|
|
AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
Show panel list
Who Approaches Whom?- Dual Leadership Structure Among the Maasai Pastoralists in Tanzania
| Panel |
71. African political leadership: any alternatives?
|
| Paper ID | 442 |
| Author(s) |
Ruotsalainen, Petri Juha
|
| Paper |
View paper (PDF)
|
| Abstract | This paper deals with the customary leadership structure among the Maasai pastoralists and its politically elected counterpart. The paper is based on four years anthropological fieldwork in Tanzania (1997-2001) and is part of my forthcoming thesis titled ‘Under the same Shade – Peoples’ Perceptions on Political Change in Rural Tanzania’. The reason for this paper to focus on the Maasai pastoralists is that the thesis looks at one of the marginalized groups in Tanzania and how people in the rural areas perceive the political change in Tanzania. Largest part of the thesis is focusing on the Maasai, yet other non-pastoralists groups are included.
Introduction
The customary leadership among the Maasai is not a form of leadership that is based on a paramount and hereditary leadership like the chiefs among the Ndebele, Tswana or Zulu in southern Africa for example. The Maasai do not have one single leader who acts as a political leader governing the whole Maasai community. Instead they have several categories of customary leaders who have their separated and specific duties in the society and who interact with people on different levels. What is fundamental is that the customary leaders are closely connected to the basic organisational structure of men’s age-set system in the society. Through this, the positions are intimately connected to the social fabric of the Maasai men and women and part of people’s ordinary life. People are well aware of what the customary leaders’ duties and responsibilities are and they also know how to relate to them. However, despite strong identification with the customary leaders, the Maasai also have to elect their political representatives like sub-village chairperson, village chairperson, ward councillor and Member of Parliament. Hence, the paper discusses this ‘dual leadership structure’ and how the Maasai men and women use these leaders for their individual and communal benefit. Is this form of dual leadership among the Maasai an alternative to only having politically elected leaders? And what is the opinion of women and their relation to the male dominant leadership structures?
|
|