A study of communities in the Horn of Africa where reciprocity is a
dominant social principle, offering a concrete countermodel to the
hierarchical state.
Over the course of history, people have developed many varieties of
communal life; the state, with its hierarchical structure, is only one
of the possibilities for society. In this book, leading anthropologist
Hermann Amborn identifies a countermodel to the state, describing
communities where reciprocity is a dominant social principle and where
egalitarianism is a matter of course. He pays particular attention to
such communities in the Horn of Africa, where nonhierarchical, nonstate
societies exist within the borders of a hierarchical structured state.
This form of community, Amborn shows, is not a historical forerunner to
monarchy or the primitive state, nor is it obsolete as a social model.
These communities offer a concrete counterexample to societies with
strict hierarchical structures.
Amborn investigates social forms of expression, ideas, practices, and
institutions that oppose the hegemony of one group over another,
exploring how conceptions of values and laws counteract tendencies
toward the accumulation of power. He examines not only how the
nonhegemonic ethos is reflected in law but also how anarchic social
formations can exist. In the Horn of Africa, the autonomous jurisdiction
of these societies protects against destructive outside influences,
offers a counterweight to hegemonic violence, and contributes to the
stabilization of communal life. In an era of widespread dissatisfaction
with Western political systems, Amborn's study offers an opportunity to
shift from traditional theories of anarchism and nonhegemony that
project a stateless society to consider instead stateless societies
already in operation.
