Cartography and the Political Imagination · Ohio University Press / Swallow Press
▻http://www.ohioswallow.com/book/Cartography+and+the+Political+Imagination
“MacArthur’s exploration of the historiography of ethnicity in Kenya combines theoretical sophistication with innovative and deftly interdisciplinary methodological work, along with a knack for personalized storytelling. In Cartography and the Political Imagination, MacArthur has knit together a diverse and complex array of actors, plot lines, and forms of evidence (archival, cartographic, oral), resulting in a fascinating and important piece of historical scholarship.”
Heidi Gengenbach, University of Massachusetts, Boston
After four decades of British rule in colonial Kenya, a previously unknown ethnic name — “Luyia” — appeared on the official census in 1948. The emergence of the Luyia represents a clear case of ethnic “invention.” At the same time, current restrictive theories privileging ethnic homogeneity fail to explain this defiantly diverse ethnic project, which now comprises the second-largest ethnic group in Kenya.