Ethnicity and the colonial state : finding and representing group identifications in a coastal West African and global perspective (1850-1960) / by Alexander Keese.

"An earlier version of this monograph was accepted as habilitation thesis by the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Berne, Switzerland, in 2010"--Title page verso.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction -- Group identifications : African and global categories -- Wolof and Wolofisation : statehood, colonial rule, and identification in Senegal -- Fragmentation and the Temne : from war raids into ethnic civil wars -- 'Ethnic identity' as an anti-colonial weapon? Ewe mobilisation from the late nineteenth century to the 1960s -- Conclusion.

Online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on December 17, 2015).

Ethnicity and the Colonial State analyses, through a comparison of three West African communities (Wolof, Temne, and Ewe), the ways in which ethnic labels and arguments are used (or omitted) in dealings with colonial administrations. It follows these strategies and choices over more than a century, between the conquest periods and independence. Where state structures were weak as a factor of group cohesion, ethnic arguments were especially likely to come into play. The analysis discusses internal fissures and conflicting interests within the communities as other incentives for ethnic coalition-building. The observations made in this book are put into the context of a global historical perspective, for which "ethnicity" has so far remained a badly defined concept.

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