Violence, exile and ethnicity: Nyemba refugees in Kaisosi and Kehemu (Rundu, Namibia)

In debates about ethnicity it is often taken for granted that Africans deve loped or imagined an ethnic identity: albeit in different periods and in di fferent forms. In the Kuando-Kubango province in southeastern Angola, howev er, ethnic ideology does nor seem to have acquired the compelling attractio n it has had elsewhere in Africa, Among refugees from this area, who now li ve in Rundu (Namibia), ethnicity is avoided as a category of identity as we ll. Very different explanations have been given for the uneven development of ethnic consciousness, Thus some have implied that ethnicity meant little for Africans living in areas rc here colonial control, missionary enterpri se, and a migrant economy did not make a great impact. In another interpret ation, specifically dealing with refugees, the lack of ethnic identity has been explained as a 'pragmatics of identity` intended to counter the 'label s' attached to refugees by local citizens. Refugees rise the lack of fixed ethnic identity as a means of becoming inconspicuous members of a cosmopoli tan culture and so avoid expulsion. In the first interpretation, the limite d significance of ethnicity is situated in peripheral conditions; in the se cond approach, the fear of ending up in such conditions informs a tactics d esigned to deny ethnic identity. This article attempts to show that it is n or only possible brit, in the case under discussion, necessary to reconcile the 'thesis of marginality' with the 'thesis of strategy'.