Changing Identifications and Alliances in North-east Africa

Forms of group identity play a prominent role in everyday lives and politics in north-east Africa. These volumes provide an interdisciplinary account of the nature and significance of ethnic, religious, and national identity in north-east 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.

Forms of group identity play a prominent role in everyday lives and politics in north-east Africa. These volumes provide an interdisciplinary account of the nature and significance of ethnic, religious, and national identity in north-east 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.

List of Maps, Plates, Figures and Tables
List of Abbreviations

Introduction
Elizabeth E. Watson and Günther Schlee

Part I. Raiding, War and Peace, Sudan and Northern Uganda

1. The Nuer Civil Wars
Douglas H. Johnson

2. Peace and Puzzlement: Grass-roots Peace Initiatives between the Nuer and Dinka of South Sudan
Sharon Elaine Hutchinson

3. The Experience of Violence and Pastoralist Identity in Southern Karamoja
Sandra Gray

Part II. Politics of Kinship and Marriage, Sudan and Northern Kenya

4. Endogamy and Alliance in Northern Sudan
Janice Boddy

5. Descent and Descent Ideologies: The Blue Nile Area (Sudan) and Northern Kenya Compared
Günther Schlee

Part III. Encounters with Modernity, Sudan and Sudan–Ethiopia Borderlands

6. The Rise and Decline of Lorry Driving in the Fallata Migrant Community of Maiurno on the Blue Nile
Al-Amin Abu-Manga

7. Mbororo (Fulɓe) Migrations from Sudan into Ethiopia
Dereje Feyissa and Günther Schlee

Part IV. Displacement, Refuge and Identification

8. Conflict and Identity Politics: The Case of Anywaa–Nuer Relations in Gambela, Western Ethiopia
Dereje Feyissa

9. The Cultural Resilience in Nuer Conversion and a ‘Capitalist Missionary’
Christiane Falge

10. Changing Identifications among the Pari Refugees in Kakuma
Eisei Kurimoto

11. Crossing Points: Journeys of Transformation on the Sudan–Ethiopian Border
Wendy James

Bibliography
Notes on Contributors
Index