ABSTRACT
Traditionally ethnographers have described tribalism in East Africa and the Middle East as structure rather than process and have done so by examining the systemization of tribes from the ground up in terms of how they are constructed out of kin. At the same time they peer at tribes from the top down ultimately explaining them in terms of how individuals are organized in telescoping oppositions depending on their kinship links. As Ahmed Samatar suggests, the invigoration of tribalism may yet have relatively recent historical roots. All pastoral Somali clans share breaching moral codes based on a shared pastoral mode of production, as well as Islam. An important work suggesting how slippage has occurred historically among proto-Somali groups in Northern Kenya is Gunther Schlee's Identities on the Move. Schlee questions the value of using the term "tribe" and documents numerous instances of "whole" clans switching alliances, and traditions.
