Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T00:39:47.199Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Inter-ethnic clan identities, ethnicity, centrisms and biases; a response to Paul Spencer

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

Günther Schlee
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In 1985 I had the opportunity to publish an article with the title ‘Inter-ethnic clan identities among Cushitic-speaking pastoralists’ in this journal. The same year I submitted a book on the same topic as a Habilitation thesis to the University of Bayreuth and I. M. Lewis expressed interest in publishing it in the IAI series. The publication was delayed until 1989, partly because of disagreement with a reader who suggested that I cut out parts which I regarded as central to my argument while inviting me to expand on marginal aspects. The book did not and does not fit the standard pattern for an anthropological monograph in the British tradition, and local lore about ‘how things are done’ sometimes seems to prevent people from tracing the internal logic of an unfamiliar and somewhat complex argument. An adequate analysis of the working of identity processes and micro-cultures in this field of scholarship would require an auto-reflexive effort of anthropology, an effort no less than the one which was necessary for disentangling the web of inter-ethnic clan relationships among the Cushitic-speaking camel herders of northern Kenya.

Type
Shorter communications
Information
Africa , Volume 63 , Issue 4 , October 1993 , pp. 591 - 600
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1993

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

REFERENCES

Abbink, J. 1991. Review of Schlee (1989a), Anthropos 86, 302–4.Google Scholar
Cohen, Anthony P. 1987. Whalsay: symbol, segment and boundary in a Shetland island community. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Galaty, John G. 1992. Review of Schlee (1989a), Man 27(1), 219 f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuper, Adam. 1988. The Invention of Primitive Society: transformations of an illusion. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Möhlig, Wilhelm J. D. 1990, Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie 115, 296–8.Google Scholar
Newbury, David S. 1980. ‘The clans of Rwanda: an historical hypothesis’, Africa 50(4), 389–403.Google Scholar
Pool, Robert. 1991. ‘Postmodern ethnography?’ Critique of Anthropology 11(4), 309–31.Google Scholar
Richards, Audrey J. 1941. ‘A problem of an anthropological approach’, Bantu Studies 15(1), 45–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schlee, Gunther. 1978. Sprachliche Studien zum Rendille. Grammatik, Texte, Glossar, with English summary of Rendille grammar. Hamburg: Buske.Google Scholar
Schlee, Gunther. 1979. Das Glaubens- und Sozialsystem der Rendille. Kamelnomaden Nordkenias. Berlin: Reimer.Google Scholar
Schlee, Gunther. 1985. ‘Inter-ethnic clan identities among Cushitic-speaking pastoralists’, Africa 55(1), 17–38.Google Scholar
Schlee, Gunther. 1987. ‘Somaloid history: oral tradition, Kulturgeschichte and historical linguistics in an area of Oromo/Somaloid interaction’, in Jungraithmayr, H. and Müller, W. W. (eds.), Proceedings of the Fourth International Hamito-Semitic Congress, Marburg, September 1983, pp. 265–315. Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 44. Amsterdam and Philadelphia, Pa.: Benjamins.Google Scholar
Schlee, Gunther. 1988. ‘Die Islamisierung der Vergangenheit. Von der Riickwirkung der Konversion somalischer und somaloider Gruppen zum Islam auf deren orales Geschichtsbild’, in Mohlig, W. J. G.H., Jungraithmayr and Thiel, J. F. (eds.), Die Oralliteratur in Afrika als Quelle zur Erforschung der traditionellen Kulturen, pp. 269–99. Berlin: Reimer.Google Scholar
Schlee, Gunther. 1989a. Identities on the Move: clanship andpastoralism in northern Kenya. International African Library 5, Manchester: Manchester University Press, and New York: St Martin's Press, for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Schlee, Gunther. 1989b. ‘Zum Ursprung des Gada-Systems’, Paideuma 35, 232–3.Google Scholar
Schlee, Gunther. 1990a. ‘Holy grounds’, in Baxter, P. T. W. and Hogg, Richard (eds.), Property, Poverty and People: changing rights in property and problems of pastoral development, 45–54Manchester: Department of Social Anthropology and International Development Centre, University of Manchester.Google Scholar
Schlee, Gunther. 1990b. ‘Ritual topography and ecological use’, in Parkin, David and Croll, Elisabeth (eds.), Bush Base, Forest Farm, pp. 110–28. London: Routledge, 1992.Google Scholar
Schlee, Gunther. 1990c. ‘Altersklassen und Veränderungen im Lebenslaufalter bei den Rendille’, in Kohli, Martin and Elwert, Georg (eds.), Im Laufder Zeit. Ethnographische Studien zur gesellschaftlichen Konstruktion von Lebensaltern, pp. 69–82. Saarbrucken and Fort Lauderdale: Breitenbach.Google Scholar
Schlee, Gunther. 1990d. Policies and Boundaries: perceptions of space and control of markets in a mobile livestock economy. Arbeitspapier 133, Bielefeld: FSP Entwicklungssoziologie.Google Scholar
Schlee, Gunther. 1991. ‘Zur rechtlichen Verwendung von Sprichwortern bei den Rendille (Nordkenia)’, in Sabban, Anette and Wirrer, Jan (eds.), Sprichworter und Redensarten im interkulturellen Vergleich, pp. 162–74. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spencer, Paul. 1973. Nomads in Alliance. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Spencer, Paul. 1990. Review of Schlee (1989a). Times Literary Supplement, 9–15 March.Google Scholar
Spencer, Paul. 1990. Review of Schlee (1989a), Africa 60(4), 559–61.Google Scholar
Stacher, Irene. 1990. Review of Schlee (1989a). ZaST 6, 100 f.Google Scholar
Vansina, Jan. 1985. Oral Tradition as History. Nairobi: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Winans, Edgar V. 1990. Review of Schlee (1989a), African Studies Review; 156–8.Google Scholar
Wiggins, Steve 1990. Review of Schlee (1989a), Times Higher Education Supplement, 26 January.Google Scholar