Ethnicity, Democracy and Citizenship in Africa is an excellent analysis on the historical and contemporary status of the Nubian community in Kenya, across the history of the Nubians’ relation to the British colonial authority through the post-colonial regimes. Balaton-Chrimes's book addresses the political question of citizenship through a detailed study of the Nubians. As a result she argues that the major rationalisation of the Nubians’ marginalisation in the country is due to the centrality of the ‘indigenous and autochthonous ethnicity in Kenyan politics’ (p. 156). Thus, her main thesis argument is that the Nubians’ marginality is more the outcome of a political system that ‘privileges the indigenous and autochthonous ethnicity’ than any other factor (p. 129).

Since the colonial period and in the post-colonial era, the different means the Nubians have used in advocating for equal treatment as citizens, brings to focus the importance of indigenous and autochthonous ethnicity as the main structure in which ‘recognition and distribution regimes operate in Kenya’ (p. 18). As a minority group, the Nubians are aware that ethnicity is a crucial organising frame that guarantees ‘their access to and enjoyment of citizenship’ in Kenya (p. 16). Balaton-Chrimes provides evidence to ascertain that the instance of the Nubians as an ethnic community in Kenya is a reaction to a political culture that favours ethnic groups identified as indigenous and autochthonous. Evident from the book is that the Nubians’ citizenship deficits are associated with their ethnic stranger status. This explains the tactics the Nubians employ to oppose their disadvantaged status are influenced by an ‘understanding that indigenous and autochthonous ethnic groups enjoy’ more ‘rights and access opportunities for political participation’ (pp. 21–2). And because of both their minority and ethnic stranger status, the Nubians find themselves discriminated by a political system that privileges indigenous and autochthonous ethnic groups, as demonstrated in the recognition and distribution regime that documents Kenyan citizens and excludes the Nubians from it. Faced by this predicament, the Nubians perceive that for the community to enjoy full rights and privileges of citizenship there should be change in the way they are identified in the country: ‘from ethnic strangers to an indigenous tribe’ (p. 97). But due to their recent arrival in Kenya, which is associated with the colonial power, it casts the Nubians’ claim to indigeneity in doubt. Clearly, the Nubians’ approach of claiming indigeneity is a struggle for equal citizenship and status.

More so, the author argues that the Nubians’ lack of a recognised homeland (ethnic territory) places the community in an awkward position because in Kenya an ethnic homeland is the basis of membership and a qualification for full citizenship. Informed by this Kenyan popular view, the Nubians have in different historical periods unsuccessfully petitioned relevant authorities to recognise Kibera in Nairobi as their ethnic homeland. Their claim of the Kibera land is not due to an autochthonous factor, but is instead founded on an earlier agreement with the British colonial administration. Clearly, Balaton-Chrimes point out that a ‘recognized homeland’ forms ‘the basis of citizenship in Kenya’ (p. 124). And consequently, it is this lack of land that has heavily conditioned the Nubians’ marginal status in the country. As a way forward, the author addresses how societies, including Kenya, could tackle the problem of privileging of indigenous and autochthonous ethnicity by recommending two alternative models of accommodating ethnicity in politics. Thus the acceptance of ‘solidarity and agonism as an alternative ethos’ has the potential to change ‘political tribalism to moral inter-ethnicity’ (p. 150).

Over all, the book is a major step in Citizenship Studies and African Studies, and it will have a significant impact and contribution to these wide fields.