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Knowing Ethnicity - Samantha Balaton-Chrimes

Knowing Ethnicity

The Politics of Classification and Pluralism in Kenya
Buch | Softcover
224 Seiten
2026
Cambridge University Press (Verlag)
978-1-009-70780-0 (ISBN)
CHF 55,85 inkl. MwSt
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Ethnic classifications in Kenya are more uncertain than commonly imagined, holding both risks and possibilities for political pluralism. At a time of advances in digitisation of identification and population knowledge systems, this study offers an urgently needed exploration of where ethnic classifications have come from, and where they might go.
There is a widespread assumption that both ethnicity itself, and ethnic conflict, are inevitable. Yet, we know very little about how ethnic identifications function in bureaucratic terms in Africa. The stakes of this problem are rapidly escalating in moves to digital identification and population knowledge systems. Focusing on Kenya, this study provides an urgently needed exploration of where ethnic classifications have come from, and where they might go. Through genealogies of tools of ethnic identification – maps, censuses, ID cards and legal categories for minorities and marginalised communities – Samantha Balaton-Chrimes challenges conventional understandings of classifications as legible. Instead, she shows them to be uncertain and vague in useful ways, opening up new modes of imagining how bureaucracy can be used to advance pluralism. Knowing Ethnicity holds important insights for policy makers and scholars of difference and governmentality in postcolonial societies, as well as African and ethnic politics.

Samantha Balaton-Chrimes is an Associate Professor in Politics at Deakin University. She is a political sociologist with sixteen years' experience conducting research on ethnicity, marginalisation and politics in Kenya and other postcolonial societies. Balaton-Chrimes is the author of Ethnicity, Democracy and Citizenship in Africa (2015) and more than twenty articles and book chapters.

Introduction: cultivated vagueness and ethnic classification in Kenya; 1. Making ethnicity; 2. Mapping ethnic territory; 3. Counting ethnic populations; 4. Registering the ethnic citizen; 5. Recognising ethnic minorities and marginalised communities; Conclusion: ethnic classifications in a digital future; Appendix 1. Ethnic categories in Kenyan censuses; References; Index.

Erscheint lt. Verlag 30.4.2026
Reihe/Serie African Identities: Past and Present
Zusatzinfo Worked examples or Exercises
Verlagsort Cambridge
Sprache englisch
Themenwelt Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie
Sozialwissenschaften Politik / Verwaltung
Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie
ISBN-10 1-009-70780-9 / 1009707809
ISBN-13 978-1-009-70780-0 / 9781009707800
Zustand Neuware
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