16:00 - 17:30
Room: Aston Webb – Senate Chamber
Stream: Political Legitimacy and 'Customary' Rule in Local African Contexts
Political Legitimacy and 'Customary' Rule in Local African Contexts: Keynote Lecture
Justin Willis
Durham University, Durham

"Earlier this year, one of Kenya’s most prominent national politicians became involved in a minor quarrel when he was ‘installed’ as an elder of a relatively small ethnic group. After a dispute over ownership, the monkey skin used in the ritual was discreetly returned to the local nonagenarian who claimed it. This story of the creative entanglement of national politics and localized claims to a gendered, generational, authority slipped quickly from the headlines, perhaps partly because in most respects it was banal. Groups of male elders have become much involved in Kenya’s electoral politics since the 1990s – indeed, this seems to be the primary purpose of some of these groups. They routinely bestow upon candidates not only their endorsement, but the shared status of ‘elder’, in events that combine extravagant language (the event was described as a ‘crowning’) and ambitious promises of collective political loyalty.

As academics working on Africa we have, collectively, been much concerned in recent decades with what is sometimes called the persistence, or resilience, of customary authority. That formulation is – as many have pointed out - problematic: there is usually more creativity than persistence involved, and ‘customary’ has always been a dangerously capacious imaginary category, into which multiple realities may vanish without trace. Taking the story of the disputed monkey skin as its starting point, this lecture will consider a longer history of ideas about legitimate representation– who should be represented to or in government, and how their representatives should be chosen - in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda. From this perspective, it will interrogate the readiness with which we treat ‘customary’, ‘traditional’ and ‘indigenous’ as synonyms and consider the productivity - and the pitfalls - of the categorical contrasts between different sources of legitimacy."


Reference:
Tu-A35 Political Legitimacy and Local African Contexts Keynote-P-001
Presenter/s:
Justin Willis
Presentation type:
Panel
Room:
Aston Webb – Senate Chamber
Date:
Tuesday, 11 September
Time:
16:00 - 16:15
Session times:
16:00 - 17:30