La invención de la tradición en el África colonial inglesa: postura, interpretaciones y límites de la historiografía «constructivista»

Abstract

Since the eighties the «constructivist» interpretation of nationalism has recognised in the African case the most recent example, and perhaps the most irrefutable one, of invented tradition. The subsequent research into the social, linguistic and religious components within which said manipulation would have been developed has not been successful in giving an exhaustive explanation of the capacities of the national paradigm of establishing contacts with previous linguistic and proto-national traditions.

In particular, the debate has focussed on the function of the myth in the political and social integration of the populations, within a multidisciplinary bibliographical framework in between historiography, anthropology and ethnography. With regards to the historical perspective, the «invention» or the «imagination» of the indigenous tribe and African populations by western civil servants would have been sustained most of all with the help of missionary schools and the colonial administration, integrated by the power, created and reinforced, of the native chiefs. Such interpretation, backed by rigorous scientific work, would have to recognise towards the end of the nineties the strength of the new political tribalism as an expression in some cases of a «long term» identity, in some others of a wise management of the «ethnic myth» but nonetheless potent and «real», as a means of mobilisation of the masses.