2004
207 pp.
11 map, 5 b/w-photos, 4 genealogies, 12 diagrams, 5 charts, 17 sketches, 1 drawing, subject index
Text language: German
Space is beyond doubt a linguistic and therefore normative system. Accordingly this study portrays space as a process, in which the happening of space comes to the fore instead of its existance. The spatial organisation is connected with other areas of social acting in an interdisciplinary and methods-overlapping way. These interrelations are the focus of the spatial analysis beneath questions about political and social border drawing, processes of identity formation and religious and political claims to power.
The inevitability of space is elaborated as a leading element of social order. The fusion of socially established and genuine features leads to a matter of course of the spacial order and the connected social norms and concepts. The perception and reproduction of space is part of a mostly concealed social discourse, with control over the social order in its focus.
The aim of the writer is to reveal to which extend the members of the society in question use and instrumentalize the dimension of space authorized by power. The empirical basis of this book are four stays for field research purposes in Burkina Faso during 1994-1998, when the author spend 16 months with the Bisa people. These researches were part of the Collaborative Research Centre 268 Kulturentwicklung und Sprachgeschichte im Naturraum Westafrikanische Savanne (1988–2002) at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main. This detailed contribution offers extensive material for further researches to Anthropologists and students of Cultural Studies who are interested in the analysis of spatial arrangement and its reproduction.