PLEASE NOTE this is a 2013 reading list—the precise content may change in future years.
Term 1, Week 1
Topic: Understanding Ethnicity and Violence
Seminar questions:
1. What is an ethnic group? What is the difference between an 'ethnic group' and a 'tribe'?
2. Is it useful to use the term 'tribe'? Should the term 'ethnic group' be used instead
3. What is autochthony? How does it relate to ethnic identies and violence?
4. What constitutes violence?
Readings:
a) Understanding Ethnicity:
* Africa Action, 'Talking about "Tribe" - Moving from stereotypes to analysis'
* Berman, B. (1998) Politics of Uncivil Nationalism: Ethnicity, patronage and the African
State, African Affairs, 97: 305-341
Iliffe, J. (1979) A Modern History of Tanganyika. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, (Chapter
10)
Lentz, C. and P. Nugent (eds) (2000) Ethnicity in Ghana: The limits of invention. Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan (Introduction)
Lynch, G. (2006) Negotiating Ethnicity: Identity Politics in Contemporary Kenya, Reveiw of African
Political Economy, 33 (107): 49-65
Lynch G. (2011) I Say to You: Ethnic politics and the Kalenjin in Kenya, Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, (Introduction)
Mafeje, A. (1971) The Ideology of 'Tribalism.' The Journal of Modern African Studies, 9 (2): 253-261
*Ranger, T. (1993) The Invention of Tradition Revisited. in T. Ranger and O. Vaughan (eds,
iLegitimacy and the State in Twentieth Century Africa. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Online PDF copy
available here.
Thomson, A. (2010) An Introduction to African Politics, Abingdon: Routledge (Chapter 4)
Vail, L. (ed.) (1989) The Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa. London: James Currey (especially the
introduction, but all chapters are useful)
b) Autochthony and the Politics of Belonging:
Dunn, K. (2009) ‘Sons of the soil’ and contemporary state making: autochthony, uncertainty and
political violence in Africa.Third World Quarterly 30(1): 113–127
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): 1–14
* Jackson, S. (2006) Sons of which soil? The language and politics of autochthony in Eastern D. R.
Congo. African Studies Review 49(2): 95–123
Lynch, G. (2011) The Wars of Who Belongs Where: The Unstable Politics of Autochthony on Kenya’s
Mt Elgon. Ethnopolitics10 (3-4): 391-410
Mamdani, M. (1996) Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of late
Colonialism. Princeton: Princeton University Press (Chapters 2 & 3)
Marshall-Fratani, R. (2006) The war of ‘who is who’: autochthony, nationalism and citizenship in the
Ivorian crisis. African Studies Review 49(2): 9–43
c) Understanding Violence:
Farmer P. (1996) On suffering and structural violence: A view from below, Daedalus 125 (1): 261-283
Farmer, P. (2004) An Anthropology of Structural Violence. Current Anthropology 45 (3)
* Galtung, J. (1969) Peace, and Peace Research. Journal of Peace Research 6 (3): 167-191
Galtung, J. & T. Hoivik (1971) Structural and direct violence. Journal of Peace Research 18 (1): 73-76
Galtung, J. (1985) Twenty-five years of peace research: Ten challenges and some responses. Journal
of Peace Research 22 (2): 141-158
Galtung, J. (1990) Cultural Violence. Journal of Peace Research 27 (3): 291-305
Pearce, J. (2009) Introduction: Researching democracy and social change with violence in the
foreground. IDS Bulletin 40 (3): 1-9
Petersen, R. D. (2002) Understanding ethnic violence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
(Introduction)