Ethnicity and the Colonial State

Abstract

A number of years after starting this project, I finally learned that comparisons are not that popular in historical research.I must confess that even now I do not quite understand why this should be.But it is a fact; and it can be frustrating to try to convince institutions that the results might be worth the attempt.When, at a certain point, I became really desperate about the problem, I was fortunate enough to have a long talk with the one real specialist in comparative history of Africa, Paul Nugent -and his observations gave me back some of the optimism at a crucial moment.Paul later became a kind of vip in African studies, and he remained a source of inspiration and guidance for my work, for which I am very thankful.Much of the fieldwork was done while I was a junior assistant professor in Berne, and I am immensely grateful for the support I had from Christian Windler, who always trusted in my approach and whose sharp and intelligent views on moments of cultural encounter (in the early modern period) were most helpful for my own research.In a later phase, Andreas Eckert was another essential support for this project, because thanks to him the analysis took a necessary turn towards a global historical perspective; something that Andreas knows how to employ so masterfully, and that I hope to have at least partly learned over the last years.

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