21st century international relations
A01=James H. Smith
A01=Ngeti Mwadime
africa
african studies
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
anthropology
Author_James H. Smith
Author_Ngeti Mwadime
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Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=BJ
Category=DND
Category=JHMC
connectivity
COP=United States
cultural anthropology
cultural studies
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
discussion books
engaging
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
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eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
ethnographic research
friendship
global africa
globalization
internet
journal entries
kenya
Language_English
lively
local diners
multiplicity of african life
new research project
PA=Available
pentecostal preachers
Price_€50 to €100
prophets
PS=Active
realistic
recorded conversations
redemption
religion
shared emails
softlaunch
sorcery
transnational
witch finders
young generation
Product details
- ISBN 9780520281103
- Weight: 544g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 05 Sep 2014
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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Email from Ngeti is a captivating story of sorcery, redemption, and transnational friendship in the globalized twenty-first century. When the anthropologist James Smith returns to Kenya to begin fieldwork for a new research project, he meets Ngeti Mwadime, a young man from the Taita Hills who is as interested in the United States as Smith is in Taita. Ngeti possesses a savvy sense of humor and an unusual command of the English language, which he teaches himself by watching American movies and memorizing the Oxford English Dictionary. Smith and Mwadime soon develop a friendship that comes to span years and continents, impacting both men in profound and unexpected ways. For Smith, Ngeti can be understood as an exemplar of a young generation of Africans navigating the multiplicity of contemporary African life - a process that is augmented by globalized culture and the Internet. Keenly aware of the world outside Taita and Kenya, Ngeti dreams big, with endless plans for striking it rich. As he struggles to free himself from what he imagines to be the hold of the past, he embarks on an odyssey that takes him to local diviners, witch-finders, Pentecostal preachers, and prophets.
This is the fascinating ethnography of Mwadime and Smith, largely told through their shared emails, journals, and recorded conversations in the field. Throughout, the reader is struck by the immediacy and poignancy of coauthor Ngeti's narrative, which marks a groundbreaking shift in the nature of anthropological fieldwork and writing.
James H. Smith is Associate Professor of Anthropology at University of California, Davis, and the author of Bewitching Development: Witchcraft and the Reinvention of Development in Neoliberal Kenya. Ngeti Mwadime lives, works, and looks for opportunities in the Taita Hills and Mombasa, Kenya.
