Saving and Indebtedness among Cameroons Plantation Workers

Africa ◽  
1958 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 329-343 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. A. Warmington
Keyword(s):  
Labour Force ◽  
West African ◽  
Economic Research ◽  
Wide Field ◽  
Main Field ◽  
The West ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Economic Studies

Opening ParagraphFrom 1953 to mid-1955 a team from the West African Institute of Social and Economic Research was investigating various problems caused by the employment of a large labour force in the plantations of the Southern Cameroons. The whole survey, which it is hoped soon to publish, covered a fairly wide field of social and economic studies. The purpose of this paper is to examine only one small aspect, somewhat outside the main field of the investigations.

Some Comments on Land Tenure in Egba Division, Western Nigeria

Africa ◽  
1961 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 258-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akin L. Mabogunje
Keyword(s):  
Land Tenure ◽  
West African ◽  
The Other ◽  
Land Law ◽  
Considerable Time ◽  
The West ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphDuring the sitting of the West African Lands Committee in 1912, the witnesses who were called before the Committee from Egba Division emphatically stated that sales of both farm and town lands had been going on in Egbaland for some considerable time and had become accepted as normal. Equally significant was the vigour with which witnesses from all the other Yoruba sub-tribes countered the suggestion that sale of land existed or was permitted by the traditional land law and custom. H. L. Ward Price in his report also pointed out that sales of land had been going on in Egbaland for at least sixty years before he was writing in the 1930's. From the evidence he collected, it would seem that land sales dated back to between 1860 and 1880.

The West African Students' Union: A Study in Culture Contact

Africa ◽  
1953 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Garigue
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Geographical Origin ◽  
Culture Contact ◽  
West African ◽  
Historical Account ◽  
The West ◽  
African Students ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Large Groups

Opening ParagraphThis study of a specific instance of culture contact, that provided by the situation of West African students in Britain, is limited to a discussion and analysis of their association in the West African Students' Union. The fact of common geographical origin partly explains the formation of such a Union, for the same reason as United States, Canadian, South African, and other large groups of students living in Britain have become so organized. But this would ignore the situation of colour prejudice facing coloured students in Britain, and also their colonial status in relation to Britain. Because of this determining characteristic of being an association of coloured colonial students, the West African Students' Union has developed, throughout its history, certain features not normally found among students' unions, and which are reminiscent of ‘protest movements’. The analysis which is presented here seeks to determine the reasons why West African students organized themselves into the West African Students' Union from 1926 onwards. It is unfortunately not possible to do more here than touch briefly upon the major changes which took place during that time, but as most of the data here presented have not hitherto been published, enough details have been included to give an idea of the manner in which members of the West African Students' Union responded to the situation of culture contact. The paper is divided into two parts: first, an historical account of the type of ideas held by the members of the Union; and, secondly, a discussion of the reasons why West African students join the Union.

Social Problems and Research in British West Africa

Africa ◽  
1947 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond Firth
Keyword(s):  
Economic Structure ◽  
West African ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
The West ◽  
Present Contribution ◽  
Economic Problems ◽  
The Social ◽  
British Commonwealth ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphThe broad characteristics of the British West African colonies and their main social and economic problems are already fairly familiar from the relevant sections of Lord Hailey's African Survey (1938), and Professor Hancock's Survey of British Commonwealth Affairs (1942). A recent article by Dr. M. Fortes (1945) helps to bring the analysis up to date and makes very clear how great and rapid are the changes taking place in the social and economic structure. In this present contribution, the result of a very brief study, I attempt only to underline some of the salient features as they appear to one new to the West African scene, and to estimate the problems from the point of view of sociological research.

Neologisms in Hausa: A Sociological Approach

Africa ◽  
1963 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-44
Author(s):  
A. H. M. Kirk-Greene
Keyword(s):  
North Africa ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
West African ◽  
Northern Nigeria ◽  
African Countries ◽  
The West ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Sociological Approach ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
The Church

Opening ParagraphHausa is probably the most widely spoken language in Negro Africa. Besides being generally spoken throughout Northern Nigeria, its motherland, Hausa is, as Westermann and Bryan note, widely understood in other West African countries. They cite colonies of Hausa-speakers in Dahomey, Togo, Ghana, Cameroons, Chad, and ‘many of the greater centres in North Africa’. They could also usefully have mentioned the Sudan, where pilgrims from Northern Nigeria have settled in their tens of thousands. Indeed, it is often said that you will find Hausa-speakers from Dakar to Port Sudan, from Leopoldville to Fez. The explorer Heinrich Barth in the 1840's had his first Hausa lesson in Tunis, and fifty years later it was to Tripoli that Bishop Tugwell of the Church Missionary Society and his pioneer team of five went to study Hausa before undertaking their bold missionary thrust into the emirates. Westermann and Bryan point out that the total number of Hausa-speakers cannot be estimated in view of the enormous distribution of the Hausa and the great number of those who speak Hausa as their second language. Few of us would disagree with Cust's judgement that Hausa ‘has obtained the rank of a lingua franca and is the general vehicle of communication between the peoples speaking different languages’. Counting those who have recourse to Hausa as their second or vehicular language, it would be no exaggeration to claim that some 20 million persons ‘hear’ Hausa, as the West African languages so picturesquely express it.

Role Segregation for Fun and Profit: The Daily Behavior of the West African Lorry Driver

Africa ◽  
1978 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
James William Jordan
Keyword(s):  
Daily Life ◽  
West African ◽  
The West ◽  
Present Evidence ◽  
Daily Behavior ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphThe purpose of this paper is to present evidence of the changes which occur in the behavior of truck and lorry drivers when they are operating their vehicles as opposed to their behavior at other times. Specifically, it is hypothesized that drivers of trucks and lorries in certain West African societies behave in a very time and profit oriented, efficiency conscious manner when they are actually driving, but that this mode of behavior is not carried over into other spheres of their daily interaction. The impression, to use Ferdinand Tonnies' terms (1887), is one of an island of gesellschaft behavior (driving the vehicle) surrounded by an ocean of gemeinschaft behavior (the remainder of daily life).

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