Kordofan Invaded: Peripheral Incorporation and Social Transformation in Islamic Africa
This volume addresses economic change, regional politics and
Islamization in Kordofan, a large province in the Sudan.
Kordofan's history is characterized by resistance and
adaptation to expanding states and market forces causing both
sectoral transformation and stagnation. The contributions in
different ways examine the interplay between local and invading
institutions, and include studies of Kordofan as a terra media
between Darfur and Sinnar, international trade in the 19th century,
the Mahdist revolt, the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium (with particular
reference to land tenure and tribal identity), Kordofan in Sudanese
nationalist poetry, local politics in the Nuba Mountains and the
conflict between religious orthodoxy and local practice. The book
should be of interest to scholars of Africa and Islam because of
its focus on regional institutions and their relation to the state
structures. This edited volume explores the history, social
structure and economy of Kordofan in the Sudan. Representing
several academic disciplines, each chapter is concerned with the
long-term incorporation - through invasions - of the region into
wider socio-political and economic structures.
Michael Kevane, Ph.D. (1993) in Economics, University of California at Berkeley, is Assistant Professor of Economics at Santa Clara University. He has published numerous articles on agrarian structure and local politics in Kordofan, and gender and economic development in Burkina Faso. Endre Stiansen, Dr.Philos. (1994) in History, University of Bergen, is a researcher with the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala, Sweden. His research interests include the economic history of the Middle East and Islamic Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries, in particular the development and politics of financial institutions.
