The Role of Somali Kinship in Sustaining Bureaucratic Governance around Dagahaley Camp in Kenya

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2143142
AutoresFred Nyongesa Ikanda (Maseno University, autor correspondente)
Ano2022
Volume87
Fascículo2
Páginas384-403
Data de publicação2022-03-15
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoEthnos (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0014-1844 • E-ISSN: 1469-588X
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00141844.2020.1773894
OpenAlexW3034980637
IdiomaEN
Referências citadas18

Bureaucracy is often portrayed as having an unrivalled capacity to shape human relationships in states and organisations. By contrast, however, ethnographic studies have suggested that bureaucracy cannot easily take root among Somalis and other Muslim nomadic societies where kinship is ostensibly supreme. Based on ethnographic research at Dagahaley refugee camp, this article challenges the idea that Somali kinship and bureaucratic structures are rival governing technologies. I demonstrate that kinship and bureaucracy play similar roles and are, therefore, not incompatible. Kinship provided traction to bureaucratic procedures in the way people used it alongside bureaucracy as means of governance and resource access. The article contributes to legal and political anthropology, as well as the burgeoning field of ethnography of bureaucracy by attributing common portrayals of civil wars, ethnicity, and nepotism as 'nomadic' or 'African' problems to commentators' failure to grasp the value of kinship in these societies

Bureaucracy · Corporate governance · Economics · Ethnography · Kinship · Management · Political anthropology · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Somali · African history and culture analysis · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography · Gender Studies · Law