Robert Thornton is an anthropologist who teaches at Wits University in South Africa. He also maintains a blog: An Anthropologist in South Africa. In this guest post, he gives his take on Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the Guinean-American hotel staff member who accused him of rape. What’s different here, from the thousands of other analyses you’ve read? […]
‘The African chambermaid’ and the media
The Dadis Show

I was a bit surprised today to read that Guinea’s military leader, Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, has agreed not to return to Guinea (he’ll hang out in Burkina Faso with fellow dictator Blaise Compaore) and that a transitional government organize elections without him. Especially since only a few months ago it seems this guy won’t […]
MUSIC AND FILM / BEMBEYA JAZZ
The opening minutes of the excellent 2007 documentary, “Sur les traces du Bembeya Jazz,” about the great Guinean group, Bembeya Jazz. The intro is brilliant for showing the band members in their prime (in 1979) and now years later. [I had the pleasure of seeing them play in London around 2003. They still had it.] […]

