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This article is a study of Somali popular songs of the period 1960–90, which opened with the establishment of the Somali national state and ended with its collapse. It focuses on these songs as a discursive site in which a particular dilemma of the new Somali state clearly comes into focus, namely the desire to be ‘modern’, while at the same time turning to ‘tradition’ (i.e. a particular construction of Somali cultural authenticity and traditional religious morality) to mark and anchor a new Somali collective self-understanding and communal identity. The discursive push-and-pull of ‘modernity’ and ‘tradition’ evident in the songs expresses itself specifically in debates about moral womanhood – that is to say, about what ‘good’ women should be like. Since the collapse of the state in 1991, Somali discourses about common public identity and gender norms have undergone dramatic change, with the sites of popular culture multiplying, especially outside of Somalia, and accessible through the internet. Although an interpretation of Islam that distances itself from Somali ‘tradition’ has been gaining importance as a source of legitimization, as is evident both in the struggle over the state in Somalia and in everyday life in Somalia and the diaspora, this is not a major concern in the Somali popular songs from the period after 1991. It was born auspiciously this flag raised above usWe will not differentiate among any SomalisSince none of us are closer to it than the others,Let us be equal in front of our flag(Waa samo ku dhalayoo calanka noo saaranSoomaali oo dhan, kala sooci maynoUma kala sokeynno, ha loo sinnaado)Somali popular song, articulating the hope of Somali unity and equality, sung by Faduumo Abdillaahi ‘Maandeeq’ in the early 1960s

In this article, Kapteijns offers a critique of the clanship paradigm of I. M. Lewis, a leading scholar in the field of Somali studies from the early 1960s until today. Kapteijns situates Lewis's paradigm on Somali clanship at a particular historical moment, namely, at the end of the colonial period, and proposes that we see it as representative of a "colonial synthesis" or "colonial consensus" that was worked out between the colonial state (especially the British colonial state) and its Somali subjects over a period of about 80 years. She argues that, rather than seeing the episodes of "clan cleansing" and other forms of clan-based communal violence that marked the Somali civil war (1978 to the present) as evidence that the Lewisian paradigm of clan is correct, we should ask how this way of thinking, which has its roots in colonial state formation, has—in limited, namely, discursive ways—contributed to the Somali self-views that have made such large-scale violence in the name of clan possible. This article had been accepted for publication by the editors of Lewis's festschrift, but when Lewis expressed objections to its inclusion, the editors pressured the author to withdraw it. However, the major objective of this article is not to question Lewis's pivotal significance and enormous accomplishments in Somali studies, but to put his work into historical perspective and to bring to bear on it new insights from other areas of study.

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JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Boston University African Studies Center and Board of Trustees, Boston University are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The International Journal of African Historical Studies. This paper deals with the role of the ideology of kinship in precapitalist,1 northern, pastoral Somali society and the demise of this ideology as a result of the social transformations wrought by commercial capital and the colonial state. Gaining an understanding of the history of gender relations is a central objective of this essay; it is pursued by analyzing gender inequality in the context of other relationships of inequality such as those based on age and class. It is one of the insights of recent women's history that locating gender in the precapitalist social formation and analysing the impact on gender of capitalist transformation are indispensable to an understanding of present-day gender relations.2 This paper focuses on the first two themes; the latter will be the burden of another effort. One of the emotionally charged exchanges of my fleldwork in Djibouti in1989 was the one in which young, urban, working women angrily attacked me for studying women's roles in traditional society and culture (hiddiyo dhaqan).3 While most Somalis, men and women, find pride and reassurance in the wisdom and beauty of their oral literature, these women regard both it and those who glorify it as obstacles to their efforts to gain increased autonomy in their relations with men.4 4In using "autonomy," I follow Karin Willemse, "De Fur in Soedan: Autonomie en de vrouwen in Jabel Marra," De Derde Wereld, 8, 4 (January 1990), 31. Autonomy thus does not This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 21:40:11 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 242 LIDWIEN KAPTEIJNS For them, hiddiyo dhaqan constitutes an ideological bludgeon, wielded by both men and women to deprive them of the fruits of their considerable social and economic contributions to the day-to-day survival of their nuclear and extendedfamilies. In their view, this ideological weapon is rarely used to shield them from harsh political and socioeconomic realities but is readily brought out to restrict their social freedom or economic choices. It is therefore the objective of this paper to contribute to the reconquest of the past by and for Somali women and men. Analyzing the continuities and discontinuities between the past and the present is neither a dispassionate nor an irrelevant exercise. Nor does it prescribe the choices Somali women and men will make as they reproduce and transform their society in the crucibles of their war-tom homeland or life in exile.The processes that made Somali pastoral so...