John G. Galaty

Animal spirits and mimetic affinities: The semiotics of intimacy in African human/animal identities:

Human identities are often conceived in counter-position to objects outside the individual or the collective self with which lines of affinity or opposition, or the blurring together of both, run. Selfhood itself is forged out of the experience of “alterity” through encounters with diverse “others” with whom we identify or differentiate ourselves. With reference to the experience of East African pastoralists, this paper examines the meshing of human and animal identities, where both wild and domestic animals represent human partners and counterparts. Semiotic theories propose that there are two opposed sign functions, based on relations of contiguity and similarity. Domestic animals are “part of,” but often serve as metaphors for, pastoralist societies. Both functions describe forms of human/animal “similitudes,” via large affinities as people are seen as like, as or together with domestic animals, or via small and intimate affinities, built up through sensual experience. Sacrifice creates the ultimate intimacy, as the sacrificed animal becomes a key signifier of personal and social identities. Here, the two semiotic functions are blended to form especially powerful semiotic objects, with metonymical sources elevated to analogies identities. Livestock, then, are human metonyms that serve as especially convincing metaphors and allegories for society and personal identity. It is through relations of intimate affinity between herding peoples and their stock that the sense of what an animal is and the qualities it sensually shares with people are built up through experience and affect into memories and anticipations. Then, the nature of the beast as a set of forms, properties, ideas, and associations is elevated into indexical images of special similitude that can assume the full weight of signifying people as individuals and collectivities and in so doing brings identities within society into being.

Boundary-making and pastoral conflict along the Kenyan-Ethiopian borderlands

Abstract: Boundaries are technologies of power and knowledge that shape spatial and social realities and our understandings of them. This article examines the effects of boundary-making between Kenya and Ethiopia, and investigates the effects of borders on states of peace and conflict among Turkana, Samburu, Borana, Gabra, and Dassanetch of northern Kenya. If borders divide people, people benefit nonetheless from the environmental, social, and political entropy that borders generate by using the energy of spatial differences to advance their own individual and collective life projects. Résumé: Les délimitations sont des technologies de pouvoir et de connaissances qui façonnent les réalités spatiales et sociales et la compréhension que nous en avons. Cet article examine les effets de la création de délimitations entre le Kenya et l’Ethiopie, et étudie les effets des frontières sur les états de paix et de conflit entre les Turkana, les Samburu, les Borana, les Gabra et les Dassanetch du nord du Kenya. Si les frontières divisent les gens, les gens bénéficient néanmoins de l’entropie environnementale, sociale, et politique que les frontières génèrent en utilisant l’énergie des différences spatiales pour faire avancer leurs propres projets de vie individuels et collectifs.

Pastoralism in Anthropology

Pastoralism is a mode of subsistence that involves raising domestic animals in grassland environments using herd and household mobility. Combined with nomadism, pastoralism has allowed humans to inhabit the worlds vast dry lands. Pastoral systems are adaptations to diverse political and ecological conditions, but today are influenced by national and global societies. Livestock are objects of pastoralist identification used for subsistence, market sale, social exchange, and symbolic expression and were the worlds first currency. Against the tragedy of the commons argument, pastoral use of rangelands is sustainable, and should continue as pastoralists increasingly participate in global institutions and cultural modernity.

The Ecology of Survival: Case Studies from Northeast African History.

Introduction - ecology and society in northeast African history, David M. Anderson and Douglas H. Johnson Part 1 Archaeological and historical perspectives - human adaptation and long-term climatic change in northeast Africa - and archaeological perspective, John A.J. Gowlett the great drought and famine of 1888-92 in northeast Africa, Richard Pankhurst and Douglas H. Johnson Emutai - crisis and response in Maasailand 1883-1902, Richard Waller. Part 2 Case studies - primary export crop production and the origins of the ecological crisis in Kordofan - the case of Dar Hamar, Mustafa Babiker Ahmed cultivation as a long-term strategy of survival - the Berti of Darfur, Ladislav Holy traders, farmers and pastoralists - economic adaptions and environmental problems in the southern Nuba mountains of the Sudan, Leif O. Manger adaptation to floods in the Jonglei area of the Sudan - an historical analysis, Douglas H. Johnson prelude to disaster - the case of Karamoja, Beverley Gartrell pastoralist migration and colonial policy - a case study from northern Kenya, Neal W. Sobania cultivating pastoralists - ecology and economy among the II Chamus of Baringo, 1840-1980, David M. Anderson looking for a cool place - the Mursi, 1890s to 1980s, David Turton history, drought and reproduction - dynamics of society and ecology in northeast Ethiopia, James McCann.

Marina Ottaway and David Ottaway. Ethiopia: Empire in Revolution. Pp. vi, 250. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1978.

a sparkling and important piece of work. What in lesser hands might have become a circumscribed and ordinary monograph on Hunanese politics is instead a vitally interesting, multidimensional study of Hunan as a microcosm of all the currents playing in China at the time. Not the least of McDonald’s very considerable talents is an easy, almost joyous, command of the language, which evokes memories of Joseph Levenson. In sum, let’s have more of his sort of eclecticism. R. KENT LANCASTER Goucher College Towson