ABSTRACT
This chapter draws on ethnographic vignettes from my fieldwork in Borana to show the manner in which people enact their subjectivities in the context of the changing nature and complexity of pastoralist systems, how practices of governance are articulated at the interface of multiple actors, and how this feeds into the project of state formation. Specifically, it highlights how the changing Borana ideas of themselves and their relationships to the state are critically mediated by discourses and practices of development. I also draw attention to the internally diverse nature of the local population in terms of how individuals view the state and the multiple strategies that they devise to cope with their changing circumstances in order to secure livelihood. My purpose is to show how the state is constituted in the very production of subjectivities and articulation of social class.
