The Names of the Python Belonging in East Africa, 900 to 1930

David L. Schoenbrun, "The Names of the Python: Belonging in East Africa, 900 to 1930 "
English | ISBN: 0299332500 | 2021 | 376 pages | PDF | 7 MB
Systems of belonging, including ethnicity, are not static, automatic, or free of contest. Historical contexts shape the ways which we are included in or excluded from specific classifications. Building on an amazing array of sources, David L. Schoenbrun examines groupwork-the imaginative labor that people do to constitute themselves as communities-in an iconic and influential region in East Africa. His study traces the roots of nationhood in the Ganda state over the course of a millennia, demonstrating that the earliest clans were based not on political identity or language but on shared investments, knowledges, and practices.