When the notion of ¿alternative facts¿ and the alleged dawning of a ¿postfactual¿ world entered public discourse, social anthropologists found themselves in unexpectedly familiar territory. In theirempirical experience, fact¿knowledge accepted as true¿derives its salience from social mechanisms of legitimization, thereby demonstrating a deep interconnection with power and authority. In thisperspective, fact is a continually contested and volatile social category. Due to the specific histories of their colonial and post- independence experience, African societies offer a particularly broad array of insights into social processes of juxtaposition, opposition, and even outright competition between different postulated authorities. The contributions to the present volume explore the variety of ways in