Being Maasai: Ethnicity and Identity In East Africa (Eastern African Studies)

Everyone “knows” the Maasai as proud pastoralists who once dominated the Rift Valley from northern Kenya to central Tanzania. But many people who identity themselves as Maasai, or who speak Maa, are not pastoralist at all, but farmers and hunters. Over time many different people have “become” something else. And what it means to be Maasai has changed radically over the past several centuries and is still changing today. This collection by historians, archaeologists, anthropologists and linguists examines how Maasai identity has been created, evoked, contested, and transformed from the time of their earliest settlement in Kenya to the present, as well as raising questions about the nature of ethnicity generally. Cover Series Page Title Copyright Contents Maps, Figures & Illustrations Contributors Acknowledgements I. Introduction II. Becoming Maasai Introduction 1. Dialects, Sectiolects, or Simply Lects? The Maa Language in Time Perspective 2. Becoming Maasailand 3. Maasai Expansion and the New East African Pastoralism 4. Aspects of 'Becoming Turkana': Interactions and Assimilation Between Maa- and Ateker-Speakers 5. Defeat and Dispersal: The Laikipiak and their Neighbours at the End of the Nineteenth Century 6. Being 'Maasai', but not 'People of Cattle': Arusha Agricultural Maasai in the Nineteenth Century III. Being Maasai Introduction 7. Becoming Maasai, Being in Time 8. The World of Telelia: Reflections of a Maasai Woman in Matapato 9. 'The Eye that Wants a Person, Where Can It Not See?': Inclusion, Exclusion, and Boundary Shifters in Maasai Identity 10. Aesthetics, Expertise, and Ethnicity: Okiek and Maasai Perspectives on Personal Ornament IV. Contestations and Redefinitions Introduction 11 Acceptees and Aliens: Kikuyu Settlement in Maasailand 12. Land as Ours, Land as Mine: Economic, Political and Ecological Marginalization in Kajiado District 13. Maa-Speakers of the Northern Desert: Recent Developments in Ariaal and Rendille Identity V. Conclusions Bibliography Index "Everyone 'knows' the Maasai as proud pastoralists who once dominated the Rift Valley from northern Kenya to central Tanzania." "But many people who identify themselves as Maasai, or who speak Maa, are not pastoralist at all, but farmers and hunters. Over time many different people have 'become' something else. And what it means to be Maasai has changed radically over the past several centuries and is still changing today." "This collection by historians, archaeologists, anthropologists and linguists examines how Maasai identity has been created, evoked, contested, and transformed from the time of their earliest settlement in Kenya to the present, as well as raising questions about the nature of ethnicity generally."--Jacket. A multi-disciplinary approach to studying ethnicity in Africa.Many of the people who identify themselves as Maasai, or who speak the Maa language, are not pastoralist at all, but framers and hunters. Over time many people have'become'something else, adn what it means to be Maasai has changed radically over the past several centuries and is still changing today. This collection by historians, archaeologists, anthropologists and linguists examines how Maasai identity has been created, evoked, contested and transformed. North America: Ohio U Press; Tanzania: Mkuki na Nyota; Kenya: EAEP Many of the people who identify themselves as Maasai, or who speak the Maa language, are not pastoralist at all, but framers and hunters. Over time many people have 'become' something else, adn what it means to be Maasai has changed radically over the past several centuries and is still changing today. This collection by historians, archaeologists, anthropologists and linguists examines how Maasai identity has been created, evoked, contested and transformed. - Verlagsangaben