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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:'War is Good for Thieving!: The Symbiosis of Crime and Warfare among the Kuria of Tanzania
Author:Fleisher, Michael L.
Year:2002
Periodical:Africa: Journal of the International African Institute
Volume:72
Issue:1
Pages:131-149
Language:English
Geographic term:Tanzania
Subjects:Kuria
theft
cattle
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
Law, Human Rights and Violence
Ethnic and Race Relations
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/3556802
Abstract:Among the agropastoral Kuria people, whose population straddles the border between Tanzania and Kenya, many young men are engaged in illicit, violent livestock trade in which cattle stolen in Tanzania are sold to Tanzanian and Kenyan buyers for cash. The raiding is inextricably bound up with the phenomenon of warfare between mutually antagonistic Kuria clans, which not only serves to legitimize raids on the enemey's cattle herds so long as the fighting rages but which also fosters and sustains an atmosphere of interclan enmity that lends support to cattle raiding, particularly on the herds of former adversaries, even after hostilities have ended. Clan warfare is therefore both a cause and an effect of commercialized raiding as well as serving as a training ground for novice raiders. On the basis of field research carried out in the Tarime District lowlands from August 1994 to March 1996, the author argues that although Kuria cattle raiding, oriented to the cash market, owes its existence to capitalist penetration and is driven by the rising demand for cattle, it remains heavily dependent on interclan warfare, which has two main causes: animosity engendered by commercialized cattle raiding, and boundary adjustments by the government, either for administrative reasons or, paradoxically, in an effort to resolve exsiting disputes over access to pasture, grazing and water. Bibliogr., sum. in English and French.
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