Colonial rule in Africa has been aptly characterized as a “working misunderstanding.” On both sides of the divide, Europeans and Africans hammered out relationships that permitted them to live together in the colonial world. John Iliffe argued that the notion of “tribe” was essential to many of these relationships. Vail and White convincingly demonstrated how true this was for colonial Malawi, and Chirwa argues for its continuing relevance today. And yet we still do not know much about the process by which colonial understandings of “tribe” shaped those of nation or nationalism. The tenacity of political ethnicity and regional or parochial politics makes it even more important to examine the link between these categories; to understand the complex relationship between “political language” and “political organization.”

Regional and ethnic identities continue to be central markers of politics in Malawi, but they are not entirely straightforward mechanisms for political mobilization. This can be traced to the colonial experience. While Africans were governed as they were because Europeans saw them as “Africans” (or perhaps “natives”), not all Africans experienced colonialism in the same way, nor did they define and experience political culture uniformly. Age, gender, class, and ethnicity all shaped experience, but the latter is most explicitly represented in the written and oral evidence produced by colonizers and colonized alike. It is inscribed in their diaries, memoirs, official documents, biographies, histories, and personal testimonies.