Mol 132: "In Logiques Métisses Jean-Loup Anselle gives a historical analysis of the constitution of identity and especially ethnic identity in West Africa. He tells that in the time before colonial rule it used to be possible there to change one's name as well as the 'ethnic' group to which one belonged."
However, "[t]he French wanted individual people to state a name and an ethnic identity that they could then write down in their files [...] Thus, French registers helped to constitute, in practice, the strict boundaries around ethnic groups that they could later designate as culturally given."
"The separation between self and other, then, is a separation that exists because it has been made to exist."