Secrecy, Ambiguity, and the Everyday in Kabre Culture

Secrecy, the intentional concealing of information, is very much a part of everyday life and discourse among the Kabre of northern Togo (West Africa). This article proposes an interpretation of Kabre everyday secrecy that relies on indigenous understandings and attempts to move beyond the functionalist assumptions of many previous analyses of secrecy in Africa. It also raises more general questions about theories of culture that ignore the everyday and that fail to come to terms with the negotiated meanings and the indirect types of communication that constitute everyday social relations.

Duke Scholars

Author Charles D. Piot Cultural Anthropology