The Creation of Identity

Colonial Society in Bolivia and Tanzania

Bibliographic Data

ID2107923
AuthorsRobert H Jackson (0000-0001-6619-4707, Harvard University Press, corresponding author), Gregory H Maddox (0000-0002-6877-6193, Harvard University Press), Gregory Maddox
Year1993
Volume35
Issue2
Pages263-284
Publication date1993-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueComparative Studies in Society and History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0010-4175 • E-ISSN: 1475-2999
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0010417500018375
OpenAlexW2053052059
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited47

Many colonial regimes appropriate traditional symbols of power to enhance authority. In many cases this appropriation results in the hardening of more transitory political divisions among subject people into ethnic, national, or tribal ones. Colonialism often, in essence, creates different identities for subject peoples. For example, the East India Company (E.I.C.) and royal colonial government in India manipulated caste and religion to carry out a policy of divide and rule. Moreover, the E.I.C. and later the Raj attempted to create a European-style landed elite that could promote development of agriculture, maintain social control in the countryside and, perhaps most important, collect taxes owed to the government. The Raj attempted to place the structures of power that evolved within the framework of the symbols of Moghul legitimacy, going so far as to create a hybrid traditional style of architecture used in many public buildings that mixed elements from both Hindu and Muslim buildings. In South Africa, colonial legislation, as seen in the process begun by the Glen Gray Act of 1894, resulted in the proletarianization of the African population by creating tribal reservations without enough resources to support all the people often arbitrarily defined as members of a particular tribe. And, as seen in studies of mine labor, coloniallegislation also defined a distinctive legal status for workers

Caste · Colonialism · Dominion · Indirect rule · Legitimacy · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Population · Proletarianization · Sociology · Tribe · African history and culture studies · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · Law

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