Paper short abstract:

This presentation analyses relational movement of nomadic pastoralists realized without depending on the mediacy of representation in sub-Saharan Africa, with reference to ontological man-animal oneness in post-disarmament societies.

Paper long abstract:

In this presentation, focusing on politics of movement in the background of forced sedentarization state policy to pastoral societies of northeastern Uganda, I will consider how transnational movement and fluidity of ethnic identity, which have contributed to continuation of pastoralists' everyday life, is related to an animal that has an ontological status. Cattle, goats and sheep are irreplaceable and indispensable others, and communicative individuals in Eastern Nilotic pastoralism. In East African pastoral societies, there are common patrilineal clans and interpersonal ties existing across different ethnic groups and phratries. Flexible group view from which group boundaries are crossed might be defined by the mobility embedded in their subsistence. Contrary to modern, the sedentarized-centric and nation-state perception, in the　Karimojong and Dodoth societies, there are cross-cutting ties by person and group between mutually opposing ethnic groups, which enables to define it as combative by using ethnic identity and it as fraternal by using clan or personal identity. It is possible to pick out convenient identity for life situation at stake. Relationship of lower and upper in hierarchical structure can be reversed. It doesn't fix a particular ethnic identity as the only foundation nor float from the actual conditions of life by rising above any identity. Inconsistency and incompleteness is educed by blurring boundaries between the upper hierarchical unit like ethnic group and the lower ones' mutual encountering and collaborating in everyday practice. This resonates with co-existence logic of pastoral world directly relating man-animal individuals beyond modern western boundary biological classification constructs.