African Red African Blue

written by Richard Fardon

 The first quarter of the twenty-first century witnessed an explosion of interest in the emergent, interdisciplinary field of colour studies which, until now, has excluded Africa south of the Sahara. 

African Red – African Blue provides an essential corrective. 

Written by a social anthropologist, the book draws upon African archaeology, aesthetics and art history, economic history, ethnography and linguistics. Numerous in-depth studies of colour – in words and in things – are drawn from across the African continent. Together, this inter-disciplinary range and comparative scope result in a work of originality that will contribute a foundational African perspective to the burgeoning field of colour studies.

African Red – African Blue is both a stimulus for further research and will serve as the yardstick by which it is judged.

Richard Fardon is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at SOAS University of London

Publisher: Langaa Research and Publishing Common Initiative Group (Langaa RPCIG)
Pages: 216
Year: 2026
Category: African Studies
Dimensions: 229×152 mmISBN: 9789956004300Shipping class: POD

Richard Fardon

Richard Fardon is a social anthropologist and ethnographer of West Africa whose interest in Cameroon and Nigeria stretches back to his doctoral studies in the 1970s. Since then he has published monographs on a variety of aspects of West African society and culture, including politics, history, religion and art. He was appointed to a Chair of West African Anthropology at SOAS, University of London, in 1996, and elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2004. He is currently Head of the SOAS Doctoral School.