Self-Minoritization

Abstract This article looks at the process through which the Ibadi Mzabi community in the Algerian desert “minoritized” itself during the colonial period, leading into the 1948 elections to represent the Mzab Valley on the newly created Algerian Assembly. This representation legally and effectively incorporated the Mzab into French Algeria and ended its special status as a French protectorate. Mzabi self-minoritization, Ghazal argues, was a process of performative differentiation based on a sectarian identity. It was initiated by the colonized and negotiated with the colonizer, emerging at the intersection of colonialism and the institutionalization of political representation in colonial Algeria. Ghazal defines this process as self-minoritization to attribute a proactive role for, and more agency to, the colonized in claiming a “minority” identity and negotiating a special status within the colonial order.

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‘History has many cunning passages’: Kwasi Apea Nuama between the Asante and the British

Africa ◽

10.1017/s0001972017000894 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 88 (2) ◽

pp. 222-237

Author(s):

Tom McCaskie

Keyword(s):

Life History ◽

Colonial Period ◽

Early Colonial ◽

History Of ◽

Colonial Order

AbstractThis article, a companion piece to that on Kwame Tua, traces the life history of his elder full brother Kwasi Apea Nuama (c.1862–1936) as he too sought purchase and place in the new colonial order in Asante. Temperamentally a very different man from his brother, Kwasi Apea Nuama set out to make himself indispensable as the interpreter of Asante history and custom to the uncomprehending British. Both brothers, then, were mediators or translators between the old and new worlds in which they found themselves. Their heyday was the often anarchic early colonial period. Thereafter, and most especially after the British restored the office and some of the prerogatives of Asante kingship, their influence fell away. They found themselves caught between a colonial order that had little further need of their services, and a restored Asante polity that demonized them as collaborators.

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Les relations franco-kényanes dans les courses de fond : Un processus postcolonial singulier (1960–2019)

STADION ◽

10.5771/0172-4029-2020-1-204 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 44 (1) ◽

pp. 204-225

Author(s):

Cyril Thomas ◽

Pascal Charroin ◽

Bastien Soule

Keyword(s):

Mexico City ◽

Colonial Period ◽

Structured Interviews ◽

Long Distance ◽

Colonial Era ◽

Post Colonial ◽

The World ◽

Colonial Order ◽

Relationship Of ◽

Interdependent Relationships

At the Mexico City Olympics, Kenya won eight medals in athletics. This performance enabled this State, whose independence dated back just four years, to display its identity to the eyes of the world. Kenyan athletics, mainly in middle- and long-distance events, continued to assert itself until it dominated the medal ranking in the 2015 World Championships. However, even if it is a vehicle for emancipation and identity-building, Kenyan athletics is also dependent on external influences. Therefore, even though France and Kenya never had colonial links, they have built interdependent relationships in athletics during the post-colonial era. The purpose of this study is to understand the particular postcolonial process around which these relationships were built, in the absence of colonial ties. We have chosen to conduct this study based on the investigation of minutes of the French Athletics Federation (FFA) committees and the journal L’Athlétisme, the official FFA review. We conducted semi-structured interviews with Kenyan and French athletics actors (athletes, managers, race organizers, and federal officials). These data reveal a continuing domination of Kenya, by France, in athletics. This relationship of domination marks a survival of the colonial order. However, Kenyan athletes’ domination, especially in marathons, contributes to the vulnerability of French performances. The singularity of the postcolonial process studied lies as much in the absence of colonial ties between France and Kenya as in the transformation of a relationship of domination specific to the colonial period.

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Devolution and the politics of communal tenure reform in Kenya

African Affairs ◽

10.1093/afraf/adaa010 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 119 (476) ◽

pp. 338-369

Author(s):

Gargule A Achiba ◽

Monica N Lengoiboni

Keyword(s):

Land Reform ◽

Political Representation ◽

Local Level ◽

Colonial Period ◽

Reform Process ◽

Post Colonial ◽

Tenure Reform ◽

Communal Tenure ◽

Governance Institutions

Abstract Increased legal access and the devolution of natural resource administration are generally seen as sources of power for local communities and their institutions. However, beyond this widely held expectation, the politics of land reform suggest that legal recognition of rights and devolution is not the only issue with implications for communal tenure reforms. Misconceptions about communal tenure, which are rooted in history, and their appropriation by local elites in the processes of communal tenure reform are characteristic of both colonial and post-colonial governments in Kenya. Although typically articulated and promulgated to enhance political representation and to devolve control over resources to the local level, unresolved issues in the reform process have worked to undermine the legitimacy of communal land rights in contemporary Kenyan society. A case study of the post-2010 community land legislation process demonstrates the continuing relevance of historically conditioned political and ideological representations of communal tenure built during the colonial period and reproduced in policy in independent Kenya. This paper offers reflections on the centrality of sustained communal tenure misconceptions, fetishization of formal governance institutions, and the institutional and power configurations that primarily benefit powerful stakeholders as sources of the current breakdown in the implementation of community land law.

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URCHINS, LOAFERS AND THE CULT OF THE COWBOY: URBANIZATION AND DELINQUENCY IN DAR ES SALAAM, 1919–61

The Journal of African History ◽

10.1017/s0021853701007861 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 42 (2) ◽

pp. 199-216 ◽

Cited By ~ 18

Author(s):

ANDREW BURTON

Keyword(s):

Dar Es Salaam ◽

Colonial Period ◽

African Population ◽

Rapid Urbanization ◽

Colonial Era ◽

Colonial Policy ◽

African Youth ◽

British Colonial ◽

Colonial Order

During the British colonial period a substantial young African population emerged in Dar es Salaam. Both colonial officials and African elders viewed this with dismay. They felt the resulting demoralisation of African youth posed a threat to both (African) authority and (colonial) order. However, measures aimed at addressing the ramifications of this phenomenon were mostly unsuccessful. Ironically, whilst British colonial policy aimed to keep African youth quiescent in rural, gerontocratic, tribal administrations, colonialism in fact provided the context in which both rapid urbanization and generational tension occurred. These continued to occur after independence; and it is argued that TANU politicians not only inherited the problems associated with the administration of the Tanganyikan capital, but that their responses were influenced by European and ‘elite’ African attitudes of the colonial era.

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An Analysis of Kanthapura by Raja Rao: A Postcolonial Study

Psychology and Education Journal ◽

10.17762/pae.v58i1.1629 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 58 (1) ◽

pp. 4701-4708

Author(s):

Bisma Butt Et al.

Keyword(s):

Political Representation ◽

Historical Consciousness ◽

Colonial Period ◽

Indian Women ◽

True Nature ◽

Nationalist Discourse ◽

Representation Of Women ◽

Raja Rao ◽

Building Process ◽

Religious Stereotypes

This study focuses the ‘Kanthapura’ to analyze the construction of historical consciousness in narratives and this fiction is used as literary aspect of nationalist ideology. Particularly, this work examines the political representation of women in Indian national movement in 1930 by using the theory of nationalism by Bhabha (1990). The study demystifies this novel to find out challenges of stereotypical Indian women and how they become solidified in the building process of Indian national identity. Kanthapura (Delhi Orient) is very much concerned to focus on the construction of Vedic Hindu ideal for women and the reason of writing true and authentic history to investigate the women’s issues they face during the colonial period of India. The study sheds light on imagined and true nature of nationalist discourse and its effect on women in postcolonial India. It is not concerned with those doctrines of nationalist sentiments which are generalized through religious stereotypes rather it is paradoxical in nature that begins to assume identification with European accounts of India so it explores the idea of political desirability that shapes and constructs the ideology and as well as it allows for the presentation of unified identity of India.

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Silence of the Land: On the Historical Irrelevance of Territory to Congressional Districting and Political Representation in the United States

Studies in American Political Development ◽

10.1017/s0898588x01010045 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 15 (01) ◽

pp. 53-87 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Andrew Rehfeld

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

House Of Representatives ◽

Political Representation ◽

The United States ◽

Representative Government ◽

Congressional District ◽

Congressional Districts ◽

Communities Of Interest

Every ten years, the United States “constructs” itself politically. On a decennial basis, U.S. Congressional districts are quite literally drawn, physically constructing political representation in the House of Representatives on the basis of where one lives. Why does the United States do it this way? What justifies domicile as the sole criteria of constituency construction? These are the questions raised in this article. Contrary to many contemporary understandings of representation at the founding, I argue that there were no principled reasons for using domicile as the method of organizing for political representation. Even in 1787, the Congressional district was expected to be far too large to map onto existing communities of interest. Instead, territory should be understood as forming a habit of mind for the founders, even while it was necessary to achieve other democratic aims of representative government.

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