ugnet_: Fwd: The Roots of Ethnicity : The Origins of the Acholi of Uganda Before 1800

[J Ssemakula]

----Original Message Follows----

The Roots of Ethnicity : The Origins of the Acholi of Uganda Before 1800 (Ethnohistory Series)

Hardcover (December 1994)

University of Pennsylvania Press; ISBN: 0812232488

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

Reviews

Booknews, Inc. , March 1, 1995

Atkinson (history, U. of South Carolina) argues that although colonial rule and its aftermath have played a major role in shaping ethnicity in Africa, many sociohistorical developments can be traced to a past long before the colonial period. He examines the origins of the culture and society of the Acholi of present-day northern Uganda, and provides a detailed reconstruction and analysis of the pre-1800 evolution of the African sociopolitical order. Of interest to students and scholars in anthropology, history, and African studies. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

---

 

ps: Atieno Odhiambo (Rice University) reviewed this book in 1996 in The American Historical review, 110: 535-536 and said, in part:

 

"The punch of Atkinson's argument is that Acholi ethninicity predates the colonial twentieth century, but that the notion of an Acholi "tribe", as conjured and manipulated by the  British colonizers of Uganda, was nonetheless foisted on a people  who had their own distinct  mental category of of ethnic identity."

 

Apparently Atieno's take is that the concept of  an Acholi tribe probably arose sometime after the 1720s.

 

How far is any of this true?

 

===

see also:

Ronald Atkinson, "The Evolution of Ethnicity among the Acholi of Uganda: The Precolonial Phase" Ethnohistory 36,1 (1989), 19-43

Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Ethnicity and Nationalism: Anthropological Perspectives (London: Pluto Press, 1993).

Ramkrishna Mukherjee 1985 Uganda: An Historical Accident, Class, Nation, State Formation, Africa World Press

Michael Twaddle,  1993 Kakungulu & the Creation of Uganda 1868-1928 (Eastern African Studies), Ohio Univ Press

 Ruth B. (Hurditch) Fisher Twilight tales of the Black Baganda: the traditional history of Bunyoro-Kitara a former Uganda Kingdom, Cass (one of the best books about Bunyoro).

---

Help protect your PC. Get a FREE computer virus scan online from McAfee. -------------------------------------------- This service is hosted on the Infocom network http://www.infocom.co.ug