Gutes Exemplar; der farb. illustr. Einband stw. leicht berieben. - Englisch. - ... 37 maps and 5 tables document the dissemination histories of individual associations and 139 photographs illustrate their performances. The appendices consist of a bibliography, a glossary and an index. The study is based on research in the late 1980s, on fifteen months of field research in 130 localities in the Cross River region between 1998 and 2001, and a short trip in 2008 as well as on research in colonial and mission archives and specialized libraries ... PURCHASING CULTURE investigates the emergence of complex purchasable associations in the Cross River region of southwest Cameroon and southeast Nigeria. These associations emerged in the context of the growing transatlantic trade and were disseminated from the direction of the Atlantic coast to the hinterland. They diffused (and still continue to diffuse) transethnically across the region, ignoring linguistic and national boundaries, and forming translocal networks of owners of the same institutions. The study documents the histories of cult associations and their dissemination by purchase and sale which includes the transfer of immaterial property rights. This mode of dissemination differs substantially from that of secret societies in the West. ... With its central focus on the purchase of cult associations, the study explores the transaction of rights in the ownership of the institutions and their performances. The purchase includes the acquisition of rights in ownership, performance, secret sign languages, and knowledge of the associations' functioning. Owners of associations have developed a local form of a copyright system with which they protect their performances. Associations form a substantial part of conferring prestige on individual members in the Cross River cultures up until the present time. They function prominently in present day debates among the people in the villages as well as the migrants in towns. The study contributes to the regional history of small scale societies and their pre-colonial organization of trade in West and Central 'Africa, to theories of associations and of the diffusion of culture; and to the role of intellectual property in the context of globalization. ... (Verlagstext) // INHALT : Cult Agencies and Temporary Problem Solving - Witchcraft Societies and Slave Trade - The Emergence of Aggressive Cult Agencies - Doing Business with Ajom - Trade, Cult Agencies, and the Cultural Knowledge of the Slaves - Dissemination Histories and the Singularization of Cult Agencies - Global Imports and Changes in the Perception of Cult Agencies - Women's Associations - Woman Power: Ekpa Between Ritual Dance, Association, and Cult Agency - The Second Half of the Growling Fish: Musem.be, Belaw, Njom Ekpa - The Cultivation of Beauty and Performance - The Development of Women's Dances as Cultural Resource - Societies Within Societies - Intravillage Power Relations and Dance Associations - The Village Council, Its Organs of Government, and the Power of Law-making - Societies Subordinate to Ekpe - The Dance Associations - Intra- and Intervillage Competition - Purchase, Intellectual Property, and the Value of Associations - The Purchase - Price and Payment - Moral Economy and the Goods Paid - The Associations' Value in Relation to Exchange Spheres - The Acquisition: Rights in Knowledge, Secrets, and Intangible Property - Risking Imitation and Claiming Intangible Property - A Copyright in the Cross River Region? - Dissemination as Strategy - Modes of Dissemination - Diffusion of Associations and Geographical Direction - Acquiring an Association from a Particular Village - Strategies of Dissemination: Restricted Sale and Singularization - Multiplicity of Owners-Shared Ownership - Genealogies of Fame: Inventors, Founders, and Chiefs of Associations - Associations as Investment: Agency, Performance, and Competition - The Associational Economy - Social Status and Symbols of Achievement - Wealth, Ambivalence, and the Powers of Personalities and Performers - Associations' Performances at Festivities - Performances as Bricolage and the Self-Referentiality of the Associations' Masks - Purchased Traditions, Identity of Associations, and Changes over Time and Space - (u.v.a.m.) ISBN 9781592218301
