All posts by Prof. Ferdinand Chipindi

Introduction Tribe, at least in its current usage, implicitly refers to that a tangible interconnection links a circumscribed ethnic group with a self-evident cultural repertoire. Many unanswered questions remain about what constitutes a tribe and how they are defined, even though European-American colonial expansionists often used the phrase throughout the colonial encounter. This analytical narcissism results in a halt to what is empirically and theoretically permitted in the study of tribes. Aiming to expand our understanding in this area is a worthwhile intellectual endeavour. It has become increasingly common for people who do not want to identify with any particular tribe to come into contact with rural residents who have been deterritorialized and relocated to urban areas that are becoming more cosmopolitan and sophisticated. This is an attempt to start a debate about the reliability of this increasingly unreliable idea. I question the validity of the cultural category of “tribe” by questioning the normative nature of this categorization. Anglo-American imperialists, with their “civilizing mission” between the 15th and 20th centuries accompanied by Eurocentric epistemic violence, is where I seek to place its inception, articulation, and entrenchment. Next, I discuss the theoretical grounds of my investigation. After that, I briefly define the term and explain where it came from in the context of the colonial encounter. After that, I try to dissect the rationale behind the word to dismantle it. Finally, I contend that a fundamental error in the category tribe’s logic leads to the creation of spurious distinctions. So, I dismantle the apparent connection between the construct and the concept of culture in the following paragraphs. Tribe, while flexible and conceptually simple, cannot be utilized as a basis for comprehending culture in a complex world where people, ideas, knowledge, and cultural infrastructure have moved considerably over the last six decades. To put it another way, this undermines the legitimacy of the tribe as a cultural category. Theoretical considerations Poststructuralism, which opposes the singularity of meaning and the stability of language, is the framework for my investigation. Poststructuralist ideas on culture and identity intrigue me. Instead of perceiving the self as a cognitive essence, ‘poststructuralists argue that identity processes are essentially ambiguous and always in a state of flux and reconstruction … emphasize the plurality of meaning concerning identity’ (Collinson, 2006, p. 182). For poststructuralists, an individual’s sense of self as a single, cohesive entity is primarily fictional and mythical because one’s own identity encompasses conflicting tensions and competing claims about one’s own knowledge and experience (Belsey, 2002). Instead of promoting the idea that people’s identities are fixed and immutable, poststructuralist theory promotes the idea that people’s identity is a constantly changing social process that may be modified through time. As a result, one’s identity is not a static concept but rather an ever-evolving set of personalities that one develops, adapts, and discards as one engages with oneself, others, and the broader sociocultural context in which they function. My paper examines how Zambians navigate identity processes that lack a central point of reference. Historicizing the tribe Considering the concept of tribe via a poststructuralist lens helps me answer the question, what constitutes tribehood? I also raise the question of whether or not a certain tribe form behaviours, attitudes, and cultural infrastructure before or after language’s formation. If so, does naming the tribe’s members lead to characterizing or prescribing the group’s homogenous behaviour in any way? For example, if one is a Bemba, do they inherently like monkey meat, as a Tonga might? Poststructuralism, on the other hand, contends that this is far from the case. As Weedom has argued, language, not behaviour, explains or reflects these people’s actions. There is nothing natural about the term “tribe,” which indicates that the designation is constructed through language. The colonial encounter’s binary logics, which were internalized and essentialized even after the end of colonial control, produce the discourses within which tribal citizens are formed. We become so used to certain kinds of subjectivity and identification that we do not even realize we are doing them anymore. The person who adopts these identities is more likely to internalize them. Individuals become tribal subjects when they engage in discourses about tribehood. The criteria for exclusion and inclusion of the concept of the tribe are endemically vague. Uncertainty and inexactitude surround the criteria that distinguish one tribal group from another. To the untrained eye, tribal criteria appear to be rooted in biological factors such as descent or race. On the other hand, anthropologists have been aware for more than a century that descent is the product of social construction rather than a biological fact. Researchers generally agree that ‘race’ distinctions conceal an array of non-biological differences through “biologistic reductions” in social science. Suppose one considers that nearly all of Luapula, Northern, Muchinga, Copperbelt, and part of Central province are Bemba-speaking. Yet, the tribal iconography of these regions appears to populate them with over 45 tribal units. In that case, the use of language as a viable criterion for tribe distinction fails. That some social divisions are ethnic is widely held, although it is unnecessary, characteristically false, and factually erroneous. Subjective, relative, and situational criteria are used to define tribal boundaries rather than objective and unambiguous ones. Studies have repeatedly shown that ethnic divisions are socially created and do not represent biological differences. An ethnic divide is built on a multitude of unique features that are all mutually exclusive. Some researchers have attempted to map ethnic groups using a common language, a common homeland, a nationality, or a caste. Ethnic groupings are then defined in terms of the culture they are thought to share, resulting in incorrectly validating tribal categories. To say that the term tribe is founded on a miscalculation of the identities of the people in the colonized territories would be an understatement. However, it is not entirely without merit. Non-tribe mates were the only context in which tribemate could be understood. Other analysts have claimed that colonial powers like France, Britain, Belgium, and Portugal used a basic procedure of classifying and labelling indigenous peoples to establish control over colonial areas (Southall, 1996). Based on considerable ‘mistranslation and misconceptions of local social structure, geography, and history,’ they attempted to categorize people into tribes (Southall, 1996, p. 1331). As a result, a common language and culture, with uniform laws of social structure, a common name, and a contiguous region and history of common descent began to be referred to as “primitive peoples” under the normative term tribe. As a result, essentialization and solidification into bogus tribal designations of ambiguous and frequently erroneous distinctions among colonial peoples occurred (Southall, 1996). According to other researchers, tribes were manufactured creations that did not come about organically, like language. Instead, the colonial state’s administrative apparatus steadily institutionalized the tribe. The indirect rule approach in Anglophone Africa relied heavily on this term. As a practical and political measure to keep the populace in check, the British government established and institutionalized this system of local leaders serving as chiefs of their separate tribes, subject to colonial monitoring and regulation (Sneath, 2016, p. 4). ‘Any aggregate of families or small groups that are organized together under a chief or leader, maintaining similar customs and social laws, and tracing their genealogy from a common ancestor’ became the official definition of the term over time (Sneath, 2016, p. 4). No matter how much it was legitimized and essentialized, the consensus among anthropologists (many of whom were participants in the construction’s legitimacy) is that it was tainted by ‘scandalous imprecision.’ People who lived in tribes were seen as a remnant of a lower form of life left behind by the march of history, waiting to be redeemed and reshaped by the intervention of higher forces. This was the original meaning of the term, coined by Euro-American colonists to describe a more primitive order in which tribal people were excluded from the ‘pale of civil society’ (Yapp, 1983, p. 154). Thus, tribes were widely referred to as ‘savage’. (Yapp, 1983, p. 154). Using the narrative of primitive cultures as an analytical unit of barbarous societies, the growing science of anthropology gave credence to this pejorative phrase in the nineteenth century. Anthropologists’ criticism of “tribe” grew in the mid-20th century. This was after they realised that many so-called tribes had been formed during colonial times. Many of their titles derive from slang phrases coined by outsiders but later adopted by the government as official designations. For example, Richard F. Burton claimed to have discovered three powerful tribes in Tanganyika in the mid-1800s: Sukuma, Nyamwezi, and Takama. Burton had scandalously misinterpreted or perhaps misheard his interpreters, who ‘were giving him the phrases for ‘those to the North, West, and South’ of wherever they happened to be’ (Southall 1985, p. 569). Several tribes were born out of such broadly defined limitations during the colonial period. By creating a ‘tribal unit’ around this uncertainty, Cameron, and his ilk ‘erected indirect rule.’ They were in charge and shaped the political landscape (Ranger 1983, p. 250). The production of artificial difference The most basic definition of “tribe” refers to a collection of people who share memories of a distant, often mythological homeland, a village with a chief, and a tribal tag to complete the picture of a distinct identity. The designated individual will frequently engage in the form of active identification as a result of this tribal identity. For example, a community may claim that its sartorial customs, gastronomic preferences, and body markings are unique indicators of its tribehood. As a result, tribal identity and behaviour come to the forefront of the culture. Nationhood, on the other hand, is a sort of identification that mobilizes belongingness by enrolling subjects and relying on both emotional and cognitive labels to interpolate individuals as citizens of a single nation. Citizenship markers like birth certificates, passports, and electoral rolls are monitored and distributed by a complicated bureaucracy. It is the goal of the national anthems, sung at official state occasions and cultural and sporting events, to instil a sense of national pride in the people. Individuals may not have access to all the identities and modes of subjectivity available in a culture. They tend to be restricted to a small number of organizations and are closely monitored by those organizations. The tribal model has a peculiar way of creating otherness. The technique involves othering non-tribe-mate objects and constructing tribe-mate subjects. This formulation establishes tribal subjects, whereas those who do not belong to the same tribe are ostracized. This abjection process is the only way to create tribal distinctions. When people successfully integrate these tribal labels, they become a part of their lived subjectivity. The widely used and widely accepted cousinship (Icimbuya) jibes in Zambia perfectly illustrate this binary logic. By jokingly tying up with members of certain tribes while rejecting those of other tribes, we essentialize potentially damaging differences. Consequently, this subjectification shapes the interaction of individuals whose tribes align. Within the tribal model, some artificial qualities exist that are not shared by othered tribes. Members of other tribes are often stereotyped and, at times, scorned by others. Intergroup conflict is exacerbated when people from different tribes collectively refer to one another as ‘the other.’ This makes it difficult for people in a transition state to develop several identities. As a result of their existence beyond the tribal axis, those who have been deemed ‘lesser’ become ‘the other.’ With this framework, tribe-mate subjects become what they should be in the context of the tribal alliance’s circumstances. In reality, the boundaries of these tribes can be much more permeable than we typically think. A closer look at this allegedly irreversible tribal identity reveals that it is subject to the whims of so many different factors. We can, for example, investigate the flow of people, ideas, and cultural infrastructure while contesting its historical trajectory. People cannot own their identity because it constantly changes (Carbaugh, 1996; Shotter & Gergen, 1989). When people engage with one another, they take on a variety of identities, many of which are unconnected to tribal concerns. Millennials, in particular, are continually renegotiating the limits of artificial tribes. Humans are constantly influenced and impacted by each other as they depend more on intra-actions. As a result of our modern population’s diversity, we can now drop our tribal name. Many see the concept of the tribe as a valid basis for comprehending the culture of a particular group. Consider how the concept of a tribe, characterized as conventional and measurable, influences how culture is assumed and implemented. Who gets to say they represent a culture, and what does that mean? What can we deduce about the cultural classification work done by tribes? Many say that the term ”culture” connotes uniformity, consistency, and timelessness in a group’s meaning systems and functions. Thus, people use tribe, like race to differentiate fundamentally distinct, essentialized, and homogeneous social groups. However, these cultural formulations are fundamentally problematic in establishing the boundaries between groups in an absolute and artificial way. Conceptualizations of culture have shifted over time. For instance, some scholars have asserted that ‘man [sic] is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun’ (Geertz 1973, p. 5). Others have argued that ‘the point is not that there is no longer anything we would call “culture,” but that interpretive analysis of social groups should be situated within and, as it were, beneath larger analyses of social and political events and processes (Ortner, 1999, p. 9). Today’s social and cultural landscape is constantly changing and evolving for citizens. Having a fixed sense of one’s identity and culture is hard. The concept of the self as an “objectifiable, cognitive essence” is becoming unsatisfactory. We should learn to consider identity as intrinsically ambiguous and constantly evolving. The people, interactions, and circumstances in which a person’s identity has, does, or will exist influence and shape it. People’s interactions with others and the surrounding environment shape their sense of self. These boundaries, symbols, meanings, and conventions are established and adjusted when people affiliate themselves with diverse groups. The preceding analysis demonstrates that culture is an abstract and purely analytical concept utilized by ethnographers rather than an actual thing. Because it summarizes an abstraction from the behaviour it represents, it is neither normative nor predictive. Culture, even when enacted, is merely a conscious analytical abstraction since it only exists when put into practice. As a result, tribal claims of cultural uniformity are exaggerations. Culture is not a discrete commodity that can be acquired, possessed, and abandoned as needed. Therefore, the term “tribe,” popularized by anthropologists, is no longer considered a viable analytical unit. According to Wim van Binsbergen, anthropologists in Zambia need to break ‘from the tribal model on the analytical’ level (p. 182). As a result, it is impossible to assert with any degree of certainty that culture is the outcome of interactions limited to a particular ethnic group. According to current theories, culture is generated via the interaction of many interconnected and dynamic variables constantly generating and re-forming their reality. Furthermore, with so many unconnected cleavages to the term, having tribe in situ as a cultural category is illogical and impracticable. This meaningless tribal concept is degrading and wrong; people must remove it because it contains no natural, cultural, or biological characteristics. New avenues for embracing cultural output must be made available to us. For example, there may be a method to employ cultural engineering to foster companionship rather than tribal animosity, where differences are cherished rather than pushed to the fringes. Tribal categorizations and labelling have paralyzed residents’ identities. They have attached territoriality and chieftaincy to people’s citizenship. In the geographical setting of Zambia, the term ‘tribe’ is used as a synonym for a common language, implying a shared cultural and linguistic identity. The tribe’s unquestionable acceptability as a metaphor for a collection of related but unique individuals is most likely due to the construct’s early pragmatic adaptation and a wide variety of potential applications. The construct is conceptually simple, has a unique mode of communication, can be applied in various ways, encompasses different ideologies, and may be utilized for multiple objectives, some of which may be questionable. In a plurally constructed landscape, as many parts of Zambia have been since independence, with a range of empirically overlapping personages and diverse social cleavages cutting across one another, the logic that sustains tribal thinking crumbles. The exact expressions representing its effects performatively establish tribehood (Butler 1990). There is no identity hidden beneath tribal expressions. Cassava consumption is one example of a social behaviour whose meaning shifts through time. Anyone can play the role of a subject. Similarly, the epistemic violence of Eurocentrism pervades today’s cultural world. Zambian identity has traditionally been founded on this conceptual fixity, which connects an individual’s identity to their claimed ancestral homelands. Because the national identity card (NRC) preserves a person’s home village, they will always be tied to that village even if they are born, raised, and work elsewhere in the country. The NRC may sentence a guilty individual to a fictitious ancestral homeland that they will never see in their lifetime. As a result, significant artificial constraints exist on cultural output. These constraints thwart a strong sense of cultural inclusivity. The concept of culture is regarded as exclusive in this context. This viewpoint regards culture as a distinct entity that individuals might claim as their own based on imagined ties to ancestral or tribal homelands. As a result, tribalism may have taken root in how we perceive ourselves. As a result, the cornerstone of African hood is built on ‘constitutive exclusions’ (Zehle, 2004) that ‘other’ those who do not share a tribe or cultural background. It is abundantly clear that, while the term tribe is adaptive and conceptually simple, we cannot use it to comprehend culture in a complex world where people, ideas, knowledge, and cultural infrastructure have evolved radically in the last six decades. This paper is a call to the scholarly community to action. I argue that comprehending the detrimental impacts of tribalism may be achieved by considering the context in which the problematic notion is deployed and launched. I have demonstrated that the construct is riddled with ambiguity and has a profoundly unsettling foundation in the colonial encounter. We can no longer use it to define the characteristics of a highly cosmopolitan nation. Anthropologists had an excellent reason for rejecting the construct as a unit of analysis; we have no business embracing a word that insults us while failing to clarify the constraints of the boundaries it pretends to build. References Belsey, C. (2002). Poststructuralism: A very short introduction. OUP Oxford. Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble, feminist theory, and psychoanalytic discourse. Feminism/postmodernism, 327, 324-340. Carbaugh, D. (1996). Situating selves: The communication of social identities in American scenes. Suny Press. Collinson, D. (2006). Rethinking followership: A post-structuralist analysis of follower identities. Leadership Quarterly, 17(2), 179-189. Garfinkel, H. (1984). Studies in ethnomethodology. Polity Press. Geertz, C. (1973). 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