case studies from across the continent examine how uncertainty is used to negotiate insecurity, create and conduct relationships, and act as a source for imagining the future.
List of contents
1. Ethnographies of Uncertainty in Africa: An Introduction; Elizabeth Cooper and David Pratten PART I: SOCIAL CONTINGENCIES: BETWEEN SUSPICION AND THE SUBJUNCTIVE 2. Contingency: Interpersonal and Historical Dependencies in HIV Care; Susan Reynolds Whyte and Godfrey Etyang Siu 3. Charity and Chance: The Manufacture of Uncertainty and Mistrust Through Child Sponsorship in Kenya; Elizabeth Cooper 4. The Quest for Trust in the Face of Uncertainty. Managing Pregnancy Outcomes in Zanzibar; Nadine Beckmann 5. Food Security, Conjugal Conflict, and Uncertainty in 'Bangladesh', Mombasa, Kenya; Adam Gilbertson PART II: FUTURE VISIONS 6. Social Invisibility and Political Opacity. On Perceptiveness and Apprehension in Bissau; Henrik Vigh 7. Rhythms of Uncertainty and the Pleasures of Anticipation; Julie Soleil Archambault 8. Embracing Uncertainty. Young People on the Move in Addis Ababa's Inner City; Marco Di Nunzio 9. 'We Wait for Miracles.' Ideas of Hope and Future Among Clandestine Burundian Refugees in Nairobi; Simon Turner
About the author
Julie Soleil Archambaultl, Oxford University, UK Nadine Beckmann, University of Roehampton, UK Elizabeth Cooper, Simon Fraser University, Canada Godfrey Etyang Siu, Makerere University, Uganda Adam Gilbertson, Oxford University, UK Marco Di Nunzio, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium David Pratten, Oxford University, UK Susan Reynolds Whyte, Copenhagen University, Denmark Simon Turner, Aalborg University, Denmark Henrik Vigh, Copenhagen University, Denmark ?
Report
"The book Ethnographies of Uncertainty in Africa edited by Cooper and Pratten focuses specifically on one phenomenon that has been largely overlooked in development studies: uncertainty. ... the book presents detailed ethnographies of people's experiences of coping with uncertainty in their everyday life. ... the book is relevant for readers involved in development practice and development studies, as well as for practitioners and academics concerned with change processes more generally." (Aleid Groenewoudt, Progress in Development Studies, Vol. 18 (4), 2018)
