VIOLENCE, AUTHORITY, AND THE STATE IN THE NUBA MOUNTAINS OF CONDOMINIUM SUDAN

JUSTIN WILLIS
2003 The Historical Journal  
The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult
more » ... he full DRO policy for further details. The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. A B S T R A C T. While British colonial rhetoric consistently identified tradition as the basis of legitimate authority, colonial practice actually produced far-reaching changes in the nature of government in Britain's African possessions. New institutions, and new holders of power, emerged in African societies in response to the particular needs of colonial administration. This article explores this transformation in one part of Condominium Sudan, which was effectively a British possession but which has often been excluded from historical discussions of the impact of colonialism because of its unique status. The Nuba Mountains have recently gained notoriety as a particularly bloody theatre of Sudan's long post-colonial civil war; while some have sought to explain this as the result of British policies which encouraged racial antagonism, the article suggests that here, as elsewhere in Africa, the real legacy of colonial rule was the creation of new kinds of local government which sat uneasily with enduring local ideas of spiritual power and proper authority. * I should like to thank colleagues in the seminars at Humboldt University, the African Studies Centre at Cambridge University, and at the School of Oriental and African Studies for their comments; and also the anonymous referees of the Historical Journal. The article also benefited from a Durham-Humboldt exchange programme, funded by the British Council and DAAD, ref. ARC 1160.
doi:10.1017/s0018246x02002856 fatcat:iqgvbxuyvzbdvlio7mohqcdace