Globalizing Trends or Identities through Time? The longue durée in Karamojong1 Ethnography

Abstract

Using a range of oral and documentary sources, this article presents a detailed account of how Karamojong traditions have varied over time according to historical contingencies, while retaining a strong commitment to communal will even when this runs counter to perceived global trends. The very dominance of the global discourses surrounding issues of development in the Karamojong country may sometimes drown out local voices and can seem to relegate African agency to a matter of little importance. Despite this appearance of globalizing trends, African agency in Karamojong does in fact remain robustly active in a variety of important social contracts. In marriage, for instance, while the girl's freedom of choice has in some senses reduced, in others it can recently be shown to have increased; similarly, the quantity of bridewealth paid or pledged upon marriage has undergone fluctuations in the recent past, with implications for social relations. In warriorhood, too, new weapons have been acquired in recent times but the gun has long been part of the pastoralist arsenal for Karamojong. It is shown here that the aim and rôle of raiding have changed little over time, and the associated rituals have not atrophied with any secularisation due to the possession of Western technology. The power of Karamojong elders has been challenged by that of government administration and by the cyclical disequilibria of the age-class system, but traditional politics remain more sovereign than the state. African institutions have their history, too, and while it is a history of change it is not necessarily a history of decline.