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Revisiting colonial legacies in knowledge production on customary authority in Central and East Africa
Full text linkRenewed attention on customary authority in both scholarship and development interventions renders it pertinent to revisit how contemporary engagement with this form of authority is still informed by colonial legacies. These legacies include: first, the penchant to see customary authority as solely invested in 'chiefs', rather than being relational and multifaceted; second, compartmentalized approaches that emphasize chiefs' role as political authorities, while overlooking ritual, medicinal and spiritual aspects; third, misanalysing the role of female agency in the customary domain; and fourth, drawing on dichotomies that are often heavily inscribed in Western understandings, in particular, the modern versus traditional and state versus non-state divides. A growing body of work, however, has overcome these biases and developed more nuanced understandings of customary authority. Building on this work we propose to approach both the constitution of customary authority as well as knowledge production on this social institution in terms of 'contested coproduction'. This concept helps focus on the socially constructed boundaries between different categories, and to see customary authority as a contextually shaped product of both structure and agency. It, therefore, advances the project of developing general conceptual tools that can capture the bewildering variety of expressions of customary authority while still enabling comparison
Anioto and nebeli : local power bases and the negotiation of customary chieftaincy in the Belgian Congo (ca. 1930-1950)
Full text linkBy means of two case studies, this paper demonstrates how customary chiefs in Northeast Congo crafted their power position under colonial indirect rule. The first case discusses chiefs' role in anioto or leopard-men killings to secure their authority over people, land and resources whilst circumventing colonial control. The second case concerns nebeli, a collective therapy characterised by the distribution of a medicine or charm used to protect, heal and harm in Northeast Congo and South Sudan. These case studies show that indirect rule designed customary chieftaincy too one-sidedly, based on patrilineal succession and land rights. It tried to cut chiefs off from spiritual and coercive power bases such as anioto and nebeli, which were part of local political culture. While colonial authorities framed institutions such as anioto and nebeli as subversive, and expected government-appointed chiefs to renounce them, they were clandestinely used by chiefs to retain their grip on local society whilst fulfilling their state-imposed duties. However, these institutions were not simply used to resist or by-pass colonial control, but also to support it. These historical cases help to gain insight in contemporary chiefs and militia leaders' continued use of similar coercive, spiritual and remedial means to boast their power
In search of chiefly authority in ‘post-aid’ Acholiland : transformations of customary authorities in northern Uganda
Full text linkThis paper investigates the complex relation between protracted donor interventions and the production of customary authority. More specifically, the paper analyses the impact of post-conflict donor interventions (and their withdrawal) on the position of customary chiefs in the Acholi region in northern Uganda. As important brokers between international aid agencies, the Ugandan government and Acholi communities, customary chiefs became key actors in post-conflict peacebuilding programmes. Using the concepts of extraversion and development brokerage, the paper demonstrates how dwindling access to external donor funds has strongly affected Acholi customary authority. To secure their authority and legitimacy, customary chiefs re-shifted from an 'outward' to an 'inward' orientation, a process that we call 'introversion
Courses au pouvoir:The struggle over customary capital in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo
Full text linkThis article analyses the production and reproduction of traditional chieftaincy in war-torn eastern DR Congo, through the case of a succession dispute in Kalima (South Kivu). Kalima has gone through two decades of political instability and violent conflict involving a plethora of local, national and regional actors. During this period of uncertainty and upheaval, the institution of traditional chieftaincy has remained politically salient. We argue, that this salience is conditioned by a widespread belief in the authenticity and sacredness of the institution of traditional chieftaincy and by the ethno-territorial imaginary of the Congolese political order. Both of these are historically produced through rituals, ceremonies and narratives of origin. They imbue the institution of traditional chieftaincy with charisma and enable customary chiefs to accumulate resources and exercise authority in a wide range of domains of public life in rural eastern Congo. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu, we call this ability to rule through the notion of ‘custom’, customary capital. However, we also show that ‘customary capital’ does not automatically accrue to chiefs as a variety of internal and external actors vie for customary capital. As such it fluctuates over time as different actors move in and out of the capacity to legitimately wield customary capital
Locating the ‘customary’ in post-colonial Tanzanian politics : the shifting modus operandi of the rural state
Full text linkThis paper examines how both rhetoric about custom and practices drawing on elements of deep-rooted political culture remain relevant in post-colonial Tanzania. This is the case despite the Tanzanian government's aggressively modernising stance and the erasure of colonial-era 'traditional' chiefs after independence. The paper identifies three patterns. Firstly, witchcraft cleansing remains a rare flashpoint over which rural people are willing to defy officials, amid legislation that has barely moved on from the colonial period. Secondly, for defenders of certain practices, describing them as customary is a way to try to place them beyond criticism, while for officials it becomes a way to wash their hands of the attendant problems. Lastly, a performative political practice can be discerned in the interactions between rural populations, officials and development experts that resonate with descriptions of pre-colonial political encounters. By looking for local legitimacy in interactions with so-called elders, development experts have become arbiters of (pseudo-)traditional authority despite their modernising identity. These observations show that discourses about and practices drawing on the customary have become deeply imbricated with the political practices of the rural state
Exhibition review : decolonising the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Belgium's second museum age
No full textThe Leopard Men of the Eastern Congo (ca. 1890-1940): history and colonial representation
No full textThe research begins with a sculpture representing a “Leopard Man”, threatening to attack a sleeping victim, at the Royal Museum for Central Africa, Belgium. Recently this colonial icon was criticised for presenting a racist image. Leopard men killed on behalf of chiefs in the east of Congo (ca. 1890-1940). The emergence of a mythology of leopard men is analysed in relation to its suppression as an anti-colonial movement in the colony. This research highlights the distinctive potency of ethnographic objects as proof, shaping experiences of the colonised in the colonial museum, in relation to the text-focused study of the colonial discourse.
The history of leopard men is reconstructed to break away from an exotic and de-historicised understanding. Two eastern Congolese varieties, anioto and vihokohoko, are studied, from which the RMCA display was derived. The micro-histories of conflict clusters are considered in the context of the Zanzibari slave trade and the Belgian colonisation as forms of empowerment. Anioto and vihokohoko are further studied in their cultural history. They are regarded as institutional developments in the context of political competition.
Mythologisation in colonial sources is regarded as a process of structuration underlying all expressions of human experience. While rooted in reality, such expressions are also shaped by what people desire to believe. This occurs in line with a cultural logic and the rhetoric of rumour with the most potent elements being singled out to support the colonial discourse, leaping into fiction. Leopard men accounts are structured after culturally effective traditions of narration, presenting the civilising project as a moral victory of good over bad. Leopard men became an epistemological category, a morally inferior, animal-like opponent threatening the colonial order. The use of costumes and claws for the killings was falsely exaggerated, because their form objectifies the colonial logic
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