Political identity as temporal collapse: Ethiopian federalism and contested ogaden histories

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dc.contributor.authorMatshanda, Namhla Thando
dc.contributor.authorThompson, Daniel K
dc.date.accessioned2023-04-21T09:44:20Z
dc.date.available2023-04-21T09:44:20Z
dc.date.issued2023
dc.description.abstractSince the 1980s, analyses of African political identities have emphasized identity manipulation as a governance tool. In the Somali Horn of Africa, however, politicians’ efforts to reinvent identities confront rigid understandings of genealogical clanship as a key component of identity and political mobilization. This article explores how government efforts to construct a new ‘Ethiopian–Somali’ identity within Ethiopia’s ethnic-federal system are entangled with attempts to reinterpret clan genealogies and histories. We focus on efforts to revise the history of clans within the broader Ogaden Somali clan group and trace the possibilities and limits of these revisions in relation to legacies of colonialism as well as popular understandings of Ogaden identity. Drawing on feldwork and archival research, we show that political struggles over Somalis’ integration with Ethiopia orient around Somali clanship, but that clanship is not a mechanical tool of mobilization, as it is often portrayed. We suggest that genealogical relatedness does not equate to political loyalty, but genealogical discourse provides a framework by which various actors reinterpret contemporary events by collapsing history into the present to imbue clan, ethnic, and national identities with political signifcance.en_US
dc.identifier.citationThompson, D.K. and Matshanda, N.T., 2023. Political Identity as Temporal Collapse: Ethiopian Federalism and Contested Ogaden Histories. African Affairs, 122(486), pp.119-145.en_US
dc.identifier.issnhttp://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adad003
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10566/8859
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherAfrican Affairsen_US
dc.subjectPolitical Identityen_US
dc.subjectEthiopian–Somalien_US
dc.subjectHuman Rightsen_US
dc.subjectDowladda Deegaanka Soomaalida-Itoobiyaen_US
dc.subjectSomali Regional Stateen_US
dc.titlePolitical identity as temporal collapse: Ethiopian federalism and contested ogaden historiesen_US
dc.typeArticleen_US

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