The Struggle of Tanzania's Maasai for Indigenous Rights and International Recognition

FAIN: FA-52072-05

Dorothy L. Hodgson
Rutgers University (New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8559)

This project explores the historical and contemporary cultural, political, and economic dynamics of the indigenous rights movement in Africa through a case-study of Maasai in Tanzania. How and why Maasai have become "indigenous"? What have been the achievements and costs of allying themselves with the transnational indigenous rights movement for their ongoing struggles for recognition, rights and resources? What are the assumptions, objectives, ideas, practices and experiences of different actors involved or affected by the movement, including its leaders, members, American and European activists, UN representatives, donors, other indigenous groups, and unaffiliated community members?

Associated Products

Being Maasai, Becoming Indigenous: Postcolonial Politics in a Neoliberal World (Book)
Title: Being Maasai, Becoming Indigenous: Postcolonial Politics in a Neoliberal World
Author: Dorothy L. Hodgson
Abstract: What happens to marginalized groups from Africa when they ally with the indigenous peoples' movement? Who claims to be indigenous and why? Dorothy L. Hodgson explores how indigenous identity, both in concept and in practice, plays out in the context of economic liberalization, transnational capitalism, state restructiring and political democratization. Hodgson brings her long experience with Maasai to her understanding of the shifting contours of their contemporary struggles for recognition, representation, rights and resources. Being Maasai, Becoming Indigenous is a deep and sensitive reflection on the possibilities and limits of transnational advocacy and the dilemmas of political action, civil society, and change in Maasai communities
Year: 2011
Primary URL: http://www.worldcat.org/title/being-maasai-becoming-indigenous-postcolonial-politics-in-a-neoliberal-world/oclc/670482479&referer=brief_results
Primary URL Description: Worldcat
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 978-0-253-2230

Prizes

Honorable Mention, Senior Book Prize
Date: 11/17/2012
Organization: American Ethnological Society
Abstract: The Senior Book Prize is awarded bi-annually for a book by a senior scholar. The prize goes to a work that speaks to contemporary social issues with relevance beyond the discipline and beyond the academy.

Becoming Indigenous in Africa (Article)
Title: Becoming Indigenous in Africa
Author: Dorothy L. Hodgson
Abstract: This article traces the history of how and why certain African groups became involved in the transnational indigenous rights movement; how the concept of indigenous has been imagined, understood and used by African activists, donors, advocates and states; and the opportunities and obstacles it has posed for the ongoing struggles for recognition, resources and rights of historically marginalized people like Maasai.
Year: 2009
Primary URL: http://www.worldcat.org/title/becoming-indigenous-in-africa/oclc/647747026&referer=brief_results
Primary URL Description: Worldcat
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: African Studies Review
Publisher: African Studies Association

Cosmopolitics, Neoliberalism, and the State: The Indigenous Rights Movement in Africa (Book Section)
Title: Cosmopolitics, Neoliberalism, and the State: The Indigenous Rights Movement in Africa
Author: Dorothy L. Hodgson
Editor: Pnina Werbner
Abstract: In this paper, I argue that cosmopolitics, of which indigenous activism is one form, must take seriously the mediating role of the state and the pressures of neoliberalism in shaping political positionings and possibilities. The paper uses an ethnohistorical case study of Maasai activists in Tanzania to explore the centrality of the state to both indigenous rights and neoliberalism, and the consequent challenges to the political struggles of historically marginalized peoples. It traces and explains three phases of the relationship between Maasai and the Tanzanian state: 1) a deeply modernist, paternalist postcolonial state that treated Maasai as “subjects” rather than “citizens,” and left little space for Maasai political engagement; 2) the emergence and embrace of indigenous rights and international advocacy by Maasai activists in the 1990s, and 3) a recent shift by Maasai activists from discourses of indigeneity to discourses of livelihoods, and from international to national advocacy. These shifting political strategies and positionings within international and national debates inform, challenge, and complicate ongoing theoretical and political debates about the struggles of transnational social movements, the contours of cosmopolitics, and the enduring political salience of the state.
Year: 2008
Primary URL: http://www.worldcat.org/title/anthropology-and-the-new-cosmopolitanism-rooted-feminist-and-vernacular-perspectives/oclc/193901086&referer=brief_results
Primary URL Description: WorldCat
Publisher: Berg
Book Title: Anthropology and the New Cosmopolitanism: Rooted, Feminist and Vernacular Perspectives
ISBN: 1-84788-198-X

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