Welcome to the Shikanda portal
	this portal accommodates Wim van Binsbergen's various websites, which previously were scattered over a number of free but desperately unreliable domains. Concentration in one domain will hopefully mean permanent availability all over the world, and easy cross-referencing from one site to the other

NEW click the link WHAT IS NEW (item 0 in the list below) for new additions to the Shikanda sites, and for a log of the site owner's intellectual activities --- NEW click the link TOPICALITIES (item 0 in the list below) for new additions to the Shikanda sites, and for a log of the site owner's intellectual activities --- NEW click the link TOPICALITIES (item 0 in the list below) for new additions to the Shikanda sites, and for a log of the site owner's intellectual activities ---

NOW PUBLISHED: Wim van Binsbergen, Intercultural encounters: African and anthropological lessons towards a philosophy of interculturality, Berlin: LIT, 610 pp, for details and order form see below ---- NOW PUBLISHED: Wim van Binsbergen, Intercultural encounters: African and anthropological lessons towards a philosophy of interculturality, Berlin: LIT, 610 pp, for details and order form see below ----NOW PUBLISHED: Wim van Binsbergen, Intercultural encounters: African and anthropological lessons towards a philosophy of interculturality, Berlin: LIT, 610 pp, for details and order form see below ----

'...Prove all things; hold fast that which is good' (1 Thess. 5: 21)
'Mwana wa hakati ka jivumo' ('A child is of the womb's centre' -- Nkoya proverb)

Site Map

Having grown out of a number of different websites in over five years, the present Shikanda portal is as extensive, complex and rambling as its owner's intellectual and literary production. There are, in principle, five threads of Ariadne to guide the visitor through this labyrinth:

1. The short bio-/bibliographical note below provides links to the main fields of the site owner's activity, and the constituent websites devoted to them
2. Further below, these various websites are also listed serially in a table (where also the old, now obsolete names of the websites are given)
3. Still further down, an extensive internal search facility allows the visitor to search for any word or name throughout the hundreds of webpages, articles and books incorporated in the present Shikanda portal
4. Since 2002, a detailed log has been kept of the site owner's projects and publications, with extensive text links and illustrations
5. The site owner's full bibliography (click to open it) is to provide links to all those of his publications that are incorporated in the present Shikanda domain; this process has only recently been initiated and will take weeks if not months to complete

1. Short bio-/bibliographical note linking to the various websites in this domain

Wim M.J. van Binsbergen (*1947, Amsterdam) is Professor of the Foundations of Intercultural Philosophy, Philosophical Faculty, Erasmus University Rotterdam, and Senior Researcher at the African Studies Centre, Leiden, the Netherlands. His research interests include: religion in Africa (both traditional African religion, Christianity and Islam -- recently with special emphasis on animal symbolism, shamanism, and long-range comparison ); intercultural philosophy especially epistemology; African and Ancient history; Afrocentricity; ethnicity, ancient and modern statehood, and globalisation. He has pursued these interests during extensive fieldwork in Tunisia, Zambia, Guinea Bissau, and Botswana, besides historical projects on South Central Africa, the Ancient Near East, and the world history of geomantic divination and shamanism. He held professorial chairs at Manchester, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Durban-Westville, and directed Africanist research at the Leiden centre throughout the 1980s and 1990s. His many books include: Religious Change in Zambia (1981), Theoretical Explorations in African Religion (with Schoffeleers, 1985), Old modes of Production and Capitalist Encroachment (with Geschiere, 1985), Tears of Rain (1992), Black Athena Ten Years After (1997), Modernity on a Shoestring (with Fardon and van Dijk, 1999), and Trajectoires de liberation en Afrique contemporaine (with Konings and Hesseling, 2000). Since September 2003 a number of books were published: his magnum opus entitled Intercultural Encounters: African and Anthropological Lessons towards a Philosophy of Interculturality, as well as three edited collections: The Dynamics of Power and the Rule of Law ; Situating Globality: African Agency in the Appropriation of Global Culture (with van Dijk, 2004); and Truth in Politics: Rhetorical Approaches to Democratic Deliberation in Africa and beyond (with Salazar and Osha).  In the press are edited books on African Islam (with Breedveld and van Santen), and on globalisation and commodification (with Geschiere). Wim van Binsbergen is the Editor of Quest: An African Journal of Philosophy. He is a published poet/ novelist and a practising (also e-based) sangoma diviner-healer in the Southern African tradition.

Click here to be informed of Wim van Binsbergen's recent and imminent projects and publications

(explore the clickable links above; updated 12.4.2004  21:57; the domain www.shikanda.net is now mostly back in service, its contents are largely mirrored at http://ethnicity.bravepages.com )

2. Table of websites incorporated in the present domain:

These sites are self-contained and each have their own 'index' page, which may also be called 'home page'. The distinct nature of each site is clear from its unique layout, background, vignettes etc. In order to move from one of these sites to the other within the present www.shikanda.net domain, you must click on the leopard vignette which appears near the top, and at the bottom, of each index/home page.

3. Internal search facility covering all individual websites brought together in the present Shikanda portal

This search facility provides a complete electronic index of all the websites in the present domain, and moreover enables you to search the entire Internet quickly and effectively; simply enter the word(s) you require into the blank search box, and press 'Search'

4. Since 2002, a detailed log has been kept of the site owner's projects and publications, with extensive text links and illustrations

5. The site owner's full bibliography (click to open it) is to provide links to all those of his publications that are incorporated in the present Shikanda domain; this process has only recently been initiated and will take weeks if not months to complete

Careful with cross-referring links and electronic reply forms in this domain

The construction of the www.shikanda.net domain is still in progress, and it has not yet been possible to replace all cross-referring links to Wim van Binsbergen's previously scattered sites, by links internal to the present domain. In this transitional period, if you click such a link, you are likely to leave the present domain and to go to one of the earlier websites. From there, you cannot simply return to the present domain by means of the 'Back' button on your browser, but in most cases you will find a link that can take you back -- but not yet in all cases. So be careful with these cross-referring links. We are working on them.

Contact information

At various points in the various constituent websites, an e-mail address is given for the site owner. This address may often be obsolete. Click here for the correct current address.

	the leopard theme in the background and vignette of this website reflects Wim van Binsbergen's recent work on the global historical analysis of leopard symbolism, informing chapter 8 of his new book Intercultural encounters (appeared December 2003), as well as his forthcoming book The leopard's unchanging spots: Long-range comparative research as a key to enduring patterns of African agency (click these links for details)
	page last modified: 15-04-2004 12:37:20