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 Human Sciences Research Council (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.

• List of Tables
• List of Contributors
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• Acronyms
• Chapter 1: Identity and Ethnicity - Bekker
• Chapter 2: Language and Identity in Nigeria - Garuba
• Chapter 3: Exiting from the Existing state of Nigeria - Osaghae
• Chapter 4: Parallel Society in the Democratic Republic of Congo - Biaya
• Chapter 5: Ethnic Identification in the Great lakes Region - Nzongola-Ntalaja
• Chapter 6: Ethno-religious Nationalism in Sudan: the Enduring Constraint on the Policy of National Identity - Adar
• Chapter 7: Intercultural Identity Structure of Second Generation French Women of African Descent - Franchi and Andronikof-Sanglade
• Chapter 8: Southern African Identity: A Critical assessment - Mandaza
• Chapter 9: Language Politics in South Africa - Alexander
• Chapter 10: Shifting African Identities: The Boundaries of Ethnicity and Religion in Africa’s Experience - Mazrui
• Index

Shifting African Identities was edited by Simon Bekker and Martine Dodds of the Department of Sociology of the University of Stellenbosch; and Meshack M. Khosa, who was until recently a member of the Democracy and Governance Research Group of the Human Sciences Research Council.

Contributors include:
Korwa G. Adar, of the International studies Unit of the Department of Political Studies, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa
Neville Alexander, of the Project for the Study of Alternative Education in South Africa, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
Tshikala K. Biaya, CODESRIA, Dakar, Senegal
Vijé Franchi, University of Paris X, Nanterre, France
Harry Garuba, Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
Ibbo Mandaza, Executive Director, Southern African Regional Institute of Policy Studies, Harare, Zimbabwe
Ali A, Mazrui, Institute of Global Cultural Studies, Binghamton University, New York, USA
Eghosa E. Osaghae, Department of Political Studies, University of Transkei, Umtata, South Africa
Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, Washington University, Maryland, USA
Anne Andronikof-Sanglade, University of Paris X, Nanterre, France