In exploring the difficulties experienced by the traditionally politically uncentralised Somalis in establishing a stable and effective state, based on their ethnicity, this article compares ethnicity, nationalism and lineage identity. In this case, ethnicity and nationalism are local products, influenced but not created by the colonial experience. They have had to contend with the intractable force of segmentary lineage identity, which has proved extremely difficult to adapt and accommodate to the requirements of modern statehood. In its cultural context, agnation is all the more pervasive and powerful in constituting an ‘invisible’ bond, conceived by Somalis as a biologically based distinction like ‘race’. Unlike race, it is almost infinitely elastic and divisible. Ethnic identity, which rests on external distinctions such as language, culture and religion, cannot be broken down into a series of formally equivalent segments, but is less binding as a social force. Today, after the collapse of the state of Somalia in 1991, following protracted grass‐roots peace‐making between clans, two parts of the nation—the former British Somaliland, and the north‐eastern region of Somalia (‘Puntland’, based on the Majerteyn clan, and other closely related clans)—have developed separate local states. Although Somaliland claims complete independence, which Puntland does not, both polities incorporate parliamentary institutions that accommodate traditional, and modern political leaders and processes. The ex‐Italian residue, Southern Somalia, still without any form of government, is in what appears to be the final throes of its long‐running, fourteenth grandiose international ‘peace’ conference in Kenya. Thousands of delegates, in various configurations, have already spent over eighteen months in these talks. Although its embryonic constitution now recognises ‘clans’ as constituent political units, this attempt to re‐establish Somalia is based on the usual ‘top‐down’ approach, rather than on spontaneous local negotiations amongst ‘stakeholders’ on the ground, such as those on which Somaliland and Puntland are founded. With contingents of foreign ‘experts’, the whole process seeks to reinstate a familiar Eurocentric state model, unadapted to Somali conditions.

Somalia has been without a government for the past thirteen years. After the ousting of Siyaad Barre in 1991 observers were left with the question why a promising, even democratic, society sharing the same ethnicity, one religion, a common language and a predominantly pastoral culture was overtaken by a devastating civil war. Analysts stressed the significance of kinship and clan politics in the maintenance of sustained conflict. They argued that Somalia's state collapse must be placed in a historical context taking into consideration the cultural heritage of Somali society and the legacy of the colonial past. The purpose of the article is twofold: first, it seeks to explore an alternative explanation for the breakdown of Barre's dictatorial regime; and second, to analyse the social consequences of political and economic exclusion that followed the state collapse. The paper argues that Somalia's state failure can be explained by the unjust distribution of new sources of wealth in postcolonial Somalia. This modernisation process was accompanied by violent clashes and continued insecurity. The breakdown of the former regime did not create a representative government. Instead, faction leaders fought for political supremacy at the cost of the lives of thousands of civilians. In the absence of a functioning government that could guarantee security and protection, clan loyalties gained importance. Clan affiliation became a condition of being spared from violence. Unjust distribution of pockets of wealth, such as the high‐potential agricultural land in the riverine areas in southern Somalia, led to localised clashes. It will be argued that horizontal inequalities, or inequalities between groups, are based on both material and imagined differences. Somali faction leaders use these differences instrumentally, to maintain and to exercise power. Irrespective of the existence of invisible and physical markers, it is important to understand what existing social boundaries mean to their participants. A localised clan conflict in Lower Shabelle between the Jido and the Jareer clan families illustrates the consequences of social and economic exclusion. Groups who felt excluded from economic and political life, such as the Jareer, took up arms. Violence became a means of being heard and taken seriously in the current Somali peace talks in Kenya.

The social basis of ecological change in Somaliland during the colonial period was politics, especially imperial politics: the division of the Somali country into various colonial spheres, the loss of territory under the 1897 Anglo‐Ethiopian Treaty, and the pacification wars. These events, as it were, reduced the land available for use by the pastoralists, which led to overgrazing, soil erosion and ecological degradation. Moreover, the income of the population declined throughout the colonial period. Even though during the late colonial period the ‘nominal’ price of pastoral goods increased, the ‘real’ price of pastoral commodities did not increase to cover the loss of income caused by inflation and the high cost of imported goods. These two processes—on the one hand ecological degradation and on the other the decline of income—could be understood if they were read contrapuntally. Such reading is possible only if we give full attention to political ecology: why ecology had changed, the politics of that change, and the impact it had on the income and everyday life of the population.

East African rangelands have a long history of population mobility linked to competition over key resources, negotiated access, and outright conflict. Both in the literature and in local discourse, in‐migration is presented as leading to increased competition, driving poverty and social exclusion on the one hand, and conflict and violence on the other. Current analyses in developing countries identify economic differences, ethnic fault lines, ecological stresses and a breakdown in state provision of human and constitutional rights as factors in driving conflict. The present paper explores this interaction of in‐migration and conflict with respect to Kenyan and Tanzanian pastoralist areas and populations. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, patterns of resource access and control in Kenya and Tanzania Maasailand are explored in terms of the ways land and livestock are associated with migration status, ethnicity and wealth or political class. Contrasts and similarities between the two national contexts are used to develop a better understanding of the ways these factors operate under different systems of tenure and access. The conclusion briefly considers implications of these patterns, their potential for exacerbating poverty, and policies for minimising social exclusion and conflict in East African rangelands.

This article discusses whether Ethiopia's recent reorganisation into broadly decentralised, ethnically based regions was also accompanied by significant changes in the images and administrative practices through which state powers have been locally understood and experienced by ordinary citizens. Different scholars and politicians have viewed the local effects of these changes differently. Government officials and some scholars report ‘radical reversals’ from decades of monarchial despotism and socialist dictatorship to enhanced local autonomy and self-governance, while others counter this by noting the ‘continuation’ of earlier administrative practices. I draw on ethnographic material from fieldwork in Aba Sälama, a local administrative unit in Amhara, to show that decentralisation has increased the significance of local government as a site for competing interpretations of household autonomy and local-governance. Party members and elected farmer officials used the newly enhanced constitutional powers and funds of the local government to strengthen their own personal standing vis-à-vis their superiors at the district capital and fellow farmers in the community. Farmers for their part seized the rhetoric to demand more autonomy from local government which they still viewed as an extension of central state control over their lives and resources. As a consequence, one observes in Aba Sälama both decentralised and centralised administrative practices as local officials seek to accommodate this tension when performing their governmental duties.

This essay presents Joshua Uzoigwe as a Nigerian intercultural composer. A short biography of the composer shows the influence of two cultur—Nigerian (Igbo/Yoruba) and European—on his creative outputs. Uzoigwe's experience in the two cultures has enabled him to compose music which is indisputably a synthesis of Nigerian and European musical idioms. His works are classified into five categories, while the creative style exhibits purely original compositions and works in which Nigerian musical elements are directly utilised. A discussion of Uzoigwe's music includes elements of tonal organisation, elements of dance, elements of musical conception and instrumentation. The issue of bi-culturalism, national identity and the search for a Nigerian audience are some of the problems Uzoigwe attempts to solve in his compositions.