Violence and Belonging explores the formative role of violence in shaping people's identities in modern postcolonial Africa.

Modernization in Africa has created new problems as well as new freedoms. Multiparty democracy, resource privatization and changing wealth relationships, have not always created stable and prosperous communities, and violence continues to be endemic in many areas of African life - from civil war and political strife to violent clashes between genders, generations, classes and ethnic groups.
Violence and Belonging explores the crucial formative role of violence in shaping people's ideas of who they are in uncertain postcolonial contexts where, as resources dwindle and wealth is...

Eastern African pastoralists often present themselves as being egalitarian, equating cattle ownership with wealth. By this definition "the poor are not us," poverty is confined to non-pastoralist, socially excluded persons and groups.

Exploring this notion means discovering something about self-perceptions and community consciousness, how pastoralist identity has been made in opposition to other modes of production, how pastoralists want others to see them and how they see themselves.

This collection rejects the premise of pastoral egalitarianism and poses questions about the gradual...

Eastern African pastoralists often present themselves as being egalitarian, equating cattle ownership with wealth. By this definition "the poor are not us," poverty is confined to non-pastoralist, socially excluded persons and groups. Exploring this notion means discovering something about self-perceptions and community consciousness, how pastoralist identity has been made in opposition to other modes of production, how pastoralists want others to see them and how they see themselves. This collection rejects the premise of pastoral egalitarianism and poses questions about the gradual creep of...

This collection concerning East African pastoralists rejects the premise of pastoral egalitarianism and poses questions about the gradual creep of poverty, changing patterns of wealth and accumulation, the impact of diminishing resources on pastoral communities, and the impact of external values. North America: Ohio U Press

Despite its immense significance and ubiquity in our everyday lives, the complex workings of trust are poorly understood and theorized. This volume explores trust and mistrust amidst locally situated scenes of sociality and intimacy. Because intimacy has often been taken for granted as the foundation of trust relations, the ethnographies presented here challenge us to think about dangerous intimacies, marked by mistrust, as well as forms of trust that cohere through non-intimate forms of sociality.