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State identity narratives and threat construction in the Horn of Africa: revisiting Ethiopia's 2006 intervention in Somalia Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2021-04-01 Katharina M. B. Newbery
ABSTRACT The Ethiopian military intervention to remove the Union of Islamic Courts from Mogadishu in December 2006 has been interpreted in overlapping narratives of historical-religious conflict between Ethiopia and Somalia, proxy war with Eritrea, and counter-terrorism. This article adds another: the Ethiopian government's own dominant narrative of danger at the time. Based on a discourse analysis
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Public letters and the culture of politics in Kenya, c.1960-75 Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2021-03-29 Daniel 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
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Dependence after independence: Sudan’s bounded sovereignty 1956–1958 Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2021-03-23 Moritz 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
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Language policy in public space: a historical perspective on Asmara’s linguistic landscape Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2021-03-23 Sjaak 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
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A common situation? Canadian technical advisors and popular internationalism in Tanzania, 1961–1981 Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2021-03-21 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
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The “Civilizational Project” and the southern Sudanese Islamists: between assimilation and exclusion Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2021-03-16 Willow 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
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Dialoguing and negotiating with Al-Shabaab: the role of clan elders as insider-partial mediators Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-12-17 Mohammed Ibrahim Shire
ABSTRACT Since 2015, Al-Shabaab and the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS) have been locked in a violent, protracted stalemate. There is little momentum to pursue a political settlement, with Al-Shabaab rejecting any overtures of dialogue. Drawing on theoretical perspectives from peace and conflict literature and key interviews with clan elders and Al-Shabaab defectors, this article explores two interconnected
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Peace without freedom in Eritrea: causes and consequences of the Ethio-Eritrean rapprochement Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2021-01-11 Jean-Baptiste Jeangene 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
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Who are Kenya’s 42(+) tribes? The census and the political utility of magical uncertainty Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-12-25 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
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Electoral turnovers and the disappointment of enduring presidential power: constitution making in Zambia Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-12-03 Marja Hinfelaar, O’Brien Kaaba, Michael 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
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Insecure borderlands, marginalization, and local perceptions of the state in Turkana, Kenya, circa 1920–2014 Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-12-30 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
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Governing the economy: rule and resistance in the Ethiopia-Somaliland borderlands Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2021-01-04 Tezera Tazebew, Asnake 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
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Brokerage in the borderlands: the political economy of livestock intermediaries in northern Kenya Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-11-16 Ong'ao P. Ng'asike, Tobias Hagmann, Oliver V. Wasonga
ABSTRACT This article argues that brokers are key actors in the cross-border livestock trade between Kenya and Somalia, where formal regulations are weak or absent. We elucidate the economic and social rationales for livestock brokerage as well as a series of brokering practices taking place at the intersection of profit making, kinship and trust. Besides producing social capital based on trust, brokers
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Peace without freedom in Eritrea: causes and consequences of the Ethio-Eritrean rapprochement Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2021-01-11 Jean-Baptiste Jeangene 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
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Humanitarian spill-over: the expansion of hybrid humanitarian governance from camps to refugee hosting societies in East Africa Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-10-27 Bram J. Jansen, Milou de Bruijne
ABSTRACT The impact and effects of protracted refugee camps on their host environments in East Africa has been the subject of much academic attention since the late 1990s. Such camps are often viewed as exclusionary spaces that isolate refugees from their host societies. Recent analyses, however, posit such camps as hybrid spaces, with fluid boundaries, that provide socio-economic opportunities and
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“A new animal”: student activism and the Kenyan state in an era of multiparty politics, 1991–2000 Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-10-27 Luke Melchiorre
ABSTRACT This article explores the impact of the reintroduction of multiparty politics at the University of Nairobi in the late-1990s. It argues that the reinstatement of Nairobi’s student union (SONU) in 1998 represented a fundamental turning point in the history of student activism in Kenya. SONU’s return served to open space on campus for national political parties, particularly the ruling party
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Revenues on the hoof: livestock trade, taxation and state-making in the Somali territories Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-10-23 Ahmed M. Musa, Finn Stepputat, Tobias Hagmann
ABSTRACT This article considers the relationship between livestock taxation and local state formation dynamics in the northern Somali territories. While the economic importance of livestock in Somalia is undisputed, its significance as a source of revenue and legitimacy for public administrations and competing state-building projects has been overlooked. Drawing on fieldwork in Somaliland’s main livestock
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Youth on the margins: criminalizing Kenya's pastoral frontier, c. 1930-present Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-10-22 Hannah Whittaker
ABSTRACT The ‘youth bulge’ that has been observed across much of the Global South has resulted in the drawing of young people, especially young men, as a threat to social order. In Kenya, the ‘spectre of youth radicalization’ is particularly prevalent, and young Somali males have been singled out as a volatile youth demographic. While explanations for the correlation between political instability and
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Priceless land: valuation and compensation of expropriated farmland in the Amhara region, Ethiopia Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-10-19 Harald Aspen, Bedemariam Woldeyesus
ABSTRACT In Ethiopia, farmland belongs to ‘the people’ (the state) and cannot be sold or bought, but compensatory measures have been introduced for land expropriated for infrastructure and industry. The article analyses processes of valuation and compensation of land in Kombolcha district in the Amhara region of Ethiopia. Here numerous projects have affected highly productive farmland over the last
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War-talk: an urban youth language of siege in Nairobi Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-10-19 Wangui Kimari
ABSTRACT In this article, I detail how youth in poor urban settlements in Nairobi use a vernacular that I term war-talk. This is a speech, anchored in the Swahili derived urban slang language Sheng, which includes words that reference combat situations. If Sheng, as has been argued, is a generational articulation of unequal spatialized relations in Nairobi, war-talk further indexes the siege that those
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Seeing like students: what Nairobi youth think about politics, the state and the future Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-10-19 Elisabeth King, Daphna Harel, Dana Burde, Jennifer Hill, Simon Grinsted
ABSTRACT While Kenyan youth comprise the majority of the Kenyan electorate, they are typically either stereotyped as criminals or marginalized, rather than taken seriously as politically important actors. The importance of youth in Kenya, and the gaps in our knowledge about this group, prompt us to investigate their views at the cusp of political becoming. Reporting on a survey of 4,773 secondary school
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Youth, the Kenyan state and a politics of contestation Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-10-16 Wangui Kimari, Luke Melchiorre, Jacob Rasmussen
ABSTRACT This paper introduces the Special Collection ‘Youth, the Kenyan state and a politics of contestation'. It focuses on youth and the heterogenous ways this social category responds to inordinate state action. Specifically, we foreground the various roles the Kenyan state has played in the construction and politicization of Kenyan youth across time and space. The introduction frames the papers
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‘Our time to recover’: young men, political mobilization, and personalized political ties during the 2017 primary elections in Nairobi Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-10-16 Jacob Rasmussen, Naomi van Stapele
ABSTRACT In this article, we show how youth groups in Nairobi’s poor settlements engage with politics while carving out a political space for themselves and providing a livelihood. In doing so, we challenge dominant neo-patrimonial narratives of youth radicalization and instrumentalized youth mobilization in relation to electoral processes. Based on long-term ethnographic engagements, we argue for
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Building a culture of resistance: securitising and de-securitising Eastleigh during the Kenyan government’s Operation Usalama Watch Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-10-13 Tomáš František Žák
ABSTRACT This paper focuses on Operation Usalama Watch, a counter-terrorism crackdown that was conducted in Eastleigh, the predominately Kenyan-Somali neighbourhood of Nairobi, in April 2014. Using the response to the operation as a case study, it seeks to build on criticisms of the Copenhagen School by arguing that the notion of the ‘speech act’ is limiting when considering alternative media through
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Patronage politics and parliamentary elections in Zambia’s one-party state c. 1983–88 Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-10-09 Sishuwa Sishuwa
ABSTRACT Much of the scholarly work on politics in Zambia’s one-party state stresses the non-competitiveness of its parliamentary elections and holds that politicians were unable to cultivate the power of patronage because the political system was heavily weighted against the practice. This article uses a case study of Michael Sata, an individual politician who was twice elected Member of Parliament
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Fear and mockery: the story of Osale and Paulo in Tanganyika Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-10-09 Stephanie Lämmert
ABSTRACT This article analyses the popular story of the two ‘social bandits’ Osale and Paulo who caused insecurity and fear in Tanganyika’s Usambara Mountains during the 1950s. By comparing various oral accounts of the story and supplementing the sparse archival material available, the paper reveals a narrative of multiple anxieties haboured by the residents of Shambaai during a time of rapid transformation
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Interpreting contemporary Oromo politics in Ethiopia: an ethnographic approach Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-07-23 Terje Østebø, Kjetil Tronvoll
ABSTRACT Decades of both non-violent and armed struggle did not bring much result to the Oromo quest for political power over the Ethiopian state, and contemporary Oromo politics often appear recondite and discordant. When Abiy Ahmed came to power as the new Prime Minister in April 2018 as the first Oromo politician entering the former imperial palace, many believed it was the Oromo’s turn to rule
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Between grassroots contention and elite manoeuvring: sub-nationalism in Zanzibar and coastal Kenya Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-07-02 Jannis Saalfeld
ABSTRACT In the early 2010s, Zanzibar and coastal Kenya witnessed the rise of assertive secessionist grassroots movements articulating perceived injustices committed by ‘upcountry’/mainland ruling elites. While on the islands, the Jumuiya ya Uamsho na Mihadhara ya Kiislam (Organisation for Islamic Awareness and Propagation) championed the breaking up of the Tanzanian Union, in Kenya, the Mombasa Republican
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The jihadi insurgency in Mozambique: origins, nature and beginning Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-07-02 Eric Morier-Genoud
ABSTRACT For the last three years, Mozambique has been facing an insurgency in its northern province of Cabo Delgado. There is much confusion and debate as to what is going on. Who are the insurgents, what do they want, and where do they come from? Debates have focused particularly on the role of religion and the external dimension of the insurgency. Drawing on fieldwork from 2018 and 2019, this paper
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Militant Islamism and local clan dynamics in Somalia: the expansion of the Islamic Courts Union in Lower Jubba province Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-07-02 Michael Skjelderup, Mukhtar Ainashe, Ahmed Mohamed Abdulle “Qare”
ABSTRACT Over the course of only a few months in 2006, the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) defeated the clan-based faction leaders in Mogadishu and conquered most parts of South-Central Somalia, an achievement unprecedented since the fall of the Somali state in 1991. The ICU’s rapid expansion met with little resistance and the local populations generally received their forces with enthusiasm. Drawing on
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Prosperity in a crisis economy: the Nyamongo gold boom, Tanzania, 1970s–1993 Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-06-04 Nathaniel Chimhete
ABSTRACT From the mid-1970s to the early 1990s, Tanzania experienced an unprecedented crisis characterized by high inflation, unemployment and the shortage of basic commodities. Interviews with contemporaries and the scanty documentary evidence available show that this crisis did not impede small-scale gold mining industry in Nyamongo, Tarime District. On the contrary, mining in Nyamongo boomed during
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Urban layers of political rupture: the ‘new’ politics of Addis Ababa’s megaprojects Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-06-04 Biruk Terrefe
ABSTRACT From the Derg’s restoration of Meskel Square for its military parades and Meles Zenawi’s Light-Rail Transit (LRT) and condominium social housing projects to Abiy Ahmed’s high-end luxury real estate and urban tourism schemes, megaprojects have collapsed Ethiopia’s political history into an urban bricolage of shifting ideologies and new priorities. At this critical juncture, where questions
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Capital of the imperial borderlands: urbanism, markets, and power on the Ethiopia-British Somaliland boundary, ca. 1890–1935 Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-06-04 Daniel K. Thompson
ABSTRACT This article analyzes contests among Ethiopian and British imperial agents and their ostensible Somali (and other Muslim) subjects for control over commerce in the Ethiopia-British Somaliland borderlands. British claims of sovereignty over Somalis and other Muslim merchants operating in Ethiopia created a field of hybrid commercial control in which neither Britons nor Ethiopians held complete
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The Gaboye of Somaliland: transformations and historical continuities of the labour exploitation and marginalisation of hereditary groups of occupational specialists Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-06-01 Elia Vitturini
ABSTRACT African hereditary groups of occupational specialists are an object of study neglected by social sciences. They often disappear into the broad category of minority groups, and social and historical analyses miss the specific characteristics of their forms of marginalisation. This article adopts the perspective of the Gaboye of Somaliland as an example of the contribution that these groups
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One-stop border posts in East Africa: state encounters of the fourth kind Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-05-26 Paul Nugent, Isabella Soi
ABSTRACT Across Africa, One-Stop Border Posts are being rolled out as part of a continental/ regional integration agenda that seeks to facilitate the movement of people and goods. This article focuses on four OSBPs in East Africa and addresses the question, firstly, of how far they make a break with entrenched operational patterns within government bureaucracies, and secondly whether they represent
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Agency in constrained circumstances: adolescent migrant sex workers in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-05-26 Marina de Regt, Felegebirhan B. Mihret
ABSTRACT In the past decade an increasing number of adolescent girls in Ethiopia have moved from villages and rural towns to Addis Ababa to improve their own lives and those of their families. While girls’ migration is in a way a ‘normality’, with historically girls migrating for domestic work, the dominant discourse in Ethiopia describes the migration of girls mainly in terms of trafficking and exploitation
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New wine in an old wineskin? Socio-political context and participatory budgeting in Kenya Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-05-22 Kibui Edwin Rwigi, Erick Manga, George Michuki
ABSTRACT Participatory Budgeting (PB) experiments in municipalities across the world have yielded varied results as there are municipalities. The Kenyan experience of participatory experiments has not fared any better. Following the 2013 elections, which initiated county governments in line with the 2010 constitution, Makueni County emerged as a unique case for study having experimented with its very
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Beyond associations: emerging spaces of self-organization among vendors in Zambia Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-05-22 Lennert Jongh
ABSTRACT Collective organizing represents one way in which street and market vendors in urban sub-Saharan Africa advocate their interests and strive towards more inclusive urban policies. Several studies have shown both the opportunities vendors associations may have for vendors as well as their pitfalls. This paper contributes to this discussion by addressing how vendors have used the platforms of
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Bureaucrats, investors and smallholders: contesting land rights and agro-commercialisation in the Southern agricultural growth corridor of Tanzania Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-03-21 Emmanuel Sulle
ABSTRACT Since the triple crises of food, fuel and finance of 2007/8, investments in agricultural growth corridors have taken centre-stage in government, donor and private sector initiatives. This article examines the politics of the multi-billion dollar development of the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT). The corridor’s proponents aim to create an environment in which agribusiness
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Agricultural corridors as ‘demonstration fields’: infrastructure, fairs and associations along the Beira and Nacala corridors of Mozambique Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-03-19 Euclides Gonçalves
ABSTRACT In the past decade, the Mozambican government has been mobilizing international capital to build and renovate transport infrastructure in the central and northern areas of the country, with the aim of creating agricultural corridors. Based on field research conducted in two districts along the Beira and Nacala corridors, I examine those occasions when international capital and national agricultural
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‘Demonstration fields’, anticipation, and contestation: agrarian change and the political economy of development corridors in Eastern Africa Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-03-18 Ngala Chome, Euclides Gonçalves, Ian Scoones, Emmanuel Sulle
ABSTRACT In much of Eastern Africa, the last decade has seen a renewed interest in spatial development plans that link mineral exploitation, transport infrastructure and agricultural commercialisation. While these development corridors have yielded complex results – even in cases where significant investments are yet to happen – much of the existing analysis continues to focus on economic and implementation
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Land, livelihoods and belonging: negotiating change and anticipating LAPSSET in Kenya’s Lamu county Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-03-17 Ngala Chome
ABSTRACT To attract investments in mineral extraction, physical infrastructure and agricultural commercialization over a vast swathe of Northern Kenya, national politicians and bureaucrats are casting the area as being both abundant with land and resources, and as, conversely, ‘backward’, ‘unexploited’ and ‘empty’. Drawing on evidence from Lamu County, and focusing on the planned Lamu Port and South
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‘Sufurias cannot bring blessings’: change, continuity and resilience in the world of Marakwet pottery, a case from western Kenya Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-03-14 Samuel F. Derbyshire, Henrietta L. Moore, Helena Cheptoo, Matthew I.J. Davies
ABSTRACT Drawing on fieldwork conducted over multiple seasons between 2012 and 2015, this paper explores aspects of the socio-economic and political history of the Marakwet of Kenya. It does so by focusing on a particular material culture category – pottery – and tracing transformations in its production, use and exchange over several generations from the early twentieth century to the present day
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Correction Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-03-12
(2020). Correction. Journal of Eastern African Studies: Vol. 14, No. 4, pp. 689-689.
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Contested practices of trade and taxation: (in)formalization and (il)legitimization in Eastleigh, Nairobi Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-02-24 Kirstine Strøh Varming
ABSTRACT Taxation represents a claim to statehood and plays a vital role in processes of mutual recognition between subjects and the state. Debates on the benefits of taxing the informal economy have stressed the mutual benefits of entering into such formalized contracts of recognition. However, based on eight months of ethnographic fieldwork in Eastleigh, Nairobi, I will show how fixed categories
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‘They just move in with relatives’: translocal labour migrants and transient spaces in Naivasha, Kenya Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-02-19 Gerda Kuiper
ABSTRACT Over the past four decades, the small town of Naivasha in Kenya has attracted tens of thousands of labour migrants. These migrants are looking for employment on one of the many flower farms located on the shores of Lake Naivasha. This article examines how the migrants, who mostly do not settle in Naivasha permanently, carve out space for themselves in the residential areas where they rent
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Children of the revolution: the citizenship of urban Muslims in the Burundian decolonization process Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-02-12 Geert Castryck
ABSTRACT Histories of decolonization in Africa tend to present a unidirectional process with the eventual independent states as the seemingly natural outcome, thus ignoring or distorting actions and actors with transnational or translocal agendas. In the case of Burundi, decolonization is presented either as national liberation or as a prelude to ethnic conflict within a national frame of reference
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Forever vanguards of the revolution: the Uganda People’s Defence Forces’ liberation legacy, 30 years on Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-02-05 Anna Reuss
ABSTRACT The National Resistance Movement government in Uganda after three decades in power still appeals to the legacy of the liberation struggle to reaffirm and legitimize its control over the state. The Uganda People’s Defence Forces as the regime’s historical midwife play a critical role in these symbolic politics. Retaining institutions and practices of revolutionary politicization, the military
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Refugees in uniform: community policing as a technology of government in Kakuma refugee camp, Kenya Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-02-05 Hanno Brankamp
ABSTRACT Community policing has been a popular paradigm for local anti-crime activities in Africa since the 1990s and spread rapidly across the continent. Humanitarian agencies have increasingly embraced versions of the framework to administer refugee camps and ostensibly foster security, protection and peaceful co-existence among residents. This article demonstrates that the deployment of community
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Feeling the heat: responses to geothermal development in Kenya’s Rift Valley Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-01-20 Lotte Hughes, Daniel Rogei
ABSTRACT Geothermal development in Kenya’s Rift Valley will reap enormous energy benefits for the nation as a whole. But its impacts upon local communities, in this case in the Ol Karia area of Nakuru County, are often negative, and geothermal expansion has led to many divisions and conflicts over equitable resource use, environmental degradation, health impacts on humans and animals, forced resettlement
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Authority that is customary: Kitawala, customary chiefs, and the plurality of power in Congolese history Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-01-02 Nicole Eggers
ABSTRACT This paper uses the history of the religious/healing movement Kitawala in the Democratic Republic of Congo as a lens to explore the relationship between forms of state-sanctioned “customary” authority and alternative nodes of “authority that is customary.” Focusing on three different case studies from different eras of the colonial and post-colonial history of Kitawala, the article explores
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Courses au pouvoir: the struggle over customary capital in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-01-02 Kasper Hoffmann, Koen Vlassenroot, Emery Mudinga
ABSTRACT This article analyses the production and reproduction of traditional chieftaincy in war-torn eastern DR Congo, through the case of a succession dispute in Kalima (South Kivu). Kalima has gone through two decades of political instability and violent conflict involving a plethora of local, national and regional actors. During this period of uncertainty and upheaval, the institution of traditional
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Politics, prophets and armed mobilizations: competition and continuity over registers of authority in South Sudan’s conflicts Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-01-02 Naomi Ruth Pendle
ABSTRACT Spiritual and divine authorities play a prominent role in mobilizing armed violence. This article provides a micro-history of a contemporary Nuer prophetess (guan kuoth) in South Sudan who mobilized hundreds of armed men including in support of current anti-government rebellions. The article grapples with apparent paradoxes in her approach to kume (a broadly defined notion of government) and
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Legacies of Kanjogera: women political elites and the transgression of gender norms in Rwanda Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-01-02 Sarah E. Watkins, Erin Jessee
ABSTRACT Kanjogera looms large in Rwandan history as a Queen Mother (1895–1931) – a position equal to that of the king – who wielded extraordinary political power. While she was not the first Rwandan woman to exercise this kind of power, she is arguably the most widely remembered in Rwandan popular culture largely due to the brutalities she allegedly inflicted upon her perceived enemies. But why do
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Locating the ‘customary’ in post-colonial Tanzania’s politics: the shifting modus operandi of the rural state Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-01-02 Felicitas Becker
ABSTRACT This paper examines how both rhetoric about custom and practices drawing on elements of deep-rooted political culture remain relevant in post-colonial Tanzania. This is the case despite the Tanzanian government’s aggressively modernising stance and the erasure of colonial-era ‘traditional’ chiefs after independence. The paper identifies three patterns. Firstly, witchcraft cleansing remains
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In search of chiefly authority in ‘post-aid’ Acholiland: transformations of customary authorities in northern Uganda Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-01-02 Sophie Komujuni, Karen Büscher
ABSTRACT This paper investigates the complex relation between protracted donor interventions and the production of customary authority. More specifically, the paper analyses the impact of post-conflict donor interventions (and their withdrawal) on the position of customary chiefs in the Acholi region in northern Uganda. As important brokers between international aid agencies, the Ugandan government
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Revisiting colonial legacies in knowledge production on customary authority in Central and East Africa Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-01-02 Judith Verweijen, Vicky Van Bockhaven
ABSTRACT Renewed attention on customary authority in both scholarship and development interventions renders it pertinent to revisit how contemporary engagement with this form of authority is still informed by colonial legacies. These legacies include: first, the penchant to see customary authority as solely invested in ‘chiefs’, rather than being relational and multifaceted; second, compartmentalized
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Anioto and nebeli: local power bases and the negotiation of customary chieftaincy in the Belgian Congo (ca. 1930–1950) Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2020-01-02 Vicky Van Bockhaven
ABSTRACT By means of two case studies, this paper demonstrates how customary chiefs in Northeast Congo crafted their power position under colonial indirect rule. The first case discusses chiefs’ role in anioto or leopard-men killings to secure their authority over people, land and resources whilst circumventing colonial control. The second case concerns nebeli, a collective therapy characterised by
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Ethnic associations and politics in contemporary Malawi Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2019-10-16 Gift Wasambo Kayira, Paul Chiudza Banda, Amanda Lea Robinson
ABSTRACT Malawi has recently seen a rise in the number and prominence of formal ethnic associations. What is the nature of these organizations and what effect will they have on politics? To answer these questions, we conducted in-depth interviews with current and former leaders of the three main ethnic associations, Mulhako wa Alhomwe, Mzimba Heritage Association, and Chewa Heritage Foundation. The
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Constructing citizens and subjects in eastern Ethiopia: identity formation during the British Military Administration Journal of Eastern African Studies (IF 1.026) Pub Date : 2019-10-12 Namhla Thando Matshanda
ABSTRACT This article investigates the construction of citizens and subjects in eastern Ethiopia during the period of the British Military Administration from 1944 to 1954. It does so by examining processes of identity formation during this period. The article argues that when Britain administered parts of eastern Ethiopia during this period it entrenched customary authority, which became a focal point
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