Laura-Catalina Althoff University of Leipzig Institute of Ethnology
[email protected] Identities and the colonial past in Kenya and Tanzania BA dissertation by Laura-Catalina Althoff published as a CERS working paper on the MGR archive Abstract: The aim of this paper is to explore the relation between the colonial politics of tribalism in Kenya and Tanganyika and the present day ethnic identities and conflicts in the two post- independence nations. Reasons for diverging post-colonial developments can be found in slight differences in the colonial administration, but also and mainly in the different political approaches implemented by Kenyatta and Nyerere. Thus patronage led to an essentialisation and racialisation of ethnicities in Kenya, which can be juxtaposed to an almost “ethnicity-blind” situation in Tanzania, created through the radically egalitarian Ujamaa. The argumentation of this study is, apart from the relevant literature, based on nine interviews conducted in Kenya in July and August 2013. These clearly demonstrate the current ethnic tensions in Kenya, but present alternative narratives as to where these originated from, as the colonial “invention of tradition” is not perceived as such in retrospect. The last section of this paper also considers the most recent developments and detects a renegotiation and convergence of ethnic identifications in Kenya and Tanzania. Contents Introduction 2 1 Overview of definitions, concepts and debates 5 1.1 Identities 5 1.2 Ethnicity 5 1.2.1 Ethnicity and hierarchy 7 1.2.2 Ethnicity