Persons In Africa Research Articles

Patterns of Personality in Africa

This article is neither a research report in the usual sense nor a documented review of the literature, but an attempt by a psychological anthropologist to extract from his experience of Africans preliminary answers to general questions that specialists rarely consider but cannot afford to ignore: Are there distinctively African patterns of personality? What differences are there in behavior and between Africans and Westerners? How do the characteristics of Africans affect their social adaptation to changing conditions? This overview, going beyond empirical findings and using personal experience as well as scientific data as a source of generalization, is intended to stimulate systematic research and identify issues worthy of investigation. The term personality is here used as referring to consistencies

Yellow Fever Vaccination

Yellow fever was the first disease in man shown to be caused by a filterable virus, and research into its immunology over the past 30 years has led to the development of immunization procedures which not only have resulted in enormous social and economic benefits in the endemic area of the disease, but have served as guides to analogous advances in the whole field of virus infection. The various stages in the preparation and control of the Dakar vaccine by the Pasteur Institute at Dakar, and of the 17D vaccine by the Rockefeller Foundation in its New York Laboratories are described in detail and profusely illustrated by photographs. This is followed by a discussion of the methods and results of mass vaccination, based on the immunization of more than 50 million persons in Africa and South America. The advantages and hazards of mouse-brain and chick-embryo viruses are weighed; scarification as a technique is compared with subcutaneous inoculation; and the combination of smallpox and yellow fever immunization is discussed. There is a chapter on international regulation of yellow fever vaccination, and a select bibliography of 378 titles.

Recording African music in the field

With the steady increase in the number of persons in Africa who own and operate small recording machines the technique of recording African music, as opposed to any other kind, is coming under discussion. It is rare that any African recordings are made under ideal conditions, and even the best equipped studio is not necessarily the right place for recording items which may sound best only in the background. There are so many facets to the art of recording in Africa that I would like to draw attention to a few of them which my own organisation has encountered in its field work, in order to encourage further discussion and ideas.