African Affairs Advance Access originally published online on April 13, 2006
African Affairs 2006 105(420):399-420; doi:10.1093/afraf/adi127
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Becoming indigenous peoples: Difference, inequality, and the globalization of East African identity politics
Jim Igoe (jigoe{at}cudenver.edu; jigoe{at}mwekawildlife.org) is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado at Denver.
Although the term ‘indigenous’ implies a state preceding that which is foreign or acquired, indigenous movements in Africa are a recent phenomenon. Drawing from the author’s research of the Tanzanian indigenous peoples’ movement in the 1990s, this article argues that indigenous identity in Tanzania does not represent miraculously preserved pre-colonial traditions or even a special sort of marginalization. Rather, it reflects the convergence of existing identity categories with shifting global structures of development and governance. Specifically, it reflects a combination of ‘cultural distinctiveness’ and effective strategies of extraversion in the context of economic and political liberalization. The Maasai, who are ‘culturally distinct’, and who have a long tradition of enrolling outsiders in their cause, naturally dominate this movement.
1. United Republic of Tanzania, Report of the Presidential Commission for Enquiry into Land Tenure Matters (Government Publishers, Dar es Salaam, 1993); Issa Shivji, Not Yet Democracy (IIED, London, 1998).
2. Prior to legislative changes in the 1990s, Tanzanian NGOs were practically non-existent.
3. The term ‘pastoralist’ is used interchangeably with the term ‘herder’ in this article.
4. Jim Igoe, ‘Ethnicity, civil society and the Tanzanian pastoral NGO movement’ (Boston University, unpublished PhD dissertation, 2000).
5. See Hanne Veber and Espen Waehle, ‘Introduction’, in Veber et al. (eds), Never Drink From the Same Cup (International Working Group on Indigenous Affairs [IWGIA], Copenhagen, 1993); Alan Bernard and Justin Kenrick (eds), Africa’s Indigenous Peoples (University of Edinburgh African Studies, Edinburgh, 2001).
6. Especially Leroy Vail (ed.), The Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 1993).
7. Works on the Maasai culminate with Richard Waller and Thomas Spear (eds), Being Maasai (James Currey, London, 1993) and Dorothy Hodgson, Once Intrepid Warriors (James Currey, London, 2001).
8. Jean-François Bayart, ‘Africa in the world: A history of extraversion’, African Affairs 99, 395 (2000), pp. 217–67.
9. Michael Maren, The Road to Hell (The Free Press, New York, NY, 1997); Patrick Chabal and Jean-Pascal Daloz, Africa Works: Disorder as political instrument (James Currey, London, 1999). While many African NGOs are not opportunistic, the popular perception is that they present an obstacle to more legitimate organizations: see Jim Igoe and Tim Kelsall, ‘Introduction: Between a rock and a hard place’, in Igoe and Kelsall (eds), Between a Rock and a Hard Place: African NGOs, donors, and the state (Carolina Academic Press, Durham, NC, 2005), pp. 9–10.
10. Ronald Niezen, The Origins of Indigenism (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 2003).
11. See Report of the African Commission’s Working Group of Experts on Indigenous Populations/Communities (African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and IWGIA, Copenhagen, 2005), p. 87.
12. See especially, Julian Burger, Report From the Frontier (Zed Books, London 1987); Dorothy Hodgson, ‘Introduction: Comparative perspectives on the indigenous rights movements in Africa and the Americas’, American Anthropologist 104, 4 (2002), pp. 1037–49; Adam Kuper, ‘Return of the native’, Current Anthropology 44 (2003), pp. 389–402; and Niezen, Origins.
14. Moringe Parkipuny, ‘The human rights situation of indigenous peoples in Africa’, Fourth World Journal 4, 1 (1989), p. 3. Also see Daniel Murumbi, ‘The concept of indigenous in Africa’, Indigenous Affairs 1 (1994), pp. 52–7.
15. Dorothy Hodgson, ‘Precarious alliances: The cultural politics and structural predicaments of the indigenous rights movement in Tanzania’, American Anthropologist 104, 4 (2002), p. 1086. Also see Parkipuny, ‘The human rights situation’; Murumbi, ‘The concept of indigenous’; Marcus Colchester and Larry Lohman, The Struggle for the Land and the Fate of the Forests (Zed Books, London, 1993); Gunvor Berge, ‘Reflections on the concept of indigenous peoples in Africa’ and Mohamed Salih, ‘Indigenous people and the state’, both in Veber et al. (eds), Never Drink, pp. 235–46; 121–39.
16. A polythetic class is defined in terms of criteria that are neither necessary nor sufficient. See Burger, Report, p. 7; Sadrrudin Khan and Hassan bin Talal, Indigenous Peoples: A global quest for justice (Zed Books, London, 1987), p. 8; UN High Commission for Human Rights, Convention no. 169 (Geneva 1989), p. 2; Marcus Colchester, ‘Indigenous rights and collective consciousness, Anthropology Today 18 (2003), p. 2; and Niezen, Origins, pp. 18–23.
18. Jean-François Bayart, The State in Africa (Longman, London, 1993); Mahmood Mamdani, Citizen and Subject (Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ, 1996); Issa Shivji, ‘The politics of liberalization in Tanzania’, in Horace Campbell and Howard Stein (eds), The IMF and Tanzania (Natprint, Harare, 1991), pp. 67–85.
19. Because this relocation happened so quickly and unsystematically, precise numbers are unavailable. Estimates range from 10 to 20 million people. See Kjell Havenick, Tanzania: The limits to development from above (Mkuki na Nyota, Dar es Salaam, 1993), p. 47, and United Republic of Tanzania, Report of the Presidential Commission, p. 43.
20. Jim Igoe, Conservation and Globalization (Wadsworth, Riverside, CA, 2004), pp. 106–9.
21. Shivji, Not Yet Democracy, pp. 11–12.
22. Cf. Hodgson, ‘Precarious alliances’, p. 1088.
23. Igoe, ‘Ethnicity, civil society’ and Jim Igoe, ‘Scaling up civil society: Donor money, NGOs, and the pastoralist land rights movement in Tanzania’, Development and Change 34, 5 (2003), pp. 863–86.
24. See responses to Kuper’s ‘Return of the native’, especially that by Steve Robins.
25. Dan Brockington, Fortress Conservation (James Currey, London, 2002); Igoe, ‘Scaling up’, p. 879; and Jim Igoe, ‘Power and force in Tanzanian civil society’, in Igoe and Kelsall (eds), Between a Rock and a Hard Place, p. 126.
26. Thomas Spear, ‘Introduction’ in Spear and Waller (eds), Being Maasai (James Currey, London 1993), pp. 1–18.
27. Fredrick Barth, ‘Enduring and emerging issues in the analysis of ethnicity’, in Hans Vermeulen and Cora Govers (eds), The Anthropology of Ethnicity (Het Spinhuis, Amsterdam, 1994), pp. 11–32.
28. François Morin and Bernard d’Anglure, ‘Ethnicity as a political tool for indigenous peoples’, in Govers and Vermuelen (eds), The Politics of Ethnic Consciousness (MacMillan Press, London, 1997), p. 161.
29. IWGIA, ‘Editorial’, Indigenous Affairs 3 (1998), p. 4.
30. Veber and Waehle, ‘Introduction’, Never Drink, p. 5.
31. Report of the International Commission, p. 101.
32. J.E.G. Sutton, ‘Becoming Maasailand’ and John Galaty, ‘Maasai expansionism and new East African Pastoralism’, both in Spear and Waller, Being Maasai, pp. 3–60; 61–86.
33. Richard Waller, ‘The lords of East Africa: The Maasai in the mid-19th century’ (Cambridge University, unpublished PhD dissertation, 1976), p. 277.
35. Galaty, ‘Maasai expansionism’.
36. The distinction between ‘pure’ Maasai and Iloikop remains a point of contention within the Tanzanian indigenous peoples’ movement. This is somewhat ironic, because Kisongo groups, who have come to dominate the Tanzanian indigenous peoples’ movement, have become increasingly dependent on agriculture.
37. Charles Lane, Pastures Lost (IIED, London, 1996).
38. Gavin Kitching, Class and Economic Change in Kenya (Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1980).
39. Alan Jacobs, The Irrigation Agriculture Maasai of Pagasi (Makerere Institute of Social Science, Kampala 1968) and Richard Waller, ‘Acceptees and aliens’, in Spear and Waller, Being Maasai.
40. Spear, ‘Introduction’, Being Maasai.
42. Robert Tignor, The Colonial Transformation of Kenya (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1979) and Hodgson, Once Intrepid Warriors.
43. Personal communication from anthropologist Alan Jacobs. Jacobs worked with the Maasai in both Kenya and Tanzania, from the late 1950s to the mid-1970s, including as senior anthropologist for the Maasai Rangeland Project. Also Hodgson, Once Intrepid Warriors.
44. Sokoine died in a car accident in 1984. Foul play is still widely suspected.
45. Alan Jacobs, personal communication.
46. For a full account, see Igoe, ‘Ethnicity, civil society’ and Igoe, ‘Scaling up’.
47. George Wilson, ‘The Tatoga of Tanganyika, Part One’. Tanganyika Notes and Records, 1952, p. 43.
48. Lane, Pastures Lost and Igoe, ‘Power and force’.
49. Charles Lane, ‘Alienation of Barabaig pasture land’ (PhD, University of Sussex, 1991), p. 50.
51. Cf. Hodgson, Once Intrepid Warriors. This arrangement continues to the present day, as Maasai in ethnically mixed communities contribute money instead of labour to village development projects.
52. Douglas Sanders, Background Information to the World Council of Indigenous Peoples (Fourth World Documentation Project, Lethbridge, 1980).
56. Burger, Report, also Niezen, Origins, p. 167.
57. Jomo Kenyatta, Facing Mount Kenya (Secker and Warburg, London, 1937).
58. Oginga Odinga, Not Yet Uhuru (Hill and Wang, New York, 1967).
59. Sanders, Background, p. 14.
60. Raging Blakkindian Dub, Understanding the Connections between Black and Aboriginal Peoples (The Fire Next Time, Toronto, 2002).
61. Lane, Pastures Lost, and Igoe, ‘Power and force’.
64. Igoe, ‘Ethnicity, civil society’ and Igoe, ‘Scaling up’.
65. D.H. Sheth, ‘Alternative development as political practice’, Alternatives 12 (1987), pp. 155–71.
66. Igoe and Kelsall, ‘Introduction’, in Between a Rock and a Hard Place.
67. Igoe, ‘Ethnicity, civil society’.
70. Igoe, ‘Ethnicity, civil society’. The situation is also slightly different in Kenya, where Maasai leaders demanded the government recognize their treaties with the British.
73. PINGOs, ‘Minutes of the session’, 5 March 1994 (PINGOs, Arusha).
74. Igoe, ‘Ethnicity, civil society’.
75. Cf. Hodgson, ‘Precarious alliances’.
76. Ndagala and Woodburn, personal communication. Daniel Ndagala is the Commissioner of Culture for the Government of Tanzania. James Woodburn is an anthropologist who has worked closely with the Hadzabe Survival Council of Tanzania.
77. Personal communication by James Suzman, an anthropologist who has worked closely with San activists in Namibia. Also see James Suzman, ‘Kalahari conundrums’, Before Farming 4 (2002), pp. 1–10.
79. James Ferguson, Expectations of Modernity (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 1998).
80. Professor George Saitoti, although raised in a Maasai area, is of mixed descent (Maasai and Kikuyu). As the historical material presented in this article illustrates that, however, many people who consider themselves culturally Maasai are not ‘pure’ Maasai. Saitoti’s ambiguous ethnic status has been periodically used against him by Maasai politicians — including ole Ntimama. However, Ntimama was quick to support Saitoti in 2001, when it appeared that Saitoti would succeed Moi as president of Kenya. Both men are still actively involved in national politics.