Description: This book examines the history of community relations across the Kenya-Uganda border using the case of the Bukusu and the Bagisu. From this microcosmic level, the book explores the social, economic, and political relations that have evolved between the two communities and states over time.
Review Quotes:
"This book by Dr. Wafula Wekesa of Kenyatta University is an extremely well researched and written masterpiece. It handles delicate issue of identity across the borders of Western Kenya and Eastern Uganda from an advantaged point of view in the sense that this is his area of specialization having written his doctoral thesis in the same study area. The uniqueness of Dr. Wekesa's book lies in its Afro-centric perspective. The book is useful to both graduate and undergraduate students of history, political science, anthropology and other social sciences disciplines. African and Africanist scholars in Africa and the Global North will also find it extremely beneficial." --Pontian Godfrey Okoth, Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology
"History, Identity, and the Bukusu-Bagisu Relations on the Kenya and Uganda Border examines the history of community relations across the border between Kenya and Uganda. Employing both state-centric and microcosmic theories, the book focuses on the evolution of different forms of trans-border social, economic, and political relations between the Bukusu of Western Kenya and Bagisu of Eastern Uganda from precolonial to contemporary times. The theoretical and practical significance of this book lies in its well-supported argument that community relations in borderland spaces are barometers of good neighborliness, as trans-border interactions can enhance, promote, and maintain peace and human understanding between states and, ipso facto, contribute to prosperity in borderland areas across state boundaries. This book is an important contribution to the literature on borderlands as sites where issues of citizenship and territoriality are negotiated and settled, particularly in Africa where state borders were drawn by colonialists without regard to the practical realities on the ground." --Shadrack Nasong'o, Rhodes College