David Turton

War and Ethnicity: Global Connections and Local Violence

Introduction - war and ethnicity, David Turton my neighbour, my enemy - the manipulation of ethnic identity and the origins and conduct of war in Yugoslavia, Tom Gallagher an ethnic war that did not take place - Macedonia, its minorities and its neighbours in the 1990s, Stefan Troebst Oromo national liberation, ethnicity and politics mythomoteurs in the Horn of Africa, Thomas Zitelman war in the post-World War II world - some empirical trends and a theoretical approach, Klaus Juergen Gantzel nationalism and ethnicity - ethnic nationalism and the regulation of ethnic conflict, Jakob Rosel ethnic mobilization, war and multi-culturalism, Harry Goulbourne clan conflict and ethnicity in Somalia - humanitarian intervention in a stateless society, Iaon Lewis ethnic war and international humanitarian intervention, Mark Duffield postscript - current issues and future directions in the study of ethnicity, ethnic conflict and humanitarian intervention, Giorgio Ausenda.

War and ethnicity: Global connections and local violence in North East Africa and former Yugoslavia

Many of todays wars are explained (by observers) and justified (by participants) as the result of deep and ineradicable ethnic differences. But ethnic differences are not given in nature and the relationship between ethnicity and war is not a simple matter of cause and effect. Five questions are considered in the light of recent internal wars in North East Africa and former Yugoslavia. First, in what historical circumstances do ethnic differences become salient? Second, by what techniques do political leaders seek to use ethnic differences as a political resource? Third, how can we explain the special power of ethnic ideas to move people to collective acts, sometimes of horrifying brutality? Fourth, how can we explain the growing importance of local identities in a world which is also becoming more unified, politically, economically and culturally? And finally, what can politicians, aid organizations, journalists and academics do to help prevent and mitigate the terrible consequences of politicized ethnicity?

Wilderness, wasteland or home? Three ways of imagining the Lower Omo Valley

Abstract Since the 1960s, the lower Omo Valley of southwestern Ethiopia has been imagined by conservationists as a “wilderness”, in need of urgent protection from the damaging impact of human activity. For state officials it has been an unproductive wasteland, inhabited by violence prone “nomads”, in need of the political control and civilizing influence of the state. For local people it is home, a place from which they derive not only their livelihoods but also their sense of individual and group identity. Both the conservationists’ and the states ways of imagining the lower Omo are fundamentally pictorial, implying the disengaged standpoint of an external viewer. For local people, it is a “lived” environment, which they perceive and experience in functional rather than formal terms. Since the setting up of the Omo and Mago National Parks in the 1960s and 1970s, conservation, linked to state coercion, has helped to advance the states project of control and revenue extraction in its southwestern periphery. New opportunities for the state to advance its political objectives in the lower Omo are now emerging, in the shape of hydro-electric dams and commercial plantations, which are not, however, compatible with the conservationists’ goal of wilderness protection. It is suggested that the three ways of imagining the lower Omo identified in the article can be understood as the legitimating ideologies of three competing place-making projects, of unequal power, carried on at three different spatial levels.

Landscape change in the lower Omo valley, southwestern Ethiopia: burning patterns and woody encroachment in the savanna

Abstract In this article we examine bush encroachment in a savanna ecosystem of the lower Omo Valley occupied by Mursi agro-pastoralists. Focusing on the role of fire and grazing, the main anthropogenic disturbance factors in the savanna, we compare the results of our ecological surveys with Mursi perceptions and understandings of environmental change. The main change described by Mursi is the loss of grassland over the last 30 to 40 years. Their explanations centre on three complementary factors: a growth in human and livestock numbers, leading to a reduction in grass availability; a tendency towards more permanent settlement, leading to heavy year-round pressure on certain grazing areas; and the loss of traditional burning practices, leading to frequent small fires rather than infrequent large blazes, capable of clearing the savanna of trees. In addition, state encroachment in general and the establishment of the Omo and Mago National Parks in particular have restricted mobility and reduced the actual and potential grazing area available to Mursi livestock. Our ecological surveys did not, however, show a causal relationship between fire, grazing and encroachment pattern. We therefore suggest that grazing and burning practices should be considered relevant, but not necessarily the most important, factors explaining bush encroachment in this case.

Oral histories and the impact of archaeological fieldwork in contact encounters: meeting Socrates on the Omo

Whilst there is growing concern within archaeology about the wider impact of archaeological research in general, only limited attention has so far been paid to the impact fieldwork has on local communities. Here, using examples from fieldwork with an agro-pastoral Mursi community in Ethiopias Lower Omo Valley, we present a case in which local oral traditions are modified in response to archaeological discoveries. This illustrates a particular example of the impact of fieldwork during and after its completion; and the enduring traces of contact upon fieldwork participants. We argue that in employing an attitude of impact practice within fieldwork that foregrounds the Socratic notion of dialogue, the resulting focus highlights the value and significance of archaeology to local communities.