Globalizing ethnicity, localizing citizenship: globalization, identity politics and violence in Kenya's Tana River region
In: Africa development: a quarterly journal of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa = Afrique et développement, Band 28, Heft 1-2, S. 112-156
ISSN: 0850-3907
This paper is about the ways in which forces of globalization have impacted on, and shaped the construction of citizenship in Africa generally and Kenya in particular. It is also about globalization and violence associated with the resurgence of ethnic nationalism. The empirical part of the paper focuses on Tana River region, a marginalized, poor and bandit-prone multi-ethnic region on the delta of Kenya's largest river. (...) The World Bank has funded several projects in Tana River, but its funding, management policies and the overall impact of the investments have accentuated ethnic conflict within and between herders and farmers over water-points, pasture and farmlands. These conflicts have engendered the reconstruction of new ethnic identities and alliances (...). The paper maps the contours of the historical process through which globalization has undermined social citizenship and the nationalist project in post-colonial Africa, thus everywhere animating ethnicity and localizing citizenship. (Afr Dev/DÜI)