'Then give him to the crocodiles' : violence, State formation, and cultural discontinuity in west central Zambia, 1600-2000

Title'Then give him to the crocodiles' : violence, State formation, and cultural discontinuity in west central Zambia, 1600-2000
Publication TypeBook Chapter
Year of Publication2003
AuthorsW.M.J. van Binsbergen
Secondary TitleThe dynamics of power and the rule of law : essays on Africa and beyond, in honour of Emile Adriaan B. van Rouveroy van Nieuwaal
Pagination197 - 219
Date Published2003///
Publication Languageeng
KeywordsAfrica, history, Lozi polity, state, traditional polities, violence, Zambia
Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to explore the extent to which violence can be said to underlie any form of Stae formation in precolonial Africa. This is done by examining the role of violence in State formation in west central Zambia from the 17th century onwards. The chapter shows that State formation in west central Zambia entailed the imposition upon local village communities of a more or less centralized sociopolitical structure, representing a departure from the social organization and ideology prevailing in pre-State times. In the specific context of the expansion of Lunda political culture over much of south central Africa, the typical form of Statehood that emerged had two salient features: perpetual kinship and positional succession, neither of which corresponded with structural themes in local village society. The chapter compares the cultural logic of the village and that of the royal court in more detail, arguing that the latter completely ignored the former. This is illustrated by the particular cases of the Nkoya and the Lozi. Notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract]

IR handle/ Full text URLhttp://hdl.handle.net/1887/9708
Citation Key1540