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Oral Poetry and Somali Nationalism: The Case of Sayid Mahammad 'Abdille Hasan
TLDR
In this article, the influence of oral poetry on Somali politics is explored by reconstructing the history of the Somali nationalist resistance movement, mainly through the use of political oratory in verse form by its leader, Sayyid Mahammad 'Abdille Hasan', the Mad Mullah of British history.Abstract:
This book explores the influence of oral poetry on Somali politics. By reconstructing the history of the Somali nationalist resistance movement, mainly through the use of political oratory in verse form by its leader, Sayyid Mahammad 'Abdille Hasan', the 'Mad Mullah' of British history, Said Samater shows how an indigenous resource can be harnessed in a non-literate society, not only as a medium of mass communication but also as a tool for acquiring political power. He traces the intimate correlation between language, politics and oral poetry and seeks to suggest to students of African societies ways of examining indigenous forms of communication used by traditional African creators of large-scale organisations in the absence of writing, to influence public opinion. The book is an important contribution to the history of the Horn of Africa and its new material on the role of oral literature in a non-literate society will interest linguists, sociologists and anthropologists, as well as students of folklore and comparative literature.read more
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Mirrors and Windows: Sociocultural Studies of Human-Animal Relationships
TL;DR: A review of human-animal relationships with animals can be found in this article, with a focus on the relationship between anthropologists and historians, as well as sociocultural research on human-human relationships.
Book
Digital Diasporas: Identity and Transnational Engagement
TL;DR: In this article, Brinkerhoff examines how immigrants who still feel a connection to their country of origin use the internet and argues that digital diasporas can ease security concerns in both the homeland and the host society, improve diaspora members' quality of life in the host societies, and contribute to socio-economic development in the homeland.
Poems to Open Palms: Praise Performance and the State in the Sultanate of Oman
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors trace the musical constitution of moral, economic, material, and social relations between rural communities and the state in the Sultanate of Oman and argue that communities embedded within the authoritarian state hegemony of the country form and affirm social relations with the state through its embodied proxy, via the reciprocal exchange of state-directed giving and praise poetry responses.
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Agamben in the Ogaden: Violence and sovereignty in the Ethiopian–Somali frontier
Tobias Hagmann,Benedikt Korf +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose an interpretation of the political history of the Ethiopian Ogaden as a recurrent government by exception that spans the Imperial rule (c. 1890-1974), the socialist dictatorship of the Derg (1974-1991), and the current revolutionary democratic regime led by the Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) (1991-today).
Book ChapterDOI
King Leopold's Congo, 1886–1908
Jean Stengers,Jan Vansina +1 more
TL;DR: The first years of the Congo Independent State, under the personal government of King Leopold, lasted from 1885 to 1908 as discussed by the authors, when only a tiny part of the territory of the state was occupied.