Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T06:44:27.590Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Internal Dynamics of Ethnicity: Clan Names, Origins and Castes in Southern Zimbabwe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2011

Björn Lindgren
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Since the late 1960s, researchers have primarily regarded ethnicity as the result of increasing international relations, and thus often as a comparative phenomenon. Although this research has been immensely important for its critique of essentialist notions of ethnicity, analyses of the historically formed specificity of ethnicity have been somewhat neglected. In this article, using an example from Zimbabwe, the author highlights the internal dynamics of ethnicity. The article shows how people in southern Zimbabwe use various clan names, origins, and ‘castes’ in a practice of naming, and how this practice breaks the category Ndebele into parts. The author argues that instead of studying ethnic categories as unbreakable wholes, focusing on smaller units of analysis gives a more complex picture of ethnicity. This view challenges some more or less established truths on ethnicity deduced from comparative studies.

Résumé

Depuis la fin des années 60, les chercheurs considèrent essentiellement l'ethnicité comme le résultat du développement des relations internationales, et donc souvent comme un phénomène comparé. Bien que cette recherche ait été extrêmement importante pour sa critique des notions essentialistes de l'ethnicité, l'analyse de la spécificité del'ethnicité formée historiquement a été quelque peu négligée. Dans cet article qui prend en exemple le Zimbabwe, l'auteur souligne la dynamique interne de l'ethnicité. L'article montre comment les populations du sud du Zimbabwe utilisent divers noms de clans, origines et «castes» dans une pratique d'attribution de nom, et comment cette pratique divise la catégorie Ndebele en plusieurs parties. L'auteur affirme qu'au lieu d'étudier les catégories ethniques en tant que touts indivisibles, le fait de se concentrer sur des unités d'analyse plus réduites donne une image plus complexe de l'ethnicité. Cette opinion remet en question certaines vérités plus ou moins établies sur l'ethnicité découlant d'études comparatives.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 74 , Issue 2 , May 2004 , pp. 173 - 193
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2004

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

Alexander, J., McGregor, J., and Ranger, T.. 2000. Violence and Memory: one hundred years in the dark forests of Matabeleland. Oxford: James Currey; Portsmouth: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Allen, T. 1999. ‘Perceiving contemporary wars’, in Allen, T. and Seaton, J. (eds), The Media of Conflict: war reporting and representations of ethnic violence. London: Zed.Google Scholar
Amselle, J.-L. 1990. Logiques métisses. Anthropologie de l'identité en Afrique et ailleurs. Paris: Payot.Google Scholar
Anderson, B. 1991 (1983). Imagined Communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. 2nd rev. edn. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Barnes, J. A. 1954. Politics in a Changing Society: a political history of the Fort Jameson Ngoni. Cape Town and Oxford: Oxford University Press, for the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute.Google Scholar
Barth, F. 1959. Political Leadership among Swat Pathans. London: Athlone Press.Google Scholar
Barth, F. 1966. Models of Social Organization. London: Royal Anthropologi-cal Institute.Google Scholar
Barth, F. 1969a. ‘Introduction’, in Barth, F. (ed.), Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: the social organization of culture difference. Bergen: Universitetsforlaget; London: Allan and Unwin.Google Scholar
Barth, F. 1969b. ‘Pathan identity and its maintenance’, in Barth, F. (ed.), Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: the social organization of culture difference. Bergen: Universitetsforlaget; London: Allan and Unwin.Google Scholar
Bastin, Y., Coupez, A., and Mann, M.. 1999. Continuity and Divergence in Bantu Languages: perspectives from a lexicostatistic study. Tervuren: Musée royal de l'Afrique centrale.Google Scholar
Bauman, Z. 1998. Globalization: the human consequences. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Beach, D. 1984. Zimbabwe Before 1900. Gweru: Mambo Press.Google Scholar
Bhebe, N. 1979. Christianity and Traditional Religion in Western Zimbabwe, 1859–1923. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Bourdillon, M. 1987 (1976). The Shona Peoples: an ethnography of the contemporary Shona with special reference to their religion. Rev. edn. Gweru: Mambo Press.Google Scholar
Brenner, L. 1993. ‘Constructing Muslim identities in Mali’, in Brenner, L. (ed.), Muslim Identity and Social Change in Sub-Saharan Africa. London: Hurst & Co.Google Scholar
CCJP/LRF. 1997. Breaking the Silence, Building True Peace: a report on the disturbances in Matabeleland and the Midlands, 1980–1988. Harare: Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe and Legal Resources Foundation of Zimbabwe. (Available at www.co.za/mg/zim/zimtitle.html.)Google Scholar
Child, H. 1969. The History of the ama Ndebele. Salisbury: Ministry of Internal Affairs.Google Scholar
Cobbing, J. 1976. ‘The Ndebele under the Khumalos 1820–1896’. Unpublished thesis. Lancaster University.Google Scholar
Comaroff, J. 1995. ‘Ethnicity, nationalism and the politics of difference in an age of revolution’, in Comaroff, J. L. and Stern, P. C. (eds), Perspectives on Nationalism and War. Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach Publishers.Google Scholar
Dahl, G. 1996. ‘Sources of life and identity’, in Baxter, P. T. W., Hultin, J., and Triulzi, A. (eds), Being and Becoming Oromo: historical and anthropological enquiries. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet.Google Scholar
de Heusch, L. 2000. ‘L'ethnie: the vicissitudes of a concept’, Social Anthropology 8 (2): 99–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doke, C. M., Malcolm, D. M., Sikakana, J. M. A., and Vilakazi, B. W.. 1990. English–Zulu, Zulu–English Dictionary. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.Google Scholar
Englund, H., and Leach, J.. 2000. ‘Ethnography and the Meta-Narratives of Modernity’, Current Anthropology 41 (2): 225–247.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eriksen, T. Hylland. 1993. Ethnicity and Nationalism: anthropological perspectives. London and Boulder CO: Pluto Press.Google Scholar
Fardon, R. 1987. ‘African ethnogenesis: limits to the comparability of ethnic phenomena’, in Holy, L. (ed.), Comparative Anthropology. Oxford and New York: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Fardon, R. 1996. ‘Crossed destinies: the entangled histories of West African ethnic and national identities’, in Gorgendière, L., King, K., and Vaughan, S. (eds), Ethnicity in Africa: roots, meanings and implications. Edinburgh: Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Fardon, R. 1999. ‘Ethnic pervasion’, in Allen, T. and Jean, S. (eds), The Media of Conflict: war reporting and representations of ethnic violence. London: Zed.Google Scholar
Giddens, A. 1990. The Consequences of Modernity. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Goffman, E. 1956. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Social Sciences Research Centre.Google Scholar
Goffman, E. 1961. Encounters: two studies in the sociology of interaction. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.Google Scholar
Goffman, E. 1968. Stigma: notes on the management of spoiled identity. Pelican Books. Harmondsworth: Penguin. (1963. Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice-Hall.)Google Scholar
Hamilton, C. (ed.). 1996. The Mfecane Aftermath: reconstructive debates in Southern African history. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.Google Scholar
Hannan, M. 1984. Standard Shona Dictionary. Rev. edn. Harare: College Press. (1959. London: Macmillan; New York: St Martin's Press.)Google Scholar
Helander, B. 1988. ‘The Slaughtered Camel: coping with fictitious descent among the Hubeer of Southern Somalia’. Ph.D. thesis. Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology, Uppsala University.Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, E., and Ranger, R. (eds). 1983. The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hughes, A. J. B. 1956. Kin, Caste and Nation among the Rhodesian Ndebele. Manchester: Manchester University Press, for the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute.Google Scholar
Hughes, A. J. B., and Velsen, J. van. 1954. ‘The Ndebele’, in Kuper, H., Hughes, A. J. B., and Velsen, J. van (eds), The Shona and Ndebele of Southern Rhodesia. Ethnographic Survey of Africa: Southern Africa, pt. 4. London: International African Institute.Google Scholar
Jacobson-Widding, A. 2000. Chapungu: the bird that never drops a feather. Male and female identities in an African society. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis.Google Scholar
Kopytoff, I. 1987. ‘The internal frontier: the making of African political culture’, in Kopytoff, I. (ed.), The African Frontier: the reproduction of traditional African societies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Kuper, A. 1982. Wives for Cattle: bridewealth and marriage in Southern Africa. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Kuper, A. 1988. The Invention of Primitive Society: transformations of an illusion. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lindgren, B. 2002. ‘Power, education, and identity in post-colonial Zimbabwe: representations of the fate of King Lobengula of Matabeleland’, African Sociological Review 6 (1): 46–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lindgren, B. 2003. ‘The Green Bombers of Salisbury: elections and political violence in Zimbabwe’, Anthropology Today 19 (2): 6–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. 2003. ‘Dynamics of Democracy and Human Rights among the Ndebele of Zimbabwe, 1818–1934’. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis. University of Zimbabwe.Google Scholar
Nyathi, P. 1994. Igugu Likamthwakazi. Imbali YamaNdebele 1820–1893. Gweru: Mambo Press.Google Scholar
Nyathi, P. 1996. Uchuto Olungelandiswe. Imbali YamaNdebele 1893–1895. Gweru: Mambo Press.Google Scholar
Nyathi, P. 1999. Madodo Lolani Incukuthu. Imbali YamaNdebele 1896. Gweru: Mambo Press.Google Scholar
Pankhurst, A. 1999. ‘“Caste” in Africa: the evidence from south-western Ethiopia reconsidered’, Africa 69 (4): 485–509.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pelling, J. 1971. A Practical Ndebele Dictionary. 2nd edn. Harare: Longman.Google Scholar
Ranger, T. 1985. The Invention of Tribalism in Zimbabwe. Gweru: Mambo Press.Google Scholar
Ranger, T. 1993. ‘The invention of tradition revisited: the case of colonial Africa’, in Ranger, T. and Vaughan, O. (eds), Legitimacy and the State in Twentieth Century Africa. Basingstoke: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ranger, T. 1996. ‘The moral economy of identity in Northern Matabeleland’, in Gorgendière, L., King, K., and Vaughan, S. (eds), Ethnicity in Africa: roots, meanings and implications. Edinburgh: Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Ranger, T. 1999. Voices from the Rocks: nature, culture and history in the Matopos Hills of Zimbabwe. Harare: Baobab Books; Bloomington: Indiana University Press; Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Rasmussen, K. 1978. Migrant Kingdom: Mzilikazi's Ndebele in South Africa. London: Rex Collings.Google Scholar
Roosens, E. 1989. Creating Ethnicity: the process of ethnogenesis. London and Newbury Park CA: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Roosens, E. 1994. ‘The primordial nature of origins in migrant ethnicity’, in Vermeulen, H. and Govers, C. (eds), The Anthropology of Ethnicity: beyond ‘Ethnic groups and boundaries’. Amsterdam: Spinhuis.Google Scholar
Schlee, G. 1985. ‘Interethnic clan identities among Cushitic-speaking pastoralists’, Africa 55 (1): 17–38.Google Scholar
SIL International. 2002. Ethnologue: Languages of the World. www.ethnologue.com/web.asp.Google Scholar
Smith, A. 1991. ‘The nation: invented, imagined, reconstructed?’ Millennium: Journal of International Studies 20 (3): 353–368.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, A. 1994. ‘The politics of culture: ethnicity and nationalism’, in Ingold, T. (ed.), Companion Encyclopedia of Anthropology. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Taljaard, P. C., and Bosch, S. E.. 1988. Handbook of IsiZulu. Pretoria: J. L. van Schaik.Google Scholar
Turton, D. 1997. ‘Introduction: war and ethnicity’, in Turton, D. (ed.), War and Ethnicity: global connections and local violence. Rochester NY: University of Rochester Press.Google Scholar
van Warmelo, N. J. 1974. ‘The classification of cultural groups’, in Hammond-Tooke, W. D. (ed.), The Bantu-speaking Peoples of Southern Africa. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
von Sicard, H. 1950. ‘The derivation of the name Mashona’, African Studies 9 (3): 138–143.Google Scholar
Werbner, R. 1995. ‘Human rights and moral knowledge: arguments of accountability in Zimbabwe’, in Strathern, M. (ed.), Shifting Contexts: transformations in anthropological knowledge. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Worby, E. 1994. ‘Maps, names and ethnic games: the epistemology and iconography of colonial power in northwestern Zimbabwe’, Journal of Southern African Studies 20 (3): 371–392.CrossRefGoogle Scholar