Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/7797
Title: The socioeconomic dynamics of the shifta conflict in Kenya, c. 1963-8
Authors: Whittaker, H
Keywords: Kenya;Somalia;War;Postcolonial
Issue Date: 2012
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Citation: Journal of African History, 53(3), 391 - 408, 2012
Abstract: Using a set of oral testimonies, together with military, intelligence, and administrative reports from the 1960s, this article re-examines the shifta conflict in Kenya. The article moves away from mono-causal, nationalistic interpretations of the event, to focus instead on the underlying socioeconomic dynamics and domestic implications of the conflict. It argues that the nationalist interpretation fails to capture the diversity of participation in shifta, which was not simply made up of militant Somali nationalists, and that it fails to acknowledge the significance of an internal Kenyan conflict between a newly independent state in the process of nation building, and a group of ‘dissident’ frontier communities that were seen to defy the new order. Examination of this conflict provides insights into the operation of the early postcolonial Kenyan state
URI: http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/7797
ISSN: 0021-8537
Appears in Collections:History
Brunel Law School Research Papers

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