Ethnicity and Cultural Movements in Africa

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Since 1980s, everywhere in Africa, the people's awareness of their own cultures and histories has promoted vigorous movements to reorganize their traditions and create individual cultures. This research project is to scrutinize those cultural movements, and to clarify mechanism of formation of ethnicity through the movements.Various forms of movement and divers ethnic groups were taken into consideration, among which are creation of new art forms among the Ndebere of South Africa, independent church movements in Zambia, labor migration among ther Nyakyusa of Tanzania, establishment of a new initiation society among the Ejagam of Cameroon, and museum exhibitions inside and outside Africa. Through a comparative study of those movements, several factors have been pointed out as crucial elements which affect the formation of ethnicity : development of festivals and sports, handling of arts and crafts, migration of population, and spread of religious beliefs. Also clarified is the importance of outside influence. Ethnic identity in diaspora communities and Human Rights activities in the West are especially influential in the formation of ethnicity inside Africa.Cultural movement and ethnic identity are constructed by means of interaction between insiders and outsiders, more precisely, between original settlers and new comers, rural population and urban elites, members of the local community and those of the diaspora community, and Africa and the West. African cultures have been, and still are, the result of global contact. We successfully clarified the interactions within African continent. However, we could only partially cover the global interactions. Research on global network of ethnicity should be carried out following this study.