Unraveling Somalia : race, violence, and the legacy of slavery / Catherine Besteman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Besteman, Catherine Lowe.

Contributor:

University of Pennsylvania. Press.

Series:

Ethnography of political violence

The ethnography of political violence

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Slavery.

History.

Somali Bantu (African people).

Qossoldoor (Somalia)--Politics and government--19th century.

Qossoldoor (Somalia).

Qossoldoor (Somalia)--Politics and government--20th century.

Qossoldoor (Somalia)--Ethnic relations--History--19th century.

Qossoldoor (Somalia)--Ethnic relations--History--20th century.

Somali Bantu (African people)--Somalia--Qossoldoor--History--19th century.

Somali Bantu (African people)--Somalia--Qossoldoor--History--20th century.

Slavery--Somalia--Qossoldoor--History--19th century.

Slavery--Somalia--Qossoldoor--History--20th century.

Somalia--Qossoldoor.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 284 pages) : illustrations, map.

Other Title:

Penn Press e-books.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [1999]

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

text file

Summary:

"In 1991 the Somali state collapsed. Once heralded as the only true nation-state in Africa, the Somalia of the 1990s suffered brutal internecine warfare. At the same time a politically created famine caused the deaths of a half a million people and the flight of a million refugees. During the civil war, scholarly and popular analyses explained Somalia's disintegration as the result of ancestral hatreds played out in warfare between various clans and subclans. In Unraveling Somalia, Catherine Besteman challenges this view and argues that the actual pattern of violence -- inflicted disproportionately on rural southerners -- contradicts the prevailing model of ethnic homogeneity and clan opposition. She contends that the dissolution of the Somali nation-state can be understood only by recognizing that over the past century and a half there emerged in Somalia a social order based on principles other than simple clan organization -- a social order deeply stratified on the basis of race, status, class, region, and language."--P. [4] of cover.

Contents:

PART I. INTRODUCTION. 1. Somalia from the Margins: An Alternative Approach

- 2. Fieldwork, Surprises, and Historical Anthropology

PART II. THE HISTORICAL CREATION OF THE GOSHA. 3. Slavery and the Jubba Valley Frontier

- 4. The Settlement of the Upper Gosha, 1895-1988

PART III. THE GOSHA SPACE IN SOMALI SOCIETY. 5. Hard Hair: Somali Constructions of Gosha Inferiority

- 6. Between Domination and Collusion: The Ambiguity of Gosha Life

- 7. Negotiating Hegemony and Producing Culture

PART IV. VIOLENCE AND THE STATE. 8. The Political Economy of Subordination

- 9. Conclusion.

Notes:

Includes glossary.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [241]-274) and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780812290165

081229016X

OCLC:

874143667

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.