What culture? Whose rights? Which identity? The ethnography of self-determination in non-unitary African states: Ethiopia and Tanzania

The project aims to enhance our understanding of the paradox of righs, i.e. the ways in which the implementation of certain human rights may undermine other rights. The principal objective of the project is to analyse discourses related to rights to cult ure and identity, as expressed through claims of self-determination by political movements in the two non-unitary states of Ethiopia and Tanzania. By doing this, the project explores: 1) whether, how and under what conditions rights claims are made releva nt in shaping identities (ethnic, ethno-nationalist, regional) in contrast to and in competition with the state-identity (non-ethnic nationalism); and 2) highlights the rights’ paradox that collective rights to self-determination are not always favourable to individual human rights, and may challenge the legitimacy of the state and contribute to political instability and violence. The project will test the hypothesis that a regime's political culture and the history and perceptions of the state, are more important in understanding the ethnography of self-determination, than the introduction of formal institutions of non-unitary order and democracy. The project thus critically challenge the assumption that ‘culture’ can be fixed to territorial borders, as argued by federalist theory, ignoring the fact that culture and identity are fluid and manipulative notions. The theoretical approach applied will consider the concept of rights as a legal category, as social construct, and as culture. Human rights have become universialised, but as values subject to interpretation, negotiation, and accommodation. The project thus analyse ‘rights’ – understood as rights talk, rights thinking, rights practices – as constituting a kind of culture, seen from an anthropolog ical perspective. The project will enhance our understanding of the dynamics of rights-based internal conflicts along ‘cultural’ divides, which may be utilised in conflict resolution processes.