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Rethinking Resistance: Revolt and Violence in African History
Revolts and violence have always been features of African history but questions frequently still remain as to what and who the targets of resistance were. This volume reviews the subject of resistance in the light of current scholarly thought. Were political forms of resistance directed at the imposition or ending of colonial rule or at African elites profiting from the onset of capitalist relations of production? Or did they have purely sociological or religious roots? With contributions from historians, anthropologists and political scientists, Rethinking Resistance analyzes the concepts of resistance, violence and ideological imagination, and has chapters on uprisings and revolts in nineteenth-century pre-colonial societies and early colonial Africa, post-colonial rebellions and more recent and contemporary conflicts.
- GenresAfrica
380 pages, Paperback
First published December 10, 2002
About the author
Jon Abbink
20 booksJon Abbink is an anthropologist and a senior researcher at the African Studies Center at Leiden University.
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June 13, 2016
A pleasant disappointment, at the one hand the book did not deliver on it's promise to be a true revolutionary insight in the dynamics at play during episodes of widespread violence nor did it change my view on the meaning of collaboration or alternative ways of resistance used in Africa. The book is a collection of contribution by different experts on a wide array of subjects from precolonial to contemporary Subsaharan Africa and as is so often is the case the different chapters and segments did not read as a coherent whole but rather a ragtag collection of subjects under the common banner of war and conflict in Africa. However, the content of most of these contributions were at the very least interesting and often intriguing and this is what saves this book from mediocrity.
It is very rare to read even a collection book that includes precolonial history of Africa or material off the beaten path. To be fair there was some of it there; the somali conflict, Mozambique and settler colonization in south Africa, but even in these there were some side notes that do make these analysis standout ( I was relieved there was no piece on the Rwandan genocide, there is already an overload on material of this shocking event).
I will not list the entire set of contributions but the most worthwhile to read according to me; the Ethiopian resistance fighters during the Italian occupation, the 19th century recruitment of Africans by the Dutch to fight in Colonial Indonesia and the political instrumentation of the heroro genocide and it's memory for the last 100 years. But again, every chapter was well written, had at least a few new aspects (for those who have read the subject before). Perhaps at times I felt like the authors were rushing to list all the events to get on with their own analyses (as to get every reader up to speed on the subject at hand), I often wished they had made it less detailed and less rushed.
The main point of the book, I do agree with, it is wrong to attribute motivations to people resisting and fighting in the past to suit your own agenda and to be aware of the political dimensions history of violence and resistance entails. To acknowledge that every person has his or her own reasons to act as they do without the advantage of perfect hindsight afterwards and appreciate the limitations/possibilities offered to them by movements/factions and societal structures. To understand the lingering emotions and altered relations that are the result of a period of widespread conflict and how it influences latter events and community dynamics, in particular when terror was used as a weapon of war. "the question is not how much force these people used, but what their legacy is" Stephen Ellis a quote that sums up the message I got from reading this book.
So a worthwhile book to read but perhaps one to read early on. I feel that if I had read this book earlier, this would have made a bigger impact, for the assumptions on African conflicts that the book addresses are valid and important but I had read it before. Still, the interesting selection of periods, regions and time made this interesting to read despite a few flaws and undelivered promises. I do plan on reading more into several subjects in particular the history of Madagascar, a region I have ignored up to now.
It is very rare to read even a collection book that includes precolonial history of Africa or material off the beaten path. To be fair there was some of it there; the somali conflict, Mozambique and settler colonization in south Africa, but even in these there were some side notes that do make these analysis standout ( I was relieved there was no piece on the Rwandan genocide, there is already an overload on material of this shocking event).
I will not list the entire set of contributions but the most worthwhile to read according to me; the Ethiopian resistance fighters during the Italian occupation, the 19th century recruitment of Africans by the Dutch to fight in Colonial Indonesia and the political instrumentation of the heroro genocide and it's memory for the last 100 years. But again, every chapter was well written, had at least a few new aspects (for those who have read the subject before). Perhaps at times I felt like the authors were rushing to list all the events to get on with their own analyses (as to get every reader up to speed on the subject at hand), I often wished they had made it less detailed and less rushed.
The main point of the book, I do agree with, it is wrong to attribute motivations to people resisting and fighting in the past to suit your own agenda and to be aware of the political dimensions history of violence and resistance entails. To acknowledge that every person has his or her own reasons to act as they do without the advantage of perfect hindsight afterwards and appreciate the limitations/possibilities offered to them by movements/factions and societal structures. To understand the lingering emotions and altered relations that are the result of a period of widespread conflict and how it influences latter events and community dynamics, in particular when terror was used as a weapon of war. "the question is not how much force these people used, but what their legacy is" Stephen Ellis a quote that sums up the message I got from reading this book.
So a worthwhile book to read but perhaps one to read early on. I feel that if I had read this book earlier, this would have made a bigger impact, for the assumptions on African conflicts that the book addresses are valid and important but I had read it before. Still, the interesting selection of periods, regions and time made this interesting to read despite a few flaws and undelivered promises. I do plan on reading more into several subjects in particular the history of Madagascar, a region I have ignored up to now.
Displaying 1 of 1 review