scholarly journals Voices from Within and Without: Sources, Methods, and Problematics in the Recovery of the Agrarian History of the Igbo (Southeastern Nigeria)

2006 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 231-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chima J. Korieh
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Secondary Forest ◽  
Agricultural History ◽  
Annual Rainfall ◽  
Agricultural Change ◽  
Southeastern Nigeria ◽  
The North ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
History Of ◽  
Human Habitation

Over the past few decades, social history has variously and successfully explored the lives of neglected groups in society. Nevertheless, the question of capturing these “silent voices” in history, including those of women, remains at the heart of social history. Although few sources are available that allow historians to hear these voices, new methodological insights offer opportunities. A multidisciplinary framework and a broad range of methodologies can shed new light on the lives of peasants, who have been often neglected in history and provide opportunities to “hear” their voices and concerns as historical subjects. The object of this paper is to present sortie critical perspective on the use of oral and archival sources for the study of the agricultural history of rural Africa. What I present here is my approach to the collection and use of various sources for the study of Igbo agricultural history in the twentieth century. It suggests that oral sources, in particular, offer an important opportunity in the writing of an inclusive history of agricultural change—a history that for the most part has been created by rural peasants. Another objective is to outline my personal experiences in the field and to suggest important ways of situating the researcher not only in the analysis of the evidence, but most importantly, in the context or the fieldwork environment. Both, as has been clearly shown, can affect the historian's analysis and perspective and the resulting history.Igboland is situated in Southeastern Nigeria and lies between longitude 7°E and latitude 6°10' N. The region borders the middle belt region of Nigeria to the north, the river Niger to the west, the Ibibio people to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea and Bight of Biafra to the south. Most of the region lies on a plain less than 600 feet (about 183 meters) above sea level. Most of Igboland lies within the Guinean and Sub-Guinean physical environment and is characterized by an annual rainfall of between forty and sixty inches per annum, with a dry season lasting between three and four months in northern Igboland and a mean monthly humidity of about 90% throughout the year. The pattern of rainfall produces two distinct patterns of vegetation. The southern part of the region is characterized by heavy rainfall that produces a dense rainforest that thinned out northwards into a savanna. However, many centuries of human habitation and activities have turned the whole region into secondary forest, with only pockets of forest oasis remaining.

Yet More Serial Bibliographies

1985 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 357-362
Author(s):  
David Henige
Keyword(s):  
Data Base ◽  
Social History ◽  
Agricultural History ◽  
New Materials ◽  
History Of

This continues to update the basic list of serial bibliographies of possible interest to Africanists which appeared in the 1983 volume of History in Africa and which will continue to appear to the extent that new materials are noticed. Most of the following items are of only peripheral interest to Africanists but each is likely to contain at least some material which does not appear in other bibliographies at all, or at least not so quickly. Where available, I have included OCLC numbers, which may be useful for those with access to the OCLC data base.Published by the Magyar Mezogazdasagi Muzeum in Budapest, the Bibliographia attempts to incorporate all materials relating to rural and agricultural history and related fields, a field not so fully covered, as far as I know, by any other bibliography. Unfortunately, publication is behind (and may even have ceased); materials for 1975 and 1976 were covered in the volume published in 1979. This included a total of 5790 items in 10 major and numerous minor categories, including economic and social history, history of agrotechnics, prices and wages, agrarian ethnography, and agricultural settlements. A list (obviously incomplete) of 90 to 100 journals is included and there are geographical and author indexes.

The Two Faces of Debt

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Stefan Nygård
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Bonds ◽  
The North ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Global North

This introductory chapter surveys the notoriously ambivalent concept of debt. It connects different approaches to debt in social theory and anthropology to the book’s focus on how past debts are mobilised in political debates in the present, and how the ‘North’ has been portrayed as indebted to the ‘South’ for its development, and vice versa. Both questions are framed by the way in which understandings of debt tend to gravitate towards reciprocity or domination. In view of its fundamental ambiguity, debt thus underpins both social cohesion and fragmentation. While it has the capacity to sustain social relations by joining together the two parties of a debt relation, it also contains the risk of deteriorating into domination and bargaining. A tension between debt as the glue of social bonds and debt as hierarchy consequently runs through the social history of the concept. Applied to regional and global North-South relations, discussions on debt have often centred on the question of retribution, involving difficult disputes over possible ways of settling debts in the present for injustices incurred in the past.

Europe's 1948 and America's Essential Lie

2006 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 41-51
Author(s):  
Charles Lemert
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Social History ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
The North ◽  
History Of ◽  
The North Atlantic

The crucial year 1948 is taken as a turning point in the divergent relations of Europe and America. The economic and social history of the time is discussed to establish the odd cultural differences between the North Atlantic partner-nations on the question of distortion and misrepresentation of alleged social realities. Implications for social theory are discussed.

The Organisation of the Scottish Church in the Twelfth Century

1947 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 135-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Morgan
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Transition Period ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
North East ◽  
The North ◽  
History Of ◽  
Scottish History ◽  
Special Studies

It is well known that organisation of bishoprics and parishes came late to the greater part of Scotland, beginning probably with the gradual spread of Norman influence in the late eleventh century and becoming marked in the time of David I. Before that time the Celtic church was predominant in the region between Forth and Spey, which was the main seat of the monarchy, and there were strong Celtic influences in the Highlands, Clydesdale and Galloway. The church was mainly monastic and missionary with religious communities serving wide areas; though in addition Skene has hinted at the existence of tribal churches in the north-east lowlands. Lothian, a part of the ancient kingdom of Northumbria, was peculiar, for it resisted Celtic influences and looked, ecclesiastically, towards Durham; but any parochial organisation it may have had was rudimentary. In general it can be said with truth that ecclesiastical Scotland was completely transformed by the coming of the Normans. Owing to lack of sources twelfth-century Scottish history is obscure; but something at least may be discovered from the charters, which have been in print for over a hundred years and still remain unexplored. And it was in the hope that a reconstruction of church organisation during the transition period might help to illuminate the social history of Scotland that this paper was undertaken. I have concentrated on one subject: the structure of parishes and the relation of local lay and ecclesiastical authorities, because it is a crucial one: and one region, southern Scotland, because there Norman influence was strongest. If in the absence of special studies on the subject my conclusions must remain tentative, they may at least indicate the problems and provoke wider discussion from which the truth will emerge.

Shades of Green

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan W. Keating
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Social History ◽  
Census Data ◽  
The North ◽  
Irish America ◽  
American National Identity ◽  
History Of ◽  
Civil War Era ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Union Soldiers

This book is a study of soldiers who served in Irish regiments during the American Civil War and the communities that supported them. Tracing the organization and service of self-proclaimed Irish units from Connecticut, Illinois, and Wisconsin, this study transitions the historical debate away from the motivations and sentiment of “Irish America”—a national cohesive entity with similar experiences and attitudes—and towards “Irish Americas,” men and women connected to both local as well as national communities. Such an approach allows us to better understand how adopted citizens, their comrades in arms, and their friends and neighbors experienced the Civil War era. As a social history of the Civil War, Shades of Green explores the experiences, motivations, political identities, and ideologies of Union soldiers and civilians with a particular focus on the impact of the war on immigrants in smaller communities scattered throughout the North. Utilizing an array of sources including muster and descriptive rolls, federal census data, and veterans pensions, this book argues that Irish regiments were as much the expressions of local enlistment patterns as they were reflections of a commitment to a broader Irish American national identity.

An Account of Schistocerca flavofasciata (De Geer 1773) in Trinidad (Orthoptera : Acrididae)

1943 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 291-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Keith McE. Kevan
Keyword(s):  
Schistocerca Gregaria ◽  
Annual Rainfall ◽  
South American ◽  
Tropical Agriculture ◽  
North East ◽  
The North ◽  
Great Economic Importance ◽  
History Of ◽  
Solitary Species

The genus Schistocerca is one of very great economic importance, since it includes the Desert locust of the Old World, Schistocerca gregaria (Forsk.) and the South American locust, S. paranensis (Burm.). It was therefore considered of value to study the life history of one of the solitary species living in Trinidad, and the present investigations were made during 1942 at the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture at St. Augustine.The climate of Trinidad is humid tropical. The annual rainfall over nineteen years at St. Augustine averaged 68·4 inches, but in the north-east of the Island the rainfall is over 100 inches per annum, falling to below 60 inches on the West coast. The rainy season usually begins about June, with a break in August or September, and lasts till the end of the year or the early part of January. November may be taken as one of the wettest months with a rainfall of about 11·5 inches (at St. Augustine), while more than half an inch is not usual for April. The humidity in November averages about 85 per cent. in the morning and 77 per cent. in the afternoon, but it is still high in April, being 75 per cent. and 64 per cent. for morning and afternoon respectively. The night humidities are even higher. The temperature remains practically constant throughout the year, averaging about 84°F. (29°C.) during the day, and 74°F. (23·3°C.) at night. The temperature may reach 95°F. (35°C.) during the day in the dry season, but it seldom falls as low as 65°F. (18·3°C.) at night.

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