European Attitudes and African Realities: the rise and fall of the Matolac chiefs of south-east Tanzania

1979 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terence Ranger
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Central Africa ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Ethnic Identities ◽  
Political Complexity ◽  
Cultural Processes ◽  
Political Consolidation ◽  
Indirect Rule

Successive Europeans in south-east Tanzania looked for an ethnically based political authority under whom to live or with whom to work. Bishop Edward Steere of the Universities' Mission to Central Africa predicted the existence of very large tribal and linguistic ‘nations’ when this turned out not to be so, the UMCA missionaries who had settled at Masasi sought anxiously for some influential chief who could be represented as heading an ethnic polity; first German and then British administrators over-readily assumed that the chiefs whom they installed as akidas did in fact represent such ethnicities; finally, in the late 1920s, the British instituted historical research prior to the establishment of Indirect Rule, which was intended to reflect the ethnic and political complexity of the region. This European preoccupation with ethnicity bore little relation to the actualities of the region, which from the nineteenth-century incursions of the Yao, Makua and Makonde had constituted a mosaic of small, autonomous and ethnically mixed groupings. Nevertheless, certain African adventurers were able to take advantage of the European need for allies to build up their power, to become recognised as ‘chiefs’, and ultimately to become regarded as leaders of ethnicities. This was the case with Matola I and Matola II of Newala who between them developed their polity from a very small scattering of huts to a large and prosperous paramountcy. Within the Matola polity various social and cultural processes were at work to produce a common sense of identity, but these processes had not fully eroded the marks of the varying ethnic identities of those who belonged or submitted to the polity. The Indirect Rule inquiries, therefore, with their fanatical emphasis upon ethnicity as the only legitimate base for political authority had the result of dismantling the Matola polity and thereby destroying the only effective local nucleus of political consolidation.

From Intuitions to Anarchism?

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Gordon
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
Common View ◽  
Libertarian Theory

AbstractWhen libertarian political philosophy attracted wide public notice in the 1970s, a common view was that the distinctive individual rights advocated in libertarian theory required grounding in a theory of ethics. Recently, this view has come under challenge. It has been argued that resort to such grounding in ethical theory is unneeded. An appeal to common sense intuitions suffices to justify libertarianism. First, a brief account of libertarianism will be presented. Then, some examples of the older, pro-grounding position will be discussed. Then, the principal defense of the newer view, Michael Huemer’s The Problem of Political Authority, will be examined. This discussion constitutes the substance of the present paper. The principal contention of the present article will be that the argument to libertarianism from intuitions does not succeed. In conclusion, it will be suggested that a return to the earlier, grounding view is indicated for philosophers who wish to defend libertarianism.

DIFFERENTIATING ‘BUSHMEN’ FROM ‘BANTUS’: IDENTITY-BUILDING IN WEST CAPRIVI, NAMIBIA, 1930–89

2009 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 417-436 ◽  
Author(s):  
JULIE J. TAYLOR
Keyword(s):  
Political Authority ◽  
Ethnic Identities ◽  
Political Factors ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Liberation Struggle ◽  
State Interventions ◽  
Shed Light

ABSTRACTThis article focuses on the historical and political factors that shaped Khwe (San) and Mbukushu ethnic identities and their interrelationship between 1938 and 1989 in west Caprivi, Namibia. While acknowledging the multi-authored nature of identity-building, the article demonstrates that the colonial and apartheid states made significant contributions to the construction of ethnicity in west Caprivi through veterinary interventions in the 1930s and apartheid policies regarding ‘Bushmen’ in the 1950s, and by securing Khwe collaboration during Namibia's liberation struggle in the 1970s and 1980s. These state interventions, together with Khwe and Mbukushu responses to them, also shed light on why land and political authority became so central to struggles between the two groups.

‘I Am the Law’: District Commissioner Fiction and the State of Exception

2019 ◽  
pp. 26-53
Author(s):  
Katherine Isobel Baxter
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
State Of Exception ◽  
The Law ◽  
Indirect Rule ◽  
District Commissioner

Chapter Two identifies and anatomizes an important subgenre in the adventure tradition in literature: District Commissioner fiction. This subgenre is significant because, while in the nineteenth century the colonial hero was typically represented as a buccaneer outside the law, District Commissioner fiction repositions the hero within and as the law. Edgar Wallace’s Sanders of the River series is read alongside works by Arthur E. Southon in relation to theories of the state of exception, to demonstrate how the District Commissioner and the policy of indirect rule that he represents are figured exceptionally, standing outside the law as the force of law.

Creolization and Creole Communities in the Portuguese Atlantic: São Tomé, Cape Verde, the Rivers of Guinea and Central Africa in Comparison

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
GERHARD SEIBERT
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Social Interaction ◽  
Central Africa ◽  
Cape Verde ◽  
Ethnic Identities ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
Sao Tome And Principe ◽  
Local Cultures

The Portuguese maritime expansion from the 15th century led to interactions and trade between Europeans and Africans. In places where the Portuguese established permanent bases, social interaction with Africans entailed processes of biological and cultural mixing, the outcome of which varied significantly depending on the different geographic, demographic, political and linguistic circumstances. In particular historical and social-cultural contexts, acculturation assumed the form of creolisation, a concept that is defined as a process of ethnicisation and indiginisation whereby former ethnic identities disappear and are replaced by a new ethnic identity. According to this definition, Creole societies only emerged in the archipelagos of Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe, but not in the Rivers of Guinea, where creolisation only partly occurred with regard to one particular group. Creole cultures did not emerge in Kongo or Angola either, where local cultures and languages remained largely intact.

A Righteous Consensus, Whig Style

2021 ◽  
pp. 73-88
Author(s):  
George M. Marsden
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
State Universities ◽  
Reformed Tradition ◽  
Christian Morality ◽  
Protestant Denominations

Various Protestant denominations founded hundreds of colleges during the first half of the nineteenth century. Even two-thirds of presidents of state universities were clergymen. Though those in the Reformed tradition tended to be the leading educators, denominational diversity and necessities of attracting varieties of students weakened doctrinal distinctives. The prevailing “Whig” ideal emphasized combining building a modern civilization with Christian morality. Educators, such as Francis Wayland or Mark Hopkins, confidently assumed that the best of objective common sense and modern science would support traditional Christianity. Colleges still promoted the evangelical tradition, as in campus revivals. They taught the classics as a way of developing moral faculties, as the Yale Report of 1828 advocated. Specifically Christian perspectives were found in capstone moral philosophy courses.

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