Inter-ethnic clan identities, ethnicity, centrisms and biases; a response to Paul Spencer

Abstract

In 1985 I had the opportunity to publish an article with the title ‘Inter-ethnic clan identities among Cushitic-speaking pastoralists’ in this journal. The same year I submitted a book on the same topic as a Habilitation thesis to the University of Bayreuth and I. M. Lewis expressed interest in publishing it in the IAI series. The publication was delayed until 1989, partly because of disagreement with a reader who suggested that I cut out parts which I regarded as central to my argument while inviting me to expand on marginal aspects. The book did not and does not fit the standard pattern for an anthropological monograph in the British tradition, and local lore about ‘how things are done’ sometimes seems to prevent people from tracing the internal logic of an unfamiliar and somewhat complex argument. An adequate analysis of the working of identity processes and micro-cultures in this field of scholarship would require an auto-reflexive effort of anthropology, an effort no less than the one which was necessary for disentangling the web of inter-ethnic clan relationships among the Cushitic-speaking camel herders of northern Kenya.