International records / OpenAlex research

Rethinking ancestors in Africa

Analyses of ancestor-related practices were a crucial component of structural-functional models of social organisations in Africa. In the 1970s the theories of lineage and segmentary social organisation upon which these studies depended were called into question. Ethnographic and historical research indicated a preponderance of migratory activities and a high degree of discontinuity and reorganisation in kin relations. As a result most anthropologists turned from lineage-based functional theory to historical models of social organisation. With the waning of lineage theory, studies of ancestors…