Conflict, Age and Power in North East Africa: Age Systems in Transition

by Eisei Kurimoto, Simon Simonse (Contribution by), Eisei Kurimoto (Editor), Simon Simonse (Editor)

Overview

Age systems are involved in the competition for power. They are part of an institutional complex that makes societies fit to wage war. This book argues that in postcolonial North East Africa, with its recent history of national political conflict and civil and regional wars, the time has come to reemphasize the military and political relevance of age systems. Herein is new information about age systems in North East Africa, setting them firmly in a wider spatial and temporal context. Topics examined are regional age systems, the decline of some systems and the persistence of others, the way women are included or excluded, and the politicization and militarization of age systems in national political conflicts and civil wars.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780821412404
Publisher:	Ohio University Press
Publication date:	07/01/1998
Series:	Eastern African Studies
Edition description:	1
Pages:	284
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Eisei Kurimoto is an associate professor at the National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka.

Editorial Reviews

Taking age systems as referring to all systems of age-grades, age- sets, and generation-sets as distinct from kinship systems, argues that in post-colonial North East Africa, they are part of an institutional complex that makes societies fit to wage war. Presents new information about age systems in the region and sets them in a wider spatial and temporal context than studies of single society at a single point in time have done. The 11 papers are from a November- December 1995 conference in Osaka, Japan. Paper edition (unseen), $22.95. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Booknews

The volume contributes to our understanding of the formal genius of age systems ... - John G. Galaty in JRAI
...East Africa is the single most important area of the world in which age-systems survive, ...This welcome volume is a substantial contribution to our knowledge of age-systems. - P.T.W. Baxter in SOAS BULLETIN
If previously anthropologists had focused on a particular society and had suggested that age-systems were autonomous structures of control and sociability this volume considers age-systems as political means for competitions, violence and trans-national association transcending the isolation of social ritual, though using ritual as a political model of competition. ...an interesting and highly significant volume, particularly within the ongoing discussions of ethnicity, identity and globalisation. It provides a new theoretical framework for East African ethnography and a challenge for anthropologists of politics, religion and nationalism. - Mario I. Aguilar in CAMBRIDGE ANTHROPOLOGY

From the Publisher