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Author Besteman, Catherine Lowe.

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

Publication Info. Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [1999]
©1999

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Location Call No. Status
 University of Saint Joseph: Pope Pius XII Library - Standard Shelving Location  967.73 B561U    Check Shelf
Description xi, 284 pages : illustrations, map ; 24 cm.
Series The ethnography of political violence
Ethnography of political violence.
Note Includes glossary.
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages [241]-274) and index.
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.
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." -- Back cover.
Subject Qossoldoor (Somalia) -- Politics and government -- 19th century.
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.
ISBN 081223488X alkaline paper
9780812234886 alkaline paper
0812216881 paperback alkaline paper
9780812216882 paperback alkaline paper
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