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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
Show panel list
Katikiro - The history of a political institution in interlacustrine Africa, 1860-1919
| Panel |
65. The politics of travelling in Africa - Translocal perspectives in African history
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| Paper ID | 537 |
| Author(s) |
Pesek, Michael
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | Katikiros served as advisers and administrators to the various rulers. With the advance of the coastal caravan traders and European explorers the katikiros often maintained the contacts with the arriving strangers and thus played an important part in the emergence of a culture of diplomacy in the interlacustrine region. Increasingly, rulers hired former traders for this job, because of their language skills and their knowledge of rules of diplomatic rituals in the contact zone of 19th century. It was not surprising that German colonizers who were arriving at the since at the end of the 19th century, negotiated the terms of establishment of colonial rule mainly with the katikiros. Under colonial rule, the katikiros became main intermediaries in the context of indirect rule, which Germans practized in the region. Increasingly they became involved in the colonial apparatus, where they helped to implement the politics of the colonial state.
The history of the institution of the katikiro serves as a case study for the everyday politics of indirect rule. My main thesis is that indirect rule was in its practice a peripatetic rule. By that, it was limited in its scope to transform African societies and relied much on local structures and practices. The paper shows how in the context of indirect rule relationships with African societies were established and their institutions were transformed. But this was not an one-sided process. The political culture of interlacustrine societies not only survived during colonial rule, but was also able to shape the politics and representation of indirect rule in the region. |
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