Making Ethnic Ways: Communities and Their Transformations in Taita, Kenya, 1800-1950
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Rather than seeing ethnicity as an exogenous construction or as a product of persistent rivalries between groups, Bill Bravman focuses on the internal dimensions of ethnic identity, seeing the emergence of ethnicity as a reflection of debates within an African society. Proselytizing Christian missionaries, male labor migration, and British colonial impositions in the Taita area of Kenya presented challenges to the status quo as young men, Christian converts, and a number of women tried to evade the rule of elders and their control over resources. Elders and these progressive factions engaged one another in a struggle of cultural politics over definitions of proper "Taita" identity and behavior. Ethnicity became the means through which prior struggles were reframed and continued.Based on extensive archival research and substantial fieldwork in Kenya, Braveman's book is an important addition to scholarship on East African history. His book also challenges prevailing assumptions about ethnicity and ethnic identity in Africa and elsewhere. Booknews Examines the emergence of a Taita ethnic identity in early 20th- century Africa, the historical and new resources from which it was created, and the continual remaking of it. Analyzes how social groups in Taita formed and changed over a long period of time, and how the groups' social outlooks and beliefs coalesced and changed. Draws on interviews conducted during the 1980s and 1990s with older Taita men and women, as well as missionary documents and personal papers. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.
IllustrationsAbbreviationsAbout Citations and an Orthographic NoteAcknowledgmentsIntroduction11Settlements and Societies in the Taita Hills, to the Late Nineteenth Century212Community Under Stress: Sagalla, Environmental Crisis, and Missionary Imagination, 1883-1888613Early Colonialism and Taita's Local Communities, 1892-1910804Erosions of Lineage and Neighborhood in the Early Colonial Era1075Becoming Taita: The Coalescence and Mobilization of an Ethnic Identity, 1900-19301396Being Taita, I: Progressivism, Education, and Changing Terms of Kidaftida, 1930-19501837Being Taita, II: The Cultural Politics of Socioeconomic Change, 1930-19502068Formal Power, Political Mobilization, and Struggles over Taita Identity, 1930-1952229Conclusion252App. ABura Church Baptism Rates Prior to World War I257App. BBaptismal Records, Bura Mission, 1893-1917257Bibliography259Index279
