Lynch, Gabrielle. (2011) The wars of who belongs where : the unstable politics of autochthony on Kenya's Mt Elgon. Ethnopolitics, Vol.10 (No.3-4). pp. 391-410. ISSN 1744-9057

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

This paper examines the politics of belonging or autochthony on Mt Elgon in western Kenya, and associated occasions of inter- and intra-communal violence. The paper argues that divergent claims of ‘who is who’ and ‘who belongs where and why’ lie at the heart of these periods of violence, and suggests that the uncertainty of ‘belonging’ is due not just to the vagueness of the term and histories of migration, as is often argued, but to cross-cutting layers of ethnic appellations, which result from changes to administrative boundaries and ethnic terminology. Second, the paper argues that a violent politics of belonging has been exacerbated by a return to multi-party politics and larger global trends, but that it has not been caused by such developments. Instead, the case study suggests that the fundamental explanation of confrontation lies with the appeal and use of an inherently exclusive and unstable discourse of culturally distinct communities with discrete homelands that is then used by politicians and ordinary citizens in contexts of heightened competition, increased attention to the local, and uneven impact of ‘globalization’ and ‘development’. Finally, the case highlights the important role that new technologies play in contemporary public discussions and understandings of a collective self.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > DT Africa G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GN Anthropology H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
Divisions:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Politics and International Studies
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Group identity -- Kenya -- Mt. Elgon District, Mt. Elgon District (Kenya) -- Politics and government, Ethnicity -- Kenya -- Mt. Elgon District, Mt. Elgon District (Kenya) -- Social conditions, Ethnic conflict -- Kenya -- Mt. Elgon District
Journal or Publication Title:	Ethnopolitics
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
ISSN:	1744-9057
Date:	15 September 2011
Volume:	Vol.10
Number:	No.3-4
Page Range:	pp. 391-410
Identification Number:	10.1080/17449057.2011.596671
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Publication Status:	Published
Access rights to Published version:	Restricted or Subscription Access
References:	Africa Watch (1993) Divide and Rule: State Sponsored Ethnic Violence in Kenya (New York: Human Rights Watch). Albaugh, E. (2011) An autocrat’s toolkit: adaptation and manipulation in ‘democratic’ Cameroon, Democratization, 18(2), pp. 388–414. Anderson, D. & Lochery, E. (2008) Violence and exodus in Kenya’s Rift Valley, 2008: predictable and preventable? Journal of Eastern African Studies, 2(2), pp. 328–343. Anderson, D. & Lynch, G. (2009) Autochthony, indigeneity and the politics of identity. Paper presented at Ethnicity and Democratic Governance Conference on Democratization and Ethnic Communities, University of Toronto, 17–18 April. Appadurai, A. (1998) Dead certainty: ethnic violence in the era of globalization, Public Culture, 10(2), pp. 225–247. Bates, R.H. (2008) When Things Fell Apart: State Failure in Late-century Africa (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press). Bayart, J.-F. (2000) Africa in the world: a history of extraversion, African Affairs, 99(395), pp. 217–267. Berman, B. (1998) Ethnicity, patronage and the African State: the politics of uncivil nationalism, African Affairs, 97, pp. 305–341. Berry, S. (2004) Reinventing the local? Privatization, decentralization and the politics of resource management: examples from Africa, African Study Monographs, 25(2), pp. 79–101. Blackburn, R. (1976) Okiek history, in: B.A. Ogot (Ed.), Kenya Before 1900: Eight Regional Studies, pp. 58–82 (Nairobi: East African Publishing House). Boone, C. (2007) Africa’s new territorial politics: regionalism and the open economy of Coˆte d’Ivoire, African Studies Review, 50(1), pp. 59–81. Branch, D. (forthcoming) Kenya: Between Hope and Despair, 1963–2010 (New Haven: Yale University Press). Breen, R. (1972) The Kenya Land Commission (1932–33) and Dorobo Land Issues, Staff Seminar, Department of History, University of Nairobi. Ceuppens, B. (2006) Allochtons, colonizers, and scroungers: exclusionary populism in Belgium, African Studies Review, 49(2), pp. 147–186. Ceuppens, B. & Geschiere, P. (2005) Autochthony: local or global? New modes in the struggle over citizenship and belonging in Africa and Europe, Annual Review of Anthropology, 34, pp. 385–407. Changeiywo, J. (2004) Comment on a defamatory letter written by members of the Pok community through a Godfrey Kipsisey, 26 March 2004, available online at: www.ogiek.org 408 G. Lynch Colonial Office (1934) Kenya Land Commission: Evidence and Memoranda (Nairobi: Government Printers). Colonial Office (1962) Report of the Regional Boundaries Commission (Nairobi: Government Printers). Comaroff, J. & Comaroff, J. (2001) Naturing the nation: aliens, apocalypse and the post-colonial state, Journal of Southern African Studies, 27(3), pp. 627–651. Daily Nation (Nairobi, Kenya) (1963) The rivals of Elgon, 7 September. Dunn, K. (2009) ‘Sons of the soil’ and contemporary state making: autochthony, uncertainty and political violence in Africa, Third World Quarterly, 30(1), pp. 113–127. Elgon Nyanza District Annual Report (1960) Kenya National Archive, Nairobi, DC/NN/1/39. Eriksen, T.H. (2002) Ethnicity and Nationalism, 2nd ed. (London: Pluto). Fedders, F. & Salvadori, C. (1979) Peoples and Cultures of Kenya (Nairobi: Transafrica). Fraser, N. (1995) From redistribution to recognition: dilemmas of justice in a post-socialist age, New Left Review, 212(1), pp. 19–49. Geschiere, P. (2004) Ecology, belonging and xenophobia: the 1994 forest law in Cameroon and the issue of community, in: H. Englund & F. Nyamnjoh (Eds), Rights and the Politics of Recognition in Africa (London: Zed Books). Geschiere, P. (2009) The Perils of Belonging: Autochthony, Citizenship and Exclusion in Africa and Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). Geschiere, P. & Jackson, S. (2006) Autochthony and the crisis of citizenship: democratization, decentralization, and the politics of belonging, African Studies Review, 49(2), pp. 1–14. Geschiere, P. & Nyamnjoh, F. (2000) Capitalism & autochthony: the seesaw of mobility and belonging, Public Culture, 12(2), pp. 423–452. Green, E. (2007) Demography, diversity and nativism in contemporary Uganda: evidence from Uganda, Nations and Nationalism, 13(4), pp. 717–736. Hobsbawn, E. & Ranger, T. (Ed) (1983) The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Horowtiz, D. (2000) Ethnic Groups in Conflict, updated ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press). Human Rights Watch (2008) ‘All the Men Have Gone’: War Crimes in Kenya’s Mount Elgon Conflict (New York: HRW). Igoe, J. (2006) Becoming indigenous peoples: difference inequality and the globalization of East African identity politics, African Affairs, 105(420), pp. 399–430. Iliffe, J. (1979) A Modern History of Tanganyika (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Independent Medico-Legal Unit (2008) Preliminary Report of Medico-Legal Investigation of Torture by the Military at Mt Elgon (Nairobi: IMLU). Jackson, S. (2006) Sons of which soil? The language and politics of autochthony in Eastern D. R. Congo, African Studies Review, 49(2), pp. 95–123. Jua, N. (2001) Democracy and the construction of allogeny/autochthony in postcolonial Cameroon, African Issues, 29(1&2), pp. 37–42. Kakai, P.W. (2000) , History of Inter-ethnic Relations in Bungoma, Mt Elgon and Trans Nzoia District, 1875– 1997, PhD Dissertation, Kenyatta University. Kenya Intelligence Committee (1963) KIC Monthly Appreciation, June 1963, Public Records Office, London/ CO 822/3059. Kenya National Commission of Human Rights (2008) ‘The Cry of Blood’: Report on Extra-judicial Killings and Disappearances (Nairobi: KNCHR). Kenya, Republic of (1999) Report of the Judicial Commission Appointed to Inquire into Tribal Clashes in Kenya (Nairobi: Government Printers). Kimaiyo, T. (2004) Ogiek Land Cases and Historical Injustices, 1902–2004, Vol. 1 (Nakuru: Ogiek Welfare Council). Kipkorir, B. (1975) The Marakwet of Kenya: A Preliminary Study (Nairobi: East African Publishing House). Kipsisey, G. (n.d.) Open letter on the indigenous rights of the Sabaot, a copy of which was given to the author. Kiptum, Y. (2004) Eviction, brutality and displacement of Ogiek, 4 March, available online at: www.ogiek.org Kiptum, Y. (2008) Ogiek indigenous peoples of Chepkitale Forest in Mount Elgon cry for your help!, 4 June, available online at: www.fpcn-global.org/node/202 Klumpp, D. & Kratz, C. (1993) Aesthetics, expertise and ethnicity: Okiek and Maasai perspectives on personal ornament, in: T. Spear & R. Waller (Eds), Being Maasai: Ethnicity and Identity in East Africa, pp. 195–222 (Oxford: James Currey). Kratz, C. (1980) Are the Okiek really Masai? Or Kipsigis? Or Kikuyu? Cahiers d’Etudes Africaines, 20(3), pp. 355–368. The Wars of Who Belongs Where 409 Downloaded by [University of Warwick] at 07:23 14 March 2012 Kraxberger, B. (2005) Strangers, indigenes and settlers: contested geographies of citizenship in Nigeria, Space and Polity, 9(1), pp. 9–27. Lentz, C. & Nugent, P. (Eds) (2000) Ethnicity in Ghana: The Limits of Invention (Basingstoke: St Martin’s Press). Leonhardt, A. (2006) Baka and the magic of the state: between autochthony and citizenship, African Studies Review, 49(2), pp. 69–94. Lonsdale, J. (2008) Soil, work, civilization and citizenship in Kenya, Journal of Eastern African Studies, 2(2), pp. 305–314. Lynch, G. (2006) Negotiating ethnicity: identity politics in contemporary Kenya, Review of African Political Economy, 33(107), pp. 385–410. Lynch, G. (2011a) Kenya’s new indigenes: negotiating local identities in a global context, Nations and Nationalism, 17(1), pp. 148–167. Lynch, G. (2011b) I Say to You: Ethnic Politics and the Kalenjin in Kenya (Chicago: Chicago University Press). MacArthur, J. (2008) How the west was won: regional politics and prophetic promises in the 2007 Kenya elections, Journal of Eastern African Studies, 2(2), pp. 227–241. Marshall-Fratani, R. (2006) The war of ‘who is who’: autochthony, nationalism and citizenship in the Ivorian crisis, African Studies Review, 49(2), pp. 9–43. Masinjila, M. & Okombo, O. (Eds) (1998) Voices from the Mountain: Personal Life Histories from Mt. Elgon (Nairobi: Kenya Oral Literature Association). Medard, C. (2006), Indigenous land claims in Kenya: a case study of Chebyuk, Mount Elgon District. Unpublished paper. Me´dicins sans Frontie`res (May 2008) Mount Elgon: Does Anybody Care? MSF Takes Stock after One Year in the Heart of the Crisis in Mt Elgon (Brussels: MSF). Ng’ang’a, W. (2006) Kenya’s Ethnic Communities: Foundation of the Nation (Nairobi: Gatundu Publishers). Niezen, R. (2009) The Rediscovered Self: Indigenous Identity and Cultural Justice (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press). North Nyanza Annual Report (1949) Kenya National Archive, Nairobi, DC/NN/1/31. Nyanza Province Annual Report (1945) Kenya National Archive, Nairobi, PC/NZA/1/40. Ogiek Peoples Development Programme (2007) Mt Elgon genocide update: Pok people stop genocide against Chepkitale Ogiek, 2 April, available online at: www.ogiek.org Ogot, B.A. (1981) Historical Dictionary of Kenya (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press). Posner, D. (2005) Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Ranger, T. (1983) The invention of tradition in colonial Africa, in: E. Hobsbawn & T. Ranger (Eds), The Invention of Tradition, pp. 211–262 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Ranger, T. (1993) The invention of tradition revisited, in: T. Ranger & O. Vaughan (Eds), Legitimacy and the State in Twentieth Century Africa: Essays in Honour of A. H. M. Kirk-Greene, pp. 62–111 (London: Macmillan). Regional Boundaries Commission (1962) Memorandum submitted by members of WKC to the RBC, Public Records Office, London/CO/895/1. Socpa, A. (2006) Bailleurs autochtones et locataires alloge`nes: enjeu foncier et participation politique au Cameroun, African Studies Review, 49(2), pp. 45–67. Southall, A. (1970) The illusion of tribe, in: P. Gutkind (Ed.), The Passing of Tribal Man in Africa, pp. 31–46 (Leiden: Brill). Sutton, J. (1973) The Archaeology of the Western Highlands of Kenya (Nairobi: British Institute in Eastern Africa). Taylor, C. (1992) Multiculturalism and ‘The Politics of Recognition’ (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). The Standard (Nairobi, Kenya) (2010a) Maasai want TJRC to probe land injustices, 23 February, available online at: http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/archives/InsidePage.php?id=2000004018&cid=& The Standard (Nairobi, Kenya) (2010b) Ntimama wants probe into annexation of Maasai land, 14 March, available online at: http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/archives/InsidePage.php?id=2000005600&cid=& Throup, D. & Hornsby, C. (1998) Multi-party Politics in Kenya: The Kenyatta and Moi States and the Triumph of the System in the 1992 Election (Oxford: James Currey). Were, G.S. (1967) Western Kenya Historical Texts: Abaluyia, Teso and Elgon Kalenjin (Nairobi: East African Literature Bureau). Willis, J. (1993) Mombasa, the Swahili, and the Making of the Mijikenda (Oxford: Clarendon Press).
URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/38689

Request changes to a record

Actions (login required)

View Item