Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T01:27:59.234Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A chief by the people: nation versus state in Lesotho

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

David B. Coplan  and
Tim Quinlan
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The article explores the conflictual relationship among the Basotho chieftaincy, state, and nation in historical perspective. That history includes consideration of the recent and still unresolved political crisis in Lesotho. The current meaning of Sesotho, the ‘whole life process’ of the Basotho people, is examined in the context of the divergence between state and nation, between chiefs and people, between region and locality, and between modern and customary institutions and forms of organisation. Lesotho is unusual in Africa as a state attempting to emerge from an existing, monocultural nation rather than to build a not yet existing nation out of cultural plurality. It is this very peculiarity, and the state of seemingly endless political turmoil despite the absence of any ‘ethnic factor’ which provides the most telling commentary on more general relations between cultural and historical forms of political organisation in Africa.

Résumé

Cet article explore les relations discordantes parmi les chefs du Basotho, l'Etat, et la nation, d'une perspective historique. Cet histoire comprend la considération de la crise politique récente et toujours irrésolue au Lésotho. Le sens actuel de Sesotho, le ‘processus entire de vie’ du peuple Basotho, est examiné dans le contexte de la divergence entre l'Etat et la nation, entre les chefs et le peuple, entre la région et la localité, et entre les institutions et les formes d'organisation modernes et coutumières. Le Lésotho est inhabituel en Afrique en tant qu'Etat essayant d'émerger d'une nation jusqu'à présent monoculturelle au lieu de construire une nation, jusqu'à présent inexistante, à partir d'une pluralité culturelle. C'est cette particularité même et l'apparence d'être dans un conflit politique perpétuel malgré l'absence de ‘facteurs ethniques’, qui fournit le commentaire le plus révélateur sur les relations plus générales entre les formes culturelles et historiques d'organisation politique en Afrique.

Type
The local and the state
Information
Africa , Volume 67 , Issue 1 , January 1997 , pp. 27 - 60
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ambrose, D. 1973. ‘The Basotho settlement at Griquatown’, Lesotho Notes and Records IV, 601–64.Google Scholar
Anderson, B. 1991. Imagined Communities: reflections on the origins and spread of nationalism, revised edition. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Arbousset, T. 1991. Missionary Excursions, trans. Ambrose, David and Brutsch, Albert. Morija, Lesotho: Morija Archive.Google Scholar
Ashton, H. 1952. The Basuto. London: Oxford University Press for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Bardill, J. E., and Cobbe, J. H. 1985. Lesotho: dilemmas of dependence in southern Africa. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press; London: Gower.Google Scholar
Bhabha, H. 1994. ‘Dissemination: time, narrative and the margins of the modern nation’, in The Location of Culture. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, P. 1990. The Logic of Practice. Cambridge: Polity Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burman, Sandra. 1981. Chiefdom Politics and Alien Law: Basutoland under Cape rule, 1871–84. London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
C. C., 1946. Record in the High Court of Basutoland in the matter between Mosue Lelingoana and the Paramount Chief, CC 11/46, Legal Records, High Court, Maseru.Google Scholar
Comaroff, J. 1978. ‘Rules and rulers: political processes in a Tswana chiefdom’, Man 3, 1–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Comaroff, J. L. and Jean, . 1987. ‘The madman and the migrant’, American Ethnologist 14 (2), 187–209.Google Scholar
Comaroff, J. L. and Jean, . 1990. ‘Goodly beasts, beastly goods: cattle and commodities in a South African context’, American Ethnologist 17 (2), 195–216.Google Scholar
Coplan, D. B. 1988. ‘Musical understanding: the ethnoaesthetics of migrant workers' poetic song in Lesotho’, Ethnomusicology 32 (3), 337–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coplan, D. B. 1991. ‘Fictions that save: migrants' performance and Basotho national culture’, Cultural Anthropology 6 (2), 164–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coplan, D. B. 1994. In the Time of Cannibals: word music of South Africa's Basotho migrants. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.Google Scholar
Coplan, D. B. 1995. ‘In a state of emergency: democracy, power, and nationalist discourse in Lesotho’, Transformation (Durban) 26, 47–62.Google Scholar
Edgar, R. 1986. Prophets with Honour. Johannesburg: Ravan Press.Google Scholar
Eldredge, E. 1993. A South African Kingdom: the pursuit of security in nineteenth century Lesotho. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Epprecht, Marc. 1995. ‘Women's “conservatism” and the politics of gender in late colonial Lesotho’, Journal of African History 36, 29–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frank, Lawrence. 1992. ‘The End of Ideology in Lesotho’.Paper presented to the African Studies Association, annual meeting,Seattle, Wash.,21 November.Google Scholar
Geertz, C. 1983. Local Knowledge. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Germond, P. 1967. Chronicles of Basutoland. Lesotho: Morija Sesuto Book Depot.Google Scholar
Guy, J., and Thabane, M. 1988. ‘Technology, ethnicity and ideology: Basotho miners and shaft-sinking on the South African gold mines’, Journal of Southern African Studies 14 (2), 257–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hadley, P. (ed.). 1972. Doctor to Basuto, Boer and Briton, 1877–1906: memoirs of Dr. Henry Taylor. Cape Town: David Philip.Google Scholar
Hamnett, I. 1975. Chieftainship and Legitimacy. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, E. 1983. ‘Introduction’, in Hobsbawm, E. and Ranger, T. (eds), The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, E. 1996. ‘Identity politics and the left’, New Left Review 127, 38–47.Google Scholar
J. C., 1946. Record of the Court of the Judicial Commissioner held at Mokhotlong on 28 and 29 January 1946 before W. G. S. Driver, Esq., assisted by Harebatho Qamako representing the Paramount Chief, JC 31/46, Legal Records, High Court, Maseru.Google Scholar
Jingoes, S. J. 1975. A Chief is the Chief by the People. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Jones, G. I. 1951. Basutoland Medicine Murder. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Kimble, J. 1978. ‘Towards an Understanding of the Political Economy of Lesotho: the Origins of Commodity Production and Migrant Labour, 1830–85’. Unpublished M.A., National University of Lesotho, Roma.Google Scholar
Kimble, J. 1978. 1982. ‘Labour migration in Basutoland, c. 1870–85’, in Marks, S. and Rathbone, R. (eds.), Industrialisation and Social Change in South Africa, pp. 119–41. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Kuper, A. 1982. Wives for Cattle: bridewealth and marriage in Southern Africa. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Leeman, B. 1985. Lesotho and the Struggle for Azania I–II, 1780–1966. London: University of Azania, PAC Education Office.Google Scholar
Leeman, B. 1986. :Lesotho and the Struggle for Azania, supplement volume III, 1984—86. London: University of Azania, PAC Education Office.Google Scholar
Legassick, M. 1969. ‘The Sotho and Tswana peoples before 1800’, in Thompson, L. (ed.), African Societies in Southern Africa. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Machobane, L. B. B. J. 1990. Government and Change in Lesotho, 1800–1966. London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Machobane, L. B. B. J. 1995. ‘Cape colonial rule and African vassalage: the case of Lesotho, 1782–1884’, Journal of Research (Lesotho) 5, 87–114.Google Scholar
Makoa, F. 1995. ‘Lesotho beyond the elections’, African Studies 54 (1), 1–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maloka, E. T. 1995. ‘Basotho and the Mines: towards a history of labour migrancy, c. 1890–1940’. Unpublished Ph.D., University of Cape Town.Google Scholar
Marcus, G., and Fischer, M. 1986. Anthropology as Cultural Critique. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Matsela, F. Z. A. 1979. ‘The Indigenous Education of the Basotho and its Implications for Educational Development in Lesotho’. Unpub. Ed.D. thesis, University of Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Matsela, F. Z. A. 1987. Dipapadi Tsa Sesotho. Mazenod, Lesotho: Mazenod Printers.Google Scholar
Mokhehle, N. 1990. Moshoeshoe I Profile Se-Moshoeshoe, second edition. Lesotho: Mmoho Publications.Google Scholar
Mokitimi, M. I. P. 1982. ‘A Literary Analysis of Lifela tsa Litsamaea-Naha Poetry’. Unpublished M.A., University of Nairobi.Google Scholar
Mothibe, T. 1988. ‘Chieftaincy and Legitimation in Pre-colonial Lesotho’.Paper presented to the Southern Africa Joint History Seminar National University of Lesotho,1–3 August.Google Scholar
Mothibe, T. 1991. ‘Lesotho: historical legacies of nationalism and nationhood’, in Santho, S. and Sejanamane, M. (eds), Southern Africa after Apartheid. Harare: SAPES Trust.Google Scholar
Murray, C. 1980. ‘From granary to labour reserve: an economic history of Lesotho’, South African Labour Bulletin 6 (4), 3–20.Google Scholar
Murray, C. 1981. Families Divided: the impact of migrant labour in Lesotho. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Nairn, T. 1981. The Break-up of Britain, revised edition. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Orpen, J. 1857. History of the Basutos of South Africa. Reprinted Lesotho: Mazenod Book Centre, 1979.Google Scholar
Quinlan, T. 1988. ‘The perpetuation of myths: a case study on tribe and chief in South Africa’, Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law 27, 79–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quinlan, T. 1994. ‘Grassland degradation and livestock rearing in Lesotho’, Journal of Southern African Studies 11 (3) 491–507.Google Scholar
Quinlan, T. 1995. ‘Marena a Lesotho: chiefs, politics, and culture in Lesotho’. Unpublished Ph.D., University of Cape Town.Google Scholar
Rugege, S. 1991. ‘The future of “traditional” hereditary chieftaincy in a democratic southern Africa: the case of Lesotho’, in Santho, S. and Sejanamane, M. (eds), Southern Africa after Apartheid, pp. 148–85. Harare: SAPES.Google Scholar
Scott, David. 1992. ‘Criticism and culture: theory and post-colonial claims on anthropological disciplinarity’, Critique of Anthropology 12 (4), 371–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sheddick, T. 1954. Land Tenure in Basutoland. Colonial Research Studies 13. London: HSMO.Google Scholar
Simone, T. A. M. 1991. ‘Between the Lines: response of African civil society to ambiguous rule’, Africa seminar, Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town, 31 July.Google Scholar
Simone, T. A. M. 1994. In whose Image? Political Islam and urban practices in Sudan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Spiegel, A. 1990. ‘Changing Continuities: experiencing and interpreting history, population movement, and material differentiation in Matatiele, Transkei’. Unpublished Ph.D., University of Cape Town.Google Scholar
Southall, R. 1995. ‘Lesotho's transition and the 1993 election’, in Southall, R. and Petlane, T. (eds), Democratisation and Demilitarisation in Lesotho. Pretoria: Africa Institute of South Africa.Google Scholar
Southall, R. and Petlane, T. (eds). 1995. Democratisation and Demilitarisation in Lesotho: the general election of 1993 and its aftermath. Pretoria: Africa Institute of South Africa.Google Scholar
Thompson, L. 1975. Survival in Two Worlds: Moshoeshoe of Lesotho, 1786–1870. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Turkon, David. 1996. ‘social Differentiation in a Culturally Homogenous Setting: changes in sociocultural institutions and conceptions of self and other in Mokhotlong, Lesotho’. Unpublished Ph.D., State University of New York at Buffalo.Google Scholar
Wallman, S. 1969. Take out Hunger. London: Athlone.Google Scholar
Weisfelder, Richard F. 1977. ‘The Basotho monarchy’, in Lemarchand, René (ed.), African Kingdoms in Perspective, pp. 160–189. London: Frank Cass.Google Scholar