Modern Political Movements in Somaliland. II

Africa ◽  
1958 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 344-363 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. M. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Political Organization ◽  
Northern Province ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
Present Position ◽  
Group Affiliation ◽  
Religious Ideology ◽  
The Social ◽  
Traditional Organization ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Constitutional Changes

Opening ParagraphIn a preceding article I discussed the organization and aims of modern Somali political movements in the light of the traditional political structure. Three types of political organization were distinguished: clan, regional (or tribal), and nationalist. These three types reflect traditional variations in the social structure and culture of different regions of Somaliland and also varying degrees of political evolution. I drew attention to the extent to which all parties—especially those with nationalist aims—have adopted a religious ideology and pointed out that Islam, through the traditional organization and aims of the Sufi Dervish Orders (ṭariiqas), has provided a precedent for pan-Somali solidarity. I now attempt to assess the extent of nationalist feeling in the different Somali territories, and examine the degree to which recent constitutional changes in government and administration have recognized the growth of nationalist aspirations and promoted their extension. I discuss first the present position in the five Somali territories: French and British Somaliland; Harar Province of Ethiopia; Somalia; and the Northern Province of Kenya. Finally, I consider the importance of Islam in furthering nationalism and in helping to overcome the cleavages of clan and Dia-paying group affiliation which oppose the formation of a unified Somali nation.

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 ◽  
Opening Paragraph

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.

Modern Political Movements in Somaliland,

Africa ◽  
1958 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 244-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. M. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Social Organization ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Constitutional Changes

Opening ParagraphIn this article I give a brief outline of Somali social organization and describe the constitution and aims of the main political parties as they existed in 1957. It is hoped in a second article to examine the activities of the parties in individual Somali territories in the light of particular events in these territories and in relation to recent constitutional changes already effected or proposed.

Niumi: A Nineteenth-Century Mandingo Kingdom

Africa ◽  
1968 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 443-455
Author(s):  
Charlotte A. Quinn
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
West Africa ◽  
Political System ◽  
The Gambia ◽  
Small River ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphBy the middle of the nineteenth century Niumi, a small Mandingo kingdom at the mouth of the Gambia river in West Africa, was on the verge of profound social changes. Until almost the end of the century it was swept by secular and religious warfare, important segments of its population were displaced, many members of its ruling clans were killed or driven into exile, and the state itself was divided to be later reconstituted under European colonial rule. It is the purpose of this paper to describe the social-political organization of Niumi in the 1850s before the traditional political system which had existed for over two centuries was destroyed. Niumi was one of fourteen small river kingdoms, ruled by Mandingo, some more clearly defined and centralized than others, together comprising one of the major areas of Mandingo settlement in West Africa. Although Niumi enjoyed a favoured economic position among these Mandingo states of the Senegambia its institutions were typical of Mandingo organization in the area and its history has proceeded along lines similar to the rest.

The Anthropological Lens

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Morton
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Social Accountability ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Local People ◽  
South Sudanese ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Encounters ◽  
Anthropological Literature ◽  
Insight Into

Sir Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard (1902-1973) is widely considered the most influential British anthropologist of the twentieth century, known to generations of students for his seminal works on South Sudanese ethnography Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande (OUP 1937) and The Nuer (OUP 1940). In these works, now classics in the anthropological literature, Evans-Pritchard broke new ground on questions of rationality, social accountability, kinship, social and political organization, and religion, as well as influentially moving the discipline in Britain away from the natural sciences and towards history. Yet despite much discussion about his theoretical contributions to anthropology, no study has yet explored his fieldwork in detail in order to get a better understanding of its historical contexts, local circumstances or the social encounters out of which it emerged. This book then is just such an exploration, of Evans-Pritchard the fieldworker through the lens of his fieldwork photography. Through an engagement with his photographic archive, and by thinking with it alongside his written ethnographies and other unpublished evidence, the book offers a new insight into the way in which Evans-Pritchard’s theoretical contributions to the discipline were shaped by his fieldwork and the numerous local people in Africa with whom he collaborated. By writing history through field photographs we move back towards the fieldwork experiences, exploring the vivid traces, lived realities and local presences at the heart of the social encounter that formed the basis of Evans-Pritchard’s anthropology.

National Internationalists: British and West German Protests against Nuclear Weapons, the Politics of Transnational Communications and the Social History of the Cold War, 1957–1964

2005 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 559-582 ◽  
Author(s):  
HOLGER NEHRING
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Social History ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Traditions ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War

This article examines the politics of communication between British and West German protesters against nuclear weapons in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The interpretation suggested here historicises the assumptions of ‘transnational history’ and shows the nationalist and internationalist dimensions of the protest movements' histories to be inextricably connected. Both movements related their own aims to global and international problems. Yet they continued to observe the world from their individual perspectives: national, regional and local forms thus remained important. By illuminating the interaction between political traditions, social developments and international relations in shaping important political movements within two European societies, this article can provide one element of a new connective social history of the cold war.

The Social Structure of Modern Bamako

Africa ◽  
1965 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claude Meillassoux
Keyword(s):  
Social Structure ◽  
The North ◽  
The Social ◽  
North Bank ◽  
Niger River ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
The Town

Opening ParagraphAccording to a partial census taken in 1960, Bamako city has about 130,000 inhabitants. Small by Western standards, it is still by far the largest city in Mali. At the time of the French conquest Bamako had only between 800 and 1,000 inhabitants; it was the capital of a Bambara chiefdom, grouping about thirty villages on the north bank of the Niger river, with a total of about 5,000 people. The ruling dynasty was that of the Niaré, who, according to their traditions, came from the Kingi eleven generations ago (between 1640 and 1700). For defence against the neighbours and armed slave-raiders fortifications were built around the town and a permanent army of so-fa (horsemen) was raised. Soon after its foundation Bamako attracted Moslem Moors from Twat who settled as marabouts and merchants under the protection of the Niaré's warriors. Among them, the Twati (later to be called Touré) and the Dravé became, alongside and sometimes in competition with the Niaré, the leading families.

scholarly journals Poetry as a Social Document: The Social Position of the Arab Woman as Reflected in the Poetry of Nizâr Qabbânî

1975 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 481-494
Author(s):  
Arieh Loya
Keyword(s):  
Social Structure ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Harsh Environment ◽  
Arab Woman ◽  
Cultural Aspects ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Nomadic Life ◽  
Social Document

No other people in the world, perhaps, have given more information in their poetry on their cultural and social life than have the Arabs over the centuries. Many years before the advent of Islam and long before they had any national political organization, the Arabs had developed a highly articulate poetic art, strict in its syntax and metrical schemes and fantastically rich in its vocabulary and observation of detail. The merciless desert, the harsh environment in which the Arabs lived, their ever shifting nomadic life, left almost no traces of their social structure and the cultural aspects of their life. It is only in their poetry – these monuments built of words – that we find such evidence, and it speaks more eloquently than cuneiform on marble statues ever could.

Some Notes on the Political Organization of the Venda-speaking Tribes

Africa ◽  
1930 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 306-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. P. Lestrade
Keyword(s):  
Political Organization ◽  
Large Region ◽  
The Political ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphThe following notes are based mainly on information collected by the writer at Mbilwi (‘Sibasa’) from members of Mphaphuli's tribe, and at Tshakhuma (‘Tshakoma’) from members of Madzivhandila's tribe, and supplemented elsewhere in the Venda area. Obviously, over such a large region, a number of variations from the norm here indicated may be expected to exist; but it is thought that what is here given represents in substance, if not in all details, Venda law and custom in respect of this sphere of this people's life

scholarly journals The Catch 22 syndrome of social scientists in the semiperiphery: Exploratory sociological observations

Sociologija ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 337-358 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina Blagojevic ◽  
Gad Yair
Keyword(s):  
Political Organization ◽  
Academic Excellence ◽  
Free Access ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Scholarly Publications ◽  
The Social ◽  
Catch 22 ◽  
The One ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Problem Setting

This paper describes the parochial predicament of the social sciences by looking at world sociology in its Janus-like face: on the one hand we focus on the intellectual, political, and sometimes even ethical compromises that social scientists in European semiperipheral countries forgo in order to gain acceptance and recognition in world sociology. On the other hand we show how these compromises paradoxically impoverish intellectual potentialities in the major centers of academic excellence too. In the analyses we focus on different interrelated facets of scholarly work where these paradoxes take shape: problem setting and conceptualization, the hierarchy of scholarly publications, the definition of excellence through citation patterns, scientific conferences, and lastly, funding schemes for research. We argue that the social and the political organization of the World System of Science jeopardizes free access to multiple and plural perspectives of the social. A potential source of ideas, theories, and paradigms is hampered by the hierarchical division of labor between scientists in the centers of science and their peers in semiperipheral countries, whose knowledge remains unutilized and sidelined.

scholarly journals PARTICIPATION OF PEASANTS OF THE SIMBIRSK VOLGA REGION IN REVOLUTIONARY AND TERRORIST ACTIVITIES CARRIED OUT BY THE SOCIALIST REVOLUTIONARY PARTY (1905–1907)

2021 ◽  
pp. 65-74
Author(s):  
Andrei V. Mankov
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Volga Region ◽  
The Social ◽  
Revolutionary Party ◽  
Significant Phenomenon ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
Xix Century

In the second half of the XIX century, revolutionary terrorism emerged in the territory of the Russian Empire. This particular kind of socio-political violence was promoted in those years by some populist groups that worked primarily in Moscow and St. Petersburg, for example, the Ishutin circle, which consisted mainly of students. One of its participants, a former student D. Karakozov, shot at the Russian Emperor Alexander II 155 years ago in April 1866 in St. Petersburg. The most famous “revolutionary terrorists” of Russia were members of the largest Russian opposition political organization of the XIX century, “Narodnaya Volya”, most of whom were, as one used to say then, raznochinets. Revolutionary terrorism in the empire reached its peak in the first years of the XX century (1902–1907), when it became part of the strategy and tactics of a number of opposition political parties and organizations of neo-populist orientation. They acted both in the national regions of the country (Little Russia, Transcaucasia) and in Russian capitals and regions. First of all, this has to do with the All-Russian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs). At the same time, in the territory of the Russian provinces in the era of brutal revolutionary terrorism in the country, not only the Socialist revolutionaries had their revolutionary-terrorist (combat) formations. So, during this period, terrorist units were created by the SR Maximalists who left the party during the First Russian Revolution and contributed to the ideological and organizational split of the Social Revolutionaries. In the same years, various anarchist structures had combat organizations. Having become a significant phenomenon of the socio-political life of a huge country, terrorism drew representatives of different social groups of the population into its practice. What was the role of the peasantry in the Socialist-Revolutionary terror? The author gives examples where the peasants of the Simbirsk Volga region took part in carrying out terrorist attacks. The researcher concludes that Russian peasants were among the active participants in combat units, which is clearly seen in the examples of combat structures of Simbirsk provincial organization of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, in the ranks of which, for example, in rural areas, there were combat squads consisting mainly of peasants.

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