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From: Charles BECKER <[email protected]> List Editor: Charles BECKER <[email protected]> Editor's Subject: Usage of 'tribe,' 'clan,' and 'nation') : 14 REPLIES Author's Subject: Usage of 'tribe,' 'clan,' and 'nation') : 14 REPLIES Date Written: Fri, 5 Aug 2005 12:08:08 -0400 Date Posted: Mon, 07 Aug 2005 20:32:04 -0400

X-Posted from H-NET List for African History and Culture

<[email protected]>

From: Colleen Vasconcellos <[email protected]>

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REPLY 1

Date: 5 Aug 2005

From: Akin Ogundiran <[email protected]>

African Tribe? Are we reinventing the wheel? I would think that Africanists

have jettisoned this caricature. Barbara Jean Palmer writes "Even Julius

Nyerere used the term "tribe" in his speeches and writings in English, and

definitely not in an offensive way when he talked about African tribes."

With due respect to Barbara, this type of excuse is common in perpetuating a

terminology that belittles African peoples. How come that all Tanzanians are

tribes(wo)men and the Welsh, Scots, Irish, English, and other peoples of the

British Isles are nations or peoples. The fact that Nyerere or any other

African

used the term does not excuse the scholar or someone involved in the

production of knowledge to use the term "tribe". We cannot underestimate the

impact of

colonial education on the consciousness of the people who inherited the

colonial state. Maybe decolonization really never took place, or it was a mere

window dressing. We must even be more conscious of these derogatory terms now

given the reinvigoration of the "Coming Back of the Empire".

By the way, what does the term "tribe" really mean? For readers who may not

be aware of this, Africa Action some years back created a website devoted to

this discussion. The conclusion is that the word "tribe" as a term designated

for non-European peoples is a product of colonial racism, well ingrained in

colonial education, and carried on by uncurious and intellectually lazy

populace,

whether in the West or in Africa. Please check out the website:

http://www.africaaction.org/bp/ethall.htm.

Naming, name-calling, and defining the "Other" are at the roots of knowledge

production. We must avoid terminologies that kill; and abandon classifications

that dehumanize so that we don't keep producing tyrannical knowledge about

the "Other".

Akin Ogundiran

Dept. of History

Florida International University

Miami, FL 33199

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REPLY 2

Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2005 12:15:09 -0400

From: Colleen Vasconcellos <[email protected]>

Date: 5 Aug 2005

From: Mwangi Githinji <[email protected]>

While accepting the use of Kabila , by swahili speakers the assumption

that they would have meant tribe before it got translated as such is

problematic.

It could just have meant my people. In fact the other use of the word is

to mean "type". Tribe as used by Africans is not derogatory but we have

accepted a Colonial nomenclature that does not describe the social

formations that exist on the continent and as practiced by colonial

authorities did suggest that there peoples had not reached nationhood.

Ethnic group I believe is a move useful nomenclature to describe the

various groups of differing Socio - political organization as it carries

no connotations about the type of sociopolitical organization other than

relation to common language and culture.

Salaam,

Mwangi

Program in African American Studies and

Dept. of Economics

Gettysburg College

300 N. Washington Street

Gettysburg, PA 17325

Tel: 717 337 6791

Email: [email protected]

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REPLY 3

Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2005 12:15:59 -0400

From: Colleen Vasconcellos <[email protected]>

Date: 5 Aug 2005

From: Philip Havik <[email protected]>

As to the usage of the above mentioned terms in (Portuguese) Creole

languages spoken in West Africa, it is worth noting that some, e.g.

'race', in the sense of 'tribe', and 'nation' have become household

words, here in Kriol or the Creole of Guinea Bissau. However, emulating

a process that occurred in other African languages already mentioned in

the thread, signification may be subject to change.

For example, the term 'rasa' (from Portuguese 'raÁa') in Kriol means

'ethnic group', i.e. more akin to 'tribe' than to 'race'. It derives

from the colonial usage of the term in Portuguese, but without the

stigma currently attached to it. Another way of expressing oneís roots

is the term ëtchoní (from the Portuguese ëch“oí in its meaning of region

of origin), combining geographical with community vectors. The ëethnicí

group will then be added on to specify the community or ëethnicí group

in question.

Although the term clan is not used in a derivation of its Portuguese

form (i.e. cl“), 'gan' (in the sense of the Latin 'gen' , also ëgensí in

English, or clan, although the Kriol term has an African root) is used

in Kriol to designate a trade lineage or residential compound (in

towns), as well as a ward or neighbourhood. The name of the lineage of

or of the dominant ëethnicí group follows; here again we have a

composite of toponyms and social unit, common to African languages.

Finally, 'nasson' (from the Portuguese ënaÁ“oí) also became part and

parcel of Guinean Creole after the nationalist war against portuguese

colonialism (1963-1974), being absent from Kriol idiom before that

period.

It would be interesting to hear about other cases of derivation and

shifting meanings in Creole languages (e.g. in Gambian ëAkuí or ëKrioí?)

in order to compare processes of ëtransculturationí, as some have called

it, with regard to meanings and their local connotations.

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REPLY 4

Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2005 12:17:11 -0400

From: Colleen Vasconcellos <[email protected]>

Date: 5 Aug 2005

From: Christopher Lowe <[email protected]>

Someone suggested that clan, like tribe, is derogatory. I don't think

the negative connotations of clan are nearly as numerous or as strong

as those of tribe in English.

It is true that "nation" cannot simply be substituted for "tribe,"

given the huge range of meanings given to "tribe." However, clearly

there are cases where "nation" would be the best substitute. In

others, it might be an acceptable one, where "[a] people" might also be

close to what is meant, or perhaps some senses of "ethnic group."

What to use instead of tribe? To my mind the first step is to ask,

what is meant, in context, from among the many meanings of "tribe." A

list of possibilities for which the word "tribe" gets substituted would

include: band, village, chiefdom, kingdom, kin-group, clan, nation,

nationality, ethnic group, people, political clientele, and community.

Doubtless there are others. Sometimes "tribe" presumes or imputes the

unity of more than one.

The point isn't just to use a different word. The point is to describe

better, more clearly, in a fuller way -- or to recognize that one

doesn't know enough to do so and avoid pretending at knowledge.

Chris Lowe

Portland, Oregon USA

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REPLY 5

Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2005 12:18:22 -0400

From: Colleen Vasconcellos <[email protected]>

Date: 5 Aug 2005

From: Christopher Lowe <[email protected]>

The Africa Action/APIC background paper mentioned, "Talking About

Tribe," of which I was co-author, began its life in an H-Africa

discussion in 1997. The paper contains a short list of references,

including Archie Mafeje's piece but not Bernard Magubane's.

The discussion in 1997, which was extensive, and an earlier discussion

along similar lines in about 1995 or so, included a larger number of

references to published pieces, as I recall. For those interested in

the topic, going back to those discussions might be worthwhile, as the

cast of participants was different and included some colleagues no

longer with us, such as the late, much-missed Harold Marcus.

As "jpool" (unfortunately full name is not on message) points out, a

fundamental problem with the term "tribe" is that it has no coherent

referent or common or consistent usage. If one delves into the

anthropological literature of the 1950s and 1960s, one will find

various attempts to create coherent definitions. Isaac Schapera's

definition in _Politics and Government in Tribal Life_ is admirable as

such an exercise, and exemplifies the problem. To achieve coherence,

Schapera specifically rejects the idea that a tribe in practice is

(was?) based on kinship, noting that rules of exogamy require multiple

clans (say kin-groups if you prefer) in a given area, and concludes

that the fundamental character of a tribe is political, meaning, in the

southern African context on which he focuses, followers of a chief.

However, not much later one can find at least one U.S. anthropologist

arguing that "real" tribes don't have chiefs, that the tribal is a

social evolutionary stage that predates chieftaincy, with the latter

seen as a proto-state or small state kind of entity. Some said tribes

must be face-to-face corporate groups, others used the term to refer to

identities shared by numbers in the millions of people, and so on.

Using any given one of these approaches, one can make a reasonable

approximation of a coherent definition, but one must admit that most

entities called tribes won't fit that definition even remotely. Or one

can accept widespread usages that include everything from small

forager-hunter collectivities to nations of millions, but then one must

admit that the term does not actually *distinguish* any kind of

grouping or entity, but rather *lumps together* many different kinds,

and is intellectually incoherent.

The deeper epistemological and political critiques such as those by

Mafeje and Magubane that Jesse Benjamin mentions, and many others,

emerged both in the context of decolonization (particularly for Africa)

and in the context of the increasing obviousness of the intellectual

incoherence. So too did recognition that tribal status in many places

has become a legal phenomenon with a bearing on access to social and

material resources, as Betsey Brada notes. (While the Mashpee case has

a particular recent literary salience, the rather chillingly named

"Termination Policy" of the Eisenhower administration, which sought and

the "termination" of tribal status in general, with accompanying

extinguishing of sovereignty claims, treaty rights and so on, and

indivualization and privatization of collective resources, especially

land, and actually "terminated" at least two tribes, the Klamath here

in Oregon (since re-recognized) and one in Wisconsin, set the stage for

legal and legislative counter-activism since the 1960s aimed at adding

resource content to tribal status, which formed the context for Mashpee

and like efforts).

In these days of trying to shut people up by ignoring the substance of

arguments with the label of "political correctness" (ultimately an

attack on motives), it is important in my view to stress the

fundamental intellectual incoherence of the term. It is not useful

analytically.

The question then arises, what is the use of an intellectually

incoherent, analytically useless idea? At that point, epistemology,

politics, and questions of intentionality enter in. Here I think we

ought to recognize that while there may be circumstances in which tribe

has been seen by people as "a resource for their [own] collective

representation," in the longer intellectual, cultural, social and

political run, it has been a resource for collectively representing

people who were being collectively dispossessed and subordinated in the

processes of modern European empire-building and colonization,

including colonies of settlement. In that context, uses for collective

self-representation, while perhaps often strategically deployed for

what purchase could be gained within colonial contradictions, might

still need to be seen as elements of rituals of subordination and

domination, analogous to symbols like a rural English worker

approaching a landlord "hat in hand."

-----------------

Barbara Jean Palmer, I don't exactly want to "correct" you, having no

basis or standing to do so. But I would like to figure out if I

disagree with you, with respect to what conclusions can or should be

drawn from your points. I am uncertain what conclusions you yourself

draw.

I don't doubt that Julius Nyerere used the term "tribe" when speaking

in English, although I would be surprised if he didn't also apply the

term nation or people to the same groups in other instances. You say

he did not use the term in a pejorative way, and again that is

unsurprising, although it would be surprising if he was not critical of

"tribalism" in the sense of divisively opportunistic ethnic politics

(an accusation of course often itself deployed for tribalist ends).

The record of African nationalists and Pan-Africanists speaking or

writing in English in the 20th century is replete with similar

examples, including speeches and writings of Nelson Mandela I think.

But such uses depart radically from the meanings most U.S. Americans or

Europeans associate with the term "tribe" and related words. Thus they

tell us very little about what it means when used or heard in U.S. or

European contexts, whether in the press and by news readers/ listeners/

watchers, in classroom settings, on academic e-mail lists, by

officials, or elsewhere. Whatever Nyerere meant, it wasn't the same

thing that caused U.S. and European journalists to call conflict in the

Balkans in the 1990s "tribalist" at some times and "genocidal" at

others. This disparity of denotation reflects another dimension of the

incoherent vagueness of the term.

As to "qabila" and "kabila," it would be interesting to know what

"qabila" means in Arabic. Since, as someone noted, Arabs have been and

in some times and places still are said to come in tribes, is "qabila"

an Arabic term that Arabs applied to groups or identities among

themselves? If so, given the prestige of putative Arab ties among

Muslims in Africa and especially in areas once under Arab power, the

idea that "our" groups/ identities are the same as or similar to Arab

ones would be easy to understand. If, however, it originally had a

more charged differentiating and subordinating connotation that has

been transformed, something more complex would be going on -- and it

would be interesting to know what "qabila" originally was intended to

connote that differentiated Africans from Arabs.

I have more questions about whether "kabila" and "tribe" really are

synonyms, however, beyond a phrasebook or translation dictionary sense.

I am pretty sure that if I asked most Zulu-speakers what isiZulu word

means "tribe," they would tell me "isizwe." There are also

dictionaries that will define "isizwe" as "tribe," although even by the

1950s South African academics in a translation dictionary included the

glosses "nation" and "people" as well. But if there were an isiZulu

equivalent the _Petite Larousse_ or _Webster's Third International_ or

the OED, that went deeper into the meanings of the term, it would be a

longish entry I think, and I think the semantic field it would cover

would depart extensively from any thorough investigation of the senses

of "tribe" and related words in English. My suspicion is that

something similar probably is true about "kabila" and "tribe," but I'd

be interested in your comment and willing to learn otherwise, since I

have no actual knowledge on the point.

But let me also back up a step and ask, what do Swahili speakers mean

by either term, when they use them as synonyms? And is their use of

either "kabila" or "tribe" really much like English uses of the term

"tribe"?

Chris Lowe

Portland, Oregon USA

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REPLY 6

Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2005 12:19:12 -0400

From: Colleen Vasconcellos <[email protected]>

Date: 5 Aug 2005

From: "Benjamin, Jesse J. " <[email protected]>

The two early critiques of tribe that I have found so useful in my work,

both from 1971, are:

Mafeje, Archie, 1971, "The Ideology of Tribalism," Journal of Modern

African Studies 9: 253-261.

Magubane, Bernard, 1971, "A Critical Look at Indices Used in the Study

of Social Change in Colonial Africa," Current Anthropology 12: 419-430.

Jesse Benjamin

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REPLY 7

Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2005 12:23:26 -0400

From: Colleen Vasconcellos <[email protected]>

Hi Michael,

I wanted to talk with you a bit about your post below. I'm concerned a

bit about the word "racist". I know you are not calling subscribers

participating in this discussion a "racist" but I am afraid that your post

may be misconstrued. Subscribers may feel that is what you are doing. I

was hoping that you could reword that sentence a bit to avoid using that

term. My reasoning behind this is to just keep the discussion on track

and avoid a whole flare where people start screaming at each

other...namely you...about this instead of focusing on the discussion at

hand. This discussion is too important for that to happen, in my opinion.

Would you mind to do that?

Best,

Colleen Vasconcellos

Editor, H-Africa

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REPLY 8

Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2005 21:26:29 -0400

From: Colleen Vasconcellos <[email protected]>

Date: Fri, 05 Aug 2005 01:07:23 +0000

From: michael loutzenhiser <[email protected]>

No one here is trying to turn back the clock, and I realize that people

often have simultaneous roles in different social structures. White

supremacist paradigms will be dominant as long as the idea that tribes are

generally more primitive than nation-states is dominant. Why? Tribes

weren't primitive.

If people think that "tribes" are primitive then we shouldn't stop using

the word tribe, rather we must, of course, show people that tribes were not

primitive.

Nation-states did not unify the tribes, they did not integrate them; they

conquered them. Huge difference.

I will address the matter about Africans conquering Africans on the other

thread. Here are some quotes from Margery Perham's Introduction to 'African

Discovery: An Anthology of Exploration' (1963):

"Trade was indeed almost everywhere encountered [throughout Africa]]. (...)

It [precolonial Africa] is thus at times a society almost in dissolution, or

at least deeply wounded by its first contact with _an outer word more cruel

than itself_, that we are being shown. [my underscore] (...) only two of

these ten Europeans were killed. the strange often came to a tribe straight

from the headquarters of its bitterest enemies. they were generally unable

to gve any intelligible reason for their presence. (...) Their behavior was

generally unaccountable and often menacing and improper. They made sinister

attempts to reach places that were profitless or forbiddenn. They were

possessed of possessions which were a standing temptation to robbery (...)

Yet these men, utterly dependent and sometimes destitute, were allowed to

pass chief after chief and tribe after tribe (...) violence which was well

within the power f these chiefs. (...) The equal friendship in sport and

arms formed by Bruce with the young bloods of the Abyssinian Court; the

hospitality of Rumanika; the discreet generosity of Mansong- what

counterparts could they have to-day, as between Africans and Europeans."

Another great source is 'Religion in Africa: Experience and Expression'

(1994) edited by T.D. Blakely, W.E.A. van Beek and D.L. Thomson.

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REPLY 9

Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2005 21:28:17 -0400

From: Colleen Vasconcellos <[email protected]>

Date: Fri, 05 Aug 2005 16:55:24 +0000

From: [email protected]

My problem is, what term(s) should I use in my writing to substitute for "clan"

and "tribe" that won't carry the pejorative baggage. Perhaps the ubiquitous

"we" should try to address the baggage, but I don't think it's practical to put

an asterisk linking to a 100 word essay on how I don't mean the term in a

pejorative way, every time I use it in my writings. The baggage is what it is.

I also disagree with whoever said that "clan" doesn't have as much of a

pejorative connotation. For instance, the Hatfields and McCoys were "clans"

(for non Americans who don't understand the reference, email me off line for an

explanation). There's "clannish".

I guess my underlying issue here is that when I think of "clans" and "tribes",

I don't think of technologically sophisticated and well educated people; yet

the Iraqis, many of whom _do_ identify strongly or even primarily with a

clan/tribe structure, are clearly all of this.

Joe Adamczyk

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REPLY 10

Delivered-To: [email protected]

Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2005 21:29:36 -0400

From: Colleen Vasconcellos <[email protected]>

Date: Fri, 05 Aug 2005 13:02:24 -0400

From: Barbara Jean Palmer <[email protected]>

One point of clarification:

Nyerere rejected the use of the term "tribe" when discussing the

Nigerian civil war in his pamphlet The Nigeria-Biafra Conflict

(available at Michigan State University library and elsewhere) by

asking questions - are the Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa-Fulani, tribes, and are

the Welsh and Scots tribes?

Others may know the context in which he used the term "tribe" n some of

his speeches in Freedom and Unity and Fredoom and Socialism: Selected

Speeches and Writings.

Barbara Jean Palmer

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REPLY 11

Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2005 21:30:38 -0400

From: Colleen Vasconcellos <[email protected]>

Date: Fri, 05 Aug 2005 13:08:36 -0400

From: Barbara Jean Palmer <[email protected]>

Mwangi,

What does Professor Frank Chiteji, a Tanzanian and your colleague at

Gettysburg College, say about Nyerere's use of the term tribe in Freedom

and Unity and Freedom and Socialism: Selected Writings? Both of you know

Kiswahili. And Chiteji, as a Tanzanian, may know something I don't about

President Nyerere's use of the term "tribe."

Barbara Jean Palmer

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REPLY 12

Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2005 21:32:34 -0400

From: Colleen Vasconcellos <[email protected]>

Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2005 12:38:26 -0600

From: Jack Betterly <[email protected]>

> Someone suggested that clan, like tribe, is derogatory. I don't think

> the negative connotations of clan are nearly as numerous or as strong

> as those of tribe in English.

Speaking as a descendant of Celts, Angles and Teutons - the Celts, at

least, not the least embarrassed by "tribe" - while I can understand

some "civilized" (citified) people considering the term derogatory,

the judgment seems to be read into the word by individuals and

"civilizations." Certainly in my long contacts with American Indians

(yes, they say "Indians"), and among my Welsh relatives and forbears

who tried desperately to persuade me of our tribalism which was truly

long gone) the term itself seems to be judgment only if one makes it

so. Definition? I would say a society of humans which sees itself as

a complex of familial and clan relationships and obligations, imposed

by birth, rather than as a polity.

- Jack

Jack Betterly, World History Association

Editorial Board, World History Connected

Emma Willard School, Emeritus

6350 Eubank Boulevard NE, Apt. #1013

Albuquerque, NM 87111 E-mail: [email protected]

New Web Site: < http://www.geocities.com/jbetterl/index.html>

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REPLY 13

Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2005 21:35:10 -0400

From: Colleen Vasconcellos <[email protected]>

Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2005 17:16:39 -0400

From: Tim Cleaveland <[email protected]>

I'd like to respond to Chris Lowe's question about the word 'qabila,

which I've pasted immediately below:

"As to "qabila" and "kabila," it would be interesting to know what