The terms of the debate in ethnic studies do not allow for a comprehensive understanding of ethnic processes in the Gambella region of Ethiopia. Scholarly discourse concerning ethnicity and ethnic conflict exhibits a high density of polemic, producing what Richard Jenkins (2001: 4826) has described as ‘more heat than light’. What an ethnic group is, how it is related to culture, and when it is mobilized by whom and for what purposes – these questions are still largely unanswered.

In the literature on ethnicity and nationalism, it is common to distinguish between two general approaches known as primordialism and constructivism;...

Once one concedes that the term ‘ethnicity’ refers to a range of phenomena linked loosely by certain underlying family resemblances, in Wittgenstein’s sense, it becomes evident that ethnic groups may exhibit considerable variation in their specific manifestations. This chapter is devoted to a description and analysis of the formation of ethnic identity among the Anywaa – a formation which may be characterized generally as primordialist. In this context, the term primordialism is used as a gloss for the ‘emic’ discourses and practices of the Anywaa themselves: the Anywaa believe that ethnic identity is among the ‘givens of social existence’ (Geertz...

In this chapter, I describe and analyse the Nuer mode of identity formation, which, I argue, is not primordialist, as among the Anywaa, but constructivist. In this context, ‘constructivism’ is used in an ‘emic’ sense, that is, to refer to the Nuer conviction that ethnic identity is not ascribed but achieved – that being a Nuer is based on cultural competence rather than on shared origins. Hutchinson (2000: 9) anticipates my argument in her distinction between ‘primordialist’ and ‘performative’ aspects of Nuer ‘concepts of identity’. Still, it is important to emphasize at the outset that this view of the Nuer...

This chapter examines the resource dimension of the conflict between the Anywaa and the Nuer. The basic argument of the chapter is that competition for natural resources is relevant in Anywaa–Nuer conflict but cannot be taken as the sole cause of ethnic conflict. One of the objects of the Anywaa–Nuer struggle is access to and control over the riverine lands. Riverine lands in Gambella form a minimal proportion of the total land surface but have an outstanding agricultural and pastoral value. This has created scarcity of a specific type of land. Indeed, the Nuer expansion into Anywaa-inhabited territories...

In the previous chapter we have seen how contrasting formations of ethnic identity mediate between resource competition, on one hand, and ethnic conflict, on the other. In this chapter we discuss the ways in which these contrasting formations themselves may cause ethnic conflict, particularly in processes of ethnic conversion. The constructivist ethnic identity formation of the Nuer is inherently expansionist. It not only allows ethnic membership for outsiders but it also actively encourages and supports the process of becoming Nuer, for example, by providing material incentives. Ethnic conversion is especially common in those situations in which the Nuer enjoy military...

This chapter provides an in-depth analysis of the ways in which the Anywaa and the Nuer have been incorporated into the Ethiopian state in two successive regimes. The basic premise is that different patterns of incorporation into an ethnically stratified state and corresponding fluctuations in inter-ethnic power relations may themselves be viewed as causes of ethnic conflict. In keeping with the fundamentally multicausal approach advocated in this book, however, the power variable will be viewed in its interaction with the resource and identity variables.

One of the main features of contemporary inter-ethnic relations is the role of the state in...

At the end of the twentieth century, inter-ethnic power relations – which have been identified above, together with differing modes of ethnic identification and competition for natural resources, as one of the three causes of ethnic conflict between the Anywaa and the Nuer – were altered once again, initially in favour of the Anywaa. In May 1991, the Derg was overthrown by the EPRDF. Upon seizing power, EPRDF leaders and activists restructured the Ethiopian state according to ethnic federalism. The 1995 constitution explicitly recognized ethnicity as the official state ideology and the ethnic group as the legitimate unit of political...

Building on Chapter 7, this chapter elaborates further on the power variable, specifically on the ways in which relations with the Ethiopian and also the Sudanese state may be viewed as causes of ethnic conflict between the Anywaa and the Nuer. It emphasizes Nuer contestation of Anywaa political dominance in the GPNRS in the 1990s through the formulation of counter-claims to power based on creative ideologies of ethnic entitlement.

Political domination of the Gambella regional state by the Anywaa in the 1990s gave rise to resentment and created solidarity among the Nuer. Anywaa dominance produced three levels of concern for...

The transborder settlement pattern of both the Anywaa and the Nuer has made their interrelations susceptible to wider geopolitical processes. The larger presence of the Nuer in southern Sudan and their affiliations with various centres of political power has enabled them to acquire greater military power than the Anywaa. In some cases at least, this imbalance in military power has led the Nuer to abandon the practice of negotiating with the Anywaa over access to natural resources in the latter’s territories, and it has encouraged groups of Nuer to resort increasingly to violence in inter-ethnic relations.

Postcolonial Sudan has been...