{"title":"African Art in an Imperial Center","authors":"Sarah Van Beurden","doi":"10.1017/S0021853722000081","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"edge and reputation’ (14) by writing several books based on Dɔnkɔ’s lexica of herbal remedies. Konadu’s language then becomes checkered with commentary about Warren’s ‘interracial’ marriage (166), and the implication that some of the records of Dɔnkɔ’s interaction with Warren went purposely missing (172). There is evident bitterness here, as Konadu uses Warren’s work to argue that Dɔnkɔ, like other citizens of the newly independent nation of Ghana, was ‘still exposed to the exploits of capitalists, neocolonialists, and the coming-of-age-of African Studies’ (165). Such complications aside, the section on Warren appropriately problematizes the harvesting of anthropological knowledge in the postcolony. It is also worth noting that the Dɔnkɔ/Warren encounter, despite what might have been waylaid, did leave a trove of field notes that enabled Konadu to provide a beautiful reflection on Kofi Dɔnkɔ’s daily healing activities. The Dɔnkɔ/Warren records bear witness to the modest blacksmith as someone in full control of his clinical practice and spiritual world, healing a wide array of illnesses in patients from Takyiman and abroad. There is no getting around the intellectual intensity that the author has invested into Our Own Way in this Part of the World. There are some side arguments going on that I can’t cover here, and perhaps wouldn’t be able to even if I tried. And at times, the book gets dense, making it a tough ethnographic slog in parts, especially when the author drags the reader a bit too far into the weeds of everyday Bono life. But there are also some lovely passages too, such as when Konadu thoughtfully suggests that the caricature of ‘fetishism’ might be reframed as a ‘broader agreement between the spiritual forces of nature and the world created by human culture’ (92). The most important thing is that Konadu’s thesis holds. Kofi Dɔnkɔ represents the type of bounded personhood that ‘stretched across two empires, national borders, ecologies, polities, and racial and religious ideologies, signaling a non-national decolonized possibility’ (232). By revealing Dɔnkɔ’s story, Konadu has accomplished something innovative, a book worth reading for anyone who wants to challenge themselves to rethink the field of African Studies.","PeriodicalId":1,"journal":{"name":"Accounts of Chemical Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":16.4000,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Accounts of Chemical Research","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021853722000081","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"CHEMISTRY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
edge and reputation’ (14) by writing several books based on Dɔnkɔ’s lexica of herbal remedies. Konadu’s language then becomes checkered with commentary about Warren’s ‘interracial’ marriage (166), and the implication that some of the records of Dɔnkɔ’s interaction with Warren went purposely missing (172). There is evident bitterness here, as Konadu uses Warren’s work to argue that Dɔnkɔ, like other citizens of the newly independent nation of Ghana, was ‘still exposed to the exploits of capitalists, neocolonialists, and the coming-of-age-of African Studies’ (165). Such complications aside, the section on Warren appropriately problematizes the harvesting of anthropological knowledge in the postcolony. It is also worth noting that the Dɔnkɔ/Warren encounter, despite what might have been waylaid, did leave a trove of field notes that enabled Konadu to provide a beautiful reflection on Kofi Dɔnkɔ’s daily healing activities. The Dɔnkɔ/Warren records bear witness to the modest blacksmith as someone in full control of his clinical practice and spiritual world, healing a wide array of illnesses in patients from Takyiman and abroad. There is no getting around the intellectual intensity that the author has invested into Our Own Way in this Part of the World. There are some side arguments going on that I can’t cover here, and perhaps wouldn’t be able to even if I tried. And at times, the book gets dense, making it a tough ethnographic slog in parts, especially when the author drags the reader a bit too far into the weeds of everyday Bono life. But there are also some lovely passages too, such as when Konadu thoughtfully suggests that the caricature of ‘fetishism’ might be reframed as a ‘broader agreement between the spiritual forces of nature and the world created by human culture’ (92). The most important thing is that Konadu’s thesis holds. Kofi Dɔnkɔ represents the type of bounded personhood that ‘stretched across two empires, national borders, ecologies, polities, and racial and religious ideologies, signaling a non-national decolonized possibility’ (232). By revealing Dɔnkɔ’s story, Konadu has accomplished something innovative, a book worth reading for anyone who wants to challenge themselves to rethink the field of African Studies.
期刊介绍:
Accounts of Chemical Research presents short, concise and critical articles offering easy-to-read overviews of basic research and applications in all areas of chemistry and biochemistry. These short reviews focus on research from the author’s own laboratory and are designed to teach the reader about a research project. In addition, Accounts of Chemical Research publishes commentaries that give an informed opinion on a current research problem. Special Issues online are devoted to a single topic of unusual activity and significance.
Accounts of Chemical Research replaces the traditional article abstract with an article "Conspectus." These entries synopsize the research affording the reader a closer look at the content and significance of an article. Through this provision of a more detailed description of the article contents, the Conspectus enhances the article's discoverability by search engines and the exposure for the research.