Pub Date : 2021-03-29DOI: 10.1080/17531055.2021.1907703
D. Branch
ABSTRACT Despite only a minority of Kenya’s African population being literate at the time of independence, letter-writing constituted a significant form of engagement between grassroots political participants and national leaders during decolonisation. This paper sets out to ask why individuals and collaborative groups of writers sent large quantities of letters to their leaders, what they wrote about, and their expectations of the effect of their correspondence. It argues that these letters constituted a public sphere in decolonising Kenya. Through their letters, Kenyans debated development policy, critiqued the actions of the new governing elite, and set out their hopes and fears for independent rule. Furthermore, letter-writing also provided the opportunity for large groups of authors, often including those without sufficient literacy to write in their own name, to reach consensus among themselves on otherwise contentious issues. Just as importantly, the responses – at first constructive and later suspicious - of state officials to these letters illustrates the continuities and changes in the nature of governance during decolonisation. Letter-writing became less effective and more anachronistic as the post-colonial period progressed as the post-colonial state became reliant upon other rituals of political participation.
{"title":"Public letters and the culture of politics in Kenya, c.1960-75","authors":"D. Branch","doi":"10.1080/17531055.2021.1907703","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2021.1907703","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Despite only a minority of Kenya’s African population being literate at the time of independence, letter-writing constituted a significant form of engagement between grassroots political participants and national leaders during decolonisation. This paper sets out to ask why individuals and collaborative groups of writers sent large quantities of letters to their leaders, what they wrote about, and their expectations of the effect of their correspondence. It argues that these letters constituted a public sphere in decolonising Kenya. Through their letters, Kenyans debated development policy, critiqued the actions of the new governing elite, and set out their hopes and fears for independent rule. Furthermore, letter-writing also provided the opportunity for large groups of authors, often including those without sufficient literacy to write in their own name, to reach consensus among themselves on otherwise contentious issues. Just as importantly, the responses – at first constructive and later suspicious - of state officials to these letters illustrates the continuities and changes in the nature of governance during decolonisation. Letter-writing became less effective and more anachronistic as the post-colonial period progressed as the post-colonial state became reliant upon other rituals of political participation.","PeriodicalId":46968,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Eastern African Studies","volume":"15 1","pages":"339 - 357"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-03-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17531055.2021.1907703","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42733068","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-03-23DOI: 10.1080/17531055.2021.1904705
M. A. Mihatsch
ABSTRACT This article sheds light on the little discussed democratic period, directly after Sudanese independence in 1956 and preceding the military takeover in 1958. The article uses parliamentary and public discussions around an American aid offer as a lens to understand Sudanese perspectives on decolonisation, independence, dependence, sovereignty, and neo-colonialism in a Cold War context. The article aims to explore how politicians in post-independence Sudan perceived their range of potential political actions and outcomes. It argues that politicians prioritised the protection and strengthening of Sudanese sovereignty, but held strongly differing and at times contradicting views of what that meant; for example, accepting aid from the Americans was understood by the Umma Party as necessary for economic development and thus strengthening domestic sovereignty, while it was seen by the NUP as potentially weakening external sovereignty. The decisions of Sudanese politicians at the time were shaped by their fear of Sudan losing its independence once again. In making this argument, the article serves as a case study deconstructing theoretical conceptions of sovereignty as absolute and indivisible, showing that Sudanese politicians were acutely aware that sovereignty was bounded and dependent on compromises.
{"title":"Dependence after independence: Sudan’s bounded sovereignty 1956–1958","authors":"M. A. Mihatsch","doi":"10.1080/17531055.2021.1904705","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2021.1904705","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article sheds light on the little discussed democratic period, directly after Sudanese independence in 1956 and preceding the military takeover in 1958. The article uses parliamentary and public discussions around an American aid offer as a lens to understand Sudanese perspectives on decolonisation, independence, dependence, sovereignty, and neo-colonialism in a Cold War context. The article aims to explore how politicians in post-independence Sudan perceived their range of potential political actions and outcomes. It argues that politicians prioritised the protection and strengthening of Sudanese sovereignty, but held strongly differing and at times contradicting views of what that meant; for example, accepting aid from the Americans was understood by the Umma Party as necessary for economic development and thus strengthening domestic sovereignty, while it was seen by the NUP as potentially weakening external sovereignty. The decisions of Sudanese politicians at the time were shaped by their fear of Sudan losing its independence once again. In making this argument, the article serves as a case study deconstructing theoretical conceptions of sovereignty as absolute and indivisible, showing that Sudanese politicians were acutely aware that sovereignty was bounded and dependent on compromises.","PeriodicalId":46968,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Eastern African Studies","volume":"15 1","pages":"236 - 254"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-03-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17531055.2021.1904705","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43553944","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-03-23DOI: 10.1080/17531055.2021.1904703
S. Kroon
ABSTRACT This article presents a linguistic landscape analysis of pictures taken in Eritrea’s capital Asmara between 2001 and 2018, stemming from the respective periods of Italian, British, Ethiopian and Eritrean rule. The analysis illustrates how these semiotic signs, fossilized as well as contemporary, bear witness of the ways in which language and state ideologies of the country’s respective rulers were symbolically implemented and enshrined in visible language. Next to Italian, Amharic, Tigrinya and Arabic, attention is given to English, the international language that was introduced during the British Protectorate period and managed to maintain and strengthen its position in Asmara in recent years in relation to the inhabitants’ connection to the internet as a means to virtually escape from the city. Central in the analysis is the notion of public space as a multilayered socially constructed phenomenon showing the imprints of societal happenings. Such traces of history in Asmara contribute to changing concrete places into spaces and as such help memorizing and handing over the narratives connected to them as reflections of historical and contemporary language policies that over the years have co-constructed and given meaning to Asmara’s public space.
{"title":"Language policy in public space: a historical perspective on Asmara’s linguistic landscape","authors":"S. Kroon","doi":"10.1080/17531055.2021.1904703","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2021.1904703","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article presents a linguistic landscape analysis of pictures taken in Eritrea’s capital Asmara between 2001 and 2018, stemming from the respective periods of Italian, British, Ethiopian and Eritrean rule. The analysis illustrates how these semiotic signs, fossilized as well as contemporary, bear witness of the ways in which language and state ideologies of the country’s respective rulers were symbolically implemented and enshrined in visible language. Next to Italian, Amharic, Tigrinya and Arabic, attention is given to English, the international language that was introduced during the British Protectorate period and managed to maintain and strengthen its position in Asmara in recent years in relation to the inhabitants’ connection to the internet as a means to virtually escape from the city. Central in the analysis is the notion of public space as a multilayered socially constructed phenomenon showing the imprints of societal happenings. Such traces of history in Asmara contribute to changing concrete places into spaces and as such help memorizing and handing over the narratives connected to them as reflections of historical and contemporary language policies that over the years have co-constructed and given meaning to Asmara’s public space.","PeriodicalId":46968,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Eastern African Studies","volume":"15 1","pages":"274 - 296"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-03-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17531055.2021.1904703","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48610401","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-03-21DOI: 10.1080/17531055.2021.1904704
Will Langford
ABSTRACT In the 1960s and 1970s, technical advisors participated in postcolonial development efforts and popular internationalism. This article addresses the politics of technical assistance as an entry point for exploring the wider shared histories of Tanzania and Canada. It shows how Canadian advisors reflected on ujamaa, race, and their relationships with Tanzanians. And it charts how lived experiences shaped their commitments abroad as well as back at home. Insisting that technical assistance is part of Tanzanian transnational history, the essay argues that Canadian advisors were divided on the politics of poverty. They held liberal and left internationalist perspectives, two overarching ways of understanding global structures that were opposed as well as internally varied. The first vision presumed that developmental work had mutualistic benefits within global capitalism. The second stressed solidarities for a building an anti-imperialist world and, in different ways, involved social democrats, New Leftists, and Black Canadian and Indigenous activists. Debates eventually led to a left-leaning attempt to rethink technical assistance.
{"title":"A common situation? Canadian technical advisors and popular internationalism in Tanzania, 1961–1981","authors":"Will Langford","doi":"10.1080/17531055.2021.1904704","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2021.1904704","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In the 1960s and 1970s, technical advisors participated in postcolonial development efforts and popular internationalism. This article addresses the politics of technical assistance as an entry point for exploring the wider shared histories of Tanzania and Canada. It shows how Canadian advisors reflected on ujamaa, race, and their relationships with Tanzanians. And it charts how lived experiences shaped their commitments abroad as well as back at home. Insisting that technical assistance is part of Tanzanian transnational history, the essay argues that Canadian advisors were divided on the politics of poverty. They held liberal and left internationalist perspectives, two overarching ways of understanding global structures that were opposed as well as internally varied. The first vision presumed that developmental work had mutualistic benefits within global capitalism. The second stressed solidarities for a building an anti-imperialist world and, in different ways, involved social democrats, New Leftists, and Black Canadian and Indigenous activists. Debates eventually led to a left-leaning attempt to rethink technical assistance.","PeriodicalId":46968,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Eastern African Studies","volume":"15 1","pages":"317 - 338"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17531055.2021.1904704","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42802763","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-03-16DOI: 10.1080/17531055.2021.1902695
W. Berridge
ABSTRACT Drawing upon interviews and a variety of newspapers and other media associated with the Sudanese Islamic Movement, this article analyses historic developments in its strategy for the Islamization of the now independent region of southern Sudan with particular reference to the experience of members of the movement from that region. It identifies significant parallels between the colonial and Islamist designs for “civilizing” southern Sudanese, arguing that like its colonial predecessor the “Civilizational Project” of Hasan al-Turabi’s “Salvation Regime” alternated between assimilating and excluding them. The post-1989 Islamist regime’s treatment of Islamist southerners before and after the secession of the south in 2011 highlighted the division between these assimilationist and exclusionary trends. Although the movement was largely unsuccessful in recruiting southern members, those who did join were not simply Islamist satellites – like Islamists from the other marginalized regions, they sought to use the Movement to traverse the social divide between center and periphery, sometimes in a manner that challenged the riverain elites that dominated it. In thus deconstructing the notion that Islamic movements are ideologically and socially homogenous, the article contributes a fresh perspective on the debate about Arabization and Islamization in Sudan as well as center–periphery relations in post-colonial contexts.
{"title":"The “Civilizational Project” and the southern Sudanese Islamists: between assimilation and exclusion","authors":"W. Berridge","doi":"10.1080/17531055.2021.1902695","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2021.1902695","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Drawing upon interviews and a variety of newspapers and other media associated with the Sudanese Islamic Movement, this article analyses historic developments in its strategy for the Islamization of the now independent region of southern Sudan with particular reference to the experience of members of the movement from that region. It identifies significant parallels between the colonial and Islamist designs for “civilizing” southern Sudanese, arguing that like its colonial predecessor the “Civilizational Project” of Hasan al-Turabi’s “Salvation Regime” alternated between assimilating and excluding them. The post-1989 Islamist regime’s treatment of Islamist southerners before and after the secession of the south in 2011 highlighted the division between these assimilationist and exclusionary trends. Although the movement was largely unsuccessful in recruiting southern members, those who did join were not simply Islamist satellites – like Islamists from the other marginalized regions, they sought to use the Movement to traverse the social divide between center and periphery, sometimes in a manner that challenged the riverain elites that dominated it. In thus deconstructing the notion that Islamic movements are ideologically and socially homogenous, the article contributes a fresh perspective on the debate about Arabization and Islamization in Sudan as well as center–periphery relations in post-colonial contexts.","PeriodicalId":46968,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Eastern African Studies","volume":"15 1","pages":"214 - 235"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17531055.2021.1902695","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46043312","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17531055.2020.1871556
J. Vilmer
ABSTRACT This article offers an analysis of the causes and consequences of the Ethio-Eritrean rapprochement. The causes are both internal (each side had their reasons) and external (under the influence of the UAE and Saudi Arabia). As for the consequences, the peace served as a catalyst of Eritrea’s reintegration: it boosted bilateral visits, had a limited regional snowball effect, lifted the UNSC sanctions, and accelerated the engagement of multilateral organizations and the EU in Eritrea. However, this reintegration is limited because of the persistent ambivalence of the regime, the degradation of the relations with Saudi Arabia and the US, and the fact that the peace with Ethiopia has stalled. Moreover, there is no peace dividend for the Eritrean population: after a glimpse of freedom when the border opened a couple of months, it is all back to the status quo ante, and even worse in some human rights respects. The conclusion shows the paradoxical nature of a rapprochement that also had negative effects and draws some lessons from the deeper problem explaining the stalled peace, that is institutional imbalance between a totalitarian state and a democratic one.
{"title":"Peace without freedom in Eritrea: causes and consequences of the Ethio-Eritrean rapprochement","authors":"J. Vilmer","doi":"10.1080/17531055.2020.1871556","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2020.1871556","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article offers an analysis of the causes and consequences of the Ethio-Eritrean rapprochement. The causes are both internal (each side had their reasons) and external (under the influence of the UAE and Saudi Arabia). As for the consequences, the peace served as a catalyst of Eritrea’s reintegration: it boosted bilateral visits, had a limited regional snowball effect, lifted the UNSC sanctions, and accelerated the engagement of multilateral organizations and the EU in Eritrea. However, this reintegration is limited because of the persistent ambivalence of the regime, the degradation of the relations with Saudi Arabia and the US, and the fact that the peace with Ethiopia has stalled. Moreover, there is no peace dividend for the Eritrean population: after a glimpse of freedom when the border opened a couple of months, it is all back to the status quo ante, and even worse in some human rights respects. The conclusion shows the paradoxical nature of a rapprochement that also had negative effects and draws some lessons from the deeper problem explaining the stalled peace, that is institutional imbalance between a totalitarian state and a democratic one.","PeriodicalId":46968,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Eastern African Studies","volume":"15 1","pages":"23 - 42"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17531055.2020.1871556","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42750276","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17531055.2020.1863100
Tezera Tazebew, A. Kefale
ABSTRACT Ethiopia has a long history of economic relations in its borderlands. Since the early 1990s, the Ethiopian state began to earnestly entrench its authority in the Ethiopia-Somaliland borderlands. This study examined the governmentalization of the Ethio-Somaliland borderlands in the post-1991 period. Drawing on official data and key informant interviews, the study identifies several techniques of governance that the Ethiopian state instituted to govern and control economic activities in these borderlands. The analysis reveals that the manner in which economic relations are governed is directly shaped by the exceptional nature and logic of borderlands in general and the Ethiopia-Somaliland borderlands in particular. The Ethiopian state has sometimes used ‘informal’ mechanisms and this particular way of governing economic activities in the border region is analyzed in this paper, which highlights five prominent techniques, but also looks at how people in the region circumvent some of these government techniques. There is a mutation of governance in which the distinction between what is formal and informal is often blurred.
{"title":"Governing the economy: rule and resistance in the Ethiopia-Somaliland borderlands","authors":"Tezera Tazebew, A. Kefale","doi":"10.1080/17531055.2020.1863100","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2020.1863100","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Ethiopia has a long history of economic relations in its borderlands. Since the early 1990s, the Ethiopian state began to earnestly entrench its authority in the Ethiopia-Somaliland borderlands. This study examined the governmentalization of the Ethio-Somaliland borderlands in the post-1991 period. Drawing on official data and key informant interviews, the study identifies several techniques of governance that the Ethiopian state instituted to govern and control economic activities in these borderlands. The analysis reveals that the manner in which economic relations are governed is directly shaped by the exceptional nature and logic of borderlands in general and the Ethiopia-Somaliland borderlands in particular. The Ethiopian state has sometimes used ‘informal’ mechanisms and this particular way of governing economic activities in the border region is analyzed in this paper, which highlights five prominent techniques, but also looks at how people in the region circumvent some of these government techniques. There is a mutation of governance in which the distinction between what is formal and informal is often blurred.","PeriodicalId":46968,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Eastern African Studies","volume":"15 1","pages":"147 - 167"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17531055.2020.1863100","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47010178","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-12-30DOI: 10.1080/17531055.2020.1868195
Martin S. Shanguhyia
ABSTRACT Africa’s international borders have been sites of inter-ethnic and inter-state relations and media for material and cultural exchange. Drawing on archival materials and interviews, the article illustrates how decades of cross-border insecurity and violence from livestock raiding and tension over pasture and water resources have entrenched a consciousness within a marginalized Turkana community that critiques the role of the modern state as protector and provider. Their views are reinforced by a colonial legacy of marginalization of Turkana based on a hostile geographical environment, a vulnerable pastoral economy, and Turkana’s peripheral location relative to the center of political decision-making – Nairobi. Starved of development and provision of necessities since colonial times, Turkana have appropriated episodic insecurity from cross-border violence to underline the need for government to protect and provide basic infrastructure. In the process, the article reflects on the weaknesses or incapacities of the modern African state to deal with legacies of colonial administrative and development challenges in areas considered peripheral to the mainstream state.
{"title":"Insecure borderlands, marginalization, and local perceptions of the state in Turkana, Kenya, circa 1920–2014","authors":"Martin S. Shanguhyia","doi":"10.1080/17531055.2020.1868195","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2020.1868195","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Africa’s international borders have been sites of inter-ethnic and inter-state relations and media for material and cultural exchange. Drawing on archival materials and interviews, the article illustrates how decades of cross-border insecurity and violence from livestock raiding and tension over pasture and water resources have entrenched a consciousness within a marginalized Turkana community that critiques the role of the modern state as protector and provider. Their views are reinforced by a colonial legacy of marginalization of Turkana based on a hostile geographical environment, a vulnerable pastoral economy, and Turkana’s peripheral location relative to the center of political decision-making – Nairobi. Starved of development and provision of necessities since colonial times, Turkana have appropriated episodic insecurity from cross-border violence to underline the need for government to protect and provide basic infrastructure. In the process, the article reflects on the weaknesses or incapacities of the modern African state to deal with legacies of colonial administrative and development challenges in areas considered peripheral to the mainstream state.","PeriodicalId":46968,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Eastern African Studies","volume":"15 1","pages":"85 - 107"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2020-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17531055.2020.1868195","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48352337","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-12-25DOI: 10.1080/17531055.2020.1863642
Samantha Balaton-Chrimes
ABSTRACT The idea that Kenya is made up of 42(+) tribes is widespread, but the origins, nature and consequences of any list are not well-known. This article compares ethnic classifications in all Kenyan censuses to demonstrate the origins of the ‘42’ in (only) the 1969 census, and the multiple political purposes of classifying and counting. To make sense of why the 42(+) remains significant, I argue a cultivated vagueness provides a sense of consistency, linking a national past to present and future, while providing the basis for both numbers-based competitive politics and more inclusive politics. Moreover, it avoids engaging in politically risky work of making legible sense of shifts in ethnic identities, classifications and numbers, and avoids having to resolve their relation to the nation, which benefits both state and citizens. Extending literature on the political utility of uncertainty, I theorise this cultivated vagueness as magic, backed by opaque forces, potentially dangerous or beneficent, which deters interrogation or certainty on all sides. To further clarify this awkward relationship between vagueness and certainty, I argue ethnic classifications are intelligible via the social imaginary of the 42(+), but not especially legible, contesting the literature on census practices as tools of legibility and governability.
{"title":"Who are Kenya’s 42(+) tribes? The census and the political utility of magical uncertainty","authors":"Samantha Balaton-Chrimes","doi":"10.1080/17531055.2020.1863642","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2020.1863642","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The idea that Kenya is made up of 42(+) tribes is widespread, but the origins, nature and consequences of any list are not well-known. This article compares ethnic classifications in all Kenyan censuses to demonstrate the origins of the ‘42’ in (only) the 1969 census, and the multiple political purposes of classifying and counting. To make sense of why the 42(+) remains significant, I argue a cultivated vagueness provides a sense of consistency, linking a national past to present and future, while providing the basis for both numbers-based competitive politics and more inclusive politics. Moreover, it avoids engaging in politically risky work of making legible sense of shifts in ethnic identities, classifications and numbers, and avoids having to resolve their relation to the nation, which benefits both state and citizens. Extending literature on the political utility of uncertainty, I theorise this cultivated vagueness as magic, backed by opaque forces, potentially dangerous or beneficent, which deters interrogation or certainty on all sides. To further clarify this awkward relationship between vagueness and certainty, I argue ethnic classifications are intelligible via the social imaginary of the 42(+), but not especially legible, contesting the literature on census practices as tools of legibility and governability.","PeriodicalId":46968,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Eastern African Studies","volume":"15 1","pages":"43 - 62"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2020-12-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17531055.2020.1863642","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44868559","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-12-03DOI: 10.1080/17531055.2020.1851515
M. Hinfelaar, O’Brien Kaaba, M. Wahman
ABSTRACT Much has been written about the strength of African presidentialism. This article studies the resilience of presidential power in Zambia in the face of electoral turnover. Opposition election campaigns, conducted by both the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) and the Patriotic Front (PF), featured deep constitutional reform as prominent campaign pledges. Nevertheless, after winning the presidency, both parties failed to reduce presidential power. We support this conclusion by an analysis of constitution making in Zambia since the early 1990s and an analysis of the latest 2016 amended constitution. We argue that presidential powers become valuable institutional assets for newly elected elites attempting to reduce electoral uncertainty and consolidate power. Consequently, reduction in presidential power is unlikely as long as the executive is able to control the constitution making process.
{"title":"Electoral turnovers and the disappointment of enduring presidential power: constitution making in Zambia","authors":"M. Hinfelaar, O’Brien Kaaba, M. Wahman","doi":"10.1080/17531055.2020.1851515","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2020.1851515","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Much has been written about the strength of African presidentialism. This article studies the resilience of presidential power in Zambia in the face of electoral turnover. Opposition election campaigns, conducted by both the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) and the Patriotic Front (PF), featured deep constitutional reform as prominent campaign pledges. Nevertheless, after winning the presidency, both parties failed to reduce presidential power. We support this conclusion by an analysis of constitution making in Zambia since the early 1990s and an analysis of the latest 2016 amended constitution. We argue that presidential powers become valuable institutional assets for newly elected elites attempting to reduce electoral uncertainty and consolidate power. Consequently, reduction in presidential power is unlikely as long as the executive is able to control the constitution making process.","PeriodicalId":46968,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Eastern African Studies","volume":"15 1","pages":"63 - 84"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2020-12-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17531055.2020.1851515","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48618425","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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