Elisha P Renne
Biographic Data
| ID | 74965 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Elisha P Renne |
| GIVEN NAMES | Elisha P |
| FAMILY NAME | Renne |
| SIGNATURE | RENNE E P |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Michigan |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4505-1402 |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 74 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 213 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 74 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1986 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Extraordinary Vision and the Two Sides of Cloth
Ifa is Light.
Covered Bodies, Moral Education, and the Embodiment of Islamic Reform in Northern Nigeria
Death and the Textile Industry in Nigeria
Reinterpreting Adire Cloth in Northern Nigeria
In the 1930s, the demand for adire cloth led to its subsequent production in northern Nigeria. Yoruba adire cloths were reinterpreted by Hausa adire makers who developed their own attractive, named patterns. When the Nigerian economy improved and industrially-printed cotton textiles became more accessible in the 1970s, Hausa women largely abandoned adire cloths for manufactured cotton prints. However, tourist demand for adire cloths and changing …
Sylvan Memories of People, Place, and Trees in Nangodi, Northeastern Ghana
People's relationships with trees reflect the landscape histories associated with distinctive forms of political and religious authority and the moral imaginings of people in Nangodi and its environs in the Upper East Region of Ghana. Their memories of particular trees serve as historical evidence of overlapping yet specific forms of political authority exercised by chiefs, earth priests, past colonial officers, and present-day Ghanaian governmen…
United Nigerian Textiles Limited and Chinese-Nigerian textile-manufacturing collaboration in Kaduna
In 1964, the newly established Hong Kong-based Cha Group partnered with the Northern Nigerian Regional Development Corporation to open the United Nigerian Textiles Limited (UNTL) mill in Kaduna - the largest textile mill in Northern Nigeria. The Cha Group later expanded, building textile mills in other parts of the country. Both Chinese and Nigerian managers and workers were involved in UNTL mills, which by 1980 provided printed cotton textiles f…
Veils, Turbans, and Islamic Reform in Northern Nigeria
Understanding the Social Context of the ASGM Sector in Ghana: A Qualitative Description of the Demographic, Health, and Nutritional Characteristics of a Small-Scale Gold Mining Community in Ghana
This descriptive paper describes factors related to demographics and health in an artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) community in Ghana's Upper East Region. Participants (n = 114) were surveyed in 2010 and 2011, adapting questions from the established national Demographic Health Survey (DHS) on factors such as population characteristics, infrastructure, amenities, education, employment, maternal and child health, and diet. In the study …
An Integrated Assessment Approach to Address Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining in Ghana
Artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) is growing in many regions of the world including Ghana. The problems in these communities are complex and multi-faceted. To help increase understanding of such problems, and to enable consensus-building and effective translation of scientific findings to stakeholders, help inform policies, and ultimately improve decision making, we utilized an Integrated Assessment approach to study artisanal and smal…
Mercury Exposure Assessment and Spatial Distribution in A Ghanaian Small-Scale Gold Mining Community
Mercury is utilized worldwide in artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) and may pose a risk for miners and mining communities. While a number of studies have characterized mercury in ASGM communities, most have focused on a single media and few have taken a holistic approach. Here, a multiple media exposure assessment and cross-sectional study of mercury was conducted in 2010 through 2012 in northeast Ghana with a small-scale gold mining co…
An Investigation of Organic and Inorganic Mercury Exposure and Blood Pressure in a Small-Scale Gold Mining Community in Ghana
There is increasing concern about the cardiovascular effects of mercury (Hg) exposure, and that organic methylmercury and inorganic Hg(2+) may affect the cardiovascular system and blood pressure differentially. In small-scale gold mining communities where inorganic, elemental Hg exposures are high, little is known about the effects of Hg on blood pressure. In 2011, we assessed the relationship between Hg exposure and blood pressure (BP) in a cros…
Photography, Hajj Things, and Spatial Connections Between Mecca and Northern Nigeria
On having returned from Mecca, northern Nigerian women and men pilgrims often have their photographs taken in which they wear garments and display objects—referred to as kayan Mecca, things from Mecca—which they acquired while on hajj. These photographs, which are kept in family albums, serve to commemorate people’s performance of hajj and serve as a visual link that connects pilgrims living in northern Nigeria with the holy city of Mecca. Furthe…
The Changing Contexts of Chinese-Nigerian Textile Production and Trade, 1900‒2015
Since the mid-1990s, China has become the leading exporter worldwide of manufactured textiles and clothing. For Nigeria, one of China's major trading partners in Africa, increased imports of Chinese textiles are related to the decline of the Nigerian textile manufacturing industry. It also reflects the opening up of China to foreign investment and the subsequent boom in manufactured textile exports and to changes in World Trade Organization texti…
Parallel Dilemmas: Polio Transmission and Political Violence in Northern Nigeria
Nigeria is one of three countries where polio continues to be endemic. In northern Nigeria, areas with low levels of polio immunization due to persistent parental opposition as well as implementation and infrastructural problems have contributed to wild poliovirus transmission. Furthermore, political violence associated with Islamic groups opposed to the federal government has also hampered the conclusion of the Global Polio Eradication Initiativ…
Veiling in Africa
The Islamic practice of veiling on the African continent
Water Values in a Ghanaian Small-Scale Gold Mining Community
Water scarcity, quality, and control are growing problems worldwide. In this paper, values associated with water—sociocultural, economic, and chemical—in a small-scale gold mining community in northeastern Ghana are considered. Mining activities have affected the quality of locally scarce water resources. In an area without government provision of water, this situation has also forced community members to develop innovative water strategies that …
The motorcycle Sallah durbars of Zaria 2012 (Respond to this article at http: (Www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)
Social dynamics may be understood more clearly through the analysis of an extraordinary event, which suggests not only a change in cultural practice but which also suggests wider political ramifications. In Zaria City, the old, walled section of the town of Zaria associated with the former Emirate of Zazzau, in northern Nigeria, the Emir's cancellation of the Sallah durbars—elaborate processions of gorgeously dressed men and horses—and their repl…
Veiling in Africa
Polio in Nigeria
Poliomyelitis, or polio as it is commonly known, is a disease caused by an enterovirus found throughout the world. Although it is often associated with paralysis of one or more limbs, it is more common for children to experience asymptomatic cases of the disease, which convey life‐long immunity. While lameness associated with polio has long been known in Nigeria, during the colonial period immunization efforts focused mainly on expatriates. Later…
Educating Muslim Women and the Izala Movement in Zaria City, Nigeria
Expanding Islamic education has been a primary objective of the reformist Islamic movement, Jamaʿatu Izalat al-Bidʿa wa Iqamat al-Sunna (the Society for the Removal of Innovation and the Reinstatement of Tradition),also known as Izala. In the early 1980s, Izala leaders established classes for married women focusing on primary Islamic texts, particularly the Qurʾan and hadith, which were taught in several quarters in Zaria City, in northern Nigeri…
Bodies, Politics, and African Healing: The Matter of Maladies in Tanzania. by Stacey A. Langwick
Peer Reviewed
Political spiritualities: The Pentecostal revolution in Nigeria - By Ruth Marshall
Peer Reviewed
Becoming a Bunu Bride: Bunu Ethnic Identity and Traditional Marriage Dress
The Bunu Yoruba, an ethnic sub-group of Yoruba-speaking peoples of southwestern Nigeria, reside in the area just west of the confluence of the Niger and Benue Rivers in central Nigeria. However, a strict association of Bunu ethnic identity with residence in this area would be misleading. Prior to th
Spirit, Structure, and Flesh: Gendered Experiences in African Instituted Churches among the Yoruba of Nigeria
Consecrated garments and spaces in the cherubim and seraphim church diaspora
The Cherubim and Seraphim Church, an African independent church founded in 1925 in Lagos, Nigeria, is best-known for its members' white garments, fashioned to resemble the angelic beings, the cherubim and seraphim, of the Bible. With the movement of church members to different parts of the globe, these garments have become increasingly important to some as spiritual ties with the Nigerian homeland. Similarly, these homeland connections may be est…
Perspectives on polio and immunization in Northern Nigeria
The Anthropology of Pregnancy Loss: Comparative Studies in Miscarriage, Stillbirth, and Neonatal Death
The Anthropology of Pregnancy Loss: Comparative Studies in Miscarriage, Stillbirth, and Neonatal Death. ROSANNE CECIL. ed. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 1996. xii. 226 pp., contributors, index
The pregnancy that doesn't stay: The practice and perception of abortion by Ekiti Yoruba women
Mass Producing Food Traditions for West Africans Abroad
In this article, I examine West African foods sold mainly in specialty grocery stores, focusing on how technologies used in food production in West Africa are referenced in the brand names and packaging of processed African foods sold in the United States. Through their association with "timeless" West African food-processing techniques, such foods evoke memories of childhood and home. Yet the transformation of West African foods through new tech…
Perceptions of Population Policy, Development, and Family Planning Programs in Northern Nigeria
In this article, local perceptions of family planning programs and federal population policy are examined, based on responses to a childbirth survey and on interviews with a range of individuals in one northern Nigerian town. The respondents' differing perceptions of the relationship between population and national development reflect distinctive ideas about political authority, population policy, and family planning programs, about development, …
Gender Ideology and Fertility Strategies in an Ekiti Yoruba Village
This article investigates the influence of gender ideology on number of children wanted, son preference, family-size discussions and decision-making, and use of birth control in a rural Ekiti Yoruba village in southwestern Nigeria. Interview and survey data indicate that attitudes about these matters vary more with age than with sex, suggesting that both women and men subscribe to the prevailing gender ideology of male authority in matters of fam…
The Changing Contexts of Chinese-Nigerian Textile Production and Trade, 1900‒2015
Since the mid-1990s, China has become the leading exporter worldwide of manufactured textiles and clothing. For Nigeria, one of China's major trading partners in Africa, increased imports of Chinese textiles are related to the decline of the Nigerian textile manufacturing industry. It also reflects the opening up of China to foreign investment and the subsequent boom in manufactured textile exports and to changes in World Trade Organization texti…
Cloth That Does Not Die: The Meaning of Cloth in Bunu Social Life
only wears, it does not die, the paradoxical phrase from a Bunu Yoruba prayer, emphasizes the power of cloth as a symbol of continuing social relations and identities in the face of uncertainty and death. The Bunu Yoruba people of central Nigeria mark every critical juncture in an individual's life, from birthing ceremonies to funeral celebrations, with handwoven cloth. Anthropologist Elisha Renne explains how and why this is so and discusses why…
Childhood Memories and Contemporary Parenting in Ekiti, Nigeria
The practice of pawning children, whose labour served as interest paid on loans, was common in precolonial and early colonial Ekiti Yoruba society. Known as, these children would work for the lender until their kinsmen had repaid the debts they had incurred. British colonial officials came to view this practice as a form of slavery and eventually outlawed it. This paper considers the life history of one older man who worked as anin a small Ekiti …
The Bluest Hands: A Social and Economic History of Women Dyers in Abeokuta (Nigeria), 1890-1940
Local and institutional interpretations of IUDs in southwestern Nigeria
Water, Spirits, and Plain White Cloth: The Ambiguity of Things in Bunu Social Life
This article considers the problem of how ideas and values are embodied in matenral things by focusing on the use of white cloth by the Bunu Yoruba of central Nigena. White cloth, in n'tual and in everyday ways, projects a sense of unity between individuals, social groups, and spirit beings. However, white cloth may be used in ways that convey other, more subversive meanings which belie its interpretation solely as a symbol of order and social ha…
Dressing in the stuff of dreams: Sacred dress and religious authority in southwestern Nigeria
Menstruation: A Cultural History
Journal Article Menstruation: A Cultural History Get access Elisha P. Renne Elisha P. Renne University of [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Social History of Medicine, Volume 19, Issue 2, August 2006, Pages 353–354, https://doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkl020 Published: 01 August 2006
Educating Muslim Women and the Izala Movement in Zaria City, Nigeria
Expanding Islamic education has been a primary objective of the reformist Islamic movement, Jamaʿatu Izalat al-Bidʿa wa Iqamat al-Sunna (the Society for the Removal of Innovation and the Reinstatement of Tradition),also known as Izala. In the early 1980s, Izala leaders established classes for married women focusing on primary Islamic texts, particularly the Qurʾan and hadith, which were taught in several quarters in Zaria City, in northern Nigeri…
Plundered Kitchens, Empty Wombs: Threatened Reproduction and Identity in the Cameroon Grassfields
Plundered Kitchens, Empty Wombs: Threatened Reproduction and Identity in the Cameroon Grassfields. Pamela Feldman-Savelsberg. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999. ix. 257 pp., illustrations, photographs, notes, glossary, references, index
Parallel Dilemmas: Polio Transmission and Political Violence in Northern Nigeria
Nigeria is one of three countries where polio continues to be endemic. In northern Nigeria, areas with low levels of polio immunization due to persistent parental opposition as well as implementation and infrastructural problems have contributed to wild poliovirus transmission. Furthermore, political violence associated with Islamic groups opposed to the federal government has also hampered the conclusion of the Global Polio Eradication Initiativ…
Houses, Fertility, and the Nigerian Land Use Act
The case study in one rural Ekiti Yoruba village (3500 total population) in Ondo state Nigeria illustrated that fertility was affected by house plot exchanges traditions in housing tenancy and ownership local household composition and federal land tenure policies. Houseplots consisted of family owned land which was passed on to kin. Recent house exchanges were made on a more impersonal cash basis. It was argued that the Land Use Act weakened vill…
Court Records in Africana Research
A series of panels at the ASA meeting in November 1989 focused on sources and methods for the study of law in colonial Africa. At an informal discussion held afterwards, participants agreed that court records are potentially very valuable sources for historians, anthropologists, and other scholars of Africa but that they have not been used as widely as they might be. In an effort to alert Africanists to the existence of such documents and to enco…
United Nigerian Textiles Limited and Chinese-Nigerian textile-manufacturing collaboration in Kaduna
In 1964, the newly established Hong Kong-based Cha Group partnered with the Northern Nigerian Regional Development Corporation to open the United Nigerian Textiles Limited (UNTL) mill in Kaduna - the largest textile mill in Northern Nigeria. The Cha Group later expanded, building textile mills in other parts of the country. Both Chinese and Nigerian managers and workers were involved in UNTL mills, which by 1980 provided printed cotton textiles f…
Polio in Nigeria
Poliomyelitis, or polio as it is commonly known, is a disease caused by an enterovirus found throughout the world. Although it is often associated with paralysis of one or more limbs, it is more common for children to experience asymptomatic cases of the disease, which convey life‐long immunity. While lameness associated with polio has long been known in Nigeria, during the colonial period immunization efforts focused mainly on expatriates. Later…
The Fundamentals of Fertility: Cosmology and Conversion in a Southwestern Nigerian Town
This article examines the place of religion in the process of 'becoming modern', associated with conversion to Christianity and with literacy, in one Ekiti Yoruba town in southwestern Nigeria. It questions theories of modernization that presume a shift from communal 'traditional' to private, secularized religious practice, focusing on beliefs about the genesis of life, specifically cosmology and fertility. This approach provides a means for exami…
A Plague of Paradoxes: Aids, Culture, and Demography in Northern Tanzania
Plague of Paradoxes: AIDS, Culture, and Demography in Northern Tanzania. Philip W. Setel. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.308 pp
The politics of the 1996 cerebrospinal meningitis epidemic in Nigeria
The 1996 cerebrospinal meningitis epidemic in Nigeria exemplified a medical situation that was linked with political concerns at the local, national, and international levels. It is argued that these political aspects must be understood, as they have implications for the treatment of future outbreaks. This article examines local attempts to stem the epidemic, on the basis of participant observation and epidemiological data collected from the nort…
Consecrated garments and spaces in the cherubim and seraphim church diaspora
The Cherubim and Seraphim Church, an African independent church founded in 1925 in Lagos, Nigeria, is best-known for its members' white garments, fashioned to resemble the angelic beings, the cherubim and seraphim, of the Bible. With the movement of church members to different parts of the globe, these garments have become increasingly important to some as spiritual ties with the Nigerian homeland. Similarly, these homeland connections may be est…
The Thierry Collection of Hausa Artifacts at the Field Museum
If men are talking, they blame it on women”: A Nigerian woman’s comments on divorce and child custody
Court Records in Africana Research
A series of panels at the ASA meeting in November 1989 focused on sources and methods for the study of law in colonial Africa. At an informal discussion held afterwards, participants agreed that court records are potentially very valuable sources for historians, anthropologists, and other scholars of Africa but that they have not been used as widely as they might be. In an effort to alert Africanists to the existence of such documents and to enco…
Creation and Procreation: Feminist Reflections on Mythologies of Cosmogony and Parturition. Marta Weigle
Water, Spirits, and Plain White Cloth: The Ambiguity of Things in Bunu Social Life
This article considers the problem of how ideas and values are embodied in matenral things by focusing on the use of white cloth by the Bunu Yoruba of central Nigena. White cloth, in n'tual and in everyday ways, projects a sense of unity between individuals, social groups, and spirit beings. However, white cloth may be used in ways that convey other, more subversive meanings which belie its interpretation solely as a symbol of order and social ha…
Polyphony in the Courts: Child Custody Cases in Kabba District Court, 1925-1979
In 1918, British colonial officials in Kabba Division of central Nigeria instituted rules for divorce and child custody in Kabba District Native Authority Court. The rules implemented in Kabba Court were ostensibly derived from customary marital practices, although no formal procedure for divorce had existed in Kabba prior to its introduction by British.2 The introduction of divorce would appear to be a classic example of command model of law in …
Aso Ipo, Red Cloth from Bunu
Chez les Bunu Yoruba du Nigeria, aso ipo est le terme generique designant 5 types (aponuponyin, abata, ifale, oja et ebe) de textile rouge, traite en fonction du rang social. L'A. decrit la technique de tissage : homme et femme tissent tous deux sur des metiers verticaux. Les motifs geometriques et l'epaisseur de l'aso ipo sont caracteristiques, mais on les retrouve chez d'autres ethnies du Nigeria bien que l'on considere qu'ils sont le propre de…
Gender Ideology and Fertility Strategies in an Ekiti Yoruba Village
This article investigates the influence of gender ideology on number of children wanted, son preference, family-size discussions and decision-making, and use of birth control in a rural Ekiti Yoruba village in southwestern Nigeria. Interview and survey data indicate that attitudes about these matters vary more with age than with sex, suggesting that both women and men subscribe to the prevailing gender ideology of male authority in matters of fam…
History, Design, and Craft in West African Strip-Woven Cloth
All right, Vegemite!1The everyday constitution of an Australian national identity
In the past seventy years the food‐spread, Vegemite, has become a symbol of Australian national identity. This paper examines the historical process by which this identity has been constituted, focussing on advertisements of Vegemite in print and on television from approximately 1923 to 1960. The marketing of Vegemite during this period coincided both with the desire for a distinctive national identity and with technological developments in food …
Things That Threaten: A Symbolic Analysis of Bunu Yoruba Masquerades
Houses, Fertility, and the Nigerian Land Use Act
The case study in one rural Ekiti Yoruba village (3500 total population) in Ondo state Nigeria illustrated that fertility was affected by house plot exchanges traditions in housing tenancy and ownership local household composition and federal land tenure policies. Houseplots consisted of family owned land which was passed on to kin. Recent house exchanges were made on a more impersonal cash basis. It was argued that the Land Use Act weakened vill…
Virginity Cloths and Vaginal Coverings in Ekiti, Nigeria
Perceptions of Population Policy, Development, and Family Planning Programs in Northern Nigeria
In this article, local perceptions of family planning programs and federal population policy are examined, based on responses to a childbirth survey and on interviews with a range of individuals in one northern Nigerian town. The respondents' differing perceptions of the relationship between population and national development reflect distinctive ideas about political authority, population policy, and family planning programs, about development, …
Space, text, and gender: An anthropological study of the Marakwet of Kenya
The pregnancy that doesn't stay: The practice and perception of abortion by Ekiti Yoruba women
Cloth That Does Not Die: The Meaning of Cloth in Bunu Social Life
only wears, it does not die, the paradoxical phrase from a Bunu Yoruba prayer, emphasizes the power of cloth as a symbol of continuing social relations and identities in the face of uncertainty and death. The Bunu Yoruba people of central Nigeria mark every critical juncture in an individual's life, from birthing ceremonies to funeral celebrations, with handwoven cloth. Anthropologist Elisha Renne explains how and why this is so and discusses why…
Cloth That Does Not Die: The Meaning of Cloth in Bùnú Social Life
Local and institutional interpretations of IUDs in southwestern Nigeria
"Traditional Modernity" and the Economics of Handwoven Cloth Production in Southwestern Nigeria
These woven stuffs, of which the materials are native and which are entirely unadulterated, are particularly beautiful. One can follow the fabrication from the beginning; there is no outside intervention whatever. There is some talk of reforming it. What for? If it were taken up a little by fashionable people, this “homespun” might be at a premium in the market. (André Gide)1
The meaning of contraceptive choice and constraint for Hausa women in a northern Nigerian town
Hausa women residing in the northern Nigerian town of Zaria have a range of traditional and modem contraceptive methods, as well as alternatives such as abortion, available to them for controlling fertility. Whether they actually avail themselves of these options, however, relates to the contemporaneous social, economic, political and religious context in which the meanings of contraceptive choice and constraint are constructed. For example, youn…
The Gẹ̀lẹ̀dẹ́ Spectacle: Art, Gender, and Social Harmony in an African Culture
Postinor use among young women in Southwestern Nigeria: A research note
Postinor is the brand name of a progestogen-only contraceptive tablet, manufactured by a Hungarian firm1 and available in about 25 countries around the world, primarily in parts of Eastern Europe and several developing countries, including Vietnam2 Thailand3 and Nigeria.4 Although Postinor is marketed in Nigeria as a postcoital method for women having infrequent intercourse, it has not been shown to be safe or effective for this indication.5,6 Th…
The politics of the 1996 cerebrospinal meningitis epidemic in Nigeria
The 1996 cerebrospinal meningitis epidemic in Nigeria exemplified a medical situation that was linked with political concerns at the local, national, and international levels. It is argued that these political aspects must be understood, as they have implications for the treatment of future outbreaks. This article examines local attempts to stem the epidemic, on the basis of participant observation and epidemiological data collected from the nort…
Bicycle Decoration and Everyday Aesthetics in Northern Nigeria
Les AA. explorent la richesse esthetique de la decoration des bicyclettes Hausa dans le Nord du Nigeria. Ils suggerent que chez les Hausa la dichotomie entre objets quotidiens et banals, et objets d'art n'est pas pertinente. Une meme sensibilite esthetique informe l'art traditionnel et l'art decoratif des objets domestiques. Ils montrent comment, a travers differents styles decoratifs, dont l'esthetique de la carotte est exemplaire, les proprieta…
Sociology (48 works) · Political science (33 works) · Art (29 works) · Geography (28 works) · History (26 works) · Law (24 works) · Gender Studies (18 works) · Law (18 works) · Anthropology (16 works) · Medicine (16 works)