Forms of group identity play a prominent role in everyday lives and politics in northeast Africa. Case studies from Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Kenya illustrate the way that identities are formed and change over time, and how local, national, and international politics are interwoven.

List of Illustrations List of Maps, Figures and Tables List of Abbreviations Introduction Günther Schlee Space and Time: Introduction to the Geography and Political History Günther Schlee and Elizabeth E. Watson Part I. Identification and Insecurity in the Lower Omo Valley 1. The Fate of the Suri: Conflict and Group Tension on the South-West Ethiopian Frontier Jon Abbink 2. Resistance and Bravery: On Social Meanings of Guns in South-West Ethiopia Ken Masuda 3. Modernization in the Lower Omo Valley and Adjacent Marches of Eastern Equatoria, Sudan: 1991–2000 Serge Tornay Part II. Institutions of Identification and Networks of Alliance among Rift Valley Agriculturalists 4. Burji: Versatile by Tradition Hermann Amborn 5. The Significance of the Oral Traditions of the Burji for Perceiving and Shaping their Inter-ethnic Relations Alexander Kellner 6. Mobility, Knowledge and Power: Craftsmen in the Borderland Hermann Amborn Part III. Land, Identification and the State in Ethiopia 7. ‘We Have Been Sold’: Competing with the State and Dealing with Others Tadesse Wolde Gossa 8. Identity, Encroachment and Ethnic Relations: the Gumuz and their Neighbours in North-Western Ethiopia Wolde-Selassie Abbute 9. Debates over Culture in Konso since Decentralization (1991) Elizabeth E. Watson 10. Changing Alliances of Guji-Oromo and their Neighbours: State Policies and Local Factors Taddesse Berisso Part IV. Pastoralists in the Kenya-Ethiopia Borderlands 11. Changing Alliances among the Boran, Garre and Gabra in Northern Kenya and Southern Ethiopia Günther Schlee 12. Roads to Nowhere: Nomadic Understandings of Space and Ethnicity John C. Wood Bibliography Notes on Contributors Index