Precarious Alliances

The Cultural Politics and Structural Predicaments of the Indigenous Rights Movement in Tanzania

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2463181
AutoresDorothy L Hodgson (0000-0003-0605-6745, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, autor correspondente)
Ano2002
Volume104
Fascículo4
Páginas1086-1097
Data de publicação2002-12-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoAmerican Anthropologist (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0002-7294 • E-ISSN: 1548-1433
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1525/aa.2002.104.4.1086
OpenAlexW1980458135
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas42
Referências citadas33

Since 1990, over one hundred indigenous nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) have emerged in predominantly Maasai areas in Tanzania, attempting to organize people around diverse claims of a common "indigenous" identity based on ethnicity, mode of production, and a long history of political and economic disenfranchisement. Despite attempts to foster unity and promote common political agendas, the indigenous rights movement has been fractured by sometimes quite hostile disagreements over priorities, competition over resources, and tensions over membership and representation. This article explores the complicated causes and consequences of these tensions by focusing on the discussions, disagreements, and silences that occurred during a recent attempt to reconcile indigenous groups in Tanzania. The workshop offers a unique window on the cultural, political, and historical dynamics of the indigenous rights movement in northern Tanzania, the principles and practices of inclusion and exclusion that have defined and shaped the movement, and the internal and external stresses that have made alliances within and among the INGOs, donors, and the government precarious, at best. [Keywords: indigenous peoples, social movements, cultural politics, Maasai, Tanzania

Ethnic group · Ethnology · Indigenous · Indigenous rights · Maasai · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Tanzania · Gender Studies · Law · Rangeland Management and Livestock Ecology · Religion, Society, and Development · Tourism, Volunteerism, and Development