Shifting African Identities is the second in a three-volume series entitled Identity? Theory, Politics, History. The series itself is a collaborative research and publishing venture involving the HSRC, the South African-based Institute for Global Dialogue (IGD), the Mayibuye Centre of the University of the Western Cape and two noted international research institutes, the French Institute of South Africa (IFAS) and the Nordic Africa Institute based in Upsalla, Sweden.

Volume One, which shares the name of the series, focused exclusively on the post-1994 transition in South Africa. While this second volume includes Neville Alexander's important study of the link between language and identity in South Africa, the other nine papers in the collection widen the lens to include studies of the process of identity construction in the southern African and Great Lakes regions as well as in the Congo, Sudan and Nigeria. Contributors include such eminent African scholars as Ali Mazrui, Ibbo Mandaza, Korwa Adar, Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, Eghosa Osaghae and the series editor Simon Bekker.

Volume Three entitled National Identity and Democracy in Africa and edited by Mai Palmberg offers a global comparative analysis and extends the thematic range to include cultural landscapes, power and conflict, literary critiques and discourses on the politics of nation building.

Together these three texts in the series provide critical and multidisciplinary reflections on the vexing questions underpinning ethnicity, religion, gender and language as pivotal constructs of contemporary African identities, and are as such key texts for those interested in the politics of identity.

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