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Paper short abstract:

Institutions have a history of emplacing people. Did the rapid disappearance of chieftaincy and initiation in the south of KiSukuma-speaking Tanzania precipitate the emigration of young herders to greener pastures, and vice versa: did their mobility undermine the institutions?

Paper long abstract:

Sukuma migrations, hundreds of miles across Tanzania towards the southeast in Morogoro’s Kilombero valley and towards the southwest in Katavi, have been defined nationally as an ecological and social disaster because of pressure on land and community. Based on historical material, long-term ethnography in Mwanza region as well as academic exchange since 2012 in Morogoro region, this paper explores the territorially bounding impact of two institutions, chieftaincy and initiation. Sukuma agro-pastoralists refer to (mobile) clans instead of territory as basis of identity, contrary to the communities they migrate to. To attract and ‘emplace’ these herders highly preoccupied with their autonomy, chiefs have said to wield rainmaking. In parallel, ihane initiation is place-based, reviving the community’s knowledge of plants and environment, while permitting to exchange across a large medicinal network. Has the early disappearance of the two institutions in the south of the Sukuma-speaking region precipitated the emigration of young herders to greener pastures, and vice versa: did their mobility help to undermine the institutions? As an aside, I argue that a study of institutions acquires validity by combining a situational analysis with reflection on its cultural assumptions and often missing 'life-sensing'.