An Outline of the Native Conception of Education in Africa

Africa ◽  
1931 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. W. Hoernlé
Keyword(s):  
Social Organization ◽  
Educational Needs ◽  
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Education In Africa

Opening ParagraphIt may seem a very ambitious task to attempt even an outline of the native conception of education in so large an area as Africa, with its varying races and languages, its great variety in types of social organization. Nevertheless, there are certain fundamental aspects of these African cultures which are identical in them all, and which differ profoundly from those which form the foundation of our own educational needs. If we wish to understand and to help these African peoples, it is essential that we should learn to look at their culture and their world with their eyes, in order that we may know the basis of the faith by which they live, otherwise we run a grave risk of inadvertently destroying the foundations of social organization and belief which make life, not only tolerable, but possible at all.

Democracy and Indirect Rule

Africa ◽  
1947 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 235-251 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. H. Ashton
Keyword(s):  
Social Organization ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Free Play ◽  
The Political ◽  
Present System ◽  
Democratic Institutions ◽  
Popular Participation ◽  
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Colonial Government ◽  
Indirect Rule

Opening ParagraphWhen discussing the political development of the African it is important to ask whether in his social organization there is a sufficiently strong element of popular participation in government to form a basis for modern democratic institutions. Another question is, to what extent the present system of colonial government (which for the sake of convenience, I shall call Indirect Rule, without analysing the various meanings and application of the term) gives free play to such democratic institutions as may already exist. In this article, an attempt is made to answer these two questions, so far as they apply to Basutoland and the Bechuanaland Protectorate. The position in the latter territory has recently been referred to by two writers when dealing with the second question and, as their findings were almost diametrically opposed, a detailed analysis of the position will not be out of place.

Some Swazi Views on Land Tenure

Africa ◽  
1962 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 253-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. J. B. Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Social Control ◽  
Social Organization ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Economic Change ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
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Opening ParagraphVirtually all sub-Saharan Africa is in the throes of rapid social and economic change. The recent fashion for meteorological allegories has merely served to stress the fact that these changes are also causing very considerable problems. The dilemma facing most administrations throughout the continent is that while much of the old way of life must inevitably disappear if the tribal groups involved are to hope to survive as viable populations in the modern world, this same process can, if it occurs too fast, threaten the whole social order and the systems of social control and social organization, which have hitherto bound them together as groups and governed the day-to-day lives of their members.

!Kung Bushman Bands

Africa ◽  
1960 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 325-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorna Marshall
Keyword(s):  
Social Organization ◽  
The People ◽  
The Family ◽  
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Opening ParagraphIn this paper I describe the band organization of the !Kung Bushmen. The !Kung word n//a besi was translated by the interpreters as ‘people who live together’. I use the word band for n//a besi, meaning by band, in this connexion, the grouping in !Kung social organization which is above the family grouping. It is a grouping precisely of the people who live together.

Some New Shrines of the Gold Coast and their Significance

Africa ◽  
1940 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 138-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. J. Field
Keyword(s):  
Social Organization ◽  
Gold Coast ◽  
Simple Type ◽  
Coastal Plains ◽  
The North ◽  
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Opening ParagraphThere is reason to believe that at one time the greater part of the Gold Coast had one simple type of social organization. Where destruction of this took place the disturbing influences spread from the North southwards. On the coastal plains are some areas which, for various reasons, were barely touched. In these areas the aboriginal type of social organization is preserved, more or less intact, to-day.

The Clans of Nangodi

Africa ◽  
1968 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 377-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. Hunter
Keyword(s):  
Social Organization ◽  
Settlement Pattern ◽  
Northern Ghana ◽  
Spiritual Authority ◽  
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Opening ParagraphIn respect of its social organization and settlement pattern, Nangodi State is typical of extensive areas of northern Ghana. Three forms of authority are recognized: politico-military, kinship (or family) and spiritual. Politico-military authority is exercised through ten chiefdoms which are in turn divided into 28 sections. Kinship authority is represented by 64 agnatic lineages 57 of which are hierarchically grouped into seven major clans. Clan and lineage areas are complexly intermingled. Spiritual authority is wielded by 11 Nangodi earth priests and two outsiders over a total of 43 areas. Each of these three forms of authority in Nangodi State operates within separate and distinct geographical areas which are superposed but not co-terminous.

The Social Structure of the Nyakyusa: a Re-evaluation

Africa ◽  
1973 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 91-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael G. Mckenny
Keyword(s):  
Social Organization ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Field Work ◽  
Direct Result ◽  
Sociological Analysis ◽  
Value System ◽  
The Social ◽  
Per Se ◽  
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Western Tanzania

Opening ParagraphThe Nyakyusa of south-western Tanzania have received very substantial ethnographic coverage. Nonetheless there remain certain gaps in our knowledge of this society. The field-work by Dr. Godfrey Wilson and Professor Monica Wilson was done largely in the mid 1930s before structural-functional analysis had achieved its present refinement and was evidently influenced by Malinowski who was not himself known for a concern in sociological analysis per se. In these studies of the Nyakyusa, values, beliefs, and ritual were a main object of attention; they present Nyakyusa society as though it were a direct result of the Nyakyusa value system, although the actual workings of the society have been left rather obscure. It is presented as coherent, values and social organization reinforcing each other at every point. But internal evidence contradicts this picture, and on a priori grounds it may also be seen that there were several structural pressures towards incoherence, or rather, conflict between the actual development of social organization through time and those presumably timeless values reputed to maintain it.

Lineage and Locality among the Mba-Ise Ibo

Africa ◽  
1959 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edwin Ardener
Keyword(s):  
Population Growth ◽  
Social Organization ◽  
Central Area ◽  
Eastern Region ◽  
Migrant Population ◽  
Territorial Organization ◽  
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Opening ParagraphAcross the central area of Ibo country, in the Eastern Region of Nigeria, is a thickly populated belt in which population growth has rarely resulted in the development of compact urban or quasi-urban centres, except under exceptional, generally modern, conditions. Typically, the population is spread so evenly throughout the palm-forest that it is difficult to believe that concentrations of over 1,000 persons per square mile are now quite commonplace. The population of Mba-Ise is 186,300 in only about 167 square miles, with a migrant population elsewhere of about 30,000. This type of settlement has put a special imprint on social organization in the area, and some of the interrelationships between lineage, territorial organization, and other kinds of groupings are indicated in this article.

Land Reform among the Mbeere of Central Kenya

Africa ◽  
1973 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 182-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Brokensha ◽  
Jack Glazier
Keyword(s):  
Social Organization ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Land Rights ◽  
South West ◽  
Tana River ◽  
The Social ◽  
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Central Kenya

Opening ParagraphThe Mbeere live in the area east of Mount Kenya and south-west of the Tana River. Numbering just under 50,000 they are ethnographically much less well known than their related neighbours the Kikuyu, Embu, Meru, and Kamba. In this paper we first outline the social organization, then the system of land rights, continuing to describe the government's programme of land reform, concluding by assessing the probable consequences of changes in land tenure.

Chiefship and Politics in the Mlanje District of Southern Nyasaland

Africa ◽  
1961 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-45
Author(s):  
R. L. Wishlade
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Organization ◽  
East Africa ◽  
Central Africa ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
The Political ◽  
Administrative District ◽  
Southern Province ◽  
The Social ◽  
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Opening ParagraphMlanje is an Administrative District in the Southern Province of Nyasaland. It is densely populated compared with other parts of Central Africa, having a population of 209,522 in 1945, which represented a density of 138 per square mile. The population is tribally heterogeneous, and was composed, in 1945, of 71 per cent. Nguru, 21 per cent. Nyanja, and 5 per cent. Yao people. The Nguru are the most recent arrivals, having immigrated into Nyasaland mainly during the present century. The term Nguru is used to refer to the representatives in Nyasaland of a number of tribes inhabiting that part of Portuguese East Africa which Lies to the east of Nyasaland; these immigrants call themselves Lomwe and in Mlanje are mainly Mihavani and Kokola. The Nyanja are the indigenous inhabitants of the area, who were living there before the invasion of the Mangoche Yao during the nineteenth century. Although they are linguistically distinct, the social organization of these three groups is markedly similar, and there has been a great deal of intermarriage between them, particularly between the Nyanja and the Nguru. No one of them is in sole occupation of a continuous stretch of territory, even the smallest residential groups are often tribally heterogeneous, the similarity of the social organization enabling Nyanja to be absorbed into Nguru hamlets and vice versa. For this reason it is impossible to use a tribal unit as a unit of reference in a discussion of the political organization of this area.

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