Description
Berghahn Books Changing Identifications and Alliances in North-east Africa Volume I Ethiopia and Kenya 2009 Edition by Günther Schlee, Elizabeth E. Watson
Forms of group identity play a prominent role in everyday lives and politics in northeast Africa. Case studies from Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Kenya illustrate the way that identities are formed and change over time, and how local, national, and international politics are interwoven. Specific attention is paid to the impact of modern weaponry, new technologies, religious conversion, food and land shortages, international borders, civil war, and displacement on group identities. Drawing on the expertise of anthropologists, historians and geographers, these volumes provide a significant account of a society profoundly shaped by identity politics and contribute to a better understanding of the nature of conflict and war, and forms of alliance and peacemaking, thus providing a comprehensive portrait of this troubled region. Table of contents :- List of IllustrationsList of Maps, Figures and TablesList of AbbreviationsIntroductionGunther SchleeSpace and Time: Introduction to the Geography and Political HistoryGunther Schlee and Elizabeth E. WatsonPart I. Identification and Insecurity in the Lower Omo Valley1. The Fate of the Suri: Conflict and Group Tension on the South-West Ethiopian FrontierJon Abbink2. Resistance and Bravery: On Social Meanings of Guns in South-West EthiopiaKen Masuda3. Modernization in the Lower Omo Valley and Adjacent Marches of Eastern Equatoria, Sudan: 1991-2000Serge TornayPart II. Institutions of Identification and Networks of Alliance among Rift Valley Agriculturalists4. Burji: Versatile by TraditionHermann Amborn5. The Significance of the Oral Traditions of the Burji for Perceiving and Shaping their Inter-ethnic RelationsAlexander Kellner6. Mobility, Knowledge and Power: Craftsmen in the BorderlandHermann AmbornPart III. Land, Identification and the State in Ethiopia7. 'We Have Been Sold': Competing with the State and Dealing with OthersTadesse Wolde Gossa8. Identity, Encroachment and Ethnic Relations: the Gumuz and their Neighbours in North-Western EthiopiaWolde-Selassie Abbute9. Debates over Culture in Konso since Decentralization (1991)Elizabeth E. Watson10. Changing Alliances of Guji-Oromo and their Neighbours: State Policies and Local FactorsTaddesse BerissoPart IV. Pastoralists in the Kenya-Ethiopia Borderlands11. Changing Alliances among the Boran, Garre and Gabra in Northern Kenya and Southern EthiopiaGunther Schlee12. Roads to Nowhere: Nomadic Understandings of Space and EthnicityJohn C. WoodBibliographyNotes on ContributorsIndex