Intermediaries, Interpreters, and Clerks: African Employees in the Making of Colonial Africa
edited by Benjamin N. Lawrance, Emily Lynn Osborn and Richard L. Roberts
University of Wisconsin Press, 2006 eISBN: 978-0-299-21953-6 | Paper: 978-0-299-21954-3 | Cloth: 978-0-299-21950-5 Library of Congress Classification DT28.I57 2006 Dewey Decimal Classification 324.6
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
As a young man in South Africa, Nelson Mandela aspired to be an interpreter or clerk, noting in his autobiography that “a career as a civil servant was a glittering prize for an African.” Africans in the lower echelons of colonial bureaucracy often held positions of little official authority, but in practice these positions were lynchpins of colonial rule. As the primary intermediaries among European colonial officials, African chiefs, and subject populations, these civil servants could manipulate the intersections of power, authority, and knowledge at the center of colonial society.
By uncovering the role of such men (and a few women) in the construction, function, and legal apparatus of colonial states, the essays in this volume highlight a new perspective. They offer important insights on hegemony, collaboration, and resistance, structures and changes in colonial rule, the role of language and education, the production of knowledge and expertise in colonial settings, and the impact of colonization in dividing African societies by gender, race, status, and class.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Benjamin N. Lawrance is Professor of African History at the University of Arizona. Emily Lynn Osborn is an associate professor of history at the University of Chicago. Richard L. Roberts is the Frances and Charles Field Professor of History and codirector of the Center for African Studies at Stanford University.
REVIEWS
“This volume . . . sets an agenda for a new and nuanced understanding of how Africans figured in the making of colonial Africa. . . . These studies not only establish the agency of African intermediaries but also narrate, assess, and contextualize it.”—Philip S. Zachernuk, African Studies Review
“Intermediaries, Interpreters, and Clerks has its greatest strength in the diverse vignettes of life across Africa under a variety of colonial regimes and through nearly two centuries of history.”—James E. Genova, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction: African Intermediaries and the “Bargain” of Collaboration
Benjamin N. Lawrance, Emily Lynn Osborn, and Richard L. Roberts
The Formative Period of Colonial Rule, ca. 1800–1920
An Interpreter Will Arise: Resurrecting Jan Tzatzoe’s Diplomatic and Evangelical Contributions as a Cultural Intermediary on South Africa’s Eastern Cape Frontier, 1816–1818
Roger S. Levine
Interpreting Colonial Power in French Guinea: The Boubou Penda–Ernest Noirot Affair of 1905
Emily Lynn Osborn
Interpretation and Interpolation: Shepstone as Native Interpreter
Thomas McClendon
Petitioners, “Bush Lawyers,” and Letter Writers: Court Access in British-Occupied Lomé, 1914–1920
Benjamin N. Lawrance
Negotiating Legal Authority in French West Africa: The Colonial Administration and African Assessors, 1903–1918
Ruth Ginio
The Maturing Phase of Colonial Rule, ca. 1920–1960
“Collecting Customary Law”: Educated Africans, Ethnographic Writings, and Colonial Justice in French West Africa
Jean-Hervé Jézéquel
Interpreters Self-Interpreted: The Autobiographies of Two Colonial Clerks
Ralph A. Austen
African Court Elders in Nyanza Province, Kenya, ca. 1930–1960: From “Traditional” to “Modern”
Brett L. Shadle
Power and Influence of African Court Clerks and Translators in Colonial Kenya: The Case of Khwisero Native (African) Court, 1946–1956
Maurice Nyamanga Amutabi
The District Clerk and the “Man-Leopard Murders”: Mediating Law and Authority in Colonial Nigeria
David Pratten
Cultural Commuters: African Employees in Late Colonial Tanzania
Andreas Eckert
Afterword
African Participation in Colonial Rule: The Role of Clerks, Interpreters, and Other Intermediaries
Martin Klein
Appendix: Personnel Files and the Role of Qadis and Interpreters in the Colonial Administration of Saint-Louis, Senegal, 1857–1911
Saliou Mbaye
Bibliography
Contributors
Index
Acknowledgments
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
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Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
Intermediaries, Interpreters, and Clerks: African Employees in the Making of Colonial Africa
edited by Benjamin N. Lawrance, Emily Lynn Osborn and Richard L. Roberts
University of Wisconsin Press, 2006 eISBN: 978-0-299-21953-6 Paper: 978-0-299-21954-3 Cloth: 978-0-299-21950-5
As a young man in South Africa, Nelson Mandela aspired to be an interpreter or clerk, noting in his autobiography that “a career as a civil servant was a glittering prize for an African.” Africans in the lower echelons of colonial bureaucracy often held positions of little official authority, but in practice these positions were lynchpins of colonial rule. As the primary intermediaries among European colonial officials, African chiefs, and subject populations, these civil servants could manipulate the intersections of power, authority, and knowledge at the center of colonial society.
By uncovering the role of such men (and a few women) in the construction, function, and legal apparatus of colonial states, the essays in this volume highlight a new perspective. They offer important insights on hegemony, collaboration, and resistance, structures and changes in colonial rule, the role of language and education, the production of knowledge and expertise in colonial settings, and the impact of colonization in dividing African societies by gender, race, status, and class.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Benjamin N. Lawrance is Professor of African History at the University of Arizona. Emily Lynn Osborn is an associate professor of history at the University of Chicago. Richard L. Roberts is the Frances and Charles Field Professor of History and codirector of the Center for African Studies at Stanford University.
REVIEWS
“This volume . . . sets an agenda for a new and nuanced understanding of how Africans figured in the making of colonial Africa. . . . These studies not only establish the agency of African intermediaries but also narrate, assess, and contextualize it.”—Philip S. Zachernuk, African Studies Review
“Intermediaries, Interpreters, and Clerks has its greatest strength in the diverse vignettes of life across Africa under a variety of colonial regimes and through nearly two centuries of history.”—James E. Genova, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction: African Intermediaries and the “Bargain” of Collaboration
Benjamin N. Lawrance, Emily Lynn Osborn, and Richard L. Roberts
The Formative Period of Colonial Rule, ca. 1800–1920
An Interpreter Will Arise: Resurrecting Jan Tzatzoe’s Diplomatic and Evangelical Contributions as a Cultural Intermediary on South Africa’s Eastern Cape Frontier, 1816–1818
Roger S. Levine
Interpreting Colonial Power in French Guinea: The Boubou Penda–Ernest Noirot Affair of 1905
Emily Lynn Osborn
Interpretation and Interpolation: Shepstone as Native Interpreter
Thomas McClendon
Petitioners, “Bush Lawyers,” and Letter Writers: Court Access in British-Occupied Lomé, 1914–1920
Benjamin N. Lawrance
Negotiating Legal Authority in French West Africa: The Colonial Administration and African Assessors, 1903–1918
Ruth Ginio
The Maturing Phase of Colonial Rule, ca. 1920–1960
“Collecting Customary Law”: Educated Africans, Ethnographic Writings, and Colonial Justice in French West Africa
Jean-Hervé Jézéquel
Interpreters Self-Interpreted: The Autobiographies of Two Colonial Clerks
Ralph A. Austen
African Court Elders in Nyanza Province, Kenya, ca. 1930–1960: From “Traditional” to “Modern”
Brett L. Shadle
Power and Influence of African Court Clerks and Translators in Colonial Kenya: The Case of Khwisero Native (African) Court, 1946–1956
Maurice Nyamanga Amutabi
The District Clerk and the “Man-Leopard Murders”: Mediating Law and Authority in Colonial Nigeria
David Pratten
Cultural Commuters: African Employees in Late Colonial Tanzania
Andreas Eckert
Afterword
African Participation in Colonial Rule: The Role of Clerks, Interpreters, and Other Intermediaries
Martin Klein
Appendix: Personnel Files and the Role of Qadis and Interpreters in the Colonial Administration of Saint-Louis, Senegal, 1857–1911
Saliou Mbaye
Bibliography
Contributors
Index
Acknowledgments
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE