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Unmasking the State: Making Guinea Modern by Mike McGovern (Paperback, 2012)

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About this product

Product Information

When the Republic of Guinea gained independence in 1958, one of the first policies of the new state was a village-to-village eradication of masks and other ritual objects it deemed fetishes. The Demystification Program, as it was called, was so urgent it even preceded the building of a national road system. In Unmasking the State, Mike McGovern attempts to understand why this program was so important to the emerging state and examines the complex role it had in creating a unified national identity. In doing so, he tells a dramatic story of cat and mouse where minority groups cling desperately to their important- and outlawed-customs. Primarily focused on the communities in the country's southeastern rainforest region-people known as Forestiers-the Demystification Program operated via a paradox. At the same time it banned rituals from Forestiers' day-to-day lives, it appropriated them into a state-sponsored program of folklorization. McGovern points to an important purpose for this: by objectifying this polytheistic group's rituals, the state created a viable counterexample against which the Muslim majority could define proper modernity. Describing the intertwined relationship between national and local identity making, McGovern showcases the coercive power and the unintended consequences involved when states attempt to engineer culture.

Product Identifiers

Publisher
The University of Chicago Press
ISBN-13
9780226925103
eBay Product ID (ePID)
129185939

Product Key Features

Author
Mike Mcgovern
Publication Name
Unmasking the State: Making Guinea Modern
Format
Paperback
Language
English
Subject
Anthropology, History
Publication Year
2012
Type
Textbook
Number of Pages
312 Pages

Dimensions

Item Height
229mm
Item Width
153mm
Item Weight
472g

Additional Product Features

Title_Author
Mike Mcgovern
Country/Region of Manufacture
United States

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