TRADITION, CUSTOM, AND OTHERNESS: THE POLITICS OF IDENTITY IN MOZAMBIQUE

Abstract

In this article, I discuss the debate on customary authority and “invention of tradition” on the basis of field data from Mozambique, which I place in a larger context provided by scholarly responses prompted by Ranger's thesis, as well as debates on customary authority in Southern Africa. Here two themes are crucial: claims for historical authenticity and the role of boundaries in the definition of group identity. I argue that a strict juxtaposition between custom and tradition is misleading, since a political institution's longevity is in fact determined by both the permanence of its basic structural principles and its inner dynamism. Starting from the premise that “ethnic groups are categories of ascription and identification of the actors themselves,” I show how individuals and groups at the local level use indeterminacy of identity and ambivalency of sociopolitical boundaries in coping with the uncertainties of rural life.

Key Words:

• tradition
• political identity
• boundary
• history
• Africa

Notes

Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (Frelimo) was formed in 1962 and soon assumed leadership in the liberation struggle against the Portuguese colonial power. A peace accord signed in Lusaka in 1974 handed over power to Frelimo without elections and three years later the front was transformed into a Marxist–Leninist party.

The abbreviation comes from its name in Portuguese, Resistência Nacional Moçambicana.

Reference to my own interviews and field visits is made by indicating the location and date. The fieldwork was supported by the Academy of Finland.

This view has subsequently been criticised, see, e.g., Alexander 1995: 184–189; cf. Bhebe and Ranger 1995: 13–14.

The name has been changed.