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In a changing South Africa, recovering the meaning and power of African tradition is a matter of crucial importance. This work participates in that recovery by providing a comprehensive guide to research on the indigenous religious heritage of this dynamic country. Detailed reviews of over 600 books, articles, and theses are offered along with introductory essays and detailed annotations that define the field of study. This work plus two forthcoming volumes, Christianity in South Africa: An Annotated Bibliography and Islam, Hinduism, and Judaism in South Africa: An Annotated Bibliography will become the standard reference work on South African religions. Scholars and students in Religious Studies, Social Anthropology, History, and African Studies will find this set particularly useful. This work organizes and annotates all the relevant literature on Khoisan, Xhosa, Zulu, Sotho-Tswana, Swazi, Tsonga, and Venda traditions. The annotations are concise yet detailed essays written in an engaging and accessible style and supported by an exhaustive index, which comprise a full and complex profile of African traditional religion in South Africa.

This book offers an account of this understudied conflict dating from the early stage of European colonialism in Africa, and unpacks the complex regional relationships between different communities in the first half of 19th century.

There is growing interest internationally in the contributions which the creative arts can make to wellbeing and health in both healthcare and community settings. A timely addition to the field, the Oxford Textbook of Creative Arts, Health, and Wellbeing is the first work of its kind to discuss the role the creative arts have in addressing some of the most pressing public health challenges faced today. Providing an evidence-base and recommendations for a wide audience, this is an essential resource for anyone involved with this increasingly important component of public health practice. The textbook offers key insights for developing new creative arts-based approaches to health and wellbeing, and shows how these can augment established practices within a variety of social settings. Theoretically grounded and with a strong evidence base, this book brings together contributions from both practitioners and researches to provide a comprehensive account of the field. Using international examples, the textbook elucidates the various approaches that have successfully led to improvements in public health, whilst case studies in healthcare practices evaluate the impact of arts-based initiatives in a multitude of international settings, life-course stages, and social milieus. The Oxford Textbook of Creative Arts, Health, and Wellbeing is a comprehensive resource that will be essential to anyone with an interest in this increasingly important component of public health practice.

The occult is a framework of ideas and related practices that is drawn upon as a common resource to provide an understanding of how an apparently random world 'really' works. Based mainly on experiential research in a range of African societies, the essays in this volume examine the relevance of the occult to a variety of social concepts and contexts. These studies stress three features of the occult in modern Africa: 1) as an explanatory and tactical device, it is resilient; 2) it is malleable, with a capacity to absorb and assimilate new elements; 3) it is flexible and adaptable to emerging situations and novel circumstances. Of interest to specialists in the fields of religion, social science and African studies, this book will benefit the general reader interested in the occult and its relevance to modernity and globalisation.

In this text, Muller breaks new ground in the study of this changing region and along the way she includes details of her own poignant journey, as a young, white South African woman, to the other side of a divided society.

The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature, originally published in 2005, is a landmark work in the burgeoning field of religion and nature. It covers a vast and interdisciplinary range of material, from thinkers to religious traditions and beyond, with clarity and style. Widely praised by reviewers and the recipient of two reference work awards since its publication (see www.religionandnature.com/ern), this new, more affordable version is a must-have book for anyone interested in the manifold and fascinating links between religion and nature, in all their many senses.

Faith in African Lived Christianity – Bridging Anthropological and Theological Perspectives offers a comprehensive, empirically rich and interdisciplinary approach to the study of faith in African Christianity. The book brings together anthropology and theology in the study of how faith and religious experiences shape the understanding of social life in Africa. The volume is a collection of chapters by prominent Africanist theologians, anthropologists and social scientists, who take people’s faith as their starting point and analyze it in a contextually sensitive way. It covers discussions of positionality in the study of African Christianity, interdisciplinary methods and approaches and a number of case studies on political, social and ecological aspects of African Christian spirituality.