Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Maps, Tables & Charts
- Preface by Günther Schlee
- Editors' Preface
- Notes on Contributors
- List of Acronyms
- 1 State Borders & Borderlands as Resources
- 2 More State than the State?
- 3 Making Use of Kin beyond the International Border
- 4 The Tigrinnya-speakers across the Borders
- 5 Trans-Border Political Alliance in the Horn of Africa
- 6 People & Politics along & across the Somaliland-Puntland Border
- 7 The Ethiopian-British Somaliland Boundary
- 8 The Opportunistic Economies of the Kenya-Somali Borderland in Historical Perspective
- 9 Magendo & Survivalism
- 10 Can Boundaries not Border on One Another?
- 11 Conclusion
- Index
- EASTERN AFRICAN STUDIES
Preface by Günther Schlee
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 April 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Maps, Tables & Charts
- Preface by Günther Schlee
- Editors' Preface
- Notes on Contributors
- List of Acronyms
- 1 State Borders & Borderlands as Resources
- 2 More State than the State?
- 3 Making Use of Kin beyond the International Border
- 4 The Tigrinnya-speakers across the Borders
- 5 Trans-Border Political Alliance in the Horn of Africa
- 6 People & Politics along & across the Somaliland-Puntland Border
- 7 The Ethiopian-British Somaliland Boundary
- 8 The Opportunistic Economies of the Kenya-Somali Borderland in Historical Perspective
- 9 Magendo & Survivalism
- 10 Can Boundaries not Border on One Another?
- 11 Conclusion
- Index
- EASTERN AFRICAN STUDIES
Summary
Anthropology, contemporary history, political science, and related disciplines are close to politics and, therefore, close to morality. This is not to imply that much of politics is shaped by morals. Such an assumption would surely lead us astray if we tried to use it to explain what actually happens. What I mean is that moral and normative appeals abound in political discourse, where morals are used as a discursive resource. This discourse is about ‘legitimacy’, ‘corruption’, ‘failed’ states, etc., and it judges states and other forms of organization by comparing their actual forms and outputs with a normative idea about what states or other organizations and institutions should be good for: the common good, justice, security, and so on. Functional thinking persists here. States and organizations are assumed to fulfil a function for the benefit of all of their citizens or members; and if these functionalist assumptions are contradicted by actual observation, they become subject to the two dominant forms of framing or reframing that are applied to social phenomena in our times, namely, juridification and medicalization. Issues such as oppression and poverty – until recently treated in terms of politics – become juridified as human rights issues or they become medicalized as social pathologies. Things are measured against standards of law or standards of health or other such standards. The Weberian ideal-type of statehood also comes into play here. A normative element clearly shines through in all variants of these discourses. And it is good that this is so.
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- Information
- Borders and Borderlands as Resources in the Horn of Africa , pp. viii - ixPublisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2010