Abdaljbar Alhaj Mustafa Mohamed Ejami thesis defense

Mr Abdaljbar ALHAJ MUSTAFA MOHAMED EJAMI will defend his doctorate in anthropology on Friday December 9 at 9:30 a.m. at the University of Paris 8.

His thesis is titled “Colonial and Post-colonial Politics of Religion and Ethnicity. Historical Anthropology of Eastern Sudan Marginalization”.

Abstract

This thesis analyses the long history of economic and political marginalization of Eastern Sudan and class formation in the region. The work is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Eastern Sudan from 2017 to 2021, by using qualitative techniques and methods (interviews, observations, focus group discussion). Written local sources and archival documents have also been used. From the theoretical point of view, employing Marxist and Postcolonial perspectives, the thesis tackles Foucault’s notion of “governmentality” to understand how the colonial Indirect Rule categorized native populations across religious and ethnic identities, building ideologies and practices which conditioned local socio-cultural dynamics. The thesis argues that under British Native Administration to “define” was to “empower”, and from this perspective it focuses on processes of “class formation” as a major reading key of contemporary social configurations in Eastern Sudan. The thesis also shows how the post-independence regimes undermined the colonial socio-economic and political formations in order to build new loyalties, fuelling new contradictions and conflicts among local groups. In doing so, they confirmed principles of colonial policy of religion and ethnicity and increased conflict in the region. Through an historical approach, the thesis aims to question the roots of a longstanding marginalization of Eastern Sudan, also shedding light on processes of unrest and instability in the region, that emerged since 2019 in the period that followed December Revolution.