Till Förster
Biographic Data
| ID | 84979 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Till Förster |
| GIVEN NAMES | Till |
| FAMILY NAME | Förster |
| SIGNATURE | FÖRSTER T |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Basel |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0645-6095 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 29 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 56 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 27 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1990 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
New African Masquerades
Masks and masquerades have been a prominent topic of African art studies since the early twentieth century. Often, they were categorized within colonial frameworks of ethnic styles and identities. The distinction between masks, as the material objects (often wooden) that covered the face and sometimes the head of the dancer, and masquerades, as the gatherings where masks are danced, has been part of the colonial legacy and the hegemonic practice …
Bodily ethnography
Bodily participation provides insights that mere observation cannot offer. Based on an ethnographic vignette, this article explores how bodily interactions in ethnographic fieldwork raise awareness for non-observational knowledge and hidden social practices. It looks at how such encounters shape all participants, including the ethnographer, and how subtle bodily interactions constitute a social space that remains invisible to outsiders but where …
Seeing otherwise
Seeing landscapes change seems to be an inevitable and ubiquitous experience in times of global warming. Yet, landscape change is often underestimated, depending on how that change is perceived, experienced, and articulated over time. Like other agriculturalists in the West African savannah, Senufo farmers of Côte d'Ivoire have a pragmatic relationship to land as the existential ground of their lifeworld. Their experience of landscapes is based o…
Sidney Littlefield Kasfir 1939–2019
Guest Editors' Introduction to the Power of Performance-the Performance of Power Forum
The West African savannah is an area where old and new institutions fill the lacunae that limited statehood has left. Some of them claim a long history, others have emerged recently as a reaction to military and civil crises. The performance of power, its display and presentation, is a theme that all these associations share. They do so on different occasions and by different means, which highlights their diverging ethics and attitudes towards th…
The Invisible Social Body
Secrecy and its performative display have been privileged perspectives in the study ofporoand similar power associations in West Africa. I develop an alternative understanding of the Senufo poro as an institution that fosters and sustains bodily experience, establishing an all-embracing sensory regime for members as well as non-members in their villages. Participation in nighttime funerary rites creates the image of an invisible social body, and …
Les villes africaines et le casse-tête du développement
L’Afrique s’urbanise plus vite que tout autre continent. Le rythme effréné de son urbanisation contredit l’image habituelle d’un continent rural. La complexité profonde des villes africaines interroge les conceptions traditionnelles de l’urbain et des politiques classiques de développement. Suspendues entre chaos et créativité, les images occidentales des villes africaines semblent incapables de servir de base aux politiques de développement. La …
Mirror images
Today, most Africans who have a mobile phone have become photographers while professional photographers are going out of business. Picture files displayed on the small screens increasingly replace photoprints. This transformation affects the use of pictures deeply. It facilitates the exchange of pictures and broadens the ways in which ordinary people situate themselves in a social context and how they imagine their own place in their future life-…
The unbearable lightness of African cities
As elsewhere, cities in Africa exist as ensembles of houses, streets, social events, and practices and at the same time as objects in the minds of their inhabitants and visitors. Cities always have an imagined double as nobody can experience a city in all its parts and cultural dimensions. Urbanity as a way of living is intimately connected with partial, often contradictory, “uncanny” experiences of the city – but as imagined objects and communit…
Introduction
The introduction presents the key concepts and core arguments of this special issue Re-Imagining African Cities: The Arts and Urban Politics that results from a workshop hosted by the Visual Culture Research Group at the Department of Anthropology, University of Basel, in 2016. Summarising and presenting the essays, it offers insights into how urban imagination and the physical cities interrelate in urban aesthetic practices. How do artists artic…
Passages of culture
How do African cultures transform when they appropriate new media? This introduction to the following five articles raises and reflects basic questions related to the many transformations that African societies currently go through when they are faced with new media. It situates the concept of mediality in the social practice of those who deal with and experience media. As instances of the in-between, as bridges between actors and their life-worl…
La paix dans une zone de guerre. Lire la crise ivoirienne sur le temps long et par le bas
Au cours de la crise ivoirienne, des îlots de paix quotidienne sont apparus, ont perduré et même grandi dans des espaces ruraux et urbains, et ce, même si elles ne pouvaient rivaliser avec l'arsenal supérieur des militaires. La formation de ces enclaves, qui se sont parfois reproduites en espaces sociaux distincts dans la Côte d'Ivoire post-conflit, est analysée à partir d'une perspective émique. Elles soulèvent des questions empiriques essentiel…
The Politics of Governance
do government arrangements emerge? When and how does individual agency turn into collective agency? How do sensory experiences of violence, instability, etc affect the configuration of governance arrangements? When, why, and how are governance arrangements institutionalized?This book seeks to contribute to a non-normative conceptualization of the emergence and transformation of government arrangements, and addresses the under-theorization of acto…
African Art and Agency in the Workshop
The economic, social, and cultural worlds of artists and objects
The Sliding Scale of Past and Present
December 01 2013 The Sliding Scale of Past and Present Till Förster Till Förster Till Förster is Chair of the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Basel, Switzerland. [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Till Förster Till Förster is Chair of the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Basel, Switzerland. [email protected] Onli…
Insurgent Nationalism
Non-separatist insurgents unable to overthrow a sitting government often face a problem successful rebellions can avoid: They are not the only players who can claim to be acting on behalf of the nation. They will have to imagine the nation in a new way that distinguishes them from the older, established nationalism usually promoted by the existing government. This new nationalism aims to legitimise their actions, but first and foremost it has to …
Imagining the Nation
September 01 2012 Imagining the Nation: Independence Ceremonies under Rebel Domination in Northern Côte d'Ivoire Till Förster Till Förster Till Förster holds the chair of social anthropology at the University of Basel, Switzerland. He has worked on traditional as well as contemporary arts of Africa and has conducted field research in Northern Côte d'Ivoire since the late 1970s. [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Thi…
Non-State Actors as Standard Setters
Maintenant, on sait qui est qui
The transformation of statehood in the rebel-held northern half of Côte d'Ivoire builds on the reconfiguration of the social and political order. Though the state as an institution has almost ceased to exist, statehood as the practices that refer to it persists. This article examines the negotiations between the different non-state actors and how these interactions shape, through everyday practices, the understanding of what a state should and sh…
Muller, Jean-Claude
Anthropos , Seite 242 - 243
Visual Presence and Competition in Urban Africa
Layers of Awareness Intermediality and Practices of Visual Arts in Northern Côte d'Ivoire
iven the central role the electron ic media play in contemporary and in particular in urban Africa, it should come as no surprise that the so-called traditional arts can no longer occupy the same aesthetic position they did before the advent of photography, TV, video, and more recently the Internet. Any new picture may compete with the older visual media, challenging their former monopoly and establishing new modes of interaction, and thereby cha…
In Memoriam
Von »schwarzen Frauen« und anderen Geheimnissen Masken und Erfahrung in der westafrikanischen Savanne
In den Vitrinen westlicher Kunstsammlungen sehen wir afrikanische Masken als herausragende Werke der bildenden Kunst. Sie werden zu Skulpturen und auf ihre ›wesentlichen‹ Formen reduziert. Diese Reduktion auf die Qualitäten eines abendländischen Kunstwerkes verschließt den Zugang zu den Erfahrungen des Maskentanzes oder Spiels. Was einmal alle Sinne des Menschen ansprach und einschloß, ist zur bloßen oder reinen Form geronnen. Masken werden, wie …
Land use and land rights in the West African savannah
Maintenant, on sait qui est qui
The transformation of statehood in the rebel-held northern half of Côte d'Ivoire builds on the reconfiguration of the social and political order. Though the state as an institution has almost ceased to exist, statehood as the practices that refer to it persists. This article examines the negotiations between the different non-state actors and how these interactions shape, through everyday practices, the understanding of what a state should and sh…
Senufo Masking and the Art of Poro
Approche structurale des ceremonies d'initiation de la societe secrete Poro des fermiers Kafibele Senufo. L'A. s'interesse a l'experience esthetique des inities notamment a travers le port des masques rituels. L'A. part du principe que dans les societes africaines l'expression artistique est une part integrale de l'experience empirique et qu'on ne peut etudier l'objet independamment de celui qui le possede
Baule African Art/Western Eyes
The sculptures of the Baule people of the Ivory Coast have long been recognized in Europe and the United States as one of Africa's most significant traditions. The work of many modern artists - Amedeo Modigliani in particular - refelects the direct influence of Baule invention and forms. This text explores for the texture and details of Baule life and art. Illustrations include field photographs showing artworks in the intimacy of daily lives and…
Insurgent Nationalism
Non-separatist insurgents unable to overthrow a sitting government often face a problem successful rebellions can avoid: They are not the only players who can claim to be acting on behalf of the nation. They will have to imagine the nation in a new way that distinguishes them from the older, established nationalism usually promoted by the existing government. This new nationalism aims to legitimise their actions, but first and foremost it has to …
Imagining the Nation
September 01 2012 Imagining the Nation: Independence Ceremonies under Rebel Domination in Northern Côte d'Ivoire Till Förster Till Förster Till Förster holds the chair of social anthropology at the University of Basel, Switzerland. He has worked on traditional as well as contemporary arts of Africa and has conducted field research in Northern Côte d'Ivoire since the late 1970s. [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Thi…
Land use and land rights in the West African savannah
The Invisible Social Body
Secrecy and its performative display have been privileged perspectives in the study ofporoand similar power associations in West Africa. I develop an alternative understanding of the Senufo poro as an institution that fosters and sustains bodily experience, establishing an all-embracing sensory regime for members as well as non-members in their villages. Participation in nighttime funerary rites creates the image of an invisible social body, and …
Introduction
The introduction presents the key concepts and core arguments of this special issue Re-Imagining African Cities: The Arts and Urban Politics that results from a workshop hosted by the Visual Culture Research Group at the Department of Anthropology, University of Basel, in 2016. Summarising and presenting the essays, it offers insights into how urban imagination and the physical cities interrelate in urban aesthetic practices. How do artists artic…
Bodily ethnography
Bodily participation provides insights that mere observation cannot offer. Based on an ethnographic vignette, this article explores how bodily interactions in ethnographic fieldwork raise awareness for non-observational knowledge and hidden social practices. It looks at how such encounters shape all participants, including the ethnographer, and how subtle bodily interactions constitute a social space that remains invisible to outsiders but where …
The unbearable lightness of African cities
As elsewhere, cities in Africa exist as ensembles of houses, streets, social events, and practices and at the same time as objects in the minds of their inhabitants and visitors. Cities always have an imagined double as nobody can experience a city in all its parts and cultural dimensions. Urbanity as a way of living is intimately connected with partial, often contradictory, “uncanny” experiences of the city – but as imagined objects and communit…
Glänzend wie Gold
Musik der Senufo
Senufo Masking and the Art of Poro
Approche structurale des ceremonies d'initiation de la societe secrete Poro des fermiers Kafibele Senufo. L'A. s'interesse a l'experience esthetique des inities notamment a travers le port des masques rituels. L'A. part du principe que dans les societes africaines l'expression artistique est une part integrale de l'experience empirique et qu'on ne peut etudier l'objet independamment de celui qui le possede
Land use and land rights in the West African savannah
Baule African Art/Western Eyes
The sculptures of the Baule people of the Ivory Coast have long been recognized in Europe and the United States as one of Africa's most significant traditions. The work of many modern artists - Amedeo Modigliani in particular - refelects the direct influence of Baule invention and forms. This text explores for the texture and details of Baule life and art. Illustrations include field photographs showing artworks in the intimacy of daily lives and…
Von »schwarzen Frauen« und anderen Geheimnissen Masken und Erfahrung in der westafrikanischen Savanne
In den Vitrinen westlicher Kunstsammlungen sehen wir afrikanische Masken als herausragende Werke der bildenden Kunst. Sie werden zu Skulpturen und auf ihre ›wesentlichen‹ Formen reduziert. Diese Reduktion auf die Qualitäten eines abendländischen Kunstwerkes verschließt den Zugang zu den Erfahrungen des Maskentanzes oder Spiels. Was einmal alle Sinne des Menschen ansprach und einschloß, ist zur bloßen oder reinen Form geronnen. Masken werden, wie …
Layers of Awareness Intermediality and Practices of Visual Arts in Northern Côte d'Ivoire
iven the central role the electron ic media play in contemporary and in particular in urban Africa, it should come as no surprise that the so-called traditional arts can no longer occupy the same aesthetic position they did before the advent of photography, TV, video, and more recently the Internet. Any new picture may compete with the older visual media, challenging their former monopoly and establishing new modes of interaction, and thereby cha…
In Memoriam
Visual Presence and Competition in Urban Africa
Muller, Jean-Claude
Anthropos , Seite 242 - 243
Non-State Actors as Standard Setters
Maintenant, on sait qui est qui
The transformation of statehood in the rebel-held northern half of Côte d'Ivoire builds on the reconfiguration of the social and political order. Though the state as an institution has almost ceased to exist, statehood as the practices that refer to it persists. This article examines the negotiations between the different non-state actors and how these interactions shape, through everyday practices, the understanding of what a state should and sh…
Imagining the Nation
September 01 2012 Imagining the Nation: Independence Ceremonies under Rebel Domination in Northern Côte d'Ivoire Till Förster Till Förster Till Förster holds the chair of social anthropology at the University of Basel, Switzerland. He has worked on traditional as well as contemporary arts of Africa and has conducted field research in Northern Côte d'Ivoire since the late 1970s. [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Thi…
African Art and Agency in the Workshop
The economic, social, and cultural worlds of artists and objects
The Sliding Scale of Past and Present
December 01 2013 The Sliding Scale of Past and Present Till Förster Till Förster Till Förster is Chair of the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Basel, Switzerland. [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Till Förster Till Förster is Chair of the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Basel, Switzerland. [email protected] Onli…
Insurgent Nationalism
Non-separatist insurgents unable to overthrow a sitting government often face a problem successful rebellions can avoid: They are not the only players who can claim to be acting on behalf of the nation. They will have to imagine the nation in a new way that distinguishes them from the older, established nationalism usually promoted by the existing government. This new nationalism aims to legitimise their actions, but first and foremost it has to …
The Politics of Governance
do government arrangements emerge? When and how does individual agency turn into collective agency? How do sensory experiences of violence, instability, etc affect the configuration of governance arrangements? When, why, and how are governance arrangements institutionalized?This book seeks to contribute to a non-normative conceptualization of the emergence and transformation of government arrangements, and addresses the under-theorization of acto…
Passages of culture
How do African cultures transform when they appropriate new media? This introduction to the following five articles raises and reflects basic questions related to the many transformations that African societies currently go through when they are faced with new media. It situates the concept of mediality in the social practice of those who deal with and experience media. As instances of the in-between, as bridges between actors and their life-worl…
La paix dans une zone de guerre. Lire la crise ivoirienne sur le temps long et par le bas
Au cours de la crise ivoirienne, des îlots de paix quotidienne sont apparus, ont perduré et même grandi dans des espaces ruraux et urbains, et ce, même si elles ne pouvaient rivaliser avec l'arsenal supérieur des militaires. La formation de ces enclaves, qui se sont parfois reproduites en espaces sociaux distincts dans la Côte d'Ivoire post-conflit, est analysée à partir d'une perspective émique. Elles soulèvent des questions empiriques essentiel…
Les villes africaines et le casse-tête du développement
L’Afrique s’urbanise plus vite que tout autre continent. Le rythme effréné de son urbanisation contredit l’image habituelle d’un continent rural. La complexité profonde des villes africaines interroge les conceptions traditionnelles de l’urbain et des politiques classiques de développement. Suspendues entre chaos et créativité, les images occidentales des villes africaines semblent incapables de servir de base aux politiques de développement. La …
Mirror images
Today, most Africans who have a mobile phone have become photographers while professional photographers are going out of business. Picture files displayed on the small screens increasingly replace photoprints. This transformation affects the use of pictures deeply. It facilitates the exchange of pictures and broadens the ways in which ordinary people situate themselves in a social context and how they imagine their own place in their future life-…
The unbearable lightness of African cities
As elsewhere, cities in Africa exist as ensembles of houses, streets, social events, and practices and at the same time as objects in the minds of their inhabitants and visitors. Cities always have an imagined double as nobody can experience a city in all its parts and cultural dimensions. Urbanity as a way of living is intimately connected with partial, often contradictory, “uncanny” experiences of the city – but as imagined objects and communit…
Introduction
The introduction presents the key concepts and core arguments of this special issue Re-Imagining African Cities: The Arts and Urban Politics that results from a workshop hosted by the Visual Culture Research Group at the Department of Anthropology, University of Basel, in 2016. Summarising and presenting the essays, it offers insights into how urban imagination and the physical cities interrelate in urban aesthetic practices. How do artists artic…
Guest Editors' Introduction to the Power of Performance-the Performance of Power Forum
The West African savannah is an area where old and new institutions fill the lacunae that limited statehood has left. Some of them claim a long history, others have emerged recently as a reaction to military and civil crises. The performance of power, its display and presentation, is a theme that all these associations share. They do so on different occasions and by different means, which highlights their diverging ethics and attitudes towards th…
The Invisible Social Body
Secrecy and its performative display have been privileged perspectives in the study ofporoand similar power associations in West Africa. I develop an alternative understanding of the Senufo poro as an institution that fosters and sustains bodily experience, establishing an all-embracing sensory regime for members as well as non-members in their villages. Participation in nighttime funerary rites creates the image of an invisible social body, and …
Art (17 works) · African history and culture studies (12 works) · Political science (12 works) · Sociology (12 works) · African Studies and Ethnography (8 works) · Geography (8 works) · Humanities (7 works) · Social science (6 works) · Visual arts (6 works) · Aesthetics (5 works)