Frontier mobility and the making of Nuer identity in Gambela, Ethiopia: migration, interaction, and state incorporation

The paper outlines the historical processes that encountered, delayed, lengthened and brought in the Nuer into the current Ethiopian state, particularly in Gambella region. Probing into the social and political transformations of Nuer as a result of migration, intermarriage with other tribes, coping with an ecological habitat and their engagement in the frontiers politics with the neighbouring ethnic groups like Dinka and Anuak. The study offers a critical review of the previous scholarship on the Nuer, establishing such that the majority previously written were expatriate scholars’ works in the context of Sudanese anthropology, and not Ethiopian historiography. Some of the preceding interpretations made use of the notion of ‘tribal imperialism’, ‘colonization’ or even ‘conquest’ in the quest to bring up an analytical model and frame for interpretation that is a Eurocentric entity that does not fit into the picture of the region. This paper however treats Nuer expansion differently: being a multiple aspect, societal, ecological process including migration, assimilation, conflict and adaptation, rather than an institutionalized imperial process. It also covers some of Nuer’s most recent history, including the geographies, trade and administration of the frontier around Nuer’s relatively recent incorporation into Ethiopia.