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The Internal Dynamics of Ethnicity: Clan Names, Origins and Castes in Southern Zimbabwe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2011

Björn Lindgren
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Abstract

Since the late 1960s, researchers have primarily regarded ethnicity as the result of increasing international relations, and thus often as a comparative phenomenon. Although this research has been immensely important for its critique of essentialist notions of ethnicity, analyses of the historically formed specificity of ethnicity have been somewhat neglected. In this article, using an example from Zimbabwe, the author highlights the internal dynamics of ethnicity. The article shows how people in southern Zimbabwe use various clan names, origins, and ‘castes’ in a practice of naming, and how this practice breaks the category Ndebele into parts. The author argues that instead of studying ethnic categories as unbreakable wholes, focusing on smaller units of analysis gives a more complex picture of ethnicity. This view challenges some more or less established truths on ethnicity deduced from comparative studies.

Résumé

Depuis la fin des années 60, les chercheurs considèrent essentiellement l'ethnicité comme le résultat du développement des relations internationales, et donc souvent comme un phénomène comparé. Bien que cette recherche ait été extrêmement importante pour sa critique des notions essentialistes de l'ethnicité, l'analyse de la spécificité del'ethnicité formée historiquement a été quelque peu négligée. Dans cet article qui prend en exemple le Zimbabwe, l'auteur souligne la dynamique interne de l'ethnicité. L'article montre comment les populations du sud du Zimbabwe utilisent divers noms de clans, origines et «castes» dans une pratique d'attribution de nom, et comment cette pratique divise la catégorie Ndebele en plusieurs parties. L'auteur affirme qu'au lieu d'étudier les catégories ethniques en tant que touts indivisibles, le fait de se concentrer sur des unités d'analyse plus réduites donne une image plus complexe de l'ethnicité. Cette opinion remet en question certaines vérités plus ou moins établies sur l'ethnicité découlant d'études comparatives.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 74 , Issue 2 , May 2004 , pp. 173 - 193
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2004

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