Search

It has been pointed out that in stratified societies, the evolutionary viability of the state rests in large part on the perfection of institutional structures that protect the ruling class from confrontation with coalitions of educated commoners. This paper makes use of historical materials from various parts of India, as well as contemporary material from one part of India, Tamilnadu, to examine the role of the caste system in preventing the formation of social classes with any commonality of interest or unity of purpose. Analyzing caste from the point of view of those at the bottom, the paper attempts to show that, like social stratification systems the world over, caste has functioned (and continues to function) as a very effective system of economic exploitation. In the context of India's determination to create a socialist state, it appears impossible to bring about significant social change without a breakdown of the barriers between poor untouchables and other poor people. The paper suggests that,...

Exploring anew the old question of why East African pastoral peoples tend to be conservative, this paper suggests that a de-Westernized cross-cultural application of economic theory, both statics and dynamics, coupled with transaction theory, (social exchange), reveals a distinction between economic development, the exponential growth of a specific economy, and economic change, a shift from one specific kind of economy to another. Economic development is normal in any economy and is favored by Africans as well as ourselves. Economic change, however, the aim of national and international planners, involves opportunity costs such as those faced by the Chagga as they pursue simultaneously two types of production, bananas and coffee, which to some extent compete. The opportunity costs for pastoralists are likely to be much higher than for people whose wealth is principally in land, because pastoralists incur far greater status losses than nonpastoralists in the shift from indigenous to Western economies. The ...

In the fall of 1963 the United Arab Republic began the orderly relocation of all the Nubian communities along the Nile between Aswan and the Sudanese border, a move necessitated by the construction of the High Dam and involving a population of nearly 50,000 persons. In this report we will describe some of the social adaptations made by the Nubians during their first year of resettlement, attempting to show the interplay between external conditions, determined both by the government and the new environment, and the creative and culturally channeled responses to these conditions on the part of the Nubians. While traditional culture must underlie and in a general way determine the kinds of social adaptations which occur, predictions of particular responses to radically altered environmental conditions are nearly impossible in the present state of our knowledge. Perhaps this lack of predictability comes partly from the fact that few studies have been made of processes of change as they happen. Most studies of sociocultural change have been comparisons of a known present with a reconstructed past or, occasionally, studies of the same group at two or more widely separated points in time. Thus, the tortuous paths which have led to a particular sociocultural configuration often remain largely inferential. In this case, while it has been impossible to have a fullscale research project in the field during the entire resettlement process, the Social Research Center of the American University in Cairo has been in constant contact with the Nubian people for a period of almost five years. Many of the changes which we describe are still taking place, and at this close range we may be mistaken in our identification of the more important trends, yet it seems plausible that this early period may be critical in the crystallization of the patterns and directions of later changes. A description of the Nubians' first experimental attempts at adaptation should prove useful for later studies of social change in the new settlement.

In recent years anthropologists have been taking an increasing interest in the process of urbanization in Africa, usually seen as an aspect of the wider issue of social and/or cultural change. As individual studies accumulate, we need to develop a framework within which to examine the variables that shape the structure of social relations in modern African towns and cities. Three main determinants of urban social structure are isolated and analyzed: (1) the "industrial" structure, i.e., the organizational framework through which the town seeks to achieve those economic aims and purposes that brought it into existence, or give it its present importance; (2) the "civic" structure, which derives from the policies and practices of its administration; and (3) the demographic factor, which involves the nature and degree of movement of population between rural and urban areas. In the light of these variables, the structure of social relations in the town itself may be examined. The discussion focuses mainly on t...