Introduction: Turning the Table on Gellner: Alternative Discourses of Civil Society in Africa

Abstract

The idea for this Handbook came to me as I worked through the final edits of my contribution to The Oxford Handbook of Civil Society, edited by Michael Edwards. The pressure to condense the multilayered historical, theoretical, and practical dimensions of civil society in an extraordinarily diverse continent into a synoptic essay confronted me both with the inherent limitations of my endeavor and the need for a multidisciplinary volume that takes Africa and its multiple discourses seriously. The current volume—aiming to reflect the diversity of African discourses on civil society, map the contours of thematic and regional analyses, and display the fruits of the most up to date research—is the outcome of that recognition.